The Sector 7 Logistics Hub, Bay 4, was a chaotic hive of activity.
Hulking, diesel-belching trucks, relics from a bygone era, were being loaded with salvaged scrap metal and debris by weary-looking men and women in stained overalls.
Armed guards, looking bored but with a nervous edge, patrolled the perimeter.
The air reeked of oil, sweat, and desperation.
Lâm Minh, looking even younger and thinner than his sixteen years amidst the hardened laborers, approached a makeshift recruitment table manned by a grizzled, one-eyed man with a perpetual scowl.
The man's name tag read "Sarge."
"Volunteer for debris clearance?" Sarge grunted, barely glancing up from his greasy datapad.
His one good eye scanned Lâm Minh dismissively. "You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over, kid. This ain't no school field trip."
"I'm stronger than I look," Lâm Minh stated, his voice even, meeting the man's gaze without flinching.
The confidence, born of his future self, was palpable. "And I need the credits."
Sarge grunted again, a sound that could mean anything.
He jabbed a thumb towards a stack of flimsy forms. "Fill this out. Name, age, next of kin. Don't lie about your age; we ain't got time to send kids home crying to their mamas if they get a scratch. Though, if you get more than a scratch out there, there probably won't be anyone to send home."
Lâm Minh quickly filled out the form, listing his parents as next of kin.
He handed it back.
Sarge glanced at it. "Lâm Minh, huh? Alright, Minh. Report here tomorrow, 0600 hours. Don't be late.
Fifty credits.
"Understood
He spent the r
That evening, back in his tiny room, after a meager dinner with his mother (his father was still on his double shift), Lâm Minh initiated his second cultivation session.
He used another Low-Grade Spirit Stone.
The process was smoother this time, his Dantian more receptive.
The warmth spread further, the tiny seed of Qi growing fractionally larger.
[Cultivation Progress: Qi Refining Stage – Initial Phase (20% progress towards Minor Completion).]
[Dantian Capacity slightly expanded. Qi purity: Low.]
Stil
The next morning, at the ungodly hour of 0530, Lâm Minh was already at Bay 4.
Sarge, looking even more grizzled in the pre-dawn gloom, simply pointed him towards a waiting group of about twenty other volunteers.
They were a motley crew: a few wiry youths like himself, some older, down-on-their-luck men, and even a couple of grim-faced women.
All of them had the same hungry, desperate look in their eyes.
Their assigned supervisor was a tough, scarred woman named Hạnh, who looked like she'd wrestled Madakaros Rippers for breakfast.
She gave them a curt briefing. "We're heading to Zone 7-Delta, the old textile district. It's mostly collapsed structures. Our job is to clear pathways for the heavy lifters and keep an eye out for anything… unusual. Stick together. Don't wander off. Madakaros patrols are less frequent this deep, but scav-rats and other vermin are plentiful. And some of those 'vermin' walk on two legs and carry knives."
The "vermin" she referred to were human bandits, preying on other scavengers.
Another layer of danger in this broken world.
They were loaded onto the back of a rattling flatbed truck, armed with little more than crowbars, heavy-duty gloves, and a shared sense of trepidation.
Lâm Minh kept to himself, observing, listening.
He was already formulating plans based on the layout of Zone 7-Delta, which he vaguely remembered from old city maps studied in his previous life.
Zone 7-Delta was a landscape of devastation.
Buildings stood like broken teeth, their innards exposed to the elements.
Piles of rubble choked the streets.
A silence hung over the place, broken only by the crunch of their boots on debris and the distant growl of heavy machinery.
Lâm Minh worked diligently, his movements efficient despite his lack_lustre physique.
He was conserving energy, his eyes constantly scanning his surroundings, not just for salvage, but for signs – depressions in the ground, unusual discoloration in the soil, the faint smell of petrochemicals – anything that might indicate a seepage of raw condensate.
Hours passed in grueling labor.
They cleared rubble, sorted twisted girders, and occasionally unearthed grim reminders of the invasion – skeletal remains, tattered clothing.
The sun beat down, and the air was thick with dust.
It was mid-afternoon when it happened.
They were working near the ruins of what looked like a large warehouse.
Lâm Minh was prying at a stubborn chunk of concrete when he heard a low growl, followed by a yelp of pain from further inside the collapsed structure.
Hạnh yelled, "What was that? Report!"
A panicked voice came back, "Rats! Big ones! Bitten… Hoàng's bitten!"
Scav-rats. Mutated rodents, some as large as small dogs, driven mad by hunger and pollutants. They were a common hazard in the ruins.
Hạnh cursed. "Team B, with me! The rest of you, stay alert!"
She and a few of the tougher-looking volunteers charged into the warehouse ruins.
Lâm Minh hesitated for only a fraction of a second.
This was an unscheduled event, a deviation from the routine.
And deviations often created opportunities.
He also felt a sliver of responsibility; these were, in a way, his temporary comrades.
He followed, keeping to the shadows, his crowbar held ready.
Inside, it was darker, the air thick with the stench of decay and something else… something feral.
He heard scuffling, more pained cries.
He rounded a pile of fallen masonry and saw the scene.
Three massive scav-rats, their fur matted and their eyes glowing with a reddish hue, had cornered two volunteers.
One was Hoàng, clutching a bleeding arm.
The other, a young woman Lâm Minh hadn't noticed before, was bravely trying to fend them off with a piece of rebar, but she was clearly terrified and outmatched.
Hạnh and her group were trying to reach them but were blocked by a precarious pile of debris.
One of the rats lunged at Hoàng.
Instinct, honed by decades of combat, took over Lâm Minh. He didn't think; he reacted.
He moved with a speed and precision that surprised even himself.
It wasn't just his 16-year-old body moving; it was the muscle memory of a seasoned warrior, somehow partially translating even without significant Qi enhancement.
He sidestepped another lunging rat, brought his crowbar down in a vicious, two-handed arc, and connected with the creature's skull with a sickening crunch.
The rat shrieked, a high-pitched sound that was abruptly cut off as its head caved in.
It dropped, twitching.
One down.
The other two rats, momentarily startled by the sudden, brutal intervention, turned their attention to him.
Their red eyes fixed on him with pure malice.
Lâm Minh didn't pause.
He knew that hesitation was death.
He feinted towards the rat on his left, then spun, using the momentum to bring the crowbar around in a sweeping blow aimed at the legs of the rat on his right.
It yelped as its foreleg snapped.
Before it could recover, he stepped in close, too close for it to bring its fangs to bear effectively, and drove the pointed end of the crowbar upwards, under its jaw, with all the force his young body could muster plus the nascent strength from his Qi Refining cultivation.
There was a wet tearing sound.
The rat went limp.
Two down.
The last rat, seeing its companions dispatched so efficiently, hesitated.
Fear flickered in its feral eyes.
Lâm Minh took a step towards it, his expression cold, his eyes like chips of ice.
He radiated an aura of deadly intent that belied his youthful appearance.
The rat, a creature of instinct, understood. It turned and fled, disappearing into the rubble.
Silence descended, broken only by Hoàng's groans and the young woman's ragged breathing.
Hạnh and her group finally scrambled over the debris.
They stared at the two dead rats, then at Lâm Minh, who stood calmly, his crowbar dripping with dark blood.
He was breathing a little heavily, but otherwise seemed unfazed.
"By the spirits…" Hạnh whispered, her eyes wide. "Kid… you… how?"
Lâm Minh just shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, though his heart was hammering.
"Lucky, I guess." The fight had been quick, brutal, and closer than he would have liked.
His Qi Refining cultivation, though minimal, had definitely given him an edge in speed and impact force.
And his combat experience had done the rest.
The young woman he'd helped rushed over to Hoàng, tearing a strip from her already ragged shirt to try and staunch the bleeding from his arm.
She looked up at Lâm Minh, her eyes filled with a mixture of shock and gratitude.
"Thank you," she breathed.
"You saved us." She was small, with dirt-smudged cheeks and large, expressive brown eyes.
She couldn't be much older than him.
Lâm Minh nodded curtly. "Check the bite. Scav-rat bites can get infected fast."
Hạnh approached him, her earlier skepticism replaced by a grudging respect. "Kid, you got sand. Where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"Just… picked things up," Lâm Minh said vaguely. "Seen a few things."
He knew this incident would draw attention, but it was a calculated risk.
He'd shown capability, and in this world, capability was valued.
It might also open doors.
As they were tending to Hoàng, Lâm Minh's eyes scanned the area where the rats had nested.
It was a dark, damp alcove beneath a collapsed section of flooring.
And there, amidst the filth and bones, he saw it.
A faint, oily sheen on the damp earth.
A subtle, almost imperceptible smell of raw petroleum.
His heart leaped. Condensate.
While Hạnh was distracted organizing a makeshift stretcher for Hoàng, and the others were still shaken, Lâm Minh subtly moved towards the alcove.
He knelt, pretending to check for more rats.
His fingers brushed the oily soil.
Yes. It was faint, very low concentration, but it was definitely raw Spirit Essence.
He didn't have any containers.
He looked around desperately.
He spotted a discarded, relatively intact plastic water bottle amidst the debris.
Perfect.
Under the guise of securing the area, he managed to scoop up a small quantity of the oil-laced earth into the bottle, trying to get the most concentrated parts.
It wasn't much, maybe enough for a fraction of a Spirit Stone if it could even be refined.
[Raw Petroleum Condensate (Trace Amounts) detected. Impure. Requires refinement to be usable for cultivation. System can refine small quantities. Cost: 1 System Point per equivalent of 0.1 Low-Grade Spirit Stone.]
System Points? That was new. He quickly checked his status.
[Host: Lâm Minh]
[System Points: 0]
[Note: System Points are earned through significant achievements, overcoming major obstacles, or contributing to the System's primary mandate (Survive. Evolve. Reclaim. Prevail.).]
So, killing the scav-rats and saving his fellow volunteers hadn't been "significant" enough.
Or perhaps "contributing" meant on a larger scale.
Regardless, he couldn't refine it yet.
But he had it. Proof of concept.
He could find this stuff.
The incident with the scav-rats cut the workday short for their team.
Hoàng needed proper medical attention.
As they headed back to Bay 4, Hạnh walked beside Lâm Minh.
"Minh, right?" she said, her tone different now, less dismissive.
"Yes."
"You did good today. Real good. Most kids your age would have frozen or run. You got a knack for survival." She paused. "Listen, the pay for this gig is crap, we all know it. But sometimes… opportunities come up. For people who ain't afraid to get their hands dirty, and who can handle themselves. I might have some… side jobs. Better pay. More risk, though. You interested in hearing more if something comes up?"
Lâm Minh met her gaze.
This was it.
An opening. "I'm interested," he said, his voice steady.
Hạnh nodded. "Good. Keep that crowbar handy, kid. In this city, it's more useful than a university degree."
Back in his room that night, Lâm Minh carefully examined the dirt-filled plastic bottle.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.
He had eight Spirit Stones left from his Novice Package.
He used another one, pushing his Qi Refining progress to 30%.
He now had a potential, albeit difficult, source of raw materials.
He had made a valuable contact in Hạnh.
And he had tasted blood again, reminded of the brutal, visceral nature of the fight for survival.
The path ahead was still fraught with peril.
But for the first time since his rebirth, Lâm Minh felt a genuine, if cautious, surge of optimism.
He was no longer just reacting.
He was starting to shape his circumstances.
The desperate gamble of taking the volunteer job was beginning to pay off.
And the thought of Tố Quyên, her dismissive glance now a motivator rather than a deterrent, flickered in his mind.
He would get stronger. He would rise. And he would protect what mattered.