Mount Lu's Dragon Ascension

"Is this a superpower? I just actively removed that door-welding effect..."

"I'd tried mentally shouting 'release' before, but it didn't work. So do I have to touch it myself before I can release it?"

Wu Zhong summed up the "doors" he had used. It was as if they had acknowledged him as their master. Only he could open doors he had closed himself, and only he could close doors he had opened himself. No one else could budge them.

Including the gas pedal! Tch, this was seriously bizarre.

Luckily, he could remove the effect. But he couldn't do it from afar—he had to be touching the door.

At that thought, Wu Zhong suddenly froze. "Oh no... what about that elevator?"

He carefully thought back. If elevator doors and car doors were affected like this... then before leaving, he seemed to have closed the building entrance door on the first floor too...

The firefighters, property management staff, and security guards were all still inside.

"Fuck!"

Wu Zhong shuddered all over. No wonder he had seen a crowd gathered in the residential complex when he got off the bus. He had welded the building entrance shut!

He shot to his feet and immediately planned to go back and check.

The boss was startled and stopped him. "Where are you going during work hours? Still not over it? Don't be so impulsive, kid."

"Whatever you're upset about, play some games on your phone and you'll forget it."

Wu Zhong casually made something up. "I ran into a ghost. Can't I take the day off?"

The boss glared at him. "What nonsense are you talking about in broad daylight?"

Wu Zhong insisted on going back. "I'm exhausted. I'm so sleepy I can barely stay awake. I'm going home to catch up on sleep. Can I at least take half a day off?"

Seeing him put it that way, the boss did not stop him.

After all, Wu Zhong was a model worker and one of the shop's main pillars. Ever since he had started working overtime every day, customers' cars were repaired the same day or the next.

The boss was actually worried about his health too. Seeing him finally take leave, he was relieved instead.

Wu Zhong ran out of the shop and rushed nonstop to Harmony Gardens, outside his own building.

Good lord. The moment he arrived, he was dumbfounded.

A large crowd had gathered here, and the residents of the complex were all talking about it.

Wu Zhong saw firefighters removing the entire entrance gate and loading it onto a truck.

"Bro, what happened?" Sweating profusely, Wu Zhong grabbed a passerby and asked.

The passerby said, "This complex is really falling apart."

"First the elevator malfunctioned and trapped residents. The firefighters finally came and rescued them, but then the damn entrance gate wouldn't open. The firefighters had to jump down from the second floor."

"Property management couldn't get the gate open no matter what they did. Then, as you can see, the firefighters chiseled apart the connections and removed the whole frame."

Wu Zhong stared at the building entrance. All that remained was a hole, with the edges of the wall chiseled away.

"Couldn't they just saw off the lock cylinder? Why remove the whole frame?" Wu Zhong asked curiously.

The passerby said, "I heard they sawed through the lock cylinder, but the door still wouldn't open. Several firefighters rammed it together, but they only knocked chunks off the wall around the frame. So they just removed the frame altogether."

Wu Zhong's eyes widened in shock. His "Ghost-Welded Door" ability really did weld doors shut.

Locked or not, nobody else could open or close them.

Even cutting the lock cylinder did nothing!

An invisible force had welded the door's state in place? Only he could move it?

The more he thought about such a strange kind of door after coming into contact with it for so long, the more wrong it felt.

No, he had to remove the effect quickly.

Pretending to be curious, Wu Zhong squeezed closer and walked over to the tow truck. He casually reached out and tapped the huge iron gate with a fingertip.

Clang. Since the gate was lying tilted against the back of the truck and its lock cylinder had been sawed off, the moment he removed the effect, it swung open under its own weight.

Everyone looked over. Wu Zhong had already withdrawn his hand, blending into the crowd as he stared on with an equally curious expression.

The firefighters came over and tried pushing and pulling it. The gate was completely normal now, opening and closing freely. They clicked their tongues in amazement.

Fortunately, there were too many onlookers, so nobody thought too much about it. They only found it strange. "Well, isn't that weird? It was already loaded onto the truck, and it fixed itself."

Though it was an odd occurrence, everyone merely treated it as a joke, allowing Wu Zhong to secretly let out a breath.

He left the crowd and ran into the building. Seeing that the elevator doors were still wide open, he hurried over to remove the effect.

However, property management had blocked it off with plastic barricades and stopped him. "Hey, the elevator's broken. Don't get close."

Wu Zhong walked to the side. "I'll take the other one..."

He pressed the up button and silently thought, Release. Sure enough, it worked here too.

Just as he was about to enter the elevator, the "broken elevator" on the other side suddenly closed its doors on its own.

Sure enough, if a door could be opened and closed with buttons, then touching the buttons could remove the effect as well.

And the two elevators shared the same set of control buttons.

"Is it fixed?" Wu Zhong asked with feigned surprise.

Property management was not surprised at all. He calmly said, "That damned elevator is slow to respond. It's dangerous, so don't use it. Take the other one."

Wu Zhong gave an affirmative hum and took the other elevator home.

He was now certain that he had somehow gained the ability to "weld doors."

Though he thought the ability was fucking stupid, it was still a superpower.

He needed to study it properly...

But ten minutes later, he had already finished evaluating it... This ability was even more useless than he had imagined.

First, he could not sense any energy at all. It was as if he had no ability in the first place.

Every door he used functioned completely normally for him, so he could not experience the effect of his own ability...

It was just that after he used a door, it became abnormal for everyone else. Nobody could open or close any door he had used unless he actively released it.

"What the hell is this useful for?"

Wu Zhong's first thought was to use it to make money. He could not help it—poverty had driven him mad.

But after thinking it over and over, how could this ability make money? He had no idea.

The only thing worth mentioning was that he had discovered the definition of "door" was quite broad.

Since he had previously welded the "gas pedal" shut, he thought of an "electrical switch."

He pushed and pulled the circuit breaker in his own home, but as before, every sort of door functioned perfectly normally in his hands.

After thinking for a while, Wu Zhong simply went down to the first floor and pulled the power breaker for the entire building, then waited nearby for property management to handle it.

This residential complex was really old. Its breakers had tripped often in the past, so nobody would suspect someone had deliberately pulled it.

After a while, property management came to inspect the breaker.

"What the hell is broken again?" The property manager was on the verge of collapse too.

Wu Zhong wandered over. Sure enough, no matter how the property manager fiddled with it, he could not push the breaker back up.

Property management hurried to call an electrician. Wu Zhong stood nearby watching and chatted with the manager.

When the electrician arrived, he was baffled as well. He had no idea how the breaker had become stuck. It simply could not be reset.

"So it's confirmed. Electrical switches are doors too. Or rather... all switches and gates that control pathways are doors."

Wu Zhong pondered inwardly. He could make every door acknowledge him as its master, preventing others from using it—but so what?

How could he make use of that?

Could he become an electrician, secretly break people's electrical switches so nobody could fix them, then go fix them himself?

How much money could that make? He might as well work more overtime.

And if too many unexplained malfunctions happened, he would have no way to explain himself.

Honestly, he was still feeling uneasy about the building entrance incident today.

Luckily, the firefighters were at work too. They probably had no spare time to investigate a scrapped gate in detail.

And seeing the property manager drenched in sweat, he felt a little guilty. He opened his phone and saw that the residents' group chat had already begun blasting property management...

First there had been the elevator incident, then the building entrance incident, and now a power outage. Property management was completely overwhelmed.

"Want me to try? Maybe it's just stuck. A little force might push it back into place," Wu Zhong suggested.

But property management told him to stay away.

The electrician also said, "Don't touch it. The breaker's old. We'll just replace it."

The experienced electrician immediately began reconnecting the wiring and replacing the switch.

Sure enough, it was fixed in just a few minutes, and power was restored to the entire building.

"..." Wu Zhong stared blankly.

Seeing the electrician put away the removed breaker blade, he hurried over and touched it, releasing the lock.

Then he casually asked, "It's fixed already?"

The electrician calmly said, "Small problem."

"..." Wu Zhong scratched his head.

It really was a small problem. Though locking a door in place was a mysterious supernatural ability.

Couldn't they just replace the door? That was what the firefighters had done, and now the electrician had done the same thing.

He had locked the switch, not the electrical circuit. The current was still perfectly normal. The electrician could even solve it by simply reconnecting a wire.

Wu Zhong was helpless. His idea of deliberately breaking some kind of door and then fixing it to make money died before it could even begin.

Not only was the risk high, he would not make much money either. There was no need to consider it at all.

He returned home dejectedly, looked left and right, took out his phone and played with it for a while, then became completely lost.

The good news was that he had a superpower.

The bad news was that he still had to go to work.

He thought for a long time. First, this ability could not defeat enemies or increase his combat strength.

Second, it could not let him fly through the sky or burrow through the earth, improving his mobility.

Third, it could not create anything or bring him wealth.

Fourth, it could not influence people's hearts or improve his social skills.

"Heavens above! What kind of useless garbage ability is this?"

"If a webnovel protagonist awakened a cheat like this, wouldn't the story flop immediately?"

Wu Zhong lay around at home for a while, growing more and more unwilling to accept it.

No, he had to calm down and think harder. It had to be useful somehow.

"Doors, doors, doors... What other kinds of doors are there?"

"House doors, car doors, gas pedals, electrical switches... What about government departments?"

"Daoist sects, Buddhist sects, Confucian schools... the Southern Heavenly Gate?"

Wu Zhong furiously ran his hands through his hair, letting his thoughts wander wildly. He even thought of celebrity sex scandals...

But then came the problem. Even if those counted as doors, how was he supposed to open or close them?

Only doors he had used first would acknowledge him as their master and become locked from others' use.

How was he supposed to close the Buddhist gate? The Daoist gate? The Southern Heavenly Gate? A celebrity sex scandal?

Those intangible things were obviously beyond his reach. He could not use or test them.

"Tch... Should I just throw myself at the government and see if I can score a stable job?"

"After all, I do have a superpower."

Wu Zhong lay back down again.

He looked outside. The weather had worsened further. Dark clouds filled the sky, and lightning flashed amid rolling thunder.

The weather had suddenly deteriorated since that morning, so Wu Zhong hurriedly brought his clothes in.

Then he casually made some egg fried rice at home, ate, and started scrolling through short videos.

Soon, a local video was recommended to him.

Someone had filmed an unusual storm at Mount Lu's Five Elders Peaks. There were even halos of light and mysterious creatures on the mountaintop.

The footage had been filmed by a tourist. Mount Lu had originally been shrouded in clouds and mist, with rosy vapors splitting the light like some immortal paradise.

Then the glowing clouds suddenly twisted, and the sea of air churned.

A huge vortex appeared above the viewing platform. The air instantly erupted into violent turmoil, restless and urgent.

The flow became so fast that it seemed to produce sonic booms. Gale-force winds howled toward the center at terrifying speed, compressing and detonating.

The tourists were swept away by the airflow before they could react. Only the person filming was farther away, halfway up the mountain. Had he not clung tightly to the railing, he likely would have been blown into the sky too.

Everything within the restricted area of Five Old Peaks rose into the air, creating a scene straight out of an apocalyptic blockbuster.

"Heh heh." Wu Zhong took another two bites of rice.

The spectacle of light, mist, wind, and clouds converging in the sea of clouds was quite beautiful.

The most outrageous part came at the end. With a thunderous roar from within the vortex, a shockwave suddenly burst outward, and a fierce, majestic dragon head emerged from the ball of light.

It really was a dragon, with huge horns, a magnificent mane, and gleaming scales.

It was just somewhat distorted. The shifting light and shadows were blurry, as though it were a mirage formed from gas.

"Ha, obviously AI."

Wu Zhong stuffed another couple mouthfuls of rice into his mouth.

He kept scrolling through short videos of strange lights and shadows in Mount Lu's sea of clouds. They showed that local firefighters had already arrived.

Halfway up the mountain, tourists clung desperately to railings amid the fierce winds as they waited for rescue. It had to be said that the railings at Mount Lu Scenic Area were extremely sturdy. Some were even part of the mountain rock itself, merely carved and built into stone railings.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! More and more monsters emerged out of thin air from the eye of the storm. None of them paid attention to the tourists. They were wholly focused on flying through the sea of clouds, as if commanding wind and rain while transporting matter toward the vortex's center.

Each one looked like a deity. Aside from the dragon in the sea of clouds, there were bird-headed humanoids and creatures with bull horns and wings.

The Feather People were the most numerous. Each had feathers stuck in their hair and a pair of wings growing from their ribs, dazzling in every color.

But all of them looked rather ethereal. Their bodies were essentially as elusive as streams of air, like mirages.

When the local fire department helicopter arrived, its rotors could clearly be seen shredding those seemingly powerful bodies. But soon afterward, the helicopter was sucked in, crashed into the cyclone, exploded, and vanished. Even the flames were swallowed whole.

Such a horrific scene was paired with stirring music, giving the video the feel of a commercial blockbuster.

The image quality was just a little blurry.

"What year is this? They're still using such trash special effects? Can't they at least make it clearer?"

Wu Zhong kept scrolling while eating, his expression calm.

Then he noticed the profile icon in the corner. It had been posted by Mount Lu Tourism's official account. Oh. Never mind, then.

He glanced through the comments again. Sure enough, a whole crowd of talented wiseasses were joking, "The Demon-Refining Gourd I lost in the mortal world has finally been found."

"They look like the divine demons and strange beasts from legend, ancient aberrations."

"Wasn't that mythology?"

"Spiritual energy is reviving, and myths are descending into reality?"

"They look like monsters from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Are they tasty?"

"The one with the bull horns is delicious. Remember to braise it in a pressure cooker for three hours until it's fall-apart tender. Add plenty of star anise and chili peppers—it'll smell amazing."

"I don't eat beef."

"They're clearly ancient ingredients! A carefully selected recipe passed down by our ancestors."

"After eating hot pot for so many years, can I finally have 'dragon intestines,' 'dragon brain,' and 'dragon omasum'?"

"Damn, I'm drooling already."

"Tsk, a bunch of demonic cultivators. The 749 Bureau won't be able to keep you down anymore. [doge]"

"The Age of Dharma Decline was meant to seal monsters like us away. You think the revival of spiritual energy means everyone becomes a dragon, cultivates diligently, and competes alongside all races. But the real revival means billions of demonic cultivators bursting out of Blue Star and shouting that they'll wipe out all the heavens and worlds."

Wu Zhong nearly died laughing in the comments section. He casually left a comment of his own: "With my naturally born workhorse bones, even giving me an immortal cultivation technique would be useless. I'd better focus on making money."

Then he swiped the video away.

Not long afterward, he came across a hurricane weather warning advising tourists that the Mount Lu scenic area had been temporarily closed.

The forecast also predicted prolonged hurricanes and rainfall in the days ahead.

"Every rainy season brings this kind of damn weather."

Wu Zhong curled his lip. Northern Jiangxi Province was famous for its bizarre climate, and weather forecasts were often inaccurate.

Take Hongdu, the provincial capital, for example. Last year, it had experienced a violent thunderstorm, with over ten thousand lightning strikes exploding across the sky in a single night.

The year before that, powerful convective air currents had ripped open the walls of buildings and swept residents into the sky.

Three years ago, many parts of Poyang, the largest freshwater lake, had dried up into grasslands and even deserts...

As a local, Wu Zhong had grown used to all of it. It was nothing remarkable.

Right now, he only wanted three things: make money, make money, and fucking make money.