Stellar Slacker: I Thought This Was an Idle Game!

The final gong echoed across the Hall of Heavenly Inscriptions.

BONGGGGG.

”Time is up!” the senior proctors announced in unison. ”Set down your brushes! Any disciple who touches their paper after this moment will have their score annulled!”

A collective groan rattled through the massive hall.

Dozens of disciples slumped face-first onto their stone desks, completely drained of spiritual mana. Several young cultivators had to be carried out on stretchers by medical apprentices after exhausting their sea of consciousness.

Lyra Ashford calmly rolled up her parchment and handed it to the collecting proctor.

She stood up, smoothed down the silver hem of her robes, and walked toward the exit. Unlike the other students whose faces were ashen with despair, her golden eyes shone with quiet pride.

She didn’t need to wait for the results.

She knew that Senior Brother Felix’s twelve-minute submission had already redefined the boundaries of mortal wisdom. Whatever he had left on that table was bound to shake the foundations of the sect.

* * *

In the quiet inner grading sanctum behind the main hall, Chief Rune Master Oakhaven sat at a massive rosewood grading table.

Stacks of spirit-vellum examination papers stood four feet high around him.

Beside him, two brass braziers burned sandalwood chips, filling the room with soothing white smoke. Three senior rune masters sat at adjoining tables, rapidly grading papers with crimson cinnabar ink.

”Disappointing,” one rune master muttered, shaking his head. ”Disciple Han of the Sword Peak managed sixty-two percent on the Flowing River matrix, but he completely botched the energetic feedback loop.”

”Disciple Lin scored seventy-five percent,” another noted. ”A commendable attempt, but her grounding nodes are far too fragile to sustain high-tier lightning mana.”

Oakhaven sighed, rubbing the bridge of his crooked nose.

”Mortal talents always stumble when confronted with the infinite,” Oakhaven said softly, his voice weary. ”They view formations as rigid cages of stone and ink. They do not understand that true arrays are living, breathing songs of the cosmos.”

He picked up the next paper from the top of the submitted pile.

It was the lone sheet that had been handed in just twelve minutes into the exam.

The name on the header was written in a messy, slouched scrawl: Felix Vance.

Oakhaven’s gray brows knit together in mild irritation. He picked up his red grading brush, dipping the bristles into the scarlet inkwell.

”The insolent youth from the Seventh Spire,” Oakhaven murmured with a faint scoff. ”Handing in his paper before the incense had even burned down an inch. Let us see what childish scribbles he used to disguise his utter ignorance.”

He unrolled the crisp sheet of golden spirit-vellum.

He prepared to draw a swift, slashing red zero across the surface.

Then, his eyes fell upon the ink.

Oakhaven’s breath vanished.

The red brush froze three inches above the page. A drop of crimson ink gathered at the tip, hung suspended, and fell onto the wooden table with a soft splat.

The air in the grading sanctum suddenly grew heavy.

An unnatural gravitational density gathered above the rosewood table, pressing down on Oakhaven’s shoulders like a mountain of lead.

Deep inside Oakhaven’s chest, his spiritual core shuddered violently. His long silver beard began to crackle with blue static sparks, tiny ribbons of white smoke curling from the ends of his whiskers!

”Grand Elder?” one of the junior examiners asked, looking over with concern. ”Are you feeling unwell?”

Oakhaven didn’t hear him.

The world around him had faded into complete, roaring static. His vision was entirely locked onto the four simple, stark ink diagrams sketched across the parchment.

Great Dao Above... Oakhaven’s soul screamed in silent, petrified awe. What... what am I looking at?!

【 Item: Felix Vance’s Exam Scroll | Real Nature: 8-Bit Mobile Game UI Wireframe | Evaluator Note: Master Oakhaven is having an existential spiritual crisis over a battery icon and a recycle bin. 】

[SPIRITUAL INSCRIPTION EXAM: SUBMISSION EVALUATION]

Candidate: Felix Vance (Seventh Spire)

Time to Completion: 12 Minutes (Record)

Array Schematics Identified:

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• Battery Bar (Tri-Cell Infinite Energy Reservoir)

• Progress Bar (Linear Stream of Universal Time)

• Circular Arrow (Perpetual Karmic Reincarnation Engine)

• Waste Basket (Void Basin of Karmic Purification)

Grade: TRANSCENDENT MYTHIC (Beyond Numerical Scoring)

His trembling finger hovered over the top-right corner of the page.

There sat a clean, hollow rectangle with a small rectangular node protruding from its right edge. Inside the rectangle were three solid blocks of black ink, while the fourth section remained open.

To a mortal fool, it was a crude box.

To Oakhaven’s five-hundred-year-old formation mastery, it was a revelation that shattered every pillar of established talisman craft!

”A three-cell hermetic reservoir...” Oakhaven gasped, his voice cracking into a high-pitched squeak. ”Look at the terminal node on the outer boundary! Every master in the empire struggles with spiritual power leakage! When we store celestial mana in jade talismans, half the energy bleeds into the air within forty-eight hours!”

He leaned closer, his nose nearly touching the damp ink.

”He... he bypassed the leakage entirely!” Oakhaven wheezed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum. ”By dividing the internal volume into three equal quantum compartments and venting only through a single unidirectional terminal, the array achieves zero energetic decay! It is a perpetual spiritual battery! It can hold solar fire for ten thousand years without spilling a drop!”

The junior examiners rose from their seats, alarmed by the old man’s wild, bulging eyes.

”Elder Oakhaven, please calm yourself!” one cried. ”Your core resonance is spiking!”

”Look at the central meridian!” Oakhaven shouted, slamming both palms onto the desk. ”LOOK AT IT!”

His shaking finger pointed to the long horizontal bar running across the upper third of the vellum.

The bar was shaded dark from left to right, stopping precisely at the ninety-nine percent mark. Beside the tiny remaining gap sat a microscopic arrow pointing forward.

Oakhaven’s breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. Tears welled up in his milky eyes and spilled over his wrinkled cheeks.

”The Great Path of Mortal Ascension...” Oakhaven wept openly. ”For three millennia, our academy has debated the nature of cultivation bottlenecks! We wrote thousands of scrolls arguing whether breakthrough requires emotional enlightenment or violent tribulation!”

He traced the smooth line of the progress bar with a shaking fingernail.

”And here... in one single horizontal stroke... he proves it is a linear accumulation of cosmic mass!” Oakhaven sobbed in holy terror. ”From the first drop of Qi to the peak of the mortal realm, it is simply a continuous, measurable charge! And that tiny unfinished gap... that one percent... that is the Heavenly Tribulation Gate! He marked it with a directional vector, showing that breakthrough is not a gamble of luck, but a guaranteed mechanical inevitability!”

”Elder, surely that is just an unfinished box—” a proctor attempted to intervene.

”SILENCE, BLIND FOOL!” Oakhaven roared, his aura flaring so hard the heavy rosewood table cracked down the middle.

He pointed to the center of the sheet.

A clean, triangular cursor arrow hovered diagonally over an empty square. Tiny motion marks curved behind the arrowhead, depicting impossible kinetic speed.

”The Sovereign Vector of Pure Will!” Oakhaven’s voice cracked with religious fervor. ”No mudras! No chanted mantras! No sixty-four hand seals required to channel a spell! Look at the trajectory! A single descending strike of pure intent, repeated fifty times in the blink of an eye!”

He clutched his temples, laughing maniacally as golden lightning flickered across his eyebrows.

”An automated divine harvest!” Oakhaven shouted. ”He has drafted a method for the soul to strike the heavenly anvil continuously without human fatigue! While the cultivator sleeps, the Divine Vector labors in the void, reaping cosmic rewards every second! It is the fabled Auto-Cultivation Scripture of the Primeval Gods!”

Finally, Oakhaven’s gaze dropped to the bottom-right corner.

A cylindrical bucket with vertical hatch marks and a tilted lid.

Beside it lay Felix’s casual note: Junk goes here.

Oakhaven stared at the little trash can for five whole seconds. Then, his knees buckled.

He collapsed against the edge of the desk, clutching his chest as his sea of consciousness expanded by three hundred miles in an instant!

CRACK!

A golden halo of breakthrough enlightenment detonated behind Oakhaven’s head, illuminating the dark sanctum with brilliant amber brilliance!

”The Cosmic Void Recycler...” Oakhaven whispered in trembling, holy horror. ”The ultimate solution to karmic backlash! When we refine artifacts, the spiritual dross pollutes our meridians! When we kill our enemies, karmic blood-debt clings to our souls! But this sacred receptacle... it swallows the negative karma! It deletes the spiritual filth into absolute nothingness!”

He read the bottom scrawl aloud, his voice trembling with reverent dread:

”’UI layout needs optimization... Energy efficiency 100%... Auto-farming enabled... Junk goes here...’”

Oakhaven translated each word through the lens of supreme Daoist enlightenment.

”UI... Universal Inception!” Oakhaven screamed, raising his arms to the ceiling. ”The Universal Inception of the cosmos! Energy efficiency one hundred percent—the mythical lossless Heavenly Circulation! Auto-farming—the universe cultivating on your behalf while you rest! And junk goes here—the total detachment from worldly pride and mortal greed!”

The three junior examiners fell to their knees, their faces pale as paper as they bathed in the radiant golden breakthrough light pouring off their chief.

”This is not an examination paper,” Oakhaven declared, his voice ringing with absolute, terrifying certainty. ”This is the lost Ninth-Tier Divine Celestial Array of Infinite Karma! An ancient sovereign has descended upon our academy and left us the blueprint of the heavens!”

He grabbed the paper with both hands, cradling it against his chest like an infant prince.

”Out of my way!” Oakhaven bellowed.

He didn’t walk. He didn’t stride.

He kicked the heavy oak doors of the grading room clean off their iron hinges!

BANG!

The doors splintered into shards, and Chief Rune Master Oakhaven sprinted out into the central academy courtyard at maximum velocity.

His golden robes whipped in the wind. His long silver beard trailed behind his shoulder like a banner of white smoke. His bare feet barely touched the cobblestones as he flew across the campus like a madman possessed by the gods.

”A MIRACLE!” Oakhaven shrieked at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing across all seven mountain peaks. ”THE HEAVENS HAVE OPENED! THE PRIMORDIAL SOVEREIGN HAS BESTOWED THE SACRED BLUEPRINT UPON OUR MORTAL SOILS!”

Hundreds of outer disciples, sweeping the courtyard steps, froze in absolute shock.

Two sword-cultivators soaring overhead on flying swords nearly collided in mid-air, tumbling into an ornamental lotus pond in their panic.

”Is that... Chief Rune Master Oakhaven?”

”Why is he running without his shoes?!”

”Why is his beard on fire?!”

”CHANCELLOR ALISTAIR!” Oakhaven screamed, sprinting up the marble steps of the Grand Council Tower four steps at a time. ”CONVENE THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS! PREPARE THE NINE HEAVENLY DRUMS! THE DIVINE BLUEPRINT HAS BEEN REVEALED!”

* * *

Three miles away, on the peaceful peak of Solitude Spire, the breeze rustled gently through the cedar eaves.

In the small bedroom, Felix Vance lay sprawled sideways across his straw mattress.

He was hugging a soft bolster with both arms, snoring softly into his linen pillow.

Over on the ceiling beam, Barnaby vibrated with muffled frustration behind his black rubber stopper: ”Mmph... mm-grr-ph...”

Under the dining table, the Sovereign Heart Seal remained completely motionless, holding the table steady as always.

Felix smacked his lips in his sleep, murmuring lazily into the warm afternoon air:

”Mmm... skip cutscene... claim daily login... five more minutes...”

He rolled over, pulled the wool blanket higher over his shoulders, and went right back to his dream of infinite free gacha pulls.