To Get Enough to Eat, I Had to Become a Savior

[Thank you, everyone, for supporting the official version! The full text is being polished, and pirated copies differ greatly from the official version.] [Coming soon: Rehired by the Superpower Academy, but Every Great Sage Is My Secret Identity. Blurb below.]

The Celestial Realm is revising its laws, including a ban on eating your coworkers.

Shi / Taotie / Loves Eating Coworkers / Yang: ... This little beast feels wronged, but this little beast won't say a thing.

After watching lots of videos of pets being fed with food right to their mouths, Shi Yang packed a bag and descended to the mortal realm.

He wanted to find someone to scoop his poop and live off them in comfort.

But when he saw monsters crawling all over the ground, Shi Yang wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, pulled out his chopsticks with dignified restraint, and then

... Gag!

This tastes awful!

The people from the Anomalous Species Management Bureau, who had thought they were about to die on duty, stared at the young man in astonishment. Then they came to their senses, rushed over, and served the big shot four dishes and a soup.

Shi Yang was so moved that tears welled up in his eyes. Delicious, so delicious.

Nearby, the deputy director of the Anomalous Species Management Bureau quietly took out his communications device:

"Right, no casualties."

"What a joke, why would I lie to you? We ran into a big shot!"

"By the way, find everyone in the bureau who's good at cooking. Don't ask so many questions. I have a plan."

After hanging up, the deputy director looked at Shi Yang and smiled so widely that crow's feet appeared at the corners of his eyes.

And just like that, Shi Yang got himself a secure job, while everyone at the Anomalous Species Management Bureau started studying cooking, staying up all night to think of 10,086 ways to prepare anomalous species.

With everyone at the bureau constantly feeding him, Shi Yang gradually went off course

A B-rank weird fish head? Never heard of it. Might as well have a taste.

An A-rank double-headed bone-spike snake? Looks pretty impressive. I'll try two bites.

An S-rank hundred-tentacled octopus?! It smells so good! Then he would feast!

And so the city's safety kept improving, while the death rate among anomalous species soared.

The anomalous species, nearly eaten into endangered status: The Anomalous Species Management Bureau! You fight dirty!

One day, Shi Yang was eating monster stir-fried with chili peppers while looking at the host in front of him, who was asking how he felt about becoming a savior.

Shi Yang looked around, then pointed at himself. "Huh? The savior? Me?"

Coming Soon

[Rehired by the Superpower Academy, but Every Great Sage Is My Secret Identity]

1. Jiang Xun was a star employee at the System Bureau. He worked diligently for three hundred years, creating eighteen secret identities in a world of the uncanny, and finally established the world's first superpower academy: Wanxiang Academy.

After hundreds of years of work, Wanxiang Academy had graduates all over the world, with talent spread across the globe. The uncanny had been defeated, and human civilization had entered a golden age.

Jiang Xun was satisfied. He submitted his resignation and prepared to enjoy a peaceful retirement.

But when he opened his eyes, he found himself a thousand years in the future.

The uncanny had returned, the order of the human world had collapsed, and civilization had suffered a rupture.

Wanxiang Academy had fallen from grace and vanished without a trace.

Jiang, at a loss for words, Xun: ...?

Most absurd of all, some System had appeared out of nowhere and was chattering in his ear. "Host! Your mission is to join Wanxiang Academy as a lecturer and restore this fallen, venerable institution to its former glory as the world's number one!"

"Do you know? The first head of Wanxiang Academy was a godlike figure who created the world! Every generation after that had famous geniuses too. Wanxiang Academy was unbelievably awesome in its early days!"

As he listened to the System's impassioned shouting, Jiang Xun primly straightened his collar.

Yes, that's right. All those people you mentioned are me.

After all, humans couldn't live forever, and there was no superpower that could grant immortality. To run the academy, he had no choice but to keep changing his secret identities.

One day he was the head of the academy, the next he was the dean of students, and the day after that he was promoted to full professor. He had even served as captain of the security team.

Unable to bear seeing the academy in such a sorry state, Jiang Xun cheerfully took the job.

He stood in front of the honor roll, looking at the all-too-familiar names listed there: Head Jiang Lin, Mister Sanshui, Professor Gong, Mentor Shui, and others. Jiang Xun cleared his throat twice.

Well, this is awkward.

2. But Jiang Xun soon ran into a real setback.

After the Great Calamity, human civilization had suffered a severe rupture. The teaching theories, practical experience, and superpower development manuals he'd left behind were all incomplete.

The children at the academy treated the words of those great sages as gospel. Every day, they pored over incomplete copies and quoted him at every turn.

But those words were only half complete!!!

Jiang Xun covered his face and fell silent

One day.

A student holding Selected Sayings of Jiang Lin raised his arms and shouted, "The key to superpowers lies in using them cleverly, not in brute force, "

A crowd of students gathered around him, echoing his words, their faces flushed with excitement.

Seeing this, Jiang Xun started to speak, stopped, started again, and finally couldn't hold back. "There's another half to that sentence: If you have neither cleverness nor brute force, then go home and herd sheep."

The entire place fell silent. The students all turned to glare at him, clearly displeased. "Who are you?"

Jiang Xun smiled slightly. "Your new theory lecturer."

3. In the days that followed, the students began to notice that there was something a little off about Lecturer Jiang.

He never opened a book while teaching, yet he could quote the contents of ancient scrolls from memory, and even supplement and correct them.

The superpower techniques he demonstrated on a whim were completely different from what the books taught, yet they were a hundred times more effective.

His comments on assignments were strange, too. He always wrote a line first, then crossed it out. One student recognized the crossed-out line as, "I already explained this question before," even though it was their first class with Lecturer Jiang.

More absurdly, he knew all sorts of little secrets about the great sages.

"Mister Sanshui didn't like tea. He liked cola, but they didn't have it back then."

"Professor Gong made that school rule simply because a student had annoyed him. It had absolutely nothing to do with studying."

"Oh, Head Jiang Lin? Well, he was... particularly perfect. His only flaw was forgetting which secret identity he was using. I mean, which clothes he was wearing. Yes, that's right."

The students: "...?! How do you know everything?"

Jiang, who had forgotten his secret identity again, Xun: "The history books also record this matter."

The students believed him. After all, this lecturer really was powerful.

4. After that.

A month later, Jiang Xun took the class at the bottom of the rankings to first place in their year.

Three months later, the textbooks he revised were adopted by the entire school.

Six months later, Wanxiang Academy had climbed from near the bottom to the country's top ten.

A year later, Wanxiang Academy reclaimed its throne as the world's number one.

Word began to spread throughout the superpower world: a genius had emerged at Wanxiang Academy a thousand years later, a genius among geniuses.

Just as the academy's reputation was booming and powerful families and high-ranking officials were eager to send their children there to study

The sky and earth changed color, and the void trembled.

An indescribable being slowly descended above the academy.

The students' expressions changed. The legendary evil god had returned to the mortal world after vanishing for a thousand years!

Their faces went deathly pale, yet not one of them stepped back. Shouting about bonds, courage, and not letting down their teacher, they charged forward, ready to die.

At the critical moment, Jiang Xun, who had just finished grading assignments, stopped and looked up at the shadow blotting out the sky.

Look closely, and you would see that the being was carrying a ton of cola in its left hand and dragging a truckload of Maotai in its right.

Jiang Xun stood with his hands behind his back, shook his head, and sighed helplessly. "Little Ke, a thousand years have passed, and you still know how to handle people so well."

Everyone who heard Lecturer Jiang's words: ...??? What?!

The evil god, quietly setting its gifts by the entrance: sheepish head-scratching.jpg.

[Bonus Scene]

One day, after finally getting connected, the System learned about its Host's glorious past and fell silent for a long time.

"Host, you... built an academy all by yourself?"

"Mm."

"And ran it for a thousand years?!"

"Mm."

"And you also happened to suppress five evil gods, hundreds of world-ending uncanny beings, and tens of thousands of panic-level anomalies???"

"Mm."

"One of them was the one who brought cola that day. The others are locked up in the basement. Two of them look pretty unusual. Want to go see?" Jiang Xun asked enthusiastically.

The System, whose mind had been blown by the surprise: Wait, I need to reboot.

Core message: Eat well and work hard to save the world.