The red DoorDash thermal bag on Mike’s rear rack was humming. It wasn't a subtle vibration; it was a deep, resonant, localized earthquake that rattled Mike’s molars with every revolution of his tires. The cheap nylon was practically glowing with a radioactive emerald aura, bleeding high-density spiritual radiation into the cold, damp air.
He needed to offload this haul, and he needed to do it immediately before the cheap thermal foil gave out and leveled a city block.
Mike blitzed down the hills, leaving the pristine, geo-fenced air of Pacific Heights behind. The transition back into the slums was a physical blow. The air instantly turned to sludge—thick with the suffocating smog of "Free-Tier" recycled energy. But for the first time in his life, Mike didn't care. He was insulated. The Root Admin repulsion field kept the grime off his windbreaker, and the sheer ambient bleed-off from the pizza bag behind him was more than enough to keep his meridians flooded with power.
He banked hard, the modified e-bike sliding on the wet asphalt as he turned under the iconic, neon-lit Dragon Gate.
Chinatown.
To the Heavenly Dao System, this sector was a massive, red-flagged containment zone. It was a chaotic tangle of overlapping, unregistered spiritual nodes, bootleg arrays, and illegal data streams. It was where the people who couldn't afford the $9.99/month Basic Tier scraped together enough ambient energy to survive the week.
Mike navigated the labyrinth of narrow streets, dodging delivery trucks and tourists, until he slipped into a claustrophobic, garbage-strewn back alley off Grant Avenue. The neon sign above the rusted metal door flickered, buzzing like a dying wasp: Golden Lotus Eatery.
This was Sister Zhang’s place. The front was a standard, mediocre dim sum joint that catered to clueless tourists. The back kitchen, however, was one of the oldest unregistered underground Qi nodes in the city.
Mike killed the e-bike’s motor, the Cherry MX switch clicking sharply in the gloom. He swung his leg over the saddle, ready to haul his glowing loot inside.
But as he grabbed the handles of the thermal bag, he froze.
Parked halfway down the alley, engine idling with a silent, menacing hum, was a matte-black bulletproof SUV.
Mike’s thumb instantly went to the raw, bleeding callus on his index finger. He dug his nail into it, his heart rate spiking. He knew that SUV. It was the exact same model that had boxed him into the dead-end alley a few hours ago.
Heavenly Dao Compliance Dept.
He crept toward the rusted back door of the restaurant, peeking through the greasy, wire-reinforced glass window.
Inside the cramped, stainless-steel kitchen, the air was heavy with the smell of stale frying oil and spiritual distress. Sister Zhang, a fierce, forty-something woman wearing a stained apron over a faded graphic tee, was backed up against the industrial sinks. She was clutching a heavy meat cleaver, her knuckles white.
But the cleaver was useless. She was suffocating.
Standing in front of her was a man in a tailored black suit. He had a silver Heavenly Dao badge pinned to his lapel, and he was casually tapping on a transparent, holographic tablet. Mike recognized him instantly. It was the same mid-level supervisor from the alley. The guy who had looked at Mike like he was a piece of rotting garbage right before Mike’s phone pinged with that agonizing delivery timeout.
"I’ve already paid this month's allocation," Sister Zhang hissed, her voice trembling as she fought for air. The ambient Qi in the kitchen was being aggressively vacuumed into a localized black hole centered on the Suit’s silver badge.
"You paid your base network fee, Mrs. Zhang," the Suit replied, his voice a perfectly modulated, corporate drone. He didn't even look up from his tablet. "However, a recent audit of your sector indicates that your establishment has been acting as a parasitic node. You’re leaching bandwidth from the main grid to subsidize the cultivation of unregistered, free-tier vagrants in this alley."
"They're just kids and old men trying to breathe!" Zhang yelled, pointing the cleaver at him. "You algorithms have sucked the main grid dry!"
"Violation of System Terms of Service, Section 4.b," the Suit continued smoothly, swiping a finger across his screen. "We are assessing a punitive Karma Debt of eight thousand points. Payable immediately."
"I don't have eight thousand points! That's three years of accumulated merit!"
"Then your account will be liquidated, and your localized node will be physically formatted," the Suit said coldly. He raised his hand. His palm began to glow with a sickly, golden light—the Asset Freeze Seal. He reached toward Sister Zhang’s forehead to forcibly extract the Karma from her soul.
BANG.
The rusted metal back door kicked open, slamming so hard against the brick wall that it dented the hinges.
The Suit paused, turning his head in annoyance. Sister Zhang gasped, dropping the cleaver with a clatter.
Mike stood in the doorway. The San Francisco fog rolled in around his boots. He was dripping wet, his faded DoorDash uniform plastered to his chest. In his right hand, he casually held his cracked phone. In his left hand, he gripped the straps of the red DoorDash thermal bag, which was currently leaking high-intensity, emerald-green light from its seams like a contained star.
"You know," Mike said, his voice deadly quiet, "I hate coming to the back door. The grease totally ruins the traction on my tires."
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The Suit’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Mike, then at the glowing bag, and finally, a flicker of recognition crossed his cold, corporate face.
"You. The delivery rat from the alley," the Suit sneered, lowering his hand. "I don't know how you escaped formatting, or what sort of contraband you have in that bag, but you just escalated a misdemeanor into a capital offense."
"Yeah, well, I’ve had a really bad night," Mike said, stepping fully into the kitchen. He popped a piece of crushed fortune cookie into his mouth, chewed it aggressively, and swallowed. "And I don't like people who mess with my favorite pickup spot."
"Mike, get out of here!" Sister Zhang yelled, coughing as the pressure in the room fluctuated. "He’s an Executive Tier enforcer! You can't fight him!"
"I'm not going to fight him, Zhang," Mike said, his thumb viciously picking at his callus. He raised his cracked phone. "I’m just going to audit him."
The Suit actually laughed—a dry, mechanical sound. "Audit me? I am the law of the Heavenly Dao. I hold the authority to dispense Karma and Tribulation."
"Cool," Mike muttered. "Let's check your Yelp reviews."
Mike’s thumb swiped across his cracked screen, expertly navigating around the dead zone in the bottom right corner. The neon-green terminal code flared to life.
With Root Access, the world wasn't just a physical space anymore; it was an open database. Mike didn't look at the Suit's tailored clothes or his glowing aura. He looked at the hovering data tag above the man's head.
[Target: Enforcer_ID_419] [Cultivation Tier: Executive (Late Stage)] [Current Karma Balance: +14,500 (Excellent)]
Karma. The ultimate currency of the Cultivation world. In the old days, it was a measure of good deeds. Now, under the capitalist Heavenly Dao, it was a credit score. If your Karma was high, you got fast-lane breakthroughs and premium luck. If your Karma dropped into the negative… the System stepped in.
"You have a very healthy account balance, ID 419," Mike said, typing rapidly with one hand. "Fourteen thousand points. Must have ruined a lot of lives to grind that much corporate merit."
"I'm going to enjoy wiping your data," the Suit said, the golden light in his palm intensifying as he stepped toward Mike.
"Let's see how much the System loves you when you're broke," Mike whispered.
He didn't need to throw a punch. He didn't need to cast a spell. He was the Administrator.
Mike entered a single, devastating line of code into the root directory.
> Edit_User_Variable [ID_419] : {Karma_Balance} > Set_Value: -999,999
The terminal prompted a confirmation.
[Warning: Modifying core Karma metrics violates causality protocols. Proceed?]
Mike’s thumb bypassed the broken glass and hit the green Execute command.
"Have a 1-star day, asshole."
Click.
For a fraction of a second, absolutely nothing happened. The Suit took another step forward, his golden hand raised to strike Mike down.
Then, the universe lagged.
The temperature in the kitchen plummeted by thirty degrees. The fluorescent lights overhead shattered simultaneously in a shower of sparks. The Suit froze mid-step, his eyes widening in absolute, paralyzing terror as the holographic tablet in his hand shrieked with a deafening system alarm.
【 CRITICAL ALERT! CRITICAL ALERT! 】 【 User ID 419: Unfathomable Karma Deficit Detected. 】 【 Status: Heretic. Abomination. Enemy of the Heavenly Dao. 】 【 Automated Moderation Protocol Initiated. Dispensing Heavenly Tribulation. 】
"No…" the Suit whispered, the golden aura around him instantly turning a putrid, sickly gray. "No, this is a glitch! I am an Enforcer! I am Premium Tier!"
"System doesn't care about your tier when your credit score hits rock bottom, buddy," Mike said, taking a very quick, very large step backward and pulling Sister Zhang by the apron out of the center of the room.
Outside, the San Francisco sky tore open.
There was no thunder. There was only a sound like a server rack being dropped from a ten-story building.
A pillar of blinding, blindingly white-blue divine lightning—the System's ultimate moderation tool—crashed straight down from the heavens. It didn't care about the roof of the building. It completely ignored the structural integrity of the second-floor apartments. The Tribulation lightning phased through the physical matter of the ceiling and struck the Suit directly on the crown of his perfectly styled head.
The Enforcer didn't even have time to scream.
The blast of divine energy obliterated his premium cultivation in an instant. The impact was so violent it blew the stainless-steel prep tables against the walls and sent a shockwave of displaced air that knocked Mike and Zhang off their feet.
The blinding light faded, leaving behind the smell of ozone, burnt hair, and melted silicon.
In the center of the kitchen, surrounded by a perfectly circular scorch mark on the linoleum floor, lay the Suit. He wasn't dead, but he was completely, utterly fried. His custom suit was smoking rags, his hair was standing on end, and his spiritual nodes were totally shattered. His hovering data tag now read:
[Cultivation Tier: Mortal (Banned)]
Sister Zhang slowly sat up from behind the overturned sink, her eyes wide with shock. She looked at the smoking crater, then slowly turned her head to look at Mike.
Mike was lying on his back, covered in a fine layer of drywall dust. He was staring at the ceiling, his breathing shallow. He slowly raised his hands, clutching his DoorDash helmet in sheer panic.
"Oh my god," Mike breathed out, his eyes wide with horror.
"Mike…" Zhang whispered, awe in her voice. "Mike, you just… you just called down a Heavenly Tribulation. You smote an Executive Enforcer. You… you're a god."
"No, you don't understand!" Mike scrambled to his feet, frantically wiping the dust off his phone screen with his sleeve. His chest heaved as his "5-Star PTSD" completely hijacked his brain. "That’s an official System employee! If the algorithm logs this as a hostile interaction with a corporate representative, it’s an automatic account strike! They’re going to suspend my delivery account! This is a guaranteed 1-star review!"
He practically lunged at the unconscious Suit, shaking the smoking man by the lapels. "Hey! Hey, wake up! It was a glitch! Rate your moderation experience five stars! I need verbal confirmation!"
Sister Zhang stared at him, her mouth hanging open. The guy had just rewritten reality, and he was having a panic attack about his gig-economy rating.
She stood up, grabbed a damp dish towel, and threw it at Mike’s head.
"Snap out of it, you idiot!" Zhang barked. She pointed a trembling finger at the glowing DoorDash bag resting near the back door. The emerald light was still pulsing, casting eerie shadows across the ruined kitchen. "Forget the review! What the hell is in that bag?!"
Mike stopped shaking the unconscious Enforcer. He took a deep breath, letting go of the smoking lapels, and stood up. He dusted off his windbreaker, his thumb finding its way back to his bleeding callus.
He walked over to the thermal bag, the ambient heat warming his chilled hands. He looked at Zhang, his snarky, defensive facade sliding perfectly back into place.
"This?" Mike nudged the glowing bag with his boot. "Just some tips from a satisfied customer in Pacific Heights." He looked around the devastated kitchen, the shattered lights, the hole in the ceiling. "Hope you've got good insurance, Zhang. We're going to need to set up a new router."
He literally called down the wrath of heaven on a corporate suit and his first thought was "my rating!"
Is Mike okay? (No.) Discuss his traumatic relationship with the algorithm on
Read 6 chapters ahead on and see if his 5-star fear ever gets better
*Have a 1-star day, everyone.*
There is nothing more satisfying than weaponizing a credit score against the people who invented the system. Mike might have the power of a god, but you can take the boy out of DoorDash, but you can't take the DoorDash out of the boy—that 5-star PTSD is going to haunt him all the way to the top.
Let me know what you thought of the Heavenly Tribulation in the comments! Does the idea of karma being treated like a programmable credit score work for you? Don't forget to follow, rate, and check out the Patreon if you want to see what happens when Mike opens that glowing bag and turns Chinatown into an Open-Source Heaven. See you in Chapter 5!