“No wonder you have the lowest intelligence in this family. You picked a real smart one, Randy.”
“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” Amy shouted, taken aback by the unexpected sass from the system.
“I said yes, just like a video game,” the voice replied smoothly, completely unbothered by her outburst.
I quickly stepped in, trying to ease the tension. “Hey, why don’t we all open our gifts together?” I suggested, knowing we could all hear the system as if it were another person standing right there with us.
We exchanged glances and, in unison, thought, “Open the gift.”
Immediately, we were hit with a series of notifications:
Congratulations! You have received one Bone Marrow Cleansing Pill and a shared system space.
“What did you guys get?” I asked, feeling the excitement build.
“A pill and a shared system space,” Amy replied.
“Same here,” Alex confirmed.
“What’s a Bone Marrow Cleansing Pill?” Amy asked, looking puzzled.
Alex, ever the expert on all things fantastical, jumped in before I could answer. “In the xianxia books I’ve read, the pill cleanses toxins from the body and makes it easier to start cultivating. After taking the pill, your body expels toxins as a layer of black sludge, so it’s best to take it one at a time in the shower. Maybe we can start cultivating after taking it.”
I nodded, adding, “Or better yet, a bath. The process might take a while, and we don’t want to waste water.”
You will not be able to cultivate until the planet is clean of pollution and spiritual energy is restored. Did you not read my welcome message?
“Why don’t we let Alex go first?” I suggested, completely ignoring the system. “He’s the youngest, so he probably hasn’t built up as many toxins.”
Alex agreed, and we prepared the bathroom for the cleanse. Despite being young, Alex’s bath took over six hours. By the time he was done, the tub was coated in a thick layer of black sludge that looked—and smelled—horrible. I took one look and said, “Have fun with that,” before heading to bed. I had to get up early for work the next morning, after all. As I drifted off to sleep, I could hear Amy and Alex scrubbing away in the bathroom, trying to clean the mess before dawn.
The next morning, I woke up at 4 AM, ready for work. As I passed the bathroom, I saw Alex and Amy, exhausted but triumphant after finally getting the tub clean. “Question,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “What do mermaids use to wash their fins?”
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They both stared at me, bleary-eyed and unimpressed.
“Tide,” I said, grinning.
Amy and Alex gave me identical dirty looks before heading off to bed without a word. I shrugged and went about my morning routine. No one ever laughed at my jokes. Clearly, my family just didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.
That was really bad. The system chimed in.
Work that day was uneventful, but tedious. I had taken a temporary job as a delivery driver, a role I knew I wouldn’t stay in for long. The only real challenge came when I had to deliver 300 copies of a trashy magazine called US weekly to different supermarkets, and all the warehouse workers only spoke Spanish. My high school Spanish failed me as I tried to ask for directions. “Dónde está la US?” I asked, and received a flurry of unintelligible responses in return. After a few minutes of confused pointing, I finally found what I was looking for and completed my deliveries.
When I got home that afternoon, I heard Alex muttering to himself. “My cultivation stat still says NA, but at least my lifespan increased.”
A moment later, Amy’s voice rang out from the bathroom. “I want to take my pill now!” It was about 3 PM, and we expected her cleanse to take around six hours, just like Alex’s. But instead, it took her a full ten hours before she emerged, exhausted and with the bathtub covered in even more sludge than Alex had produced. I couldn’t take my eyes off Amy though, she was always beautiful but now looked even more radiant. I had to shake my head to clear it and make a joke to hide my embarrassment.
“Damn, girl, what have you been eating?” I joked as I peeked into the bathroom.
Alex chimed in, “Mom, I think you clogged the bathtub!”
It was late, and I was too tired to help with the cleanup, so I went to bed, hoping they’d have it all sorted by morning. Unfortunately, I forgot to eat dinner for the second night in a row.
I had decided to wait until Friday to take my own pill because of my work starting so early in the morning and needing at least a modicum of sleep. The week was rough with nervousness as I couldn't focus while being so impatient to take my own pill.
Friday night finally rolled around, and it was my turn to take the pill. Unlike Alex and Amy, the process took me eleven hours, and it was mildly painful the entire time—something they hadn’t mentioned, but at least I looked more handsome. The cleanup afterward was brutal. That sludge was impossible to scrub off, and Alex and Amy were too tired to help. It took me six hours just to get the bathroom clean again.
When it was all finally over, I checked my status screen:
Clean Planet System
Randy
- Lifespan 23/120 (No toxins detected, current human limit, not exercising or eating poorly will reduce this limit)
- Cultivation: NA
Amy
- Lifespan 25/120 (No toxins detected, current human limit, not exercising or eating poorly will reduce this limit)
- Cultivation: NA
Alex
- Lifespan 5/120 (No toxins detected, current human limit, not exercising or eating poorly will reduce this limit)
- Cultivation: NA
“Wow, we all increased our lifespans!” I exclaimed, feeling a rush of excitement.
Ding!
A familiar sound echoed in all our minds as the system chimed in again.
Don’t die early, you secret fatty. I need you to live and clean the planet so Spiritual Energy can be restored to the world.
I hung my head in shame knowing that in my last life, even though I didn’t look fat at all, I still carried around an extra 40 lbs compared to this point in my life. But did I hear wrongly? Does it want to restore spiritual energy?
“What is spiritual energy?” Amy the non web novel reader asks.
And as always Alex is the first to answer, “It is an invisible (usually) energy all around us. It lets you cultivate immortality. I guess we don’t currently have any on this planet.”
Congratulations on taking the Bone Marrow Cleansing Pill! Issuing the first quest…