I’m Christopher Li Wei, and today, I’m once again happily nuking fish.

In my last life, I was a straight‑A exam god, top scorer in the national finals, studied all the way to a post‑doc. I spent twenty bitter years buried in books, and before I even got to enjoy the sweet life of the successful… I got isekai’d.

The moment I figured out what happened, I made a vow—

This life, I’m not going to school. I’m gonna enjoy myself.

However, as a proud transmigrator and a future dragon‑protagonist in the making, my cheat is… a bit special.

Its name is “Archmage Liver‑Bursting Grind System.”

By completing all sorts of quests, I can give even the most basic spells absurd traits and power.

Like right now, there’s this deep male voice echoing in my head, informing me that my current grind is complete—

“(! Repeatable Quest: Hit aquatic‑type targets with Fireball 1000/1000) Quest complete!”

“‘Fireball’: damage to living targets increased by 10%.”

This quest system is also mandatory. Skip a day and I feel itchy all over. Skip two and my head feels like it’s splitting. Skip three and life’s worse than death. Skip four and I lose all sexual function. Skip five and I’ll explode on the spot and spiral into the sky…

I’ve only ever slacked off for three days at most. The consequences up to that point were exactly as advertised. As for the rest, I’ve never dared to test them.

Days blurred into months, months into years. With quest upon quest stacked up, I’ve become way too powerful, to the point where I taste the loneliness of invincibility every single day.

Ever since I lost a bet with a certain shady angel at age seven and one‑shot the Demon King, I realized that finding something qualified to be my opponent is really damn rare. Looking back at my recent battle record, fights that actually get my blood pumping are few and far between.

From basic spells to ancient forbidden curses, I’ve finished stacking every quest I can. I also mindlessly spammed the repeatable ones. Now a casual Fireball or Frostfinger is an instant kill…

Thankfully, I stacked “Basic·Healing” pretty well too. Every time I one‑shot someone, I can heal them back up, so I don’t end up as some mass‑murdering final boss by accident.

A month ago, I used a Fireball at 20% power to take down an Ice Phoenix. I accidentally burned its wing root to a crisp, failed the quest, and the whole trip was wasted.

If I’d known, I would’ve slow‑roasted it.

The Lord of Eternal Winter won’t respawn for another ten thousand years, so it looks like the quest “Grill Ice Phoenix Wing Root and Eat with Cumin” is never getting cleared in this lifetime.

“This game is rough. Whatever, time to head home and sell fish.”

I summoned a massive water elemental and had it scoop up all the fried fish like a gust of wind sweeping the battlefield, then headed back to town.

I don’t have parents. Didn’t have them before I crossed over, don’t have them now. I’m also terminally lazy and refuse to get a job. No way I’m working a normal job. So I fry fish and sell fish every day just to scrape by like this.

Life as a seafood dealer is hellish. I’m always arguing with nightmare customers over a couple of coins, and the Empire’s local Bureau of Commerce in town loves to give me trouble for no reason.

So my dream is to change my fate through the magic college entrance exam, get into a top imperial academy, land a cushy, respectable post, and then just eat soft rice and wait for death.

Why don’t I just flex my Archmage power, awe the masses, and rule the world? A famous fellow transmigrator, “I’ve Already Castrated Myself,” taught us with his own example that ruling the world is a massive pain. How could that possibly beat slacking off?

Besides, for special reasons, everyone who looks at me only sees a human‑rank lower‑tier magic apprentice—the weakest trash there is. With such a built‑in advantage for playing the pig to eat the tiger, if I don’t milk it for all it’s worth, am I even human?

Fate really has a twisted sense of humor. I crossed into another world and still couldn’t dodge the college entrance exam…

Luckily, I’m a natural genius. I barely have to study to stomp those idiots into the ground in the written tests. As for the practical exam, it’s ridiculously easy. Just showing 0.0001% of my Fireball output was enough to shock all the teachers at school. They all praised me as “HeDong Province’s once‑in‑a‑century magic prodigy”…

No effort, guaranteed success. Besides a certain idol whose name starts with a Y, nobody’s more awesome than me.

My life is easy, pleasant, and decadent. The only pain in the ass is the bizarre setup of this Bren Continent…

Sure, all the usual clichés exist: the Church that clutches both religious and imperial power yet still hasn’t been toppled by a people’s revolution; the Adventurer’s Guild that never does anything proper and only knows how to wage internal turf wars; the Magic Academy full of rich kids and royal brats that sends students to feed monsters every year—this whole pile of trash tropes is all here. But how do I put it…

Bren Continent is a land of magic, a fantastical and wondrous world.

Geographically, Bren is split into East and West. The East is ruled by the old‑school feudal empire of Syen, famous for its traditional, practical (combat) magic. The West belongs to the capitalist upstart, the Federal States of Amelica, masters of magical science and industrialization. There are countless small nations scattered across the continent, but in terms of power, none can compare to these two superpowers.