[HOST INTEGRITY: 9%]
[TIME: 6:45 PM]
[LOCATION: THE LAST STOP FACTORY]
Ren didn't walk into the factory. He fell into it.
His shoulder slammed against the rusted metal doorway, the impact sending a jolt of white-hot electricity up his spine. The corrugated iron shrieked in protest as he dragged his weight along the frame, using it to stay upright.
Every step was a negotiation with gravity. His vision wasn't just blurring; it was greying out at the edges, tunneling down to a pinprick of reality.
Nine percent.
The number flashed in his mind like a dying battery indicator. The bluff at the morgue—channeling the "Minister's Voice" without the mana to back it up—had burned through his reserves like gasoline on a bonfire. His soul was still a King, dense and heavy with authority.
But his body?
His body was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
"Ren!" Jian scrambled to catch him, grabbing his arm with frantic strength. Through the fabric of his blazer, Ren's skin felt like ice. "You're burning up. No, wait, you're freezing. We need a hospital. A real one. With beds. And doctors. And not... whatever this place is."
Ren wheezed, prying Jian's fingers off with trembling hands. He didn't have the breath to explain that a human hospital couldn't fix a Spirit Core failure. A doctor would just look at his chart, see his heart stopping, and call the time of death.
"No," Ren rasped. He lifted a shaking finger, pointing toward the center of the factory floor.
There, illuminated by shafts of dying sunlight cutting through the broken roof, sat the massive, rusted iron vat.
"We cook," Ren whispered. "Now."
The Foreman
Lian was already waiting for them.
She stood beside the main intake valve on the catwalk. She was no longer wearing her tattered Northwood High uniform. Over her spectral frame, a grey worker's jumpsuit had manifested—stiff, practical, and disturbingly professional. A name tag on the chest read: FOREMAN.
She looked at Ren stumbling in. She didn't offer pity. She didn't rush to help. She simply checked an invisible clipboard, her black eyes assessing his condition as a liability risk.
Behind her, suspended from a crane hook, was a spectral cage made of crackling blue energy. Inside, a writhing mass of shadows squealed and scratched against the bars.
[RAW MATERIAL: VERMIN SPIRITS (200 UNITS)]
[QUALITY: LOW (PEST CONTROL)]
"Collection complete, Boss," Lian said, her voice flat and metallic. The scream was gone, replaced by the dull efficiency of middle management. "I swept the sub-basement. Rats. Roaches. A few stray animal spirits that got stuck in the pipes. It's the bottom of the food chain."
Ren dragged himself toward the control panel, his boots scraping heavily against the concrete.
"It's not trash," he wheezed, leaning his full weight on the railing to keep his knees from buckling. "It's inventory."
He looked up at the cage. The spirits inside were chaotic, biting each other, driven by mindless hunger.
"Dump it," Ren ordered.
Lian nodded. She pulled the release lever.
The bottom of the cage swung open.
The spirits didn't fall silently. They screamed.
It wasn't a human scream; it was the sound of a thousand radio frequencies screeching at once. The mass of shadow plunged into the industrial grinder at the top of the vat.
CRUNCH. HISS. GRIND.
Jian covered his ears, his face twisting in horror. "Oh god. That sounds like..."
"Like static," Ren finished, watching the display.
They didn't bleed. There was no gore. As the heavy iron gears crushed the spirits, they shattered into sparks of grey light. The grinder pulverized the chaotic energy, stripping away the form and leaving only the essence.
The powder settled like heavy ash at the bottom of the vat.
"Base material secured," Ren muttered, checking the gauge. "Jian. Move to the south wall."
Jian blinked, stepping over a coil of rusted wire. "The wall? Why? I'm never eating powder-based food again, by the way. Just so you know."
The Catalyst
Ren ignored him. He was calculating the mixture ratios in his head, fighting the black spots dancing in his vision.
"Fuel," Ren rasped. "We need heat. Not fire. Emotional heat."
"We don't have fuel," Jian argued, looking around the desolate floor. "We don't even have electricity that doesn't scream."
"The walls, Jian," Ren whispered, his voice barely audible. "Look at them."
He pointed to the brickwork. To the naked eye, it was just dirty red brick. To [Spirit Sight], it was bleeding.
"This factory has been abandoned for fifty years," Ren explained, clutching his chest as his heart skipped a beat. "It has seen three bankruptcies. Two counts of arson. Six suicides. Decades of workers staring at the clock, terrified they wouldn't make rent."
He pointed to a large, rusted valve wheel embedded directly into the support beam.
"That isn't a water pipe. It's a drainage line for the building's memory. Drain the misery."
Jian hesitated. He looked at the valve, which seemed to be weeping black oil.
"This is messed up, Ren," Jian muttered.
But he grabbed the wheel. He grunted, putting his back into it.
SCREEEECH.
The metal groaned, fighting him for a second before snapping loose.
The temperature in the factory plummeted instantly.
It wasn't a wind. It was a vacuum. The warmth was sucked out of the air.
From the cracks in the bricks, black smoke began to ooze. It wasn't smoke—it was pure Resentment, distilled from years of despair. It flowed like heavy syrup into the intake pipes, hissing as it hit the vat.
The mixture inside began to churn violently. The grey spirit powder clashed with the black resentment. The vat shook, the iron bolts rattling.
"It's unstable," Lian warned from the catwalk, her form flickering. "Pressure is critical. You're about to die in a spiritual chemical accident."
"Not yet," Ren whispered.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jar of Death Dew.
The blue frost inside pulsed, glowing with the cold finality of the morgue.
"The Base is chaos," Ren murmured, unscrewing the lid. "The Fuel is rage."
He held the jar over the bubbling, volatile sludge.
"This is the Binder."
He poured.
The moment the blue frost hit the black sludge, the reaction was instant.
HISSSSSSSSS.
The violent bubbling stopped.
The chaos froze.
The Death Dew acted as a coagulant, seizing the resentment and the spirit dust and forcing them into a lattice structure. The black sludge hardened, shifting color into a deep, vibrating indigo.
A new smell filled the factory.
It didn't smell like rot. It didn't smell like rats.
It smelled like Ozone. Like the air right after a lightning strike. Like the cold relief of a fever breaking.
The System bar filled rapidly.
[SYNTHESIS: 98%... 99%... 100%]
The vat hissed one last time, then the lower hatch slid open.
Inside, pressed into neat, hexagonal sticks, lay the product.
[ITEM CREATED: SPIRIT INCENSE (TYPE-F)]
[QUANTITY: 100 STICKS]
[EFFECT: MINOR SOUL STABILIZATION. REDUCES HUNGER.]
[FLAVOR TEXT: "A CHEAP MEAL IS BETTER THAN NO MEAL."]
Ren reached in and picked up a stick. It was cool to the touch, heavy for its size.
He looked at it.
He didn't celebrate. He didn't smile.
The adrenaline that had kept him upright finally evaporated.
"Ren?" Jian asked.
Ren didn't answer. His knees hit the concrete first. Then his shoulder.
The world went dark.
The Transaction
"REN!"
Jian's scream sounded like it was coming from underwater.
Ren was floating in the void. He couldn't feel his arms. He couldn't feel his legs.
Only the System existed here.
[QUEST COMPLETED: PRODUCTION LINE ALPHA]
[OBJECTIVE: CRAFT THE FIRST BATCH]
[REWARD: 100 KARMA]
[CURRENT KARMA: 110/100]
[CRITICAL HEALTH ALERT: SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT]
Buy it, Ren commanded his own mind. Do it now.
[SHOP TRANSACTION VERIFIED]
[ITEM PURCHASED: MINOR BODY REFINEMENT PILL]
[AUTO-ADMINISTER: INITIATED]
Ren felt a sensation in his throat. A taste of mud, pine needles, and battery acid.
Then, fire.
Not the burning pain of injury, but the roaring heat of a forge.
The pill dissolved instantly, flooding his bloodstream with concentrated vitality. It rushed to his heart, his lungs, his fractured ribs.
CRACK. SNAP.
His ribs knit together with audible pops.
The fluid in his lungs evaporated in a hiss of steam.
The grey pallor of his skin flushed with sudden, violent blood flow.
Ren gasped, his eyes snapping open.
He sat up, taking a deep, greedy lungful of the ozone-scented air.
[HOST INTEGRITY: 9% \rightarrow 20%]
[STATUS: STABLE]
[PAIN LEVEL: MANAGEABLE]
Jian was kneeling next to him, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the emergency call button. He was staring at Ren like he'd just witnessed a corpse sit up in a coffin.
"You... you stopped breathing," Jian stammered, his voice trembling. "Ren, you were dead for a second."
"I rebooted," Ren said.
His voice was stronger now. The rattle in his chest was gone.
He stood up. He stretched his arms. His joints popped, aligning correctly for the first time in days.
He wasn't healthy—20% was still pathetic compared to his old body—but the reaper standing over his shoulder had stepped back.
Ren walked over to the vat. He looked at the pile of indigo incense sticks.
100 sticks.
Market value: Approximately 5 Spirit Coins per stick (Street Price).
Total Asset Value: 500 Coins.
"We have a product," Ren said, picking up a handful of sticks. He turned to look at the factory gates.
Outside, the sun had set. The Underworld was waking up.
"But we have a new problem," Ren said.
"What?" Jian asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The police? The Triads?"
Ren shook his head. His eyes gleamed with a new kind of hunger.
"Worse."
He held up the incense.
"If I sell this on the street, the Department of Spiritual Commerce will detect the transaction. They will audit us. They will confiscate the factory. And they will fine me for operating an unlicensed necromancy ring."
Ren turned to Jian.
"Tomorrow, we aren't going to school."
"We aren't?"
"No," Ren said, pocketing the incense. "We are going to the DMV."