CHAPTER 03

Gary coughed blood. His sight turned bloody. His head felt utterly dizzy. The ringing noise in his ears made it all the more worse. It was more intense than any headache he ever had. But luckily, it didn’t stay for long.

Gary was able to get back to his feet and look at the crater with a forty-feet diameter. At the center of it was an old man who looked like he was cosplaying some kind of fantasy cultivator character from one of the games he used to play. His body was leaking lightning every other second.

Naturally, Gary didn’t dare to approach.

But, soon, the lightning shrunk and eventually dissipated. The old man was making a pain-filled noise. He seemed badly wounded and was not in a position to get up.

“Come here, Boy.”

A voice rang in Gary’s head. Somehow, he knew that it was the old man calling him.

“W-Who are you?” Gary asked in a shaky voice. “Did you crash down from an airplane?” even though he asked that, would people who fell from airplanes create craters like this old man did? He didn’t think so.

“Your world is under attack,” the old man spoke while bleeding from the mouth. “Do you want to save it?”

“W-What are you talking about?” Gary was confused as well as shocked. “I can see that something’s happening all around me, but there’s nothing I can do. I couldn’t even save my own family, so how can I save the world?”

“You CAN, if you take my power,” the old man said with great effort. “The dark forces have already infiltrated this world and are preparing this place for the Immortal King. You should stop his arrival no matter what, or that will be the end.”

“H-How can I stop this Immortal King?” Gary couldn’t help but ask.

“That portal you see up there… you should close that Heaven’s Gate,” the old man said and pulled a ball of light out of his navel. He flicked his wrist, and the ball of light flew in and entered Gary’s body through his navel.

Gary screamed in pain as a lot of energy spread throughout his body, changing it at a cellular level. Not only did he grow three inches taller, making him 6 feet 1 inch tall now, his hair also grew long and thick. His abdomen developed abs, and overall, he had a chiseled body now with just the right amount of body fat.

Gary couldn’t believe all the changes happening to him. The painful process was surreal.

“What have you done to me?” He asked angrily and painfully.

“What I gave you is the power to devour energy,” the old man said with his last breath. “You need to devour all the keys that opened the gate to this world. Find them and devour them before the Immortal King comes through that gate you see in heaven.”

“A-Are you an outsider?” Gary asked, huffing and puffing. “Did you come from another world?”

However, the old man didn’t reply because life already left his eyes.

“He died?” Gary went closer. The land was still hot,but he was able to bear the heat. “I don’t know you’re, but you gave me some kind of power before you died, and you wanted me to save my world. I think you’re a good guy who deserves to be properly buried. But I wish I knew your name…”

[His name is Chun Fu.]

A female voice rang in Gary’s mind.

“Oh…” Gary said and then blinked twice. “Eh?” He looked around but couldn’t see anyone.

[I’m in your mind, dude.]

“My mind?” Gary’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” He touched his head. “What are you?”

[I’m the power that Chun Fu gave you. I’m the Hero Cultivating System.]

“Hero what?”

[Hero Cultivating System. You can just call me Ai. I’m the one who made Chun Fu, who used to get bullied by his friends, into the strongest person in his realm. I can make you strong as well, as strong as you can imagine.]

“We’ll worry about that later. Help me bury this man first,” Gary said.

[Start digging.]

Gary raised his brows. “I know that, but aren’t you going to use your power to create the grave or something?”

[I can, but you’re still too weak for me to do it through you. So, start digging now.]

Gary shook his head. He felt like he didn’t have time for this right now, but he couldn’t just leave the old man’s body like this, either. He then picked a shovel and quickly got to work. He was able to dig much faster than a human could. In just ten minutes he was done burying the old man. He placed a wooden board on it that read the words: Chun Fu.

What surprised Gary was that he barely sweated even after doing so much physical labor.

[Now, let’s go and destroy the Dark Witch’s body.]

“Dark Witch? Who’s that?”

[Didn’t you see two lights come down from the sky? The white one was Chun Fu. The black one was the Dark Witch. She’s like a right hand man to the Immortal King. She’s his dearest concubine, and Chun Fu managed to kill her. But her body must be destroyed before anyone touches it.]

“Alright, but let’s go and pick up my girlfriend first,” Gary said. “I left her at home.”

[Hurry up then. You can run faster now than you used to.]

“Yeah.”

At the same time, in front of Gary’s house, there was a huge crater.

The dark witch was at the center with many cracks all over her body, and black blood seeping out.

“Can you hear me?” Leah came closer to the woman whose body was burned very badly. “Hello,” she hesitantly touched her, and the black blood suddenly became alive. She moved back in shock, but the black blood moved through the air and seeped into Leah’s body through the pores in her skin and cooked her body from the inside and brought her terrible pain. “AHHH!” she screamed in horror.