COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

[Side Quest (new!)]

Seal Rift L-1333!

▸ Identify and neutralise rift anomaly at mortal gathering (Progress: 0%)

Reward: +100 Karma, +25 Qi Tokens, 3% Integrity

The [SYSTEM] alert blared in Eathan's vision, loud enough that it felt like it rattled his bones.

His pulse quickened immediately. He glanced around the rooftop—and froze.

The lively party had twisted at the edges.

Students were no longer just drunk; they were… wrong. Someone was swinging a pool noodle at thin air, shouting about dragons. Another girl was tearfully hugging a flickering illusion of someone who definitely wasn't there. The music warbled weirdly over the speakers, the beat slurring like a dying cassette tape.

Despite the open rooftop, the air had turned humid, thick—and there was a cloying, sickly sweet scent curling around the crowd like invisible smoke.

[CALAMITY RADAR β]

Status: Auto-online

Warning: Airborne anomalous spores detected. Hallucinogenic effect 67% and rising!

A sharp jolt ran up Eathan's spine.

Without hesitation, he shoved his way through the crowd, eyes scanning frantically. There, from the corner of his vision, a flash of familiar black leather moved. Chewie, cupcake still in one hand, trailed him with frightening calmness, as if tailing him through a battlefield instead of a house party.

Down the cellar stairs they bolted.

The wine cellar door was half-ajar, a strange, syrupy mist leaking from below. When Eathan pushed it open, he recoiled instinctively, eyes watering from the unnatural miasma. There, tangled across the expensive oak racks and swirling among the wine bottles, was an amorphous creature.

It looked like a monstrous vine-beast spun from oil and smoke, its body slick and wet-looking under the dim lights. Dozens of tendrils slithered across the floor, black and heavy, each tipped with soft-luminous purple blossoms that pulsed—

—and released puffs of hypnotic spores that thickened the cellar's air.

It was halfway anchored into the wine racks, slurping at the emotional chaos brewing upstairs like a child sucking the last of a milkshake through a straw.

Chewie didn't hesitate.

She immediately knelt down, pulling a sharpie from her jacket pocket, and started sketching a rough suppression circle across the wine-splattered floor. Her fingers moved quickly; broken corks, glass shards, spilled merlot—everything became improvised field materials to anchor the rift from further destabilisation.

The formation glimmered faintly to life under her fingers.

At the top of the stairs, Li Wei appeared, frowning down at them. Without a word, he plucked a small metallic device from his belt and tossed it toward the stairwell wall.

Thunk—click.

A low hum began vibrating through the room.

[Stabilizer Grenade Deployed]

Mortal perception delay: 10 minutes

"Ten minutes before we're trampled by tipsy college kids," he called down dryly. "Better work fast."

Eathan's heart pounded against his ribs. He whipped out his golden barcode scanner with shaky hands. It was time to use everything he'd been cramming into his brain for the past two weeks.

First, he booted [Receipt Printer].

Next, he activated [Minor Reconstitution].

With the two skills ready to go, Eathan scanned the cellar rapidly, desperately searching for something—anything—with a barcode potent enough for the task.

His first scan—an expensive vintage wine bottle barcode—printed out a thin receipt.

[Lesser Affinity Charming Talisman] has been generated!

"Too weak," he muttered, casting it aside.

Next attempt—a discarded corkscrew box—gave another short receipt.

[Dust Binding Talisman] has been generated!

He cursed, frustration mounting. He needed something stronger, something capable of sealing a slimy cellar rift monster.

Then his gaze settled on a dusty shelf stacked with industrial packing materials, labeled meticulously for shipping: rolls of heavy-duty sealing tape with bold, precise barcodes. He lunged, scanner flashing brightly. The [Receipt Printer] vibrated, spitting out a sturdy white slip humming with robust qi.

[Multi-Lock Sealing Talisman] has been generated!

Eathan's heart surged triumphantly. "Got it."

He sprang forward, dodging through a web of creeping vines. The creature jerked sharply to the side, tendrils whipping the air in erratic patterns. Chewie shouted a warning, but he'd already committed. He slapped the glowing receipt onto the creature's trunk-like core—but a tendril lashed viciously, knocking his arm aside.

The seal fluttered uselessly onto the cellar floor. Eathan cursed under his breath. He pounced at another attempt, but this time, the vine-beast lashed again, tendrils slamming into his chest. He flew backward, crashing painfully into a wine rack.

[HP] has decreased by 18%! (100% → 82%)

"Get up, Eathan!" Chewie shouted, her suppression circle struggling to hold the creature in place.

Eathan coughed into his hands, cursing under his breath at his glass-like body. Grimacing, he swept through his [SYSTEM] interface, panic feeding adrenaline into his veins. He quickly tapped into his remaining Qi Tokens.

"Looks like I've got no choice."

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

79 Qi Tokens have been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (99 → 20)

[Primary Stats Updated!]

[Strength]: Lv. 5 → Lv. 10

[Agility]: Lv. 7 → Lv. 12

Host [Level]: Lv. 5 → Lv. 6

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Strength surged through his limbs, newfound agility sharpening his perception. Now bolstered, Eathan shot forward, dodging the creature's wild sweeps. He scanned another roll of sealing tape, refining his focus.

Another sturdy receipt emerged:

[Enhanced Spatial Anchoring Talisman] has been generated!

This was his last, best shot.

Meanwhile, Li Wei stepped calmly onto the cellar floor, raising his talisman-imprinted palm. A barrier shimmered briefly, reflecting creeping tendrils that tried to break through Chewie's weakened suppression circle.

"Chewie, tighten your glyphs!" Li Wei instructed sharply. "Hold it steady!"

"Working on it," she snapped, redrawing lines to bolster containment.

Eathan maneuvered deftly around a wine rack, seizing a sturdy corked bottle with a dense barcode. Quickly scanning it produced a smaller supplementary talisman:

[Rapid Reconstitution Sealing Talisman] has been generated!

Skill [Minor Reconstitution] has been activated!

He combined both receipts—Enhanced Anchoring and Rapid Reconstitution—by slapping them together while activating [Minor Reconstitution]. They fused instantly, shimmering brightly.

With a deep breath, he lunged once more. Sprinting low across the floor, he dodged a whip of black vines and closed the distance, adrenaline flooding his veins. In one fluid motion, Eathan drove the combined talisman directly against the thickest vine trunk he could reach.

The cellar flared white-hot.

The fused talisman ignited on contact, unfolding like a flash grenade of runes. Immediately following it, a bright lattice of glowing runes exploded outward, snapping around the creature's body.

The creature froze mid-slurp, its violet blossoms flickering uncertainly.

"Chewie, now!" Eathan yelled.

Chewie surged forward, her small hands deftly weaving a spirit chain condensed from the suppression glyph circle. In a fluid, almost rehearsed motion, she trapped the rift beast within binding chains of raw spiritual force. Almost simultaneously, she pulled out a jade jar, marked clearly with divine containment runes, and popped its cork. The viney-monster shivered violently, emitting a mournful shriek as its essence was rapidly drawn into the jar.

Click.

As the last tendrils vanished, the unstable rift hovering ominously behind it collapsed into itself; the gap shrivelled like punctured plastic wrap—then snapped out of existence with a soft pop.

Breathless silence filled the cellar, broken only by the distant, confused sounds from upstairs.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

You have completed [Side Quest]:

Seal Rift L-1333

You have been rewarded: +10 Karma, +25 Qi Tokens, 3% Integrity

[Integrity] has increased by 3% (23% → 26%)

Eathan stumbled back, panting hard, wiping sweat and wine from his forehead. As he was recovering, Li Wei sauntered down the stairs finally, flicking a glance at the bottled creeper, then at Eathan's pale, exhausted face.

"Congrats—you live again."

"What the hell was that?" Eathan croaked, leaning on the wall.

Li Wei tucked his hands into his pockets, giving the jar a spin between two fingers. "Twilight Creeper," he said. "Demon Realm species. Not inherently evil—just opportunistic. They sniff out emotional highs—love, lust, drunkenness, excitement—suck it up, and convert it into unstable qi bursts."

He waved a hand vaguely upstairs.

"Hence the hallucinations. People start seeing whatever they crave most."

Eathan blinked, staring at the tiny imprisoned vine-monster swirling quietly inside the bottle. "Great," he muttered. "We almost died because someone's birthday bash got too emotional."

Chewie, wiping wine stains from her sleeves, chimed in flatly, "You get used to it."

When they climbed back up the cellar steps, the evening air hit them like a splash of cold water.

The party was still going strong.

Taeril and Quine, somehow, had migrated over to a low table on the patio where a casual game of dice had broken out. Students cheered and jeered around them, entirely unaware that two living disasters disguised as humans were calmly gambling reality into small wooden cups.

Eathan rubbed his temples, dead inside. "What if," he said, turning to Li Wei, "things had gotten out of hand down there?"

Li Wei shot him a side-eye. "You think those two weren't already aware of what went on downstairs?"

Eathan opened his mouth, then slowly closed it again. Right. Of course they knew. They were just letting him, Chewie, and Li Wei clean up the mess for "training purposes."

Before he could spiral further, someone stumbled toward him, grabbing his wrist.

Luke.

The birthday boy was absolutely wasted, but even through the fog of alcohol, his face looked devastatingly sincere.

"Bro," he slurred, blinking back shiny tears. "You—You're like... the best friend I ever had, man. Seriously. Dunno what I'd do if I hadn't met you."

Eathan froze. Despite being shitfaced out of his mind, the tone in Luke's voice was so genuine, so raw, that it made something ache a little in his chest.

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

[Humanity] has increased by 1% (90% → 91%)

Condition: Affirmed Positive Bond

Eathan's throat tightened. Without thinking, he yanked Luke into a tight hug. A little too tight, especially considering the qi tokens he'd inputted into his [Strength] stat earlier.

Luke made a choked, startled noise, his legs kicking weakly off the ground. He wheezed pathetically.

"Can't… breathe… bro..."

Eathan immediately released him, laughing sheepishly while patting his back. "Sorry, sorry."

Luke flopped against him like a stunned goldfish, but he still gave a drunken thumbs up.

Just when Eathan thought the chaos was over for the night, a sharp pop! cracked through the air.

He snapped his head around.

Over by the dice table, Quine Long had won—rather ostentatiously—and in his victory high, he flicked a casual hand upward. A tiny fountain of gold and silver fireworks exploded over the rooftop, glittering beautifully against the New York skyline.

Eathan's heart stopped.

You can't just summon supernatural pyrotechnics in front of almost two hundred mortals!

But before he could panic, Taeril, lounging in his chair with a glass of something suspiciously non-alcoholic, simply raised his glass toward the sky—

—and with a minute twist of his fingers, the fireworks dissolved into harmless champagne bubbles, drifting down harmlessly as Luke simultaneously popped open an actual bottle of champagne.

The drunk students cheered wildly, none the wiser. Eathan wheezed out a relieved exhale.

Crisis: narrowly avoided.

At the same time, the [SYSTEM] notification flared in his vision:

You have completed [Side Quest]:

Survive mortal social gathering without divine outbreak!

You have been rewarded: +10 Karma, +25 Qi Tokens, 3% Integrity

Bonus: RealmNet reputation +1 ("Intern Seals Rift Semi-Solo")

[Integrity] has increased by 3% (26% → 29%)

But that wasn't all:

Skill [Minor Reconstitution] has levelled up! (Lv.1 → Lv.2)

Repair or healing range increased to ≤ 2 m³. Works on flesh, masonry, circuitry, and runestacks.

Cost per activation: 5 Qi Tokens → 3 Qi Tokens

[Integrity] has increased by 1% (29% → 30%)

[Humanity] has decreased by 1% (91% → 90%)

Host [Level]: Lv. 6 → Lv. 8

Eathan blinked at the rapid flood of notifications, mind still reeling. He decided to look over the descriptions in detail once he was in a quieter place.

It wasn't until much later, around 3 AM, that the party finally started winding down.

Luke was completely passed out, a stupidly contented smile on his face. Eathan and Li Wei took the noble duty of hauling him up the stairs and depositing him onto one of the luxurious guest beds.

"I swear," Li Wei muttered, shifting the boy's deadweight body into something approximating a recovery position. "Mortal resilience is terrifying and admirable at the same time."

When they finally stepped out into the cool night again, it was quiet except for the wind and the distant hum of the city. Taeril walked slightly ahead, hands in his pockets. Chewie trotted beside him, finishing off the last of a pilfered cupcake, and Li Wei was dragging his feet with the gait of a man who had long since accepted the futility of existence.

Under the soft street lamps, Taeril turned slightly to Eathan. "You did well," he said simply, his voice low but not unkind. "Surviving mortal chaos is the first step to surviving divine ones."

Eathan blinked at him. His heart was inexplicably warm despite the fatigue weighing down his limbs. Beside them, Chewie crumpled her cupcake wrapper in solemnity.

"Mortal parties are surprisingly inefficient. Strategic resources wasted on beverage overproduction."

Behind them, Li Wei yawned audibly. "Yeah, the next time you want 'fieldwork experience,' Taeril, leave me out of it."

Taeril only shook his head with a chuckle, steps light against the sidewalk. Eathan trailed after him. He tilted his head back, staring up at the clear night sky, and wondered how he ended up here with the world's most ridiculous non-human (plus Captain Li) entourage. And just when he thought he could relax—

[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION

RealmNet Interface has been synced!

Host can now receive alerts based on divine social media activity spikes.

Eathan blinked, his gaze slowly lowering onto the headlines below the message.

[Trending] on RealmNet:

#AzureDragonCaughtAtMortalParty

He opened the notification hesitantly.

There, splashed all over RealmNet and seeping into surrounding platforms, was a blurred but unmistakable clip:

Quine Long smirking with a finger to the air, silver-haired "student" effortlessly neutralising rooftop fireworks with his back to the camera, a girl in a leather jacket suplexing a drunk guy away from the food table, a brooding figure in a hoodie carrying an unconscious boy—

And in the corner of the frame, Eathan himself, holding up a receipt like some discount magical warrior.

The caption read:

"What goes on at a mortal villa party???"

#MortalxImmortalPeace #SpiritStaticOverload #InvitationNeeded