Chương 2: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 2 - Anna Hathaway — Level Up

Su Nian stared at the three mismatched system prompt boxes floating in his vision and blinked. Then, slowly, the confusion gave way to something else. Surprise. Genuine, dizzy surprise. A system. The essential golden finger of every transmigrator worth his salt. And they'd given him three. Three. Was he seriously the chosen dragon? He still had no idea what any of them did. They were in the middle of merging, which apparently meant they had no time to answer questions. So he waited.

After a moment, a new prompt box appeared. [Ding! System fusion complete. Current system: Ultimate Invincible Self-Modification Super Evolution Plunder War Evil Dragon System — abbreviated as: Evil Dragon System!] Su Nian: ╭(°A°`)╮?! That name is obscenely long. Who approved that?

"Rooooar?" [So, Evil Dragon System — what exactly can you do?] [Ding! Host does not need to speak aloud. Thinking clearly is sufficient to transmit information to this system.] [This system's capabilities are extraordinarily powerful. As a merger of three major systems, it provides comprehensive service to the host.] [Function One, Special Enhancement: The War Plunder System was originally named the Special Female NPC Amplification System. Due to recent stricter content reviews, the name has been changed.] [This function activates only when the host acquires Special Female NPCs. Each female NPC will provide the host with a large quantity of system points, plus at least one enhancement or ability.] [Function Two, Evolution Modification: The host may purposefully modify themselves in a chosen direction, at the cost of system points.] [Function Three, Evil Villain: The host earns system points by killing members of righteous factions or players. Killing hostile characters yields half the system points.] [Ding! Detected that the host has Plundered one SSS-grade Special Female NPC. Unlocking Favorability sub-function. Unlocking status panel observation function. Unlocking Occasionally-Functional Mind-Reading Feature.]"Okay, okay — stop. Stop talking for a second." The wall of pop-ups was giving him a headache. Su Nian read back through everything the system had thrown at him, then asked, genuinely confused:"What NPC? What players? Am I in the real world or inside a game?" [Ding! The host's current world is real. However, under the influence of a certain existence, it is about to become semi-gamified. This is a gamble for the fate of the world itself. If the host fails to eliminate the players, the consequences will be catastrophic.]"Eliminate the players?" Su Nian frowned. Players meant people who could respawn, people playing a game. He'd never heard of any country developing something this realistic. Global gaming was still in the early stages of VR.

A fully immersive world indistinguishable from reality was nowhere close to what Earth's technology could produce. [Ding! The players originate from Blue Planet, a world with a highly developed gaming industry, similar to the host's home planet.]"A parallel world?" Su Nian muttered. Well. That removed any moral complications. They weren't his countrymen.

"Still," he said, "eliminating players isn't exactly easy. They can respawn." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. [Ding! Players can respawn, but each respawn timer doubles. First respawn: 5 seconds. Second: 10 seconds. Third: 20 seconds. This continues indefinitely with no upper limit. Once a respawn timer reaches one year, the player will theoretically auto-quit the game.] Su Nian's dragon mouth pulled into a grin, slow and sharp.

He remembered it clearly, the year his own account got banned for cheating. One year, locked out. He'd genuinely lost all desire to keep playing. The moment he saw that timer, something in him just switched off. And even the truly obsessive ones, the ones who ground their teeth and came back after a year? Die once more, and it becomes two years. Meanwhile, he'd be here the whole time, growing, evolving, getting stronger.

As long as he stayed alive, every player who crossed him would find it harder and harder to return. This might actually be manageable. It wasn't that daunting, when he thought about it. He was a dragon. Temporarily a pathetic, barely-breathing dragon, but a dragon nonetheless. Just as he was warming up to that future, the system chimed again. [Ding! Detected an SSS-grade Special Loli NPC. View relevant panel?] Special Loli NPC? Su Nian glanced at the small girl huddled in the corner, mildly baffled.

That's SSS-grade? She was undeniably cute, far more delicate than any of his figurine wives back home. But stumbling into an SSS-grade on his very first pull made the rating feel strangely mundane, like pulling a legendary card the first time you open a pack. The rarity loses its punch when you don't know what common looks like yet.

"View it." He nodded, though a small thread of anticipation ran underneath. This was supposedly the key to getting stronger, after all. [Ding! Panel as follows (will not display again).] [Name: Anna Hathaway (Age: 18 Elven Years)] [Rating: SSS-grade] [Personality: Timid, Weak, Docile, Kind] [Race: Half-Elf] [Strength: Feeble (cannot defeat a chicken)] [Status: Severe Illness, Weakened (Lifespan remaining: Two days)] [Talents: Top-tier Water Element Affinity | Top-tier Light Element Affinity | Nation-Toppling Beauty (Activating) | Delicate Constitution (Passive) | Alluring Fragrance (Passive)] [Current Favorability: -80 (Fearful)] [Evaluation: The host has genuinely dogshit luck. This statement has two meanings.] [Note: Favorability too low, system points and abilities cannot be obtained. Raise Favorability to 0 to unlock first-stage special ability.]"Ah." Su Nian blinked. He'd assumed abilities would just... appear. He didn't expect he'd have to grind Favorability all the way up from negative eighty first. This has the exact flavor of a galgame.

And if he was reading the panel correctly, this top-tier SSS "card" he'd casually picked up along the way had approximately two days left to live. What kind of cursed starting hand is this?

"System," he said in his mind, switching to a more diplomatic tone, "let's talk this through. I can't move. I'm also half-dead. How am I supposed to raise Favorability with anyone right now? Is there a starter pack? A newbie bonus? Something?" [Ding! The host raises a valid point. Distributing newbie starter pack: Temporary Body Recovery Card (Half-Hour Edition).] [Note: The Temporary Recovery Card draws upon the host's life essence. After thirty minutes of restored function, the host will enter a weakened, death-like coma. Does the host wish to activate it?] Su Nian stared at that notification for a long moment.

"..." So the system was rewarding him with his own stuff. Just... taking from one pocket and putting it in the other. A gift that cost him the price of the gift. The only difference was that he didn't know how to use his life essence himself, so technically this counted as a service. He turned it over in his head. His body was already weakening by the minute. Waiting for the girl to help him wasn't an option, she was trembling so hard he could see it from here.

And judging by the panel, her two-day timer meant her condition was probably worse than his. Then the Occasionally-Functional Mind-Reading Feature kicked in. [So cold... so cold... the dragon is so scary...] [I'm hungry... I'm so hungry... sob...] [Mommy...] It hit him without warning. A girl's voice, thin and soft and barely there, drifting through his mind like something half-heard through a closed door.

The sound of it was extraordinarily gentle, like a tuft of cotton brushing across his chest, leaving him with an odd, warm, fizzing sensation he couldn't quite name. He looked toward the girl. She hadn't made a sound. Her head was bowed, her arms wrapped around her knees, her whole body pulled in tight against the corner like a cat someone had forgotten to bring inside. She was shaking, faintly but steadily, the way you shake when the cold has been sitting in your bones for a while.

Su Nian looked around his damp, lightless lair. Yeah. That tracks. He took a breath. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. A bicycle could become a motorcycle if you were willing to roll the dice. There was nothing to hesitate about. The light in his dragon eyes steadied.

"System," he thought, quiet and certain.

"I want to use the Temporary Recovery Card." [Ding! Temporary Recovery Card activated. Please cherish your life, host.] PS: Stacking some shields here. Let me be direct. Lately I've seen some new readers notice the system's functions, immediately start imagining the protagonist collecting female NPCs left and right, and then jump straight to cursing in the comments. Relax. You're not a cat. Nothing to hiss at.

Read with confidence, if this ends up not being a single female lead story, you have full permission to come back and curse me out. If I write in a second female lead, I'll eat the table. ** ➤ Next: Warm Her Up Before Eating?