All Chapters of Awakening In The Trash Pile{My System is Cosmic Scavenger}: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
12 chapters
Bottom of The Barrel
The first thing Kieran noticed was the smell.A thick, rotten stench crawled into his nose and mouth, clinging to his skin. It smelled like spoiled spirit herbs, cracked beast cores leaking nasty energy, and the general stink of things tossed aside and left to rot.He opened his eyes.Darkness. Only a few weak beams of light slipped in from far above. He was lying on something soft, cold, and wet. When he pushed himself up, his hands sank into a pile of soggy leftovers and squashed plants that had long lost their spiritual power.Then his memory hit him sharp and cruel.The Outer Sect Disciple Examination. Marcus. Smug, arrogant Marcus. The same Marcus who wouldn’t stop staring at Kieran’s childhood friend, Liana.During the sparring match, Marcus had gone after her on purpose not to win, but to hurt, to humiliate.Kieran closed his eyes as the moment replayed.“Get away from her!” he had shouted, stepping in front of Marcus.“You?” Marcus had sneered. “Stay out of this, trash.”Kie
Consume or be Consumed
[Directive: Consume designated ‘resource.’]An arrow in his vision pointed at the half-eaten, rotten spirit fruit Jace had tossed.“Eat… that? It’s rotten! It has no spirit energy left!”[Correct. It contains trace minerals, fiber, and bacterial cultures. Nutritional value: Low. Primary benefit: keeping the host alive. The System will handle the rest. Do you wish to survive?]The question hung in his mind plain, direct, impossible to ignore.Did he? A few minutes ago, he’d been ready to end everything. And now some… voice, some System inside his head, was telling him to eat literal trash if he wanted to live.Kieran let out a shaky breath.A small, hot ember flickered inside him. The same stubborn spark that had pushed him to protect Liana. The same part of him that refused to bow to Marcus.“No,” he whispered. “I won’t die like this. Not if there’s even the tiniest chance.”His hand trembled as he picked up the slimy, half-rotten fruit. The smell hit him hard, and he almost gagged.“
INTO THE CUSTODIAL QUARTER
CHAPTER 003The pain didn’t stop it only grew sharper.Suddenly, glowing words flashed across his vision:[Emergency Salvage in progress.][Host body identified as primary ‘waste site.’ Initiating purification protocol.]Kieran sucked in a shaking breath. “W-What now? What are you doing to me?”A strange new feeling rose inside him, mixing with the agony. It wasn’t pain this time. It was… a low, powerful vibration, like something deep in his chest had finally woken up.The voice echoed again, calm and cold:[Processing foreign toxins. Converting waste into usable energy.]Kieran’s eyes widened. “You’re not fighting the poison… you’re eating it?”The glowing grid in his vision flickered wildly, numbers and symbols racing faster and faster.“Hey slow down!” he shouted, gripping his head as the data streamed past. “I can’t even read that!”But the system didn’t listen.Isolating ‘Yin’ attribute energy…Filtering ‘Beast Resentment’ emotional residue…Converting lethal toxicity into base s
A BEAST AND A BREAKTHROUGH
CHAPTER 004 A young disciple ran back and forth, trying to calm a huge Stormcloud Lynx. The beast was normally beautiful silver fur flashing with tiny sparks of lightning but now its coat looked dull and dirty. It coughed weakly, a few sad sparks popping from its throat.An Elder from the Beast Taming Hall marched over, her robes swaying. Her face was tight with worry. She checked the lynx, placed a hand on its chest, then let out a slow breath.“It’s the Withering Flux,” she said. “Its core is corrupted. It could infect the others. Put it down. Take the body to the Rendering Vat.”The young disciple’s eyes went wide. “Elder, please! She’s my bond beast! Please don’t make me—”“The bond is already broken,” the Elder cut in sharply. “The core is waste. End it before nightfall.”The disciple choked back a sob as another handler guided him away.Kieran stood frozen. His System wasn’t.A bright red alert flashed across his vision:[ALERT: High-value catastrophic waste detected.]Subject:
TRAPPED BETWEEN THEM
CHAPTER 005 Then he heard voices loud, rough laughter that bounced off the walls.“Davin and Rory are back… early,” Kieran muttered, his stomach knotting.“No time,” Kieran hissed.He sprinted to the pen, gripping the metal bar tightly. The lock was simple. He didn’t even try to open it properly. He slid the bar into the hasp, twisted hardGroooan snap.The metal broke free.He slipped into the pen.The Stormcloud Lynx lay on its side in fresh straw. Its breathing was shallow, each exhale sparking with a faint, dying crackle of lightning. Up close, it was both breathtaking and heartbreaking. Its silver eyes usually bright and intelligent were cloudy with pain and sedation.The Lynx saw him.A low, weak growl rumbled in its chest. Not a threat more like the last flicker of a dying fire.Kieran raised his hands slowly. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he whispered, voice shaking. “I swear.”He took one small step closer.“I… I can use your pain,” Kieran whispered. “I can give it meaning. I
ESCAPE FROM THE CUSTODIAL QUARTER
CHAPTER OO6The two handlers closed in, blocking every way out. The lantern light stretched their shadows across the pen, making them look bigger, meaner. Davin’s eyes were fixed on the dark, pulsing core clutched in Kieran’s fist. Rory planted himself at the gate, arms folded like a wall.“Last chance, trash-rat,” Davin sneered, stepping closer. “Drop the core, and maybe we just break your other arm instead of both.”Kieran’s chest heaved. The 127 units of Primordial Essence inside him churned like a wild river. Raw power surged through his veins, but he had no control over it. He was still just Kieran crippled, scared, holding a stolen steel bar and a pounding heart.“It’s not a treasure,” he said, voice tight. “It’s poison. It’s what killed the lynx.”Davin laughed, dark and sharp. “You think I care? Condensed beast core corrupted or not is worth fifty spirit stones to the right alchemist. That’s more than you’ll see in your pathetic life. Now hand it over!”A warning flashed in Ki
FACE TO FACE WITH MARCUS
CHAPTER 007Kieran’s heart leapt. They weren’t done with him yet.The voice came from just outside his row. Torchlight flickered over the walls.He was out of time. He pushed himself up. His body moved with a new, fluid strength. Four hundred eleven units of Essence hadn’t turned him into a master cultivator, but it had made his broken body faster, tougher, sharper.A custodial worker rounded the corner, torch in hand. Kieran didn’t think. He acted. He grabbed a handful of loose hay from the floor and flung it into the man’s face.“Argh! He’s here!” the worker yelled, coughing and swiping at the straw.Kieran didn’t stop. He darted down the narrow alley between the sheds, his legs pumping, his lungs burning. He didn’t know where he was going he only knew he had to put distance between himself and the stolen core.He burst into a wide service yard and skidded to a halt.Standing there in the moonlight wasn’t a worker or a handler.It was Marcus.Kieran froze. Marcus’s robes were clean
NO ESCAPE ONLY SURVIVAL
CHAPTER 008The sound was wrong. Not wood on metal. A deep, shivering snap rolled through the yard.The oak of Marcus’s training sword splintered, the thin spirit-steel core inside shattered like glass. Kieran’s chaotic Essence had poured into the bar at the exact moment of impact, magnifying the force.Marcus froze. His prized sword the symbol of his skill and status was now nothing but a jagged stump of twisted wood and metal.Silence stretched.Then Marcus’s face darkened. Gone was the mocking cruelty. Replaced by something cold, dangerous, and murderous.“You… you broken piece of nothing…” he hissed, voice low, trembling with rage. “You dare?”He dropped the ruined hilt. He didn’t need it. His hands curled into fists. A pale blue ripple of air shimmered around them, faint but visible. He was calling on his Qi the spiritual energy Kieran had never been able to touch.“I’m going to put you in the ground myself,” Marcus growled, voice low and deadly.This wasn’t just a beating. This
BENEATH THE WHIP
CHAPTER 009The pain was quiet, deep, and relentless. It felt like molten glass twisting through the wreckage of his chest, threading through pathways Kieran thought were gone forever. The System didn’t heal gently it worked like a cold, precise machine, forcing the 324 units of Essence through him as if repairing a shattered pipeline.Time lost all meaning. There was only the grinding ache inside him and the damp chill of the stone floor seeping into his bones.A faint ping in his mind marked the progress:[Allocation complete. Meridian Cluster ‘Lesser Heart’ 23% restored. Basic function regained.][Host can now passively absorb ambient spiritual energy at 0.1% efficiency of a 1st Stage Qi Condensation cultivator.]It was pitiful. A trickle where others had rivers. But a trickle was better than the empty desert he’d felt before.He felt it then a tiny pull in the air, almost imagined, drawing the faintest bit of spiritual energy into the repaired meridian. Not enough to really fight
THE BROKEN THE UNBROKEN
CHAPTER 010The first lash hit without warning.It wasn’t like anything Kieran had imagined. The leather snapped against his skin with a sharp thwack, but that was just the start. In the next heartbeat, the tiny spirit-thorns dug in, burning like acid and fire at the same time. The poison seeped into his nerves, turning the line of impact into a river of pure, screaming pain.Kieran’s body arched hard against the post. A guttural scream tore from his throat.[Critical damage detected. Toxin spreading. Activating emergency mitigation.]The System’s calm, mechanical voice cut through the agony like a lifeline. The tiny, newly-fixed meridian cluster in his chest stirred, pulling in the faintest bit of ambient Qi. It didn’t make him strong. It barely made him human. But it did something isolating the poison, diverting the worst of the pain, shoring up torn tissue. He still hurt, but he could survive it.Thwack!The second lash landed just below the first. Fresh fire exploded across his b