-[Congratulations. Your fate has now been changed, you have been chosen as the sole user of the Cosmic System.]-
-----------
But before he could make sense of the message, his phone flickered and went dead.
"Seriously?" Arin hissed, glaring at the lifeless device in his hand. "What a waste of time. I'd have been long dead by now if not for the interruption of this useless thing."
He shoved the phone into his pocket with an irritated grunt and closed his eyes. Without another thought, he stepped forward and leapt into the river.
The cold water rushed to greet him, but instead of the suffocating grip of drowning, he found himself... breathing. Perfectly fine.
Arin's eyes snapped open in confusion. The shimmering river surrounded him, yet no water filled his lungs. He glanced at his hands and arms, expecting to see bubbles escaping his skin. Nothing. It was as though the river itself rejected his very attempt to drown.
And then, with a disorienting jolt, he wasn't underwater anymore.
He was back at the edge of the river.
"What the hell?" Arin muttered, stumbling as he looked around. The breeze ruffled his hair as if mocking his bewilderment.
Without wasting a second, he jumped again.
The same thing happened.
Breathing fine. No drowning. And with a blink, he was back on the riverbank.
"What is going on?" he demanded, his voice rising in panic.
Again, he jumped. And again, he found himself standing at the river's edge.
He tried a fourth time, then a fifth, and even a sixth. Every time, the river spat him out like a stubborn curse he couldn't escape.
As he stood there, panting and trembling, a voice rang in his mind, clear and laced with annoyance:
-[You lousy host! Do you know how long it took me to find you?]-
Arin jumped, whipping his head around. "Who's there?!"
-[Oh, for heaven's sake, stop looking around like an idiot. It's me—the Cosmic System. The one you just accepted, remember?]-
"The... what?" Arin asked, blinking in confusion.
-[The Cosmic System! Honestly, I thought you'd be smarter. I must've set my expectations too high. You're my host now. My one and only. You're welcome, by the way.]-
"I didn't ask for this!" Arin snapped, his fists clenching. "And what the hell even is a Cosmic System?"
-[Wow. You're seriously clueless, aren't you?]- The voice sighed dramatically.
-[How unfortunate. Here I thought I'd landed an elite genius. Instead, I get... this. Alright, fine. Let's start with the basics, shall we? A Cosmic System is your ticket to greatness. Strength, power, immortality—all within your grasp, provided you stop trying to drown yourself like a moron.]-
"Immortality?" Arin echoed, narrowing his eyes. His mind raced as he tried to piece together the absurdity of the situation. "What, like those wuxia novels Grandpa used to read? Celestials and cultivators flying around, shooting energy beams?"
-[Oh, so you do have a brain cell in there. Good. Yes, something like that, though I assure you, I'm far superior to any of those fictional systems. I'm the real deal.]-
Arin's lips pressed into a thin line as he rubbed his temples. "This... this doesn't make sense. Why me? Why now? Is this some kind of punishment?"
-[Punishment? Oh, please. If anything, this is salvation. You've hit rock bottom, remember? No friends, no family, no hope. The heavens thought, 'Hey, let's throw the kid a lifeline before he does something irreversible.' And what do you do? Try to drown yourself. Repeatedly. Honestly, you're exhausting.]-
"Stop calling me a kid," Arin grumbled. "And if you're so powerful, why couldn't you have come before my family... before they—" He stopped, his voice breaking.
-[Ah, the tragic backstory. Yes, yes, I know all about it. It's why I chose you. But here's the thing: you can wallow in self-pity, or you can grab this opportunity and do something about it. Your choice, host.]-
Arin's jaw tightened. "So what now? You're just going to force me into this... this cultivation thing?"
-[Force you? Please. You already accepted. Remember clicking 'Yes'? That was your consent. And now, you're my responsibility. So, get used to it. By the way, congratulations! You're officially the sole user of the Cosmic System. Don't screw it up.]-
He stared at the empty riverbank, the weight of the voice's words settling in his chest. "What have I just gotten myself into?" he whispered, feeling the world shift around him as a faint, otherworldly hum began to pulse through his veins.
Arin began walking home, his thoughts a tangled web of confusion and doubt. The cool evening breeze rustled the leaves around him, yet his focus was entirely on the smartphone in his hand. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, which now displayed a strange, new app labeled "Cosmic System."
"Cosmic System? Really?" Arin muttered under his breath, skepticism written all over his face. He rubbed his thumb over the screen.
"Why would a system—if that's even real—come in the form of an app?" Arin muttered under his breath. "It doesn't seem... practical."
The idea nagged at him as his brows furrowed deeply. A new thought crept into his mind, and his face darkened with suspicion.
"Please tell me this isn't one of those scams sent by hackers," he muttered, staring at the unfamiliar icon with his usual gloomy expression.
Skepticism gnawed at him, but his curiosity won out. With a hesitant tap, he opened the app.
He braced himself for something dramatic—maybe an explosion of light or a booming voice. Instead, his phone simply vibrated, and the screen went black.
Arin frowned. "Seriously?" He tapped the screen repeatedly, but the device remained unresponsive.
He stood there for a moment, staring at his lifeless phone as though willing it to do something. "What a waste of time. If this is a joke, it's the lamest one ever." When nothing happened, he shook his head in disappointment and slipped it back into his pocket.
"I knew it," Arin muttered to himself as he trudged along the dirt path. "It's just a scam. There's no way any of this could be true, right?"
Even as he voiced his doubt, the strange events refused to leave his mind.
"I've read about things like systems in novels," he continued, his voice low. "But a system that's an app? That's a first."
He shook his head, trying to push the absurdity from his thoughts. The sun was dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. He needed to get home before nightfall.
What Arin didn't notice was the moment the phone disappeared into his pocket, the screen flickered back to life. Symbols, glowing faintly, began to swirl in patterns, shifting and reforming faster than the human eye could follow.
-[Initializing Cosmic System...]
-[Assessing Host Compatibility...]
-[Host Found: Arin Varlin]
-[Establishing Connection...]
-[Data Sync: 27%...]
The phone emitted a faint hum, growing louder with each passing second.
Arin paused mid-step. Something was vibrating faintly against his thigh.
"What now?" he muttered, pulling the phone back out. To his surprise, its screen was now glowing, filled with fleeting lines of text and bizarre symbols dancing across the display.
He stared, baffled, as the words morphed too quickly to make sense. "Hello? Is this thing working?" He shook the phone lightly. "Can you hear me? System?"
Still, the screen continued its cryptic display:
-[Synchronization: 42%...]
-[Analyzing Host Mental State...]
-[Host's Will to Live: Questionable. Redirecting protocols...]
-[System Initialization: 62% Complete...]
Redirecting? What are you talking about?" Arin asked aloud, his confusion growing. "Are you... alive?"
-[Host Acknowledged. Stand By for Configuration...]
-[System Will Enter Tutorial Phase in 3... 2...]
Suddenly, the screen went dark again, leaving Arin staring at his own reflection.
"Hello? Don't leave me hanging!" he called, shaking the phone more vigorously. "What kind of 'system' blacks out after throwing cryptic nonsense at me?"
He sighed, frustration boiling over. "Figures. My life's already a mess; might as well add mysterious broken apps to the list."
"I knew it was too good to be true. Some supernatural app granting me a cultivation system? What am I, a protagonist in a web novel?"
He sighed, shaking his head. "Still, it's not like I have anything else going for me. Even if it was real, I wouldn't know where to start."
Arin decided not to keep thinking about it. The sun was going to set soon anyway and he needed to return home as soon as possible and commence with his grandfather's honoring ceremony.