“Dude, you journal?”
Luke’s voice cut clean through the study space.
Eathan looked up from the slim, jade?threaded notebook in his hands. The meditative journal Li Wei had tossed at him back in Area 003’s headquarters still looked suspiciously like a stationery store impulse buy—soft cover, no logo, a little too smug with the jade sheen.
Right now it sat open on the table between his coffee and Luke’s half?finished triple-shot iced latte, its pages glowing faintly as HeavenOS overlaid a translucent HUD.
[IDENTITY LOG – ENTRY #014]
Dormancy Protocol: Day 79 - 15:43
Prompt: Who are you responsible for?
The library was packed. Westpoint kids had colonised every surface: laptops out, sticky notes everywhere, the smell of espresso and panic hanging in the air. Luke had his own laptop open to a livestreamed baseball game in one corner of the screen and an algorithms textbook face?down in front of him like a coaster. Sera sat on Luke’s other side with an open sketchbook, a portfolio file half?tucked under her arm, and mechanical pencil dancing between fingers.
Eathan tapped his pen against the page. “I don’t journal,” he said. “This is… identity maintenance.”
Luke squinted. “That’s what people who journal say.”
“It’s for my [Humanity] stat.”
“That’s what teenagers in an anime phase would say.”
Sera bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “Self?care king.”
Eathan sighed and looked back at the prompt. Fine. One minute.
He wrote, hand moving faster now that the habit had grooves:
Prompt: Who are you responsible for?
- COZMART (for giving me a full?time job.)
- Customers who walk into COZMART wanting snacks, not spiritual catastrophic failure.
- Luke, who would absolutely sell his soul for partial credit.
- Sera and Emily, who keep pretending I’m normal.
- Mister White’s last move.
- The thing in my ribs that keeps telling me to “think carefully.”
That last one was annoying.
The page warmed under his fingers. He felt the familiar tickle at the back of his skull as the [SYSTEM] registered it.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Habit Reinforced: Daily Identity Log (current streak: 14 days)
He snapped the notebook closed on reflex.
Luke leaned over, eyes gleaming. “What’re you writing? ‘Dear diary, today I almost got eaten by a vending machine—’”
Eathan yanked the journal out of reach. “HIPAA.”
“That’s for medical re—"
“It’s for information I don’t want you seeing. Same vibe.”
“Okay, but, like… why? You’re not the type.” Luke narrowed his eyes. “Is this a trend? Did Emily assign you shadow work?”
Eathan searched for an acceptable, mortal answer that didn’t sound like Captain Li told me to log my feelings or my soul will desync.
Stress management,” he said finally. “My therapist is a stats screen.”
Luke nodded, incredibly serious. “Respect. If my GPA had a feelings bar I’d cry less.” He poked his algorithms textbook with a pen. “Speaking of, help. I tried to brute?force the problem set and I think the problem brute?forced me back.”
Sera slid the book toward her. “You didn’t even read the question.”
“That’s what Eathan’s for.”
Eathan opened his laptop, the meditative journal now resting on his knee. He scanned the pseudocode Luke had written. It read like someone had given a raccoon a keyboard and a dream.
“This is… impressive,” he said diplomatically.
“Thank you. I’ll put that on my résumé.”
“You’re missing a base case,” Eathan pointed out, fingers tapping as he rewrote a few lines. “And your loop is going to keep recursing until it eats the system RAM.”
“So: passionate,” Luke said.
Five minutes later, they had something that at least resembled functioning code.
Luke peered at the screen, suspicious. “Are you sure this is right?”
“If it compiles, you owe me bubble tea,” Eathan said.
“If it doesn’t compile, I’m suing you for emotional damages.”
Sera flicked his ear. “If it doesn’t compile, you retake Advanced Algorithms and I get to design your ‘Repeating Algorithms’ sympathy cards.”
Luke lit up. “Wait, holographic ones?”
“Only if you fail hard enough.”
They devolved into bickering over stationery thickness and holographic finishes. Eathan sat back for a second and just… watched. The game stream chattered softly on Luke’s laptop. Sera’s pencil scratched over paper, adding a new line to a thumbnail of COZMART’s front window. The library hummed around them.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Guilt flickered, automatic: You should be training. You should be spending Qi Tokens on skill improvement, not time. You should be—
He cut it off, forcing his shoulders to loosen.
This is also part of the job, he reminded himself. Humanity safeguarding.
Li Wei’s voice, annoyingly calm, echoed in memory: Mortals are adaptable. Keep Eathan Lin running as a process, even when Qilin pings.
His HUD obliged with an impromptu interface, just to be smug.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Identity Process: Eathan Lin — active
Background process: Qilin Fragment — stable
He huffed a quiet laugh that Sera misread as him reacting to Luke’s nonsense.
“See?” she said. “He agrees. Sympathy cards and holographic foiling.”
“Absolutely slander,” Eathan said, but the warmth stayed.
***
COZMART. AREA 003.
Morning light washed Maple & 8th in that old New York grey that made everything look like it was under a filter.
Eathan stood in the middle of the corner shop, barcode scanner dangling from his wrist, the world overlaid with light. Four faint knots glowed in his vision: doorframe, freezer handle, convex ceiling mirror, staff door. [Node Imprint]’s sigil pulsed gently at each one.
“Okay,” he said under his breath. “Let’s try this.”
He inhaled, then pushed.
Followed by a [SYSTEM] notification and Qi Tokens subtracted from his [PROFILE], invisible threads shot out from his palm, weaving themselves into the walls like a spider with a degree in urban planning. The doorframe imprint pulsed brighter, accepting the pre?loaded array with a note he’d built the night before:
Oil Wipes — Purify (scrub hitchhikers, lift hex dust)
Rock Salt — Banish (kick anything stubborn out)
Lucky Joss Paper — Guidance (nudge spirits toward the exit with minimal screaming)
The freezer imprint accepted its own three?step combo:
Copper Scrubber — Bind (lock structural cold spots)
Lantern Wick — Ignite (burn illusions, not freezers)
Fortune Cat Sticker — Redirect (deflect curiosity away from staff?only doors)
The ceiling mirror and back door got smaller sets—redirects and soft disorientation effects, nothing that would freak mortals out. Li Wei was right. He could use COZMART as a sandbox to test his skill potential. If he wanted to get stronger, keeping things as they were was not enough. He had to take what he knew, shred it down, and break into a new possibility. COZMART, as the ghost node hub away from Heaven's eyes, was the best testing site.
The arrays settled: invisible seal?circuits humming in the air, linked to his HUD.
“Ho...” Chewie’s voice floated from behind the counter. “Looks like sandcastle building's going well.”
She was perched on the high stool, dressed in Area 003 merchandise sweats she'd snatched from HQ during their last visit. Her calculus textbook was open, pen tapping a staccato against the margin.
“As well as sandcastles can get,” Eathan said. His HUD flickered, showing the new setup as icons categorised by mini-node anchors.
The bell chimed.
Erzhong Ren waddled in in his borrowed body: same flannel, same dodgy jeans, same uneasy gait. Today, the corpse’s right arm twitched on a delay, like someone had installed the wrong firmware.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, the doorframe imprint warmed. In Eathan’s HUD, [Calamity Radar ω] pinged, and through his vision, he could see a soft yellow smudge clinging to Erzhong Ren’s right shoulder, threads of sorrow trailing like a cobweb. The yellow glow that usually surrounded the ogre-spirit pulsed, flickering to a dim amber.
Eathan stepped around the counter, smile automatic. “Morning, Mister Erzhong Ren.”
“Ah, yes! Dainty weather, isn’t it?” the tiny ogre?spirit squeaked from his perch near the host’s left ear. “Though my arm… pins?and?needles today.” He wiggled the human fingers. “Very inconsiderate.”
“Mm.” Eathan’s fingers brushed his wrist as if steadying him. Through the contact, [Minor Reconstitution] bloomed. Three threads flared in his vision: host body, ogre?spirit, hitchhiking revenant.
He flicked a thought toward the door node.
The imprint flared once, and the first step of its array activated. A soft warmth swept over Erzhong Ren’s frame, invisible to mortal eyes. The revenant shivered loose from the borrowed flesh, caught in a ribbon of purified qi, and drifted toward the Lucky Joss Paper exit sequence, dissolving into a confetti of light that only the shop saw.
“Oh?” Erzhong blinked. “The tingling stopped. You’re very good at… retail.”
“Occupational hazard,” Eathan said, noting his aura that now reverted back to yellow. “Snacks and exorcisms, all?in?one service.”
Erzhong Ren paid for his usual three items and shuffled out, humming an off?key tune. Eathan watched him go, feeling the residual satisfaction like a click in his chest. No flare of inverted auspice, no big spectacle. Just the shop catching a problem and quietly rerouting it.
Chewie whistled low. “Captain Spreadsheet would be happy.”
“That’s a terrifying thought,” Eathan said, but he was smiling as he reset the HUD. All around him, little pre?loaded arrays pulsed, ready.
A few hours and two college kids later, the bell chimed again.
Mister Jin Chan hopped in wearing the world’s most suspicious trench coat, collar up, hat down. His single beefy leg landed with squelches that would haunt tile grout forever. The toad?spirit peered over the top of his sunglasses like a detective who’d lost a very important suspect.
“New jelly shipment came in yesterday,” Eathan said automatically. “Aisle three, second shelf.”
“Excellent,” Jin Chan croaked, voice like someone rubbing coins together. He gathered his jelly packets into a neat pile and paid exact change, fingers leaving faint dampness on the bills.
Before he left, he paused, nostrils flaring. His slitted eyes swept across the shop, lingering on the unseen arrays, on the familiar emptiness behind the counter.
“Rumour on RealmNet says Area 001 is cursed now,” he said mildly. “White Tiger gone. Azure Dragon dropped like a fly. Vultures circling.” His gaze cut back to Eathan. “Yet this shop still smells… auspicious.”
The word lodged between Eathan’s ribs.
He made himself smile, straightening a display of gum. “Our return policy’s generous,” he said lightly. “Some things come back.”
Jin Chan studied him for a beat too long, then huffed what might have been a conceding laugh.
“Careful with that generosity, little manager,” he said, and hopped out into the street.
Silence inhaled.
Eathan found his eyes drifting to the empty stool beside Chewie’s. Taeril’s stool, smoothed by years of elbows, the one that should have a man in a beige wool sweater leaning on it, eyebrows raised as he sipped on his fifth cup of coffee.
The ache rose, familiar and sharp. It didn’t knock him over this time. It just sat down next to him and waited.
Eathan reached for the journal instead. He flipped past earlier pages filled with half?sarcastic entries—“Prompt: What else are you grateful for today? Answer: Coffee existing”—until the interface settled on the latest prompt.
[IDENTITY LOG – ENTRY #021]
Dormancy Protocol: Day 86 - 08:20
Prompt: List three things that mean “home” to you.
He wrote, the pen scratching loud in the small shop:
Home =
- The corner of Maple & 8th that always smells like burnt coffee and maybe ghosts.
- Westpoint library’s ugly green chairs that squeak like they’re dying.
- Mister White’s stool at the counter. (No substitute found.)
Not sure this counts as training, but I guess it’s better than crying into [Receipt Printer].
The page glowed gently.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Habit Reinforced: Daily Identity Log (current streak: 21)
[Humanity] has increased by 3%! (51% → 54%)
Eathan stared.
“...Huh.”
Chewie looked up from where she was demolishing a practice test. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said slowly, watching the number settle in the corner of his HUD. Fifty?four percent. A whole three-percent increase.
“My feelings journal just min?maxed me.”