On the wire-net-covered roof of Hoshizuki High School, a group of male students lounged in a loose circle, lazily passing a joint between them. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the rooftop, its warmth tempered by the occasional gust of wind that carried wisps of smoke into the open sky. The conversation shifted from idle gossip to ridiculous debates about video games, sports, and women.
Oliver sat near the edge, leaning back on his hands, watching the ember glow as the joint made its way around. When it finally reached him, he took a slow, deliberate drag—not for the high, but for the faint ripple it sent through his dantian. The sensation was subtle, like a hidden current beneath still waters, but it was unmistakable. He exhaled slowly, letting the smoke dissipate into the air as he tried to make sense of it.
The bell rang in the distance, marking the end of lunch break. A collective groan rippled through the group as they reluctantly stretched and brushed off their uniforms.
"Ugh, I don't wanna go back to class," Kazu muttered, rolling his shoulders. "This was way better than listening to Fujimoto drone on about chemical bonds."
"Yeah, well, unless you wanna repeat the year, you better move your ass," another boy chuckled, shoving Kazu toward the rooftop exit.
As they started heading down, Oliver lingered for a moment, then turned to Kazu, keeping his tone light. "How much for a bag?"
Kazu blinked, then smirked. "Oh? You actually wanna buy some?"
Oliver shrugged. "Might as well. Got a price?"
Kazu tapped the tin in his pocket, considering. "Depends on the quality. You want the good shit or just something cheap?"
Oliver hesitated, but only for a second. If this stuff really could help his cultivation, he needed the best he could get.
"The good stuff."
Kazu gave a lazy nod. "Alright. I'll hook you up. We'll talk later after I'm done with study club..."
With that, they filed down the stairwell, slipping into the sea of students navigating the halls. The familiar scent of worn textbooks and floor polish replaced the smoke-laced air of the rooftop, and the distant hum of teachers lecturing through classroom doors signaled the return to routine.
Oliver made his way to his classroom, sliding into his usual seat near the back just as the teacher finished writing something incomprehensible on the board. He barely glanced at it before turning to the girl beside him—Akari.
Short, with blond hair tied into low twin-tails, Akari had the kind of sharp, mischievous eyes that made it impossible to tell whether she was scheming or just amused by some perverse thought. Which, knowing her, was probably the latter.
The moment Oliver sat down, she leaned over, her voice low. "You reek of smoke."
"Gee, I wonder why," he muttered, adjusting his uniform.
Akari grinned, resting her chin on her hand. "Didn't think you were the type to get high. Should I be concerned? Or impressed?"
"Neither," Oliver said dryly.
"Did Kazu drag you into it?"
Oliver shook his head. "Not exactly. Just... trying something new."
She studied him for a moment, then smirked. "Well, whatever. If you turn into a burnout, don't expect me to carry your ass in the club meetings."
Oliver scoffed. "Right, because watching anime and arguing about Xianxia cultivation ranks is such a heavy burden."
Akari laughed under her breath, leaning back in her seat. "Hey, Asian culture is serious business. We built that club on a sacred foundation of watching trashy isekai and calling it 'research.'"
Oliver smirked. "And Ren somehow convinced the teachers it was legit."
"He's a goddamn miracle worker."
The teacher called for attention, and Akari sighed, flipping open her notebook with an exaggerated groan. Oliver followed suit, though his mind was elsewhere.
The lingering pulse in his dantian was still there. If something as simple as smoking could trigger his Qi, what else was out there?
And just how far could he take this?
The lecture droned on in the background, but Oliver barely registered the words. His pen moved absently over his notebook, his thoughts consumed by the strange, unfamiliar sensation in his dantian.
But as he went deep into thought, a nudge to his arm pulled him back.
"You're doing that thing again," Akari whispered.
Oliver glanced at her. "What thing?"
"The brooding protagonist thing." She smirked, twirling her pen between her fingers. "I swear, sometimes I feel like you're gonna start monologuing about fate and destiny."
Oliver rolled his eyes. "And sometimes I feel like you should shut up and take notes."
Akari gasped, mock-offended. "How dare you. I am a diligent scholar of Asian culture, thank you very much."
"Right. That's why you spent all of last period reading a doujin under your textbook."
She grinned shamelessly. "It was educational."
Oliver sighed, shaking his head. Despite everything, he couldn't help but relax a little. Akari was… Akari. Unapologetically herself, unbothered by anyone's judgment. It was strangely grounding.
The lesson dragged on, the teacher's voice a distant hum. Oliver's eyes flicked toward the clock. Thirty more minutes. Too long.
Ren, sitting a few seats ahead, lazily scribbled in his notebook. He was more subtle than Akari, but just as much of a slacker. The three of them had built the Asian Culture Club from nothing, somehow convincing the school it was an educational endeavor while using it as an excuse to watch anime, debate manga power systems, and drag unsuspecting members into their madness. It was the one place in this school that actually felt like his.
The thought settled something in him. No matter how much he needed to figure out his cultivation, he had time. For now, he'd sit through class, meet up with Ren and Akari later, and maybe—just maybe—get some answers soon.
After all classes were finished for the day, most students packed up and headed home, while those involved in clubs made their way to their respective rooms. Among them, in one of the smaller, lesser-known clubrooms of Hoshizuki High, a group of five students gathered inside what could only be described as a shrine to their shared obsessions.
The Asian Culture Club's room was cramped but cozy, its shelves packed to the brim with manga, wuxia and xianxia novels, and old anime CDs. A small TV sat against the wall, hooked up to an ancient DVD player, both of which had survived countless club screenings. The air carried the faint scent of instant ramen and the ink of well-worn pages, and a long, slightly unstable table in the center was covered with everything from light novels to a few half-finished sketches.
Seated around the room, the five members lounged in various states of relaxation. Ren leaned back in his chair, flipping through a volume of an old action shonen, while Akari sat cross-legged on the floor, reading something she probably shouldn't be in a school setting. The other two members, a quiet underclassman named Hiroshi and a second-year girl named Yuki, were sorting through a stack of new arrivals, debating which series should be added to the club's "must-read" list.
Oliver sat opposite of Ren with his arms crossed, his gaze distant. Normally, club meetings were something he looked forward to—the only part of the school day that didn't feel like a complete waste of time. But today, his mind was elsewhere, turning over everything that had happened on the roof, the strange pulse in his dantian, the way his body reacted to the smoke.
Akari must have noticed his strange behavior. She snapped her book shut with a loud thwap and grinned at him.
"You've been weird all day," she said, tilting her head. "What's up? Thinking about confessing to your secret crush?"
Oliver scoffed, forcing himself back into the flow of the conversation. "Yeah, sure. I've been so overwhelmed by my love for Ren that I can barely focus."
Ren, without even looking up from his book, replied with an unbothered, "Understandable."
Akari cackled, kicking her legs out from where she sat on the floor. "You wish. But seriously, what's going on? You've been totally checked out in class."
Oliver hesitated. He couldn't just say "I think I've awakened Qi" outright. Even if Ren and Akari were among the few people he could actually talk to, that was the kind of thing that would get him laughed out of the room. But he needed answers, and this was his best shot at getting them without tipping his hand.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly.
"It's about that dream pattern ritual you guys gave me," he said, watching their reactions carefully. "Stuff happened in that dream, and… I felt like some of it carried over. Like, it wasn't just some random dream bullshit—it actually stuck with me. It's still on my mind."
Ren finally looked up, curious. "What do you mean 'stuck with you'?"
Oliver tapped his temple. "Like, knowledge I didn't have before. You ever feel like that after using it? Like, let's take you as an example, Ren. You said your dream setting was some kind of… what? A porn studio or something, right?"
Ren grinned. "The finest in dream-crafted degeneracy."
Oliver rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. But have you ever felt like you actually learned something real from it? Like, I don't know, you wake up and suddenly you know camera angles or lighting setups, or hell, some… uh, practical techniques?"
Akari snorted, the sound echoing through the small club room. "Are you asking if Ren learned how to do porn moves from lucid dreaming?" She raised an eyebrow, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Ren smirked, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. "I mean, I am a man of culture, but no. Nothing like that. Sure, I felt like I was some kind of directing genius in the dream, but when I woke up, it was just… vague impressions. Nothing concrete. I think the community I got it from called it false enlightenment or something?"
Oliver frowned. "False enlightenment?"
Ren nodded, stretching his arms over his head. "Yeah, basically. You think you're learning something in the dream, and sometimes you can refine stuff you already had a foundation in—like drawing or memorizing a story you've read before. But if you go in with zero knowledge, it's all nonsense when you wake up. You feel like you understood something deep, but it doesn't hold up in reality."
Oliver processed that, his mind working through the implications. What he experienced… it didn't feel like false enlightenment.
Which meant one of two things.
Either he was imagining all of this and the weed had amplified it…
Or, as Ren had casually mentioned earlier, maybe he actually had some kind of latent foundation in cultivation, and the dream ritual had awakened something deep inside him—something that wasn't just a product of a random dream, but something real. A real shift, a real change.
His stomach tightened with the weight of that thought. Was he really cultivating Qi now? And how far could this take him?
He shifted in his seat, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table, trying to shake off the unease growing in his chest.
"Thanks… I think that actually helped clear things up a bit," Oliver said at last, breaking the silence. He kept his tone casual, but his mind was still racing, trying to piece everything together. "Anyway, you got any more of those pattern printouts? I want to set up the dream ritual again when I get home."
Ren raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, instead reaching into his bag. "Yeah, give me a sec."
After rummaging through his things, he pulled out a stack of papers, handing them over to Oliver. The printouts were covered in intricate, swirling patterns, the lines forming almost hypnotic shapes that seemed to shift the longer he looked at them. The red, green, and blue colors blended together in a way that made his eyes feel strangely drawn into the design, as if the patterns themselves were alive, whispering some hidden meaning only he could grasp.
Oliver ran his fingers over the paper, feeling an odd weight behind them, though he knew they were just ink and cheap printer paper. Still, something about them made his skin tingle.
"Don't lose them," Ren said, his voice light but carrying an edge of seriousness. "You'll need these if you really want to dive back in."
Oliver gave a short nod, slipping the papers into his bag before leaning back in his chair. His eyes lingered on the ceiling for a brief moment as thoughts churned in his head. If the dream ritual really was just a trick to heighten brain activity, then what he had experienced shouldn't have felt so real. And yet…
He shook the thought away. Now wasn't the time to dwell on it.
Akari, having finished flipping through her latest doujin, suddenly tossed the book onto the table with a thud and stretched her arms above her head, letting out a satisfied sigh. "Alright, enough of this dream ritual bullshit. We've got the whole afternoon left before we have to go home, and I refuse to spend it talking about weird cult patterns or whatever. Let's just chill."
"Sounds good to me," Ren said, grabbing the small TV remote and flicking it on. The screen lit up, filling the clubroom with the familiar opening sequence of the anime they'd been binge-watching. "You in, Oliver?"
Oliver glanced at the screen, then smirked. "Like you even have to ask."
The five of them settled into their usual club routine. They had already torn through a fresh stack of manga, debating which ones deserved a spot on their coveted must-read list—an argument that had nearly ended in violence when Akari and Ren butted heads over a particular series.
Now that the dust had settled, Oliver leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, the glow of the TV casting flickering light across the dim room. The others seemed engrossed in the anime, but his attention drifted elsewhere.
Akari sat across from him, sprawled out in that completely unladylike way she always did, her legs apart like she couldn't care less. Her tanned skin stood out against the crisp black of her uniform skirt, the top buttons of her blouse undone just enough to reveal the lacy edge of a bra that peeked out every time she shifted. Her long, dyed-blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, and she absently twirled a strand around her finger while sipping from a juice box, the straw between her lips in a way Oliver couldn't help but notice.
Damn. She really has the gyaru thing down to an art form. The sun-kissed skin, the bold attitude, the complete disregard for proper posture—or modesty, for that matter.
His gaze lingered a little too long on the smooth curve of her thighs, toned from years of casually doing sports but never sticking to one club. The way her skirt barely covered anything when she leaned forward, completely unconcerned about the view.
She caught him looking.
"The hell are you staring at, creep?" she teased, smirking around her straw.
Oliver didn't flinch. He knew Akari well enough to tell when she was actually annoyed—and this wasn't one of those times. If anything, she liked the attention.
"Just wondering how the hell you manage to sit like that without flashing the whole room," he shot back, matching her smirk.
Akari grinned. "Skill issue."
Ren chuckled beside them, clearly overhearing. "Nah, Oliver's just finally embracing his inner degenerate."
"Finally?" Akari scoffed, stretching her arms above her head—an act that only emphasized her chest. "Dude was always one. He just recurrently began to suck at hiding it."
Oliver rolled his eyes, but didn't deny it.
Just then, Yuki, the club's newest member, emerged from the back of the room where she'd been rearranging books. If Akari was all bold colors and sharp edges, Yuki was her opposite—pale, slender, with sleek black hair framing her delicate features. Her uniform was immaculate, every button fastened, her skirt at the exact regulation length.
And yet, even dressed so conservatively, there was something about her. The way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear when she was nervous. The way her lips parted slightly when she was concentrating, as if on the verge of speaking but always holding back.
Oliver's gaze drifted lower, tracing the subtle curves hidden beneath her uniform. Yuki wasn't as in-your-face as Akari, but that just made her appeal hit differently—the quiet kind of charm that snuck up on you.
She turned and caught him looking.
Unlike Akari, she didn't call him out. Instead, a faint blush dusted her cheeks before she quickly looked away, pretending not to notice.
Oliver smirked to himself.
The club meeting carried on as usual—anime, manga debates, Ren rambling about the latest wuxia web novel he was obsessed with.
After a while, Oliver checked the time. He still had to meet up with Kazu. With a stretch, he grabbed his bag and stood.
"Alright, I'm heading out first."
"Um… Senpai," Yuki's soft voice stopped him just as he reached the door. "You're hading toward Hoshizakura, right? Can we walk together?"
Oliver glanced at her, then at the others, who were all exchanging knowing looks. Akari's smirk was especially obnoxious.
"Yeah, sure," Oliver said, ignoring the teasing looks from his club members. "But I gotta make a quick stop first. If you don't mind waiting, we can go together."
Yuki nodded, her expression unreadable, and followed him out of the clubroom.
The hallways were quieter now, most students already having left for the day. The occasional straggler lingered near lockers or in front of classrooms, but the usual bustle had quieted down. The soft hum of teachers wrapping up their meetings and the faint squeak of doors closing echoed through the stillness.
Yuki walked beside him, her steps light and measured. She kept a respectful distance, never too close, yet never so far that it felt like she was avoiding him. Oliver couldn't help but notice the way she moved—graceful, deliberate, and oddly serene. It was a stark contrast to Akari's bold, unapologetic presence, but just as captivating in its own way.
The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable. Yuki wasn't much of a talker, and Oliver was content with that. His mind was already elsewhere, running through the details of his upcoming deal with Kazu. He still couldn't shake the sense of curiosity—and maybe a bit of excitement—about what that deal might lead to.
Every now and then, Yuki would seem like she wanted to say something but would close her mouth again before the words could form. Oliver caught a few of those moments, noticing the slight furrow in her brow each time. It was clear she had something on her mind, but wasn't ready to share.
They reached the study club room, and Oliver knocked lightly on the door. A voice from inside called out, "Come in!"
Oliver opened the door and stepped inside, followed closely by Yuki. The room was filled with seven students, four males and three females, all gathered around a large table. They looked up at him as he entered, the air in the room shifting slightly at his presence.
"Sorry to interrupt," Oliver said with a casual smile. "I was just here to see if Kazu's still around."
"No problem at all, senpai," a second-year girl chimed in, flashing him a bright smile as she stood from the table. "We were wrapping up anyway."
Oliver nodded in acknowledgment and scanned the room. His eyes landed on Kazu, who was already packing up his bag, clearly prepared to leave. As soon as he noticed Oliver, he dropped the bag on the floor, a sly grin tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Oh, Oliver, I almost forgot we were supposed to meet after this club meeting," Kazu said, standing up and stretching. "Anyway, who's this? Don't tell me you've gone and got yourself a girlfriend without me knowing?"
Oliver waved off Kazu's teasing. "Nah, she's just a friend," he replied, glancing at Yuki, who was standing quietly by his side, looking around the room with mild curiosity.
Kazu raised an eyebrow but didn't press the matter. Instead, he looked at Oliver with that signature smirk of his, clearly amused. "If you say so, but I'm not buying it. But speaking of buying," Kazu continued, slinging his bag over his shoulder, "let's head out of here and talk. I've got something to show you."
Oliver glanced at Yuki. "You mind if she comes along? I'm walking her home after this."
Yuki nodded slightly, a soft, almost unnoticeable smile playing on her lips. "It's fine with me," she said quietly.
Kazu gave a half-hearted shrug. "Sure, why not? More the merrier."
The three of them stepped out of the study club room and made their way down the hall. Oliver couldn't help but notice how Yuki walked with a certain grace, her movements fluid and deliberate, in stark contrast to Kazu's usual laid-back swagger. Kazu was already talking about something, but Oliver's focus was split between his conversation and the feeling of anticipation growing in his chest.
The trio exited the school building, and Oliver couldn't shake the feeling that this was a pivotal moment—this was the first time he was actually buying weed from Kazu, and it felt a lot more real than just trying it out in a moment of reckless curiosity.
"So," Oliver began, trying to break the silence. "How much are we talking for the stuff?"
Kazu smirked, keeping his pace steady as they walked toward the quieter part of the school grounds. "You're about to get a very good deal, my friend. I'm not gonna sell it to you just yet, though. Thought I'd give you a little sample to get you started."
Oliver raised an eyebrow. "A sample?"
Kazu nodded, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small, bagged bundle. He handed it over casually. "Yeah, this is just a taste. Something to see how it hits you before we talk prices. You know, make sure it's what you want."
Oliver hesitated for a moment before accepting the bag. He didn't recognize the packaging, but the smell was enough to tell him it was potent. His heart raced just a little as he thought back to the first time Kazu had introduced him to weed—the heady rush, the way the world had seemed to slow down as Qi slowly built up within him, how everything had felt more alive in that moment.
"Thanks," Oliver said, slipping the bag into his pocket. "But, what's the full price? How much are we talking about for more?"
Kazu's smirk widened as he gave Oliver a knowing glance. "Oh, it's gonna cost you a bit, but trust me, you won't find anything like it around. You're looking at about ten grand for a decent amount—if you're serious about this. Quality's all I deal in, man."
Oliver's mind whirred for a moment, running the numbers. Ten thousand yen wasn't exactly pocket change, but for something that could possibly take him to another level... it seemed worth it. Plus, with his first sample in hand, he was more than a little curious about how this new batch would hit him.
"That's a lot," Oliver said slowly, his tone thoughtful, "but if it's really as good as you say, I'm in."
Kazu laughed lightly, clapping Oliver on the back. "Good man. We'll talk more once you've had a taste of that sample. And trust me, once you're on this stuff, you won't want to go back to the regular stuff."
Oliver nodded, feeling a mix of excitement and nerves coursing through him. He wasn't sure where this path would lead, but there was a part of him that didn't mind not knowing. The thrill of the unknown was all part of the deal.
They continued walking, talking casually about the stuff Kazu had been dealing with lately, but Oliver's thoughts kept drifting back to the small bundle in his pocket. Tonight was going to be interesting.