It was midnight by the time Shawn had finished his work in the kitchen. He stumbled into his room, his nerves frayed. Ever since his revelation about the true nature of the Scorpion’s Den, he had been on high alert, seeing threats where there were none.

He found it was hard to relax when he was surrounded by killers. Logically he knew he was in no danger, Chule had demonstrated that the Scorpion’s Den took good care of its members, but the fear persisted in the back of his mind, tainting his every interaction.

Every time a fellow kitchen worker would walk past him with a knife he would flinch, fearing the worst. Of course, the chefs never threatened him, they were instead rather accommodating, occasionally coming over to him to talk. He struggled to understand how such nice people could be part of a gang. Slowly, he felt himself adjust, no longer feeling as uncomfortable in the presence of criminals.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Shawn opened his door and collapsed onto his bed. He was tired but he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He was determined to spend the night becoming more powerful.

While working in the kitchen he had considered running away from the Scorpion's Den, he had come to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea. First he had no money. He had no desire to sleep on the streets. Second, he seemed to be a trouble magnet, every time he went outside it ended in diaster. His best bet would be to stick with the Scorpion's Den for the time being.

If anything he had overreacted and judged the The Den to harshly. They weren't terrible people. He hadn't seen them do anything unjustifiable yet.

He closed his eyes and entered a mediation position. Ever since Lin’s battle with Hong, he had been able to clearly feel Qi. It was like a whole new world of color had opened up to him, and he realized how limited his view of the world had been.

Shawn took a deep breath and focused inwards. Deep in his belly, he could feel his Qi resting. It was small at the moment, but he was confident he could grow it.

All around him, small particles of energy floated through the air. Each particle was unique, possessing its own flavor. Some were tainted by the earth, clearly originating from it. Others were aligned with the air, floating more freely than the others. He was sure more esoteric elements existed, but he wasn't able to sense them yet.

If he focused on particles of spiritual energy, he could draw them towards himself, but the moment he lost concentration they flew away, seemingly repelled by his presence.

When he used [Devourer] his body turned into a small flame, so he assumed he had a natural affinity for fire-attuned Qi. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was a safe assumption to make. He focused on attracting only the red spirit particles, but his control was not good enough to specifically target them.

Undeterred, he drew the particles into what the books he had read referred to as his dantian. His dantian couldn’t take in all the particles due to its small size. However the energy it could take in, it greedily devoured.

He felt his dantian heat up as it converted the natural energy into Qi. Once the energy was in his dantian, the process didn’t require much concentration.

This wasn’t a surprise to Shawn, from what he had read, the biggest bottleneck at this stage of cultivation was merely sensing Qi. For him, since he had never sensed Qi before yesterday, it stood out like a sore thumb. This stage of cultivation would be relatively easy to pass.

Not long after the process began, his dantian spat out the newly converted Qi. It flowed through invisible energy pathways in his body, becoming acclimated to him. The acclimation process wasn’t very efficient, most of his newly gained Qi leaked out of his body, returning to his atmosphere. But he wasn’t concerned; he could feel his dantian becoming larger. Each time he completed this cycle his body would be able to contain slightly more Qi.

He returned to his cultivation, but a fly buzzed through the room aggravating him and making it difficult for him to focus. There was nothing more annoying in the world than someone distracting you while you were trying to focus.

He could tell the insect's position without even opening his eyes, which was a shock to him. It turned out that even the insects in this world contained some amount of Qi. Even more surprising, the insect absorbed the spirit particles out of the air in a primitive imitation of cultivation

The fly flew around his head taunting him. Finally, he could take it no longer, like an annoyed house cat he sprung into motion and smashed the fly against the wall. He blinked, he hadn’t expected to be able to hit the fly that easily, his increased agility was paying off.

Use Devourer Point Y/N?

It seemed he didn’t have to sleep for [Devourer] to recharge. As long as midnight had passed he would be able to use it again.

Shawn selected the yes option and was transported to the void. This time he was determined to not waste the opportunity. So far he had been using [Devourer] frivolously, wasting its full potential. It was about time he changed that.

“What do you desire,” the voice said deeper than last time as if it had aged a year. That wasn’t the only change that had occurred in the void. His flame body had roughly doubled in size and intensity. No longer would he have to fear a slight breeze putting him out.

“Two things, I want to steal the fly’s cultivation ability, and I want to steal its luck. Can you bring me those two wisps?”

Two golden wisps appeared out of the darkness of the void. He gasped, just by looking at them he could tell that they were more powerful than anything he had ever seen before. Though they were both the same color, they were impossible to mix up. The wisp representing the fly’s luck was small, many times smaller than the smallest wisp he had seen before.

Though the wisp was small, it contained truly high-tier concepts. He got a headache just looking at the thing. He opened the blue screen of the tiny wisp of light.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Luck of the Fly: Luck + 0.1

The amount of luck the fly offered was disappointing, but he couldn’t bring himself to be disappointed. His theory had been proven correct; it was possible to steal abstract concepts.

The other wisp took the form of a golden cloud the size of a small building. Upon closer inspection, the cloud was actually made up of small flies. He felt a deep strain within himself as he opened the wisps blue screen. His flame body flickered precariously from the effort.

Mortal Cultivation of the Fly: Cultivation Speed +2.

Shawn immediately accepted the wisp, it was too good to pass up. The wisp was absorbed into his body and he immediately felt something was wrong. Something deep inside of him cracked and small golden flies shot off the fire that was his body. Shawn panicked, as the golden energy rampaged inside of him.

He tried to push the golden wisp out of his body but it was too late. The wisp pulled his consciousness every which way making him feel nauseous. Finally, he was unable to fight it off any longer and his vision faded to black.

When he awoke he was no longer human. He twitched his antenna, this situation was remarkably similar to when he had been turned into a scorpion, except this time he was in control of his actions

Shawn attempted to think of a way to get out of the situation, but his thoughts moved at the speed of molasses. He could feel his intelligence seeping away with every passing second. His stomach grumbled activating a primal urge within him to find sustenance. Before he knew it he was flying through open fields in search of food.

He spent many days flying through the fields. The memories of his human life growing ever distant. By this time he had even forgotten his name, his meager brain power solely devoted to improving his flying ability and finding food.

He was lonely but things weren’t so bad. Flying through the sky gave him a sense of pleasure that was hard to match. From up here, he could see everything with his compound eyes.

He was happy, till one day the sky ripped open and the ocean fell. Each drop of water hit him like a rock, sending him crashing to the ground. Instinctually he knew the ground wasn’t safe. His enemies had marked the ground as their territory. The six-legged fiends with their immense underground cities and the gigantic war machines of flesh and blood roamed the ground, they would kill him if he gave them the chance.

Concerned for his life, he found shelter underneath a massive leaf at least a hundred times larger than him. That was just an estimation, he was unsure of the exact size. His brain hurt when he tried to think of a number larger than ten.

Hidden under the same leaf was a female fly his age. He looked at her in wonder, it was his first time seeing another member of his species. He focused on the reflection hidden within her eyes. Obscured in their depths, he could see what his new form looked like.

His thought process crashed to a halt. New form? He’d always looked like this. Unease settled in his exoskeleton.

She waved her antennas in greeting and he forgot his worries. “Hi, I’m Blue.” She raised her blue-colored wings. They were beautiful. “My name is Blue because my wings are blue. What’s your name?”

He jittered his body in confusion. She managed to speak without moving her body. He wanted to be able to do that. Communicating with his antennas was tiring.

“Hello,” she said again, disappointment clear in her voice. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint a beautiful girl so he focused.

Upon reflection, he noticed that the particles floating through the air moved whenever she spoke. He had always ignored them, their very presence sparking a primal fear within him, but he persevered for her sake. Blue looked lonely, he wanted to talk to her.

Imitating what she had done, he mentally reached out into the air and willed the particles to move.

“Hello, I do not have a name,” he spoke slowly, adjusting to the new sensation.

Blue’s wings buzzed in excitement. “Your wings are green, so your name should be Green. ”Green nodded, happy to finally have a name.

Even after the hole in the sky closed and the water stopped falling they remained together. They made a home under the leaf. It wasn’t much, consisting of small twigs and blades of grass, but it was theirs.

In this new home Green and Blue slowly discovered new ways to use the energy they could sense in the air. They even went so far as to discover that they could increase the amount of energy they had inside of them by absorbing the energy in the atmosphere.

Blue liked to call this process cultivation. He had no idea why she called it that, but he went along with it to make her happy. He liked making her happy.

Soon they became too big to fit underneath the leaf. They took to the skies and explored. Things were different now, they were no longer on the bottom of the food chain. They no longer had to cower under leaves. With their newfound freedom, they explored parts of the plains that they have been unable to access before.

Eventually, they explored all there was to explore on the ground so they took to the air. As they climbed higher into the sky many birds challenged them to battle. In all their years of climbing, they'd never lost.

Many years passed, filled with battle and adventure, by the end of it their bodies eclipsed the clouds in size. Green floated with Blue, high above the clouds, watching lesser creatures battle below him. He was content, he’d accomplished everything he had ever dreamed of. He closed his eyes and rested.

Green woke up in a small room overwhelmed with weakness, he could barely move. Something was wrong. He shouldn't have been able to fit in a room so small.

He flexed his wings to take to the sky but found them missing. His breath caught in his throat as he struggled to breathe through foreign lungs.

Where’s Blue? He attempted to get up on his two strange legs, but his body rebelled against him. He collapsed to the floor, his body a twitching mess.

It took all his effort to roll over onto his back. In his final moments he wanted to look at the sky he loved so much, only to find his view obstructed by a wall.

He gathered his Qi, filling it with the most destructive dao he knew, in an attempt to break through the ceiling to see the sky for one last time. A drill of wind gathered above him ready to burst free. The red ceiling light gleamed in his eyes as he prepared to fire. Suddenly, a blue box appeared in front of him.

Mortal Cultivation of the Fly: Cultivation Speed +2.

The winds calmed and Shawn remembered himself. He was a human, not a fly.

He had been lucky, he had almost lost himself. If the blue screen hadn’t appeared when it had he likely would have spent the rest of his life believing he was Green.

He took deep breaths to calm himself, but he found it didn’t help, the experience had shaken him deeply. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sat up.

"This had better been worth it," he grumbled.

Shawn forced himself back into a meditation pose, eager to see what a boost of two cultivation speed would result in.

Shawn drew natural energy into his dantian and was shocked by how easy it was. Not only was he able to attract the spirit particles faster, but his dantian also able to process it faster. If he had to guess, he would say he was able to cultivate a little more than three times faster than before.

Not only were his skills being boosted by the system, but he also had memories of cultivation from Green to draw from. Thanks to Green, basic cultivation was second nature to him.

Additionally, cultivating seemed to help make the distinction between him and Green more distinct, while also causing the more unimportant memories of the flies' life to fade. Which he was happy about. It was hard to overstate how much life as a fly sucked.

Shawn took a bite of bread, enjoying the sensation of eating with a human mouth. He placed his half-eaten roll of bread back to the ground, his body and mind ached, but he couldn’t stop; he had work to do.

He cracked his knuckles and started cultivating again, eager to forget his life as Green.