Elric Vale leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the ceiling as he let his thoughts drift through the mental swamp of his previous life.
"Yeah," he muttered with a smirk, "I guess you could call me a brainrot case."
His fingers lazily traced circles on the wooden edge of his desk. "Novels, manhua, MTLs, anime—every flavor of fantasy, cliché, and power fantasy you could think of. I lived in stories more than reality. A diet of junkfood fiction and delusion... with the occasional satire that made me feel smart for two minutes."
He chuckled to himself. "And of course, transmigration stories—those were the peak. Who wouldn't want to wake up in another world and become a demigod overnight? An average loser turned emperor by chapter three? Sign me up."
But that familiar grin faded as reality crept back in—his reality.
This world he was in now? It was too normal. Too... functional. History had a few weird tweaks here and there, but otherwise, it felt like Earth. Like a copy that forgot it was plagiarizing. He might have dismissed it as coincidence—until he saw it.
His name.
"Elric Vale," he whispered, eyes narrowing.
It had been misspelled—just slightly. Barely enough for someone else to notice, but to him? That single misplaced letter struck like a gut punch. A crack in the mirror.
"Everything's the same... but that? That's different?" he scoffed, rubbing his temples. "Okay. Schizophrenia arc unlocked? Or maybe I'm really just that deep in my own fantasy. Hell, maybe this is the world's worst isekai prank."
He laughed bitterly.
Still, what could he do? Panic? Cry?
"Nah. I'll just play along. Live my life. Sleep it off. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up back in reality. Or not."
He went to bed that night like it was any other—still half-joking, half-dreading.
But he didn't wake up in the same world.
He woke up as Yan Jie.
And he wasn't dreaming.
A tidal wave of unfamiliar memories crashed into his mind—memories of a 40-year-old man who had lived a life of struggle in a world alien to Elric's understanding. They came fast, uncontrollable, dragging him under.
"Wh—what the hell...?" he gasped, clutching his head.
He couldn't tell where he ended and Yan Jie began. The divide blurred, melted.
Memories of failed breakthroughs, years wasted chasing Qi, humiliation, servitude... a fragile life barely clinging to cultivation by sheer dumb luck. Yan Jie had once swallowed a broken seed from an ancient spirit plant—a fluke that allowed him to touch the edge of immortality. But the strain shattered his already fragile mind.
Now, here he was—Elric, inside the husk of a man who had lost everything.
"Great," Elric muttered, wincing as fragmented memories danced behind his eyes. "From brainrot high schooler to washed-up cultivator uncle. What kind of patch notes are these?"
He sat up slowly. Everything felt off. The air. The energy in the sky. The eerie silence. His body ached, but beneath the pain was something else. Something... powerful, if unstable.
"So this is a cultivation world," he said aloud, testing the words on his tongue. "Except... it's nothing like the stories."
There were no realms. No lightning tribulations. No planet-busting fists or sword-drawing emperors. Just one thing: Qi Refining.
That was it. That was the only "realm."
The world ran on a single concept: refining Qi—taking the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and tempering it within yourself. Some people could manipulate Qi. Some could store it. The truly talented could condense it into a purer form. But there were no fancy titles, no boundary-breaking stages.
Just refinement. Endless refinement.
"And here I thought the power creep in fiction was crazy," Elric snorted. "Turns out real cultivation's just slow spiritual fermentation."
In this world, becoming a Qi Refiner meant bridging the gap between heaven and earth—often by consuming a spirit seed from ancient flora to awaken latent potential. Most people never even reached that step.
And those who did?
They were considered immortals by the mortal world. Divine, untouchable. But in the eyes of real cultivators, someone like Yan Jie was trash. Weak talent. Bad body. Average comprehension. Barely scraping by with a broken, unstable cultivation path.
"If not for the seed, he'd still be a servant. Too bad his mind snapped after he got it. Lucky me, I guess," Elric muttered.
He had inherited everything—the memories, the knowledge, the pain. And yet, none of it felt like it belonged.
"So... is this permanent? Can I go back?" he asked himself quietly. "No point thinking about it. I need to survive first."
He clenched his fists.
This world had sects, empires, ancient beasts, sentient demons that awakened under moonlight... and he was just a 40-year-old failure stuck with someone else's baggage.
But he also had something no one else did—a mind that didn't belong here. A perspective unshaped by this world's limits.
He grinned, cold determination rising in his chest.
"Let's see how far a broken man with a rotten brain can go."