《Video Game Developer in a Cultivation World》


 Chapter 1: Welcome to the new world, nothing like the old world

    James leaned back in his chair as the victory screen flashed on his computer. He sighed, quickly going through the match in his head.


    He came to a miserable conclusion; matchmaking would never find true balance.


    It seemed to him that now that he''d exhausted all of the classic and good stand-alone single-player games, the online games he''d started to pass the time with all suffered under the same issue. Either the enemy team would have players much better than those on his team, or his team would be much better than that of the enemy. 80% of games seemed either won or lost in the first few seconds of the loading screen, and the other 20% didn''t really make up for the deficit.


    He groaned as he stood up, bones and muscles creaking from disuse. He left behind his brightly lit study filled with bookshelves, documents and one absolutely gigantic computer. He''d thought that after retiring early at age 30 through some smart investing his life would truly start. But, just as he''d handed in his decommission and withdrawn enough money from his savings account to buy an apartment in Manhattan, the covid pandemic had started and he''d seemingly been stuck in lockdown after lockdown for nigh two years now.


    It had been fun at first, he''d been a bit sick of people anyway. He''d had time to go through his backlog of series, movies, books and video games that he hadn''t watched, read, or played because he''d been too busy working in an attempt to not have to do so anymore.


    That enjoyment had lasted approximately three months. New to the city, having moved from San Francisco where he''d sold his company, he''d been essentially shot in the knee in terms of social prospecting. The lockdowns and general distrust prevented him from truly developing a social circle in his new environment.


    He walked to the kitchen, past the marble island and pulled a cold beer out of the fridge. Then he went to sit down on the balcony, from which one could catch a glimpse of Central Park in between the skyscrapers. It was April and the flowers were starting to bloom. People were once again becoming optimistic about perhaps finally being able to live their lives instead of wearing masks everywhere and not being allowed to leave the house in high regularities. Last summer had been a brief reprieve, before back to usual.


    "Would be nice," he sighed as he sipped his drink, lying slumped on the couch taking up most of his grey balcony. He''d read all the books, watched all the shows, seen all the movies. His most constant companion throughout the time had been the countless amazing video games he''d played, some of which he''d even gone through several times. That was saying something considering he had a photographic memory. But now, he''d gone through everything... Only the highest-level games could satisfy him now that he''d consumed so many, and those weren''t being released quickly enough to keep his attention for even half the time he had on his hands and nothing to do with.


    "If this shit doesn''t end soon," he muttered, finishing the beer in one go and looking at the aluminium can in his hands. "I don''t know what I''ll do." He considered for a moment, before deciding that if he hadn''t done anything bad during this whole shitshow, he could at least do this. He whipped his arm back and threw the can off the balcony. It didn''t fly particularly high before being picked up by one of the extremely powerful gusts of wind so common at this altitude and flying right back in his face.


    Everything went black.


    -/-


    James did not as much awaken with a groan, as with a muffled scream. He didn''t know where he was, what he was doing, or what was happening. All he knew was that he couldn''t move and that his eyelids felt heavier than dumbbells. He lay there, on what must have been a wooden floor, for several minutes, trying not to suffocate through the difficulty of simple breathing.


    Thankfully he started feeling more in his body soon, normalising his air intake and opening his eyes. This didn''t necessarily help, however, as the ceiling that he saw above him wasn''t even closely related to anything that he would have expected.


    With how bad he was feeling he could have rationalised waking up in his bed, or in a hospital. But what greeted his vision once he finally opened his eyes was a circular wooden roof. The symmetry of its beam structure was beautiful, but the simple aesthetics couldn''t gloss over the fact that he''d never seen anything like it. He winced as a sharp stab went through his brain. What did he mean that he didn''t see anything like it? He clearly had.


    What felt like foreign memories assaulted his mind and he instinctively tried to ward them off. It didn''t work and he rolled over so that he was lying down on his stomach, and laboriously got on all fours as his subconscious started haltingly interpreting the new information. This new position offered him a new view of the surrounding space, which didn''t manage to make him calm down in the slightest.


    Sure, it was nice to become more aware of one''s surroundings, information was king and all that. However, when the surroundings didn''t resemble anything one had ever seen before, this became a bit of an unfortunate view.


    James found himself staring at what looked like a traditional Chinese cottage, one of those that he''d seen in some of the period dramas he''d watched. Wooden panelling and intricate honey-comb windows showed that it was a clear day outside. A little beaten-down table with carvings of dragons and tigers and mythical creatures held a series of scrolls and an odd metal box that was absolutely covered in scribbles and was emitting a low white light.


    Somehow, without remembering where he''d learnt this information, James knew that the object was called a Room. This was a bit of an unfortunate nomenclature since it seemed that the cottage he was in only consisted of a room as well. There was a little stove with some beaten-up-looking pots and a rickety bed with a mattress made of straw.


    "What the fuckkkkk," James groaned as he scrambled around in a circle on all fours to take in the space he''d been seemingly dropped into. "What the fuck!"


    Another bout of pain went through his brain, suddenly bringing into his consciousness the desire to look to the left. He turned his head, finding an open roll of parchment on the floor next to what looked like a clay bottle. Not that it would help him any, as the words on it looked to be some sort of foreign language James had never seen in his life. However, from one blink to the next, the squiggles reordered themselves into comprehensible text and he was able to make out the meaning of the tauntingly short message.


    I am sorry, sect Elder Qin, but the truth was that I never intended to finish creating the Illusion which would allow me to ascend to the status of an inner disciple. You see, I have been burdened since the first day I can remember with a mysterious illness. An illness that nobody could diagnose, and which seemed to be pulling my soul further and further out of my body every day. I hypothesise that this was the reason why the heavenly energy filled my body so easily, as there was a void to fill. But, the condition makes any such cultivation essentially useless, as there is no point in trying to ascend if one is doomed to disappear. If you''ve found this note, then I can only assume that the pain has finally reached unbearable levels and that I partook in the last drink to release myself from this suffering.


    I am sorry to have used the Illusion Room Sect as a last respite before my imminent demise, but even this apology is fake, as I cannot apologise for what my heart saw as a necessity. To gain a place to live out my last days. The sect has not always been welcoming to an outsider like me, but it has been for the most part peaceful. For that I thank you. It is perhaps ironic to be thanking you for something you never wished to grant, but which I took freely like a thief in the night. I hope that my disciple labour has offset the investment cost of my education. The most valuable thing, the Room, I have left untouched. May another disciple use it to create what I did not.


    Yours in regret,


    Jin Fan


    James finished reading, just in time for the foreign memories, the things that had been trying to penetrate his brain, to finally unfold in his mind, like a flower in spring. James suddenly remembered things he''d never experienced.


    Growing up in a small village called Xia Er close to the imperial capital and suffered his entire life from incurable spiritual pain. Realising that he was talented in gathering the heavenly motes which fell from the sky and rejoicing, for to become a cultivator was the greatest honour for a farmer''s son such as him. This joy tampered by the diagnosis of inevitable death. The anger, regret, grief, acceptance.


    His entry into the grand sect of illusions, not to truly become a member, a producer of fake worlds for other, more martially inclined cultivators, but simply to live out the rest of his days in relative peace and solitude.


    The last few years of his life, of learning the methods of the Illusion Room sect, trying desperately not to befriend the other outer disciples. The expectations of his immediate superior Elder Qin, and Jin''s disappointment at being unable to meet the man''s expectations.


    In a way it was sad. Jin had cultivated, and learned the theory of how to infuse a Room with an illusion; he''d passed the basic stages of mind-based cultivation and had even achieved very good results in all the tests indicating one''s future potential. However, right before being able to create his first work, the pain had become unbearable, and Jin had decided to slip out of his life as quietly as he had entered it.


    It was a pitiable story. In most situations, James, now Jin, might have even shed a small tear of sympathy.


    However, there was only one thing preventing him from really caring.


    The rage.


    James sat on the floor, his new body shaking from exertion, before suddenly shouting. "You fucking piece of shit! Kill yourself for all I care, but why drag me into this!"


    He stood up and kicked at the bed, hurting his toe and starting to hop around madly.


    "Worked, endlessly, tirelessly, for a fucking decade, only for you to leave me this pile of garbage life? Final exam in one week. No fucking work done! A world without functional plumbing, running water, or electricity? Is this a fucking joke!" he shouted and struck out at the small table set in a corner, causing it to fall over and unceremoniously lose a leg.


    "Retirement, immediately a pandemic, and now this?" Jin shouted, stomping around and waving his arms wildly. "What was the point of the burn-outs and the stress if I immediately become a magical fucking farmer?" he screamed at the wooden roof. However, whatever god existed in this cursed world, they were not listening.


    James paused and pondered the thought that had just passed through his mind. He furrowed his brows. Cursed world? He wondered. Why was it cursed?


    His eyes widened in realisation as the appropriate memory packet was accessed through his inquiry. "Fucking demons, hellspawn?" he muttered, aghast. "Half the world is under the control of the dark forces?"


    He fell to his knees.


    "You fucking piece of shit Jin Fan! Return here immediately and take your crappy life back!" he shouted, his voice breaking at the abuse he was putting his vocal cords through. Then, from sheer anger alone, he unceremoniously fell unconscious right there on the floor.


    -/-


    The last time James had awoken from his "slumber," he''d been too weak to open his eyes at first. His body has still been adjusting to its new host, and everything felt like it took way too much effort.


    Now? He just didn''t want to open them. If he opened them he risked still being in that oriental cottage with the now broken table and the rickety bed. It didn''t matter that he felt wood underneath his body, it was only when he opened his eyes that the new reality would be confirmed.


    Of course, James considered during this time if he was tripping, or sleeping, but it felt too real. Dreams felt real but fell apart at any closer inspection, and hallucinations were usually obviously fake. His mind felt clear. More clear than ever before. The reason for this was his cultivation level, which mostly focused on enhancing brain functions.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    James didn''t know how long he lay there, trying to ignore the reality of the situation, it was at least several hours. Enough time for his new memories to all fully settle into his mind. The location of the Illusion Room sect, and its business dealings with other organisations.


    The cultivation system, starting out with qi gathering, foundation establishment, core formation and then nascent soul creation. All this information flitted, almost completely unprompted through his head.


    He opened his eyes in frustration eventually, the darkness having only provided a deeper sense of immersion into his new lot in life, with how it foregrounded his inner world. The same wooden roof greeted him from his position on his back, and before Jin had any significant time to think about it, he was already storming out of the cottage, unable to bear being stuck in a different world, a different body, but also a house that wasn''t really his.


    Theoretically, he knew of course what sort of view he would find upon leaving the cottage, but it still stole his breath even when he actually beheld it for the first time with his new set of eyes. His anger dissipated slightly. The wooden cottage was nestled into a mountainside along with several others, forming what he knew to be a ring around the mountain. This was where the outer disciples lived. They were lucky, in a way, to be in this position, as the next ring, the one for inner disciples, was stuck in clouds most of the time. From Jin''s cottage, he could at least look at the wide panoramic view of countless other mountains, covered up to the top with greenery, with an occasional building sitting at the top in a lonely manner. His eyesight was better than ever and he could almost make out the peaks of the buildings in the imperial capital in between some of the mountains.


    It was a beautiful view and for the first time since being stuck in this weird new situation, he thought about how maybe it wasn''t so bad to have a second chance in another world? One which apparently lived more closely together with nature, not using technology, but the channelling of heavenly energies by cultivators to support human life on the planet.


    He rapidly shook his head at the thought. Sure, the world looked nice, but culturally it was basically stuck several thousand years in the past. Democracy? Could you eat it? The different human countries currently lived under slightly different states of pseudo-feudalism, just that a revolution was even less likely to happen than on Earth since the kings and aristocrats had family members who were cultivators.


    Sure, most sects didn''t care too much about the affairs of mortals, mostly trying to either attain immortality or fend off the endless waves of monsters coming from the other side of the planet. But, it was mostly rich mortals who could fund a family member''s journey to a disciple selection ceremony.


    James had never considered himself an inflexible person, but this situation was still a bit much, he had to say. He sighed and sat down on the little stone ledge built around his house. Perhaps it was meant as some sort of fence to protect from wild animals, useless, as none could get through the protections of the sect.


    He sat there for a while, letting thoughts run through his head before he came to the inevitable conclusion that if this was indeed his new life, then he should simply make the best of it. Of course, it was easy to think that intellectually, but emotionally it was a whole different story. However, humans were rational animals, so the emotion would have to eventually follow the intellect.


    "Yo, brother Jin, still sitting there with no idea what you''ll do for your final project?" a voice suddenly shouted from a few dozen steps away. Jin turned his head to see his fellow disciple Lin Chen pushing a cart full of steaming boxes down the cobblestone path that connected all the disciple houses on the outer ring. It would be inconsiderate to ask the disciples to grow their own food and cook it as well, so the sect provided two meals a day.


    Jin sighed, stood up and walked over to the chubby boy who everyone knew liked to eat all the meals that were left over after every run he did. Distributing the food was just one of the many tasks one could do for the sect to gather points, which could be traded in for tutoring, new techniques, or even cultivation items.


    Jin had never bothered, since he''d never planned on living long anyway. But, with the new knowledge from his other life, he quickly recognized that running the food was probably the best job for an outer disciple to have. Networking was a powerful tool, and being the person who delivered one''s meals was an easy way to check up on other people''s progress and make surface-level connections. Also, it helped fulfil the requisite daily exercise on the job and one could eat more than one''s allotted share. Sure, the ingredients used were nothing special, but it was still food grown on a mountain, closer to where the heavenly energies fell. Quantity had a quality of its own.


    "Brother Lin," he thus started politely as he walked up to the boy. "Thankfully the drought of ideas has ended and I have come up with some thoughts." He received a round warm bamboo box from the boy who was nodding sagely.


    "Good, good. You know we foolish mongrels only get one chance to make a good Room. I''m still working on my own concept, but my exam is also in a year, instead of yours, which should be in three weeks?" the boy asked.


    Jin nodded miserably, cursing the former owner of this body for leaving him in such a situation. "A week, I will work hard. Enjoy the rest of the walk, brother Lin," he said and gave a small incline of the head to the boy, who nodded himself and was on his way again.


    No matter how much Jin wanted to first be depressed and do nothing for a week due to having so suddenly lost everything, he didn''t really have the time to mope.


    The stakes were real, and if he got thrown out of the sect now, no other sect would take him. After all, he had already started his cultivation on the specific path of the Illusion Room developer. It was too late to go back and he was essentially stuck with the situation. Going back to being a mortal, albeit one with a slightly higher base and some obscure and magical knowledge wasn''t really something he wanted to do. This was an undeveloped world where you were either someone, or you were no one.


    Metaphorically, the Illusion Room Sect was the big company Samsung, and if Jin lost his gig, he wouldn''t get another, less prestigious job at Sony. He would just straight out go back to being a peasant, best case, a merchant. What was the use of his cultivations focused on the mind, if no other faction would take him due to his previous associations?


    In the end, James was someone that could pull through. Weirdly, Jin had been as well, just that his goal had been different.


    The sect took in disciples, gave them some theory classes and some time to cultivate, before testing them on their ability to create a meaningful illusion. If the disciple failed, fucked up the Room artefact, then they were out, no second chances, no nothing.


    Jin stood up from where he''d sat down on the floor and went back into his cottage, back to the metal rune box. An expensive artefact, but only a vessel in the end. A vessel for an experience. He baffled -as he scrolled through the information in his mind- at what the illusion Room Sect actually was.


    In simple terms, since cultivators were essentially trying to attain immortality, and then ascension, they usually had to set up streams of revenue with which to purchase the requisite materials, which became more and more expensive and rare as they advanced on the Path. In a similar way as the best way to get extremely rich was to create a successful business with many employees, these high-level cultivators turned to creating sects, where they would give away some of their knowledge and expertise, in return for labour. The outer disciples would be the potential initiates, whereas the inner disciples were the ones producing most of the material wealth through their work, in an attempt to attain the status of core disciple, and then Elder. Once the head of the sect ascended, and inevitably left it behind, the most influential elder would become the new sect leader.


    It was essentially a pyramid scheme, but one with actual upward mobility and a trickle-up economy that made sense. After all, beginner cultivators didn''t really know how to, well, cultivate. Because of this, they needed teachers and infrastructure. The sect offered this in return for labour. Considering that cultivation very much expanded one''s life span, and being any sort of cultivator, even a lowly one, allowed one a quality of life basically unheard of for almost everyone else, it was actually a pretty sweet deal.


    Of course, since materials and knowledge that could help cultivation generally came in the form of dangerous fauna, heavenly beasts and powerful demons, most sects focused on combat. The techniques being passed down from the sect leader were combat techniques. Either body cultivation with the usage of a specific weapon, mind cultivation with the usage of combat spells, or sometimes, both.


    Of course, not everyone could be a warrior, or wanted to be one, for that matter. Fighting out endless battles against the horde of demons and monsters spilling forth from the other side of the planet and hoping to not be a part of the mortality statistic sounded like it kind of sucked.


    Combat sects were obviously the richest, as being a fighter and a hunter meant being the closest to the source of cultivator wealth, but there was a certain draw in being in a sect that did not fight overly much. There was the Red Gourd Sect, which bought different monster and fauna parts and turned them into liquors. Enjoyable poisons essentially. You would think that cultivators who were mostly focused on the purity of being and such things wouldn''t support such a business sect with their hard-earned currency, but considering cultivators couldn''t get drunk or high of normal human means, the draw of the spirit wine was obvious.


    These sorts of sects were in the minority however, and the second largest group of sects, after the combat ones, were sects focused on producing items that would make combat more efficient. The sword-forging sect of Huanli for example made the best swords in the human realm, while the sealing sect of Shengfen made spell formulas which allowed body cultivators to use the more arcane elements of cultivation as well, for a price.


    It was debatable in which category the Illusion Room Sect fell, but most would claim that it was a sect developing products which were meant to boost combat efficiency and prowess.


    The premise was as genius, as it was simple.


    What was the most effective way of learning how to kill monsters?


    By going out and killing monsters.


    Naturally, this method had a pretty high fatality rate, even if the reward was equally high.


    But what if there was a way to battle a variety of different enemies without risking one''s life? What if there was a way to create a virtual world, with virtual enemies, in which one could prepare mentally, if not physically, for the battles ahead.


    This was what the illusion Room sect did. They created illusionary simulations of battles, of enemies, of scenarios, in which cultivators could practise their skills without being in actual danger. Did a cultivator know that he was going to have to slay a dragon for his next task? Well, why not buy an illusion Room which had the dragon in question as a simulation so that they could practice?


    In a very odd twist of fate, despite having been mostly involved in the very traditional business of architecture and construction in his last life, it had taken James being transported to another world, a magical, ugly, dangerous world of feudal policies and oligarchs backed by sheer individual might, not money, to pursue his childhood dream.


    To become a video game developer.

 Chapter 2: Designing the First

    Of course, just because Jin had now accepted, quite easily, he proudly thought, his new lot in life¡­ Had decided that it was best to continue on the path that he''d been gifted, that of an illusion Room creator. Even if he was now willing to create an illusion Room, or in other words, a game¡­


    That didn''t necessarily mean that doing so was easy, or that he could start immediately.


    After all, while Jin would call himself experienced in terms of video games, at least the playing aspect, and his photographic memory would assist him in recreating the scenes he''d witnessed in his past life¡­ Well, illusion Room''s weren''t really games, were they?


    Rather, they were specific scenarios.


    A cultivator of the Illusion Room Sect would either receive a contract from another sect to model a specific problem, or would try to identify a gap in the current market, a need, and create an illusion Room to fill that gap.


    The difference between a game and a scenario was that while every game was composed of several scenarios, not every scenario was a game. What was missing was the narrative.


    Jin quickly identified the reason for the difference. In his past world games had been created for pleasure only, they were meant to be fun. Here, in this cursed land of cultivators and sects, illusion Rooms were only created and sold and bought because they were useful. Sure, maybe some rich people could commission an illusion Room of a harem, however, cultivators were mostly concerned with practicality. They commissioned and bought games that would make them come closer to a specific goal, which usually happened through familiarising them with a particular enemy or skill.


    If Jin tried to remake Tetris, or Pacman, the most popular games from his past life, then he''d probably get confused looks and a swift boot up the ass, straight off the mountain. This was due to two reasons, firstly, because neither of those games, as fun as they were, taught a valuable skill, or acclimated the ''player'' to a dangerous scenario. The second reason was because if a game was only there to help acclimatise someone to a specific scenario or to teach them a skill, third-person games became useless. Cultivators were only interested in using their own bodies and skills to confront an illusion Room. The role of the protagonist who was a separate person one could control became obsolete. All illusion Rooms had to use the player as a template for the protagonist, otherwise the immersion would be broken.


    This eliminated most games Jin had played.


    One could wonder at this point, why he didn''t simply consider creating an original scenario, as he should, considering that not plagiarising was one of the main requirements of the exam at hand. Well, that and not destroying the Room, and making something at least remotely useful from a conceptual level.


    The reason for that was simple. Most cultivation techniques taught at the illusion Room sect were focused on better processing information, retaining it, and refining it. This was because random sect member A would not want to have to go out and find a nesting wyvern every time he had to make a game for a scenario involving such a creature, to properly model the scenario. No, the sect paid warriors to bring them memory slips of monsters, places, and skills, which the illusion Room sect members were specifically trained to absorb, refine, adapt and insert into the scenarios they were creating.


    To create an illusion Room, a designer needed to be able to vividly create in his mind the separate pieces of the scenario, before fittingly infusing them into the empty Room to create a coherent whole. Their mind was a game engine, essentially.


    So, the sect had a library of various monsters, demons, fighting styles and environments. Generally, outer disciples accessed the outer disciple version of this library which held lower-tiered information that their mind and cultivation could actually process.


    Jin''s problem, and the reason why he had to rely on a game from his previous life was simple. The person who''d he''d inherited this body from had never planned on passing the exam and had thus not actually studied any of the information he would need. Now, with only a week left before the end of the exam, it would be impossible to get anything useful.


    First, to find something one could use, and then secondly, to fragment the information of the memory slip and reconstruct it in one''s mind to use it as a scenario for a Room.


    The process took a while. Longer than a week. This meant that Jin needed to use the information already stored in his mind about the video games of Earth. But how could he justify creating something so different?


    A knock suddenly resounded on the door, causing Jin to look up from his thoughts from where he was lying on the floor. "Come in," the disciple said calmly while his thoughts raced.


    The wooden door opened inwards and a distinguished-looking older gentleman in fanciful sakura petal robes and a well-kept moustache and beard entered but remained close to the door as he looked around, until his eyes locked onto the Room which had very obviously not been used.


    It was Elder Qin, the man responsible for the upkeep and the lecturing of the outer disciples. The post, from how Jin understood it, wasn''t particularly prestigious. It was usually held by those who didn''t have many prospects and upper mobility left. Elder Qin didn''t seem to care, always stern, but helpful to those in his care. Gossip said that a rival had sabotaged him the moment he formed his nascent soul, preventing him from pushing further.


    "Disciple Jin, I see that you have not yet started inserting any illusions into the Room," the man stated, with no particular judgment in his tone.


    "I''ve been working on it," Jin muttered from his position on the floor.


    "Sources told me you have not been seen in the library since the start of the assignment." Was the retort.


    An answer suddenly came to Jin, a way to explain why he hadn''t been to the library, while still showing critical thinking and innovativity. "No, I haven''t," Jin answered serenely. "And that''s not because I''ve given up either." He looked at the Elder, who simply raised an eyebrow.


    "Well, I do wonder why a student so strong in theory and cultivation has been neglecting the obvious path forward to becoming an inner disciple."


    Jin narrowed his eyes. "It''s been bothering me. We create scenarios and tests for monsters and challenges people expect to face," he started. "Things they know they will face. Our customers, collaborators, whatever you want to call it¡­ They gain experience in fighting a very specific enemy, and not much else. Couldn''t illusion Rooms be used to train more general skills, rather than specific scenarios?"


    "What is an ability to handle a specific situation, but a very specific skill. And what is it that one requires to solve a scenario if not a skill?" the Elder asked rhetorically with a small smile.


    "A specific skill is only useful in a specific situation, and can only be planned for when one knows the enemy. This is the case for hunting heavenly beasts and monsters, but the demons spilling forth from the dark half of the world are constantly shifting, changing and are never the same."


    "And that is the fundamental issue," Elder Qin interjected. "How do you prepare for the unknown? You cannot. You do not know what it is."


    "I reject the simplicity of that answer. I''ve refrained from going to the library for a very simple reason," Jin said in a quiet voice, knowing that the Elder likely had ears sharp enough to hear even his heartbeat. "To avoid intertextuality as much as possible. The inevitable condition of creativity is that everything we make is influenced, consciously or subconsciously by something the creator has already read about or seen before. All texts are just remixes of the dictionary and all discoveries rest on work done previously."


    The Elder hummed. "The question remains, how do you prepare for the unknown?"


    "By creating something never seen before. The only way to become adaptable is to practise fighting enemies one has never even thought of."


    Something impossible to do generally¡­ But for a transmigrator?


    "The issue of course is that sects are not interested in buying something completely unknown. After all, they would profit more if they practised against something specific they expect to come up against."


    "Thankfully I''m not trying to sell a product, but impress a panel of judges who are less short-sighted than the average warrior," Jin retorted and got for his quip a rare treasure.


    Elder Qin gave a short chuckle.


    "And, what is your plan to create something completely original, something never seen before? How did you say it, so fittingly? Intertextuality is an inevitable condition of all creation. How, without visiting the library, can you make sure you will not simply reproduce an existing dilemma speaking to you through your subconsciousness."


    "Let that be my worry, Master Qin," Jin muttered, thoughts going a mile a minute.


    The Elder looked him up and down appraisingly. "It seems I was worried for nothing. Intelligence or not, spirit is also an important criterion for an illusion Room cultivator," the older man said. "I''m looking forward to what you''ll show us in a week, disciple Jin." He turned around and promptly left, a breeze shutting the door behind him.


    Jin meanwhile, had figured out, from his newly received memories, what niche exactly he wanted to focus on filling to make himself valuable to the sect, and thus live a safe and comfortable life with few worries.


    It was very difficult for the inhabitants of this new world to face new challenges. Their society was not based around creativity, but rather an odd form of what Jin recognized as strict spiritual Confucianism. In addition, the world had not yet reached the potential post-scarcity level of technology, and thus most of its population was still stuck farming fields and were not even literate.


    The artistic output of this relatively small agricultural and illiterate human population, resting perhaps at about 1 billion globally, if not less, could not compare to the artistic output of the 21st and the 20th century on Earth. Especially with the creation of the internet, which if nothing else was a machine that sped up people''s ability to be creative and the proliferation of art to a previously unprecedented scale.


    Jin''s niche in this world was thus that he had an entirely different cultural background, one that arose from a Western school of thought, and the artistic consumer experience, saved in his brain through his photographic memory. Even if he did not have access to a mental game library of about 500 games, thousands of movies, dozens of shows, and hundreds of books, he would likely due to his different background be able to create stuff that was not, perhaps a masterpiece, but at least original.


    However, he would rather not gamble his becoming an inner disciple on his up until now yet unproven creative abilities. No, it was time to access the memories of both his lives and consider which thing stuck out the most as being missing in this world.


    He sat himself up in the lotus position and retreated deep into thought.


    Cycling through the monsters in his mind, trying to decipher which one would be the weirdest to the people of this new world, he quickly came upon an interesting factoid.


    The language he was now speaking was not English, obviously, it was simply the imperial standard. However, there was an English word which didn''t have an imperial synonym, despite it really needing one if one considered how martial this society actually was.


    There was no real concept of full plate armour as Westerners knew it. Which was weird. But why was that the case? Jin''s mind raced a mile a minute as he considered the variables. Eventually, he settled on the most likely explanation.


    Heavenly energy. The big difference between the two worlds. Heavenly energy, as was the name, came from the heavens and suffused the biology of all living things. Cultivating was simply taking in more of this heavenly energy than was strictly necessary, and using it to empower one''s body, one''s mind, and to use it as fuel to cast spells and other effects.


    But that was the crutch, heavenly energy suffused the biology, not the inorganic. That meant that while rocks and metal were just as tough as in the last world, everything else was stronger. Due to the constant influx of energy humans were more powerful as a baseline, without any cultivation, animals were faster, and monsters were more ferocious.


    A body cultivator of the foundation establishment stage would likely be able to snap a metal armour plate with a punch. Considering the plate was out of an inorganic material, it was also more difficult and costly to enchant. It just wouldn''t stick. Leather armour made out of the hide of some powerful beast, however? Dead useful. Naturally, this meant that all armour was somehow flexible since it was made of organic material. The soldiers and cultivators of this world simply didn''t know how it was to struggle to penetrate someone''s iron full plate during which every strike resonated partially back into one''s own body.


    Jin had made the experience at a mediaeval festival, and it hadn''t been fun. However, simply creating a creature that wore armour was hardly innovative. Armour existed in some form after all, chitin pilfered from bug monsters was somewhat similar. However, there was another thing, a weapon that wasn''t very popular.


    Since time immemorial on earth, humans had fastened sharpened stones, and later metals to long poles of wood, creating a safe long-distance weapon that could be thrown, as well as handled near an enemy.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    The spear.


    In this world of cultivation, this weapon seemed almost non-existent. At least Jin had never seen one. The absolutely preferred weapon was a sword. One of the first immortals to ever ascend, who''d doled out his skills to humanity in general, had been a cultivator focusing on the way of the sword. There was just something about it.


    It was also more cost-efficient in a way. Here weapons were generally made out of bones, or out of fangs of great beasts. Dragons and house-sized tigers. Stuff like that, things you didn''t want to meet in a dark alleyway. Or any alleyway for that matter...


    Naturally, these resources were limited to one''s ability to kill dragons and house-sized tigers and when one eventually succeeded, one would rather carve out of the same amount of material three swords, rather than one spear.


    One could ask at this point why one couldn''t simply create 15 spear tips rather than three swords, to then add those tips to poles of wood, and the answer was¡­ While there were incredibly durable woods, since trees also took in heavenly energy, it was not considered very intelligent to stack materials for a weapon. The more materials something consisted of, the harder it was to enchant it. Similarly, the more materials something consisted of, the harder it was for the user of such a weapon to channel their spells through it. Channelling energy through a weapon required a specific frequency of vibration so to say, and going through wood then bone was several times as hard then simply going through either.


    It would only make sense to make a spear if one could truly make it out of one piece of bone or fang. However, those gigantic fangs and bones generally belonged to very powerful creatures. By the time a cultivator became powerful enough to kill such a creature¡­ Well, it was rather improbable that they did so bare-handedly. They''d likely done so with a sword, or with a staff. They were hardly going to make a spear out of the material and switch weapons at that stage of their journey. That would just be asinine.


    As for soldiers? Why they didn''t use spears? On Earth, the spear had been the staple of the mediaeval and the Roman infantryman. Every single warrior culture on the planet had developed the spear independently.


    The answer to why this wasn''t the case here? Other than cultural influence from cultivators seeping through the rest of society, and sword techniques being more developed in general, soldiers were a bunch that very much wanted to become cultivators, even if only for the first stages, which is what their talents usually were sufficient for. What was the point of learning the spear, if one wasn''t going to use it for longer than a few years. Might as well start with the sword.


    Also, people in this world generally distrusted weapons constructed out of two separate materials in general, so the point became, once again moot.


    Jin had never seen a spear, and although there was a word for it in the language, he didn''t think it was used by anyone other than farmers who liked to hunt for wild pigs in the forest. As a weapon of war, the spear essentially didn''t exist.


    He could consider a monster that was somewhat special as well, but Jin thought that putting forth a new combat style would also score him innovatively points. After all, while he could create a never-before-seen monster, which would require the "player" to think on their feet to beat it, a humanoid monster with armour and a spear would require a similar level of innovation, but could also introduce a combat style that didn''t exist yet to anyone who wanted to get inspired by it.


    He considered for a second if he should make one scenario with armour, and one with a spear, but then the perfect combatant suddenly came to mind.


    The perfect monster to impress the judges.


    If one talked mediaeval armour and a spear there could only be one really.


    Dragonslayer Ornstein from Dark Souls


    Dark Souls was a special game in many people''s hearts. If they hated the painful experience of being forced to learn trick upon trick upon trick just to beat the first boss, or if they loved it, nobody could really say anything bad about the game''s quality. Ignoring the bugs of course, and the sometimes horrible PvP which had been ruined by meta-slaves.


    Anyway, Dark Souls was doubtlessly one of the most culturally relevant classics back from James'' world and while Dragonslayer Ornstein wasn''t a lord of cinder, or the final boss, he had been one of the enemies that Jin had most enjoyed beating back in his previous life.


    To bring such an iconic and well-designed character to this world of cultivation would be an honour.


    However, for him to be able to do so, he first needed to change the design up a bit. There wasn''t anything he wanted to shift in terms of looks or weapon functionality, but¡­


    Comparing games and illusion Rooms was a wasted effort, they were two different media. Naturally the first was more fun, which only made sense when one considered that the latter was only meant to improve a warrior or provide a useful training scenario.


    It was because of this difference, the fact that video games and illusion Rooms were very much not the same thing, that translating between the two became a bit of a challenge.


    There was one problem in particular, which would likely take Jin the rest of the week to resolve. Namely, while he had the perfect character template of Ornstein in his head in terms of looks and style, he was not a perfect simulation of how a knight with such a lance would actually fight.


    This was perhaps the biggest difference between video games and illusion Rooms. Realism. After all, what was the point of fighting a yellow drake in a Room if it didn''t actually behave or fight like a real yellow drake? Best case the training would be only marginally useful as a desensitisation strategy. Worst case it would inflate the confidence of the cultivator and make them commit a fatal mistake once they actually challenged the real thing.


    Jin sort of wiggled out of this issue by focusing on monsters and combat styles that just didn''t exist in this new world. However, Ornstein for all his iconic power was still a video game character with a fixed battle algorithm that could be exploited by people who''d never even wielded a weapon in real life. The algorithm he''d played against would be a joke to any cultivator. A bad joke.


    That was why Jin''s work would mostly consist of developing an actual fighting style for his version of Ornstein. He already had the figure, the dimensions, the weapon, the armour, the space. Now he just needed to polish those aspects. Make Ornstein a valid threat rather than just a nuisance. The dash would stay, as would the tight spearmanship. However, the gaps in the algorithm that represented the lack of actual skill or intelligence would be fixed.


    It probably sounded to the outside as if Jin wanted to graft an artificial intelligence which could make real-time combat decisions, however, this was something that was completely beyond him at the moment.


    This was why he was standing outside of his hut, the view still stunning him minute by minute, holding a broom in his hands as if he was wielding a spear. Slightly widened stance, confident. Dangerous. He thrust forward and enjoyed the fluidity of his body. Then he spun the broom in his hands as if wanting to deflect a hail of arrows, creating a violent circle.


    A finger got in the way and the broom fell on the floor.


    Jin bent down to pick it up and started again.


    The body he''d inherited from the previous owner was several times better than the one he''d left behind when he''d transmigrated.


    There was nothing to say about it. While James had lived in an inherently polluted world in one of the most unhealthy countries on the planet, this new body lived in a world where microplastics and pollutants didn''t exist, the food was by default, always organic, and heavenly energy literally fell from the heavens to strengthen all living organisms.


    Already just the average farmer was probably healthier and more athletic than any gold-medal-winning athlete in his last life.


    Jin? A cultivator? He blew even that out of the water. Sure his cultivation didn''t necessarily focus on physical aspects, but he''d still gone through the body-purifying stage of cultivation before focusing on mental techniques and spells.


    This meant that the memory he had in his last life of legitimate spear-wielding techniques he''d seen in film or tutorials flowed through his new body and into the broom at an intense pace, something that would have been completely unachievable before. He was sure that by the end of the day, he would become more adept at wielding the weapon, and would have developed a decent understanding of how to create a good combat template for his Ornstein to use.


    Jab, deflect, slash, parry, thrust. His body didn''t seem capable of getting tired and Jin watched the sunset as he practised his broom techniques on the cliffs of the sect mountain. Other disciples came and went, walking the stone-paved path, occasionally laughing at him, and occasionally cheering him on. No one knew what he was doing, and he was fine with that.


    When he did lay down the broom when the sun had set and Brother Lin had delivered the second batch of food for the day, he went straight into the lotus position on the green grass, not even bothering to go inside the house for this next part.


    Quickly, faster than ever before he sank into a meditative trance. Considering that the illusion Room sect was essentially focused on creating only a specific type of product, they had gotten quite decent in creating techniques to develop that product with. The Room, empty as it was currently, was only one half of the equation, one that Jin hadn''t focused on much. This was essentially the only real decision one could make when joining the sect. If one wanted to create the Rooms, or if one wanted to create the illusions. Jin had walked the path of illusions, and thus his main spell, the one that had at this point been carved into his very soul, was the mind-illusion spell.


    In simple words it was a game-engine, just stuck there, inside his head.


    In reality? It was much more complex like that.


    Through meditating the cultivators of the sect were able to enter a sort of mental interface in which they were able to develop the individual aspects of the scenario they were trying to create, and then they would save them, like they did the catalogue of real-life experiences harvested from warriors, until they next had time to work on the project.


    It was at this stage, that Jin''s photographic memory flexed its muscles. The entire process of character design, which could sometimes take just as much as the insertion of the actual combat system, was finished in a flash. One simple flex of Jin''s mental muscles made Dragonslayer Ornstein appear in front of him in the black space in all his glory. Golden spiky armour with mesh underclothes, a highly stylized lion-faced helmet with red plumage and an oddly designed spear and lance hybrid with a long blade and a cross-guard.


    In simple words, the character looked exactly as he had looked in the games, but just with another added level of realism.


    It was in the design of the space in which the scenario of the fight would take place that Jin hesitated. Quite frankly, what was really innovative was the character design concept. If he wanted to highlight that it might have made the most sense to use one of the standard battle templates, a large stone circle hovering high in the heavens under the ruthless sun. The cathedral-like structure in which one actually fought Ornstein in the games also had completely innovative architecture never before seen in this world. It was clearly western, and not just that, but also gothic, with its large stylised spire support structures and high windows.


    In the end it probably made more sense to include it, just in case the judges didn''t like the character design, they might be swayed by the architectural style. Another mental flex and the room in which the player would fight Ornstein was created.


    As a last special addition, Jin also input the music. One of the aspects of illusion Room design that he considered to be undervalued was the emotional quotient. Experience showed that the more emotionally engaged the Room users were, the better they would be able to transfer any skills gained in the illusion back to reality.


    Naturally, Jin understood perfectly why narrative structures and music were not generally part of the illusion Room design. After all, most illusion works were the result of one person''s labour. And if the person already had to consume a lot of memories in regards to the creature they wanted to depict, create a functioning combat system which was the number one priority, then they would hardly find the time to make a narrative, let alone music to accompany the battle. In the austere and ascetic society Jin was now living in, those things would likely be considered wasteful.


    He added it anyway. Ornstein stood in the middle of the cathedral, perfectly still while the orchestral choral-based ambience music started resounding from everywhere, but from nowhere. Not loud, since cultivators also depended on their sense of sound to fight sometimes, but enough to add to the experience.


    And now, now that he had all that?


    Well, now the difficult part started.


    Determining what effects cultivators and Ornstein would have on the environment, how stone chips would fly if one hit one of the pillars to increase immersion and so on. The way that feet would scuff on the ground if one blocked an attack and slid backwards.


    Jin thought of so much, and he was still very much off from any terms of reality.


    Hours later, when the moons hung fully in the sky and Jin had exhausted his store of heavenly energy, he returned to his hut and collapsed in bed. Thankfully the techniques of the illusion Room sect didn''t take a lot of energy, or he could imagine that he''d be unable to finish within the deadline simply because he couldn''t work the amount of time necessary.


    In the end, he''d barely added the rudimentary movement and the iconic dash to Ornstein, all his efforts had been spent modelling the environment and body interaction. It was good enough at the moment, but in need of a lot of improvement. He''d refocus on that if everything else remained on track during the next six days. The combat system was still the most important and he still had a lot of work to do.


    Oddly enough, despite having lost everything he''d ever worked for and being transported into a magical world where the food was healthier, but he could be eaten by an angry demon or monster at any time, Jin went to sleep with a smile.


    -/-


    The next six days were perhaps the most gruelling of Jin''s life. He woke up and started working immediately, experimenting with the broom according to any and all memories he could find in which he''d seen a useful depiction of the weapon''s use. Eventually, his body wouldn''t as much grow tired, as it simply collapsed. Then, lying outside in the grass, in this perfect climate, for all to see, he continued modelling the combat system. The environment was done, the music was set, and the character was created. All of these parts came together in his head, in his mindscape to form a beautiful symphony that could only be referred to as artistic.


    The combat system continued improving the more he worked himself into the ground. He''d begun on day two with the dash and with some very basic handling of the lance, thrusts, parries, and deflection spins. On the second day, he added more subtle movements such as footwork that he considered rational for the feats being achieved. On the third day, he created the physics of the moves, how fast they would flow into each other depending on the circumstances and how hard the spear would hit depending on how much body weight was put into it.


    Suffice it to say, while Jin hadn''t added the electrical attacks, rather just focusing on the dash and on the handling of the weapon, Dragonslayer Ornstein received a major upgrade.


    After all, while Dark Souls as a series prided itself on being difficult and requiring the player to learn and adapt, they still had to leave some weaknesses for a player to exploit, or else the thing would become completely impossible.


    Jin on the other hand would be rewarded for a combat system that was as hard as possible to beat, without being unrealistic.


    To be quite frank, on the last day, after he''d pulled out the still-empty Room and began considering it in his hut, Jin didn''t know how he would defeat his creation. After all, while he''d swung around the broom to get a feel for how the spear functioned, he''d improved Ornstein with martial techniques that he was only qualified to see and imagine, not to actually perform.


    The result was horrifying. The only way he could imagine making Ornstein more of a bitch to fight at this point was if he increased his base stats. However, he couldn''t since he as a cultivator wasn''t advanced enough to model something that was so fast, so strong, or so complex.


    There was a reason why illusion Room cultivators only created scenarios either for warriors on their equivalent level of cultivation or for those below it.


    Jin lightly slapped himself in the face. Quite frankly, he was growing slightly delirious from the amount of work he''d been completing and from the little sleep that he''d been getting.


    "I just need to infuse the illusion into the Room," he said, looking at the intricate metal box the size of his head in question. "Easy, right?"


    Everything could go wrong here. Developing an illusion in one''s head was one thing. Shoving it into the box was another thing. As long as the internal logic of the scenario was flawless then the box would play the illusion as intended. However, if something didn''t make sense, Jin would be sent on a wild goose chase to find out what exactly the issue was.


    He didn''t have that sort of time. Or the energy, for that matter. Tomorrow morning would be his exam, and while he could stay up all night to try and fix the issue, it was more likely that he would fall unconscious from sheer exhaustion.


    A sigh escaped his lips. He was hesitating, which didn''t lead anywhere. He extended his arms, sleeves falling limply onto his hands and clenched all his ten fingers around the edges of the box.


    One last burst of mental effort collected the separate information packets that made up the scenario as one whole, before sending the entire thing into the box. It lit up a bright pink, which quickly faded, but some of the vibrations remained, the box giving off a very quiet hum. If the hum were a bit louder then Jin would have been able to distinguish the melody of the music he''d inserted into the scenario coming from the box. Dark choral music with some atmospheric vocals.


    He couldn''t, however. He was unconscious, out like a light.

 Chapter 3: The Elderflower Test

    In an event that was becoming a worrying regularity, Jin awoke while lying on the wooden floor of his hut. Despite the implications of this fact on his mental state, he quickly identified the most important factor in his current situation as the sunlight likely tickled at his eyes from the window.


    The illusion Room.


    It was done, glowing a soft pink. There was a slight vibration, a hum to the magical instrument. As if it was being played at this very moment.


    It wasn''t, of course. The exam was today, and Jin hadn''t had the time to get the game properly tested.


    If it could even be called the game. Just one enemy, really. It was very much a scenario in the sense of this new world.


    He stood up wearily and stretched his sore and abused body, which had been learning the way of the spear with nothing but a broom for seven days straight now. He shortly deluded himself with the idea of getting another outer disciple to test the game real quick. Elder Qin had said that he would pick up Jin in the morning, but if the man wasn''t here yet¡­ then perhaps Brother Lin would be interested in taking a break from his food delivery.


    However, any thoughts of play-testing the game and thus perhaps working out any of the remaining kinks were abruptly dashed by a knock on his door. Jin slumped in on himself.


    "Come in respected Elder," he said.


    The door opened, revealing Elder Qin in all his sakura petal robe glory. The man''s blue eyes briefly swept across the room, his mouth staying decisively neutral. However, while adults were good at hiding irony from children, Jin was not a child anymore.


    "I see that you have worked hard, disciple Jin," Elder Qin said, looking placidly at the disgusting mess that the house had become during the crunch of the last week.


    It had been hard for Jin to believe that his house could become a mess when there was not even much in it in the first place. The outer disciple barely owned five sets of the same beige robes, let alone enough furniture and frivolities to truly make a pigsty. He''d managed anyhow. Somehow.


    One of the things that he''d learned to appreciate about this world during his relatively short stay in it was that it wasn''t as materialistic. Power was exhibited by how many nations one could crush with a swipe of one''s fingers. Wealth was simply another attribute of man, not the single determiner of one''s value in society.


    Jin looked again at the illusion Room, before hesitatingly going over to the small wooden desk it was resting on and picking it up. He sighed. "It''s as ready as it''s ever going to be," he lied.


    "Thankfully it does not need to be ready for this particular exam," Elder Qin replied lightly. "It simply needs to be enough."


    The Elder stepped back from the door frame, the gesture inviting Jin to exit his little abode and to enter back metaphorically into civilization. The social structure that he''d been hiding from while working his ass off recently.


    Of course, an Elder and undoubtedly a high-level cultivator, the supervisor had not walked all the way to Jin''s abode. No, there was a golden cloud parked at the entrance to the young cultivator''s green little garden. Big enough to hold several fully grown men, an artefact likely worth more than all the wealth Jin had ever possessed in his entire life. Which wasn''t saying really much. He was poor as fuck.


    The Elder gracefully walked on top of the cloud, seemingly unconcerned with its potential gaseous form. The cloud seemed to also care very little about physics and obliviously held the man''s weight. While the cultivation path of an illusion game creator was pretty cool, and most importantly, not that dangerous, Jin hadn''t actually been doing all that much impressive magic.


    He was thus quite blown away.


    The extent of a seemingly magical new existence giving him a much healthier and more resilient body was already a win in itself. The game engine stuck in his head was a cherry on top. Anything more than that? That was just indulgence. Suffice it to say, eager to make another magical experience, he didn''t need much prompting beyond Qin''s brief gaze to jump on the nimbus cloud and marvel at the soft sensation underneath his feet. It felt very secure. The cloud slowly raised itself from its perch and ascended into the sky, perpetually covered as it was by its white and grey non-magical brethren. It was sort of scary to ascend into the air without the usual hum of metal turbines and rotors that accompanied the act in James''s previous world, but as he sat down on the soft artefact he decided that he preferred it this way.


    "Most disciples with a civilian background are a bit more discomforted by their first ride," Elder Qin prompted.


    Jin, busy enjoying the view of all the other mountain ranges and the view he had on his little hut replied in a manner that was probably a bit disrespectful for the Confucian society he was now inhabiting. "If you wanted to kill me, you wouldn''t have to go for such a drama about it," he said. "In fact, I feel safer here than I do sleeping in my bed, considering there is no high-level cultivator watching over me there."


    "I hope your enthusiasm stays during the next stages of the examination process," the other replied lightly as they finally reached the white clouds which covered the inner disciple ring of the illusion Room sect mountain.


    "I''ll do my best," he said as they closed in on the mountain. Close enough for Jin to see the space through the thick clouds. Their destination seemed to be a large stone gate with a thousand steps leading up to it from the previous ring. Behind the gate, from his vantage point in the air, Jin could make out a bustling village in which several disciples who were better dressed than him walked around eating food, talking and generally having a good time. It was the first time that he laid eyes on the middle ring and unexpectedly it seemed to be more heavily populated than the outer disciple one. There were more houses which were laid more closely together and there were even some non-cultivators walking around, if his eyes didn''t deceive him. They were recognizable by their shabby brown robes which contrasted harshly to the sleek clothing of the cultivators.


    It was likely that it was at this stage of being a member of the Illusion Room Sect that one merited having actual servants.


    As expected, however, instead of flying into the village, the golden cloud landed in front of the stone gate. The large structure was burdened with a variety of runes and paper talismans. If Jin had developed the ability to sense wards, then he was sure that he would have something to explore here. However, he didn''t, so he rather focused on the two people seemingly waiting for him and Elder Qin at the gates.


    One of them was a short and stout man with a whiskered moustache and a head of hair with some brown still in it. Jin would have guessed him to be around 50 if he didn''t know that cultivators generally lived 10 times longer than their normal human counterparts. The man''s face looks like it had been stuck in a perpetual frown since he was born.


    Thankfully his companion was a sight for Jin''s now sore eyes.


    A 35-something woman in amazing shape, as one would expect from a cultivator. A sword scabbard hung at her waist and she was covered up to her shoulders by a green outfit consisting of loose pants and a tight shirt.


    Rather than risk offending anyone, Jin immediately bowed as the cloud dissipated around them and condensed itself into a bamboo flask at Elder Qin''s side.


    "Greetings honoured Elders," he said, clutching his illusion Room tight to his chest as he tried to touch the floor with his forehead. It never hurt to be polite. Especially in a world where people could decide to kill you if they thought that you had cost them face.


    Elder Qin stepped forward until he was standing right next to the other two cultivators.


    It was very symbolic to hold the exam in front of the entrance to the inner disciple ring.


    He could even see, through the slight distortions covering the stone gate entrance, the inner disciples and other people moving around in what would hopefully soon become his living area as well.


    "Greetings again, outer disciple Jin," Elder Qin said. He nodded shortly at the woman by his side.


    "This is Elder Flower and next to her is Elder Lung, they will be my co-examiners today. They are both highly skilled illusion Room cultivators who I have sought out to test you due to the suggested innovativity of your approach."


    Elder Flower stepped forward. "I specialise in combat systems and will be the one testing the usefulness of your creation," she said in a clear and pleasant voice before stepping back.


    Elder Lung didn''t bother moving and twirled one point of his long moustache between two fingers while looking at Jin disdainfully. He looked like he was one bad day away from executing a servant for bringing him the wrong tea. "Well," he started in a loud and nasal voice. "Let''s see first if you even get to that point. Being novel is something usually reserved for people who have mastered the basics. I have yet to see a novice innovate anything, other than a fascinatingly stupid way to fail an exam." He looked Jin up and down, before barking. "Well? Explain your methodology."


    The disciple blinked, not having expected the exam to be so informal. Orally defending himself out in the open like this. He saw some inner disciples gather at the other side of the gate and look at him curiously, some of them sneering at his confused expression. However, James had been through enough tough situations where he had to sell himself and quickly regain his footing.


    "From my understanding, as comparable as it is to that of a frog sitting at the bottom of a well, I looked for my project at the fact that the sect focuses on scenarios of heavenly beasts and other already researched dangers as a vital opportunity to try something else. After all, one does not begin branching out into new ideas, without first having a solid base." He bowed. "I was only able to attempt what I did because of the strong and reliable fundaments of all illusion Room creators that came before me."


    Elder Lung motioned him to go on impatiently but was obviously pleased with the brown-nosery.


    Elder Flower meanwhile had to hide a smile behind a raised fist.


    "I saw an opportunity in the relatively little focus there was being put on the demons of the other half, who are as we know always completely individual. An opportunity to create a game that is not focused on training for a specific scenario, but rather to teach the experiencer how to deal with the unexpected. In the end, while it is perhaps presumptuous of me to create something so non-normative, I hope that it can be seen simply as putting forth an experiment, which wiser heads will judge the validity of."


    "So dedicated was outer disciple Jin to his experiment that he refrained from visiting the library too much, to not pollute his originality with already perceived combat styles and creatures present there," Elder Qin commented.


    It was here that Elder Lung had a derogatory comment to add, although, for all intents and purposes, it had been Elder Qin who had so treacherously elicited it.


    "What did you come up with through your hard-working non-usage of library resources specifically put forth to help outer disciples in your situation?" the man asked sarcastically.


    Jin didn''t falter, knowing for a fact that the critique was very valid. He would have gone to the library more as well if the previous owner of this body hadn''t fucked him over so hard with his non-preparation.


    "I focused my design concept of the enemy, of which there is one, on the material reality and context of the world we live in. Through this focus I invented a weapon, armour and combat style of which I have not heard of, and which should, by the laws of our world, not exist." He tapped his chin wondering how to best explain.


    "Can you be more specific?" Elder Flower asked while Elder Lung nodded in understanding.


    Jin struggled for a second before starting.


    "Well, due to the suffusion of heavenly energies into organic matter, metallic materials have naturally been relatively unused in the creation of armour. However, due to the consistency, the feel the material gives when being struck¡­ Fighting someone in metal armour should be a completely different experience than fighting someone wearing either the traditional robe or the leather set that is so popular amongst warrior sects. I used the fact that scenarios do not have to conform completely to reality and made the metal armour my enemy is wearing as sturdy as any enchanted counterpart.


    "And you think that the novelty of such an armour transcends the usefulness of a warrior training against something they might at some point in their lives actually see and fight against?" Elder Lung asked.


    "I am not trying to give definitive answers, but simply propositions to be mixed into the current dialectic of the subject matter. I''m trying to refrain from claiming knowledge until I at least see Mount Tai," Jin said respectfully.


    "The weapon?" Elder Flower asked. "I assume you''re making a human-type enemy. Which is fair, considering most demons are in some way shaped after us."


    "For the weapon, I considered the fact that the best weapons are made out of a single material, for ease of enchantment, and thus have been historically relatively small to save on costs. If one truly considers it, it would also be possible for a human figure to wield something as tall as themselves. It is just wasteful, however, considering the costs."


    Elder Flower crossed her arms at this point and tilted her head doubtfully. "Several sects use staves."


    Jin helplessly shrugged. "I created a combination of two materials, wood and metal. probably something impossible to channel anything through, however something that should not have been seen before. It most resembles a spear, but even to that the design is quite different. Two-thirds of the weapon consist of wood, while one-third consists of a longer blade with a cross guard."


    "You would have had to design an entirely new combat system. Build something that takes generations of heritage tradition and learning, from scratch." Elder Qin concluded softly.


    "I did my best," Jin said.


    "Curious," Elder Flower stated.


    "Yes, but we''re not done yet," Elder Lung interjected, turning to Jin from where he had been watching the interplay between him and the female Elder. "What about the surroundings? Using a template with an enemy so "novel" would ruin parts of the immersion which the skill transfer relies on," he said, somewhat triumphantly.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "I created an architectural surrounding myself. Something that I considered to fit the aesthetic choices made for the enemy. In addition to everything I also made music, an art form which will hopefully elevate the emotional state of the experiencer," Jin replied. Some inner disciples listening in from beyond the gate laughed and looked at each other incredulously.


    "Music!" Elder Lung exclaimed.


    "As you have deduced," Jin said. "I needed to experiment to raise the level of immersion lost by creating a never before seen enemy and combat style."


    Elder Lung didn''t say anything to that and simply frowned.


    "I must admit," Elder Qin once again chimed in. "I can generally imagine what kind of illusion I will be entering from the theoretical discourse held at the beginning of the exam session. However, in your case, I cannot truly imagine anything, really. Which, I guess is the point. Nevertheless, I think it might be time to start looking at the scenario. Elder Lung, Elder Flower, which one of you would like to begin. The underpinning theory, or the combat system?"


    Flower stepped forward, looking curiously at the Room clutched in Jin''s hands.


    The disciple was holding it quite desperately, standing on the grassy terrain, his view distorted by fog. Despite knowing that the Room could survive probably anything that he could throw at it, he was still afraid of it simply falling to the ground and breaking.


    "I''d like to start," the woman said. "After all, if the combat system is too bad for words, which is a real fear this time around, then there''s no point in wasting Elder Lung''s time," she rationalised. However, it was clear that she simply couldn''t wait to sate her curiosity and wanted to go first for completely personal reasons.


    Jin held up the room for the Elder to take. She gently received it from his hands, their fingers brushing against each other for but a second. She had rough hands, like that of a warrior. She stepped back to stand once again amongst the Elders.


    "I''m going in," she said.


    -/- POV: Elder Flower


    Flower had been born into the Illusion Room Sect. But had never actually really cared for the cultivation techniques and the products that they sold. She''d wanted to be a warrior, in fact. But, one was blessed in this world to be born to a father who was an Elder in a well-established sect, and one was definitely foolish if one disregarded this privilege to go be a neophyte in someone else''s. Especially since there would always be a suspicion of espionage. It had been the correct decision as well. With the resources of her family, she''d become the youngest sect member to form a nascent soul, at age 65.


    And, she still became a warrior anyway, just not one with access to special and secret techniques of a sect that actually focused on martial cultivation.


    It had ended up being a shrewd career move. By becoming a warrior in a sect full of people who were decisively not, she had something unique to offer to the creation of combat systems and to the testing of illusion Rooms.


    This unfortunately also came with the fact that she became the go-to person to bother, when an outer, or an inner disciple needed to be tested for their aptitude. She was planning an entire expedition in a few weeks just to get away from this one responsibility, as it was very exhausting to spend so much time going through illusion Rooms that offered relatively little, for the time they consumed in having to be properly reviewed.


    Thus, today was going to be her last review before she left the sect on a diplomatic mission to the Mad Monks Sect. In reality, she was just going there to exchange pointers with some martial cultivators and for some time off.


    The cultivators who came to their mountain to look at their scenario library weren''t generally interested in sparring, having to pay an hourly fee to be present in their library.


    As she entered the illusion room, she leashed the heavenly energies strengthening her body to the level that was achievable by a low-level cultivator and the end of their qi gathering stage.


    She found herself at first, as was common, in a blank space. For her it was white, but she knew that for others it was sometimes black. Entering an illusion Room didn''t immediately bring one into the scenario, but simply brought one to a mindscape from which one could enter it if one so wished. Different scenario designers created different methods of access, but this outer disciple seemed quite traditional in that he simply created a visual cue of what seemed to be a helmet made out of metal crossed by two of those spears he was talking about.


    Without any preamble she directed a mental probe at the icon, causing her surroundings to violently change from one second to the next. No transition, she noticed. Elder Lung would probably be unhappy with that, the outdated elitist.


    However, any thoughts of what Elder Lung would think were blown away by her surroundings as they materialised around her. It wasn''t a space that resembled anything she''d ever seen before. Large grey bricks laid the foundation of a square room interspersed with pillars of what she recognized as marble and worked in with elaborate designs that seemed decisively non-imperial in nature. She frowned as she looked around the dark space seeing also the high glass windows which let in the minuscule amount of light that suffused the room. It was large, the space, but also small, due to the pillars.


    However, she wasn''t that interested in architecture. What she wanted to know was where this enemy was supposed to be.


    A scuff, an unfamiliar sound of metal on stone came from behind her, above her, she spun around drawing her jian made of dragon fang and sprang back just in time to avoid a downward stab from a large golden figure wielding a long spear with an extended blade which had jumped from a balcony that she had previously not perceived. By lowering her overall strength she''d also constrained her senses.


    Instead of pursuing her immediately, the gigantic figure, towering over her by at least four heads, simply pointed his weapon at her, letting her admire the intricacy of its design.


    It was beautiful, in a way. The golden armour with its spikes, ridges and fins. A red plume of feathers extending out of the lion-themed helmet gently waved in a non-existent breeze.


    It looked completely inefficient, however, since Flower knew that the metal was useless as a defensive armour, and the lance made of wood and metal was also a complete enchantment black hole. But, this was a fake world, not bound by the rules of reality.


    Before she could consider taking off points from the examinee for the fact that the figure was not moving it suddenly began to speak.


    "I''ve slain dragons and monsters that you cannot even imagine, do you truly think that a mere human can best me? Dragonslayer Ornstein will show you the foolishness of your ways," it spoke in a raspy metallic voice with vocal cords that sounded like they''d never been used.


    Music suddenly started belting out from all corners, not particularly loud, but just enough to generate an atmosphere of unease at the alien sounds being created.


    Before Flower could think too much of it, the now-named Ornstein suddenly pointed and hefted his lance in her direction, crouched down and shot forward at a speed that she hadn''t expected from this level of a scenario. A golden blur holding a silver point directed exactly at her torso. She sidestepped the move, which she was thankfully able to do with the pathetic amounts of energy she was letting course with her body. Ornstein stopped in place after the charge, gripped his lance differently and swung it sideways, the blade instead of the point now coming directly for Flower''s head. She reluctantly parried the blow so it struck above her but was surprised that Ornstein simply stepped forward as it was struck aside, gripped the lance closer to the blade and spun the butt of the weapon at her. Flower was forced to jump backwards, again, and reconsidered her opponent.


    She narrowed her eyes, puffing a strand of her long black hair out of her face. This was turning out more difficult than expected and the lance was a much more flexible weapon than she could have imagined. It had all the diversity of a staff, but also had a blade, a sharp point, and a cross guard.


    Ornstein didn''t seem interested in letting her consider her options. He dashed at her again this time with a swing instead of a thrust. Flower ducked under the move and extended her arm with her sword to try and pierce through the giant''s torso, however, the vibration that ran up her arm at her strike almost made her drop her weapon.


    While she was doing this, and Ornstein''s lance passed over her head he stepped forward into her weapon, pushing her back through the solidity of his armour, reversed his grip on the lance and swung it down diagonally from the other side. Flower threw herself to the floor and rolled away, but received a swift and brutal kick to the face as she did so. Her face stung and her nose felt broken. She once again retreated, only to be hunted down as if she were a rat being chased by a cat.


    A blur of white bone on silver and wood commenced, every single move from the enemy being something that Flower had never seen before. As her green-clad form fled from the golden giant she realised the true threat that dragonslayer Ornstein represented. He wasn''t perfect, nothing was. But everything was novel and it gave her the feeling that she was permanently off balance.


    Flower had never fought against a demon, but she could very starkly feel the danger of facing a never-before-seen enemy as cuts appeared on her body, slowing her down more and more, while her own strikes failed to penetrate the dragonslayer''s armour.


    "Novelty indeed," she muttered distractedly as she was forced to jump in the air and spin over a brutal sideways swing of the lance. Her jian shot forth aiming for the very narrow eye-holes in Ornstein''s armour, but the knight simply tilted his head forward so the sword scraped by uselessly. He kicked out at her torso. She didn''t have enough energy, being barely more than a basic human in this form, and thus she was unable to dodge.


    She was kicked into the air.


    The lance swung from below, leaving a laceration on her torso before the damned weapon was pulled back and thrust straight at her chest. She tried to deflect it, but Ornstein struck her weapon out of the way with a twist of the crossguard, which had caught her sword in one of the spokes. The lance continued onwards to stab her in the lungs. Flower could only grit her teeth as the tip of the lance exited her back and the two tips of the cross-guard buried themselves respectively in her chest and into her stomach.


    "Fuck," she grumbled as she fell on the floor, Ornstein roughly placing a foot on her face to dislodge the lance from her body.


    Rather than finishing her, the bastard took a step back and dispassionately watched her bleed out on the floor.


    Flower ended the instance and reappeared back in the blank space.


    A frown spread across her face as she compartmentalised the pain she''d just finished experiencing. She''d never actually died from a monster created by an outer disciple, or an inner disciple for that manner. After all, usually, she''d fought several of those monsters already in slightly different scenarios created by other illusionists.


    The argument that what they needed in the sect was more original creatures wasn''t a new one, the issue was that it was hard to actually make something like that and that most cultivators preferred to stick to the safe route.


    She was about to enter the game again when a slight hesitation in her mindset made her pause.


    "Something original, can be so terrifying?" she asked herself quietly as she noted that her hands were shaking.


    Sure, she''d reduced her own power a lot and refrained from using any spells or techniques, but... even if she knew that she could blow Ornstein away if she used her true power, it truly was a horrifying experience to face something and know that one had not even scratched the surface of its abilities yet.


    The thought of slightly powering up, enough so that she at least matched the oddly well-developed physical strength that her opponent exhibited flitted through her mind. But then she gritted her teeth and decided that she didn''t feel like admitting defeat to an illusion made by an outer disciple.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Green and gold danced in the dead cathedral while dark orchestral music played in the background.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Bone-white and silver flashed in a blur as if they were differently coloured flies trying to mate in mid-air.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Tried systematically dismantling his armour, but failed.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Tried to enter her sword through the slits in his helmet, but failed.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Succeeded in cutting him in the weak points of his armour, the joints, but traded in her life for success.


    She went to face Ornstein again.


    Slowed him down by stabbing his joints, and tried to go for the eye-slit. Impossible, a simple tilt of the head and the sword went askew.


    She went to face Ornstein again, managed to disarm him and dismantled him slowly and efficiently as he weakly slapped at her with a pathetic unarmed fight. All extremities bleeding out, a sword through the eye-slit


    She realised that the disciple hadn''t programmed Ornstein in any unarmed fighting because there was no point considering his philosophy of focusing on novelty.


    She went in again and faced Ornstein as he was meant to be faced, with a lance.


    Died.


    Through the head, torso, loss of legs, loss of arms, head smashed against a marble pillar. So many ways to die.


    But Ornstein was only an algorithm in the end, she became used to the new and it became comforting. She developed counter-strategies and found the flaws.


    She won, but it wasn''t enough. She had to pay back the suffering she''d gone through. She went in again, and again, winning, losing, faster and faster.


    In the end, when she had the golden giant kneeling at her feet, a lake of blood growing under Ornstein as he tried to lift his lance through nearly severed arms, Flower realised something.


    A bright and contagious laughter filled the cathedral, accompanying the orchestral music with its ominous vocals.


    She was having fun.

 Chapter 4: Old Men stuck in their ways shall foverer be done away with by the young

    Simply standing there and looking at the female Elder, as she held the illusion Room in her hands and looked at it with a blank gaze was an excruciating experience. And it wasn''t only Jin who started getting anxious from the waiting, as after a few minutes even Elder Lung and Elder Qin started exchanging confused looks.


    As the few minutes stretched into what must have been half an hour, the two Elders even decided to consider intervening.


    "This is ridiculous, the boy must have failed to create a proper illusion somehow. There is no possible scenario in which Flower would take more than this amount of time to clear a Room made by an outer disciple," Elder Lung said with a frustrated growl.


    Meanwhile, the number of disciples looking at the examination process from behind the large stone gate had increased.


    Elder Qin ran his fingers over his beard as he briefly contemplated. "It is certainly unusual. However, it might be that she is just taking her time due to the supposed novelty of the scenario. Examining all aspects of the combat system, instead of just the difficulty and the fluidity attributes," he eventually said.


    The other Elder looked like he wanted to add something to that, but bit his tongue with a glance at Jin.


    Perhaps Flower was not someone known for her extensive examination process, or her patience, and the Elder simply didn''t want to criticise her in front of a disciple.


    If the delay was being caused by the woman being thorough, then Jin would have very much liked it if she could stop.


    His knees were slowly turning into jelly.


    If he didn''t get the promotion he''d be kicked out of the sect and left to fend for his own in this horrible feudalistic shithole these people called civil society.


    Thankfully, several minutes later, just as Jin was about to collapse from the stress and Elder Lung began insisting again that they should do something, Flower came to herself with a small shake of her head.


    She gave Jin a neutral look and went back to stand next to the other two examiners, still holding the illusion Room.


    It was worrying how she didn''t say anything, and despite Jin knowing that his illusion Room couldn''t have been that bad, her neutral countenance worried him.


    "I finished with my part of the testing," she announced. "Elder Lung, Elder Qin." She glanced at both the men. "Which one of you would like to go next?"


    "I think you should go first, Elder Lung," Elder Qin said, glancing at the other man. "I don''t want to delay this process any longer than necessary and if both of you agree then the exam is over anyway."


    It seemed that the Elder responsible for the outer disciples held some sort of tertiary power regarding the examination process. If one Elder said yes, and another said no, then the third would decide. It was a good sign for Jin since he wouldn''t fail with just one no.


    "All right, I''ll do it," Elder Lung said with a sigh, as if he was being forced to do something truly disgusting, other than just following his responsibilities as an Elder of the sect.


    He took the illusion Room from Flower and looked down at it almost disparagingly. Jin refrained from clenching his fists, knowing that the act would be caught by the Elder''s superior senses.


    The man''s eyes blanked out, and the illusion Room glowed a violent purple for a moment, signalling that someone had entered it; or, in more scientific terms, had started interacting with it.


    An illusion Room worked by connecting the mindscape of the person using it with the scenario inscribed within it. It did not create a miniature version of the user and inflict on them a miniature version of the scenario trapped inside a fancy box. That was just a misconception that some peasants living around the mountain of the sect had about the product being developed there. They told each other tales of how wrathful cultivators shrank people and locked them inside the Rooms sometimes.


    The second that Elder Lung was gone, Elder Flower suddenly burst into laughter.


    Jin and Elder Qin both gave her concerned looks, but it was only the latter of the two that asked what the issue was.


    "Is something the matter, Elder Flower?"


    "It''s nothing," the woman replied with a small smile. "Just thinking about Elder Lung fighting the monstrosity inside that room. The man''s no warrior. What did you call it, Dragonslayer Ornstein?" she asked, turning to Jin.


    The young man awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. Dragonslayer Ornstein was indeed not a name that had any particular meaning in this world. Dragons might have actually existed, but they were too powerful to actually be hunted in any capacity. Naming anything dragonslayer was a bit arrogant.


    Wyvern?


    Maybe.


    But, if he was already committing intellectual copyright fraud then he might as well honour the original intentions of the developers, instead of just slapping a new culture-appropriate name on their products and creations.


    "I sort of blanked out on the name and just went something. I planned on changing it in case I came up with something better, but I never did and then the time ran out," he lied.


    "Well he won''t be slaying any dragons anytime soon, but it was certainly an annoying enemy to fight," the Elder admitted with a nod.


    "Must have been quite troublesome, if you would go so far as to say that it was annoying," Elder Qin mused.


    "It was certainly something new."


    "That''s good to hear," Jin muttered.


    He glanced at Elder Lung, still immersed in the illusion Room, only to take a surprised step back as the man''s eyes opened.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    The man snorted and looked at Jin with a complicated look before handing over the illusion Room to Elder Qin.


    "As expected, a complete waste of time," he said.


    "What makes you say that?" Elder Flower asked with a frown.


    "Incomprehensible surroundings, loud music that distracts from the actual combat, an oddly designed enemy. It''s as if the illusion was created with the sole purpose of ruining any immersion, and distracting the user of the Room with as much stimuli as possible, to prevent them from actually drawing combat experience from the work," he explained.


    "That was the point of the whole thing, to create novelty. By definition, novelty is at the beginning a bit overwhelming." Jin couldn''t help but interject, immediately shutting his mouth again when the Elder threw him a smouldering glare, heavenly energy shining in his eyes.


    What he''d just said could have been taken as an insult. He cursed internally. Definitely not a smart move. Saying that novelty could be overwhelming was implicitly insulting the man for having a too-small brain to understand new concepts.


    Elder Qin sighed. "I guess it''s up to me to decide the end result of this exam."


    Elder Lung looked at Flower, clearly surprised. Almost as if asking, ''You really passed it?''


    Jin was honestly starting to very much doubt the professionalism of the sect that he was now bound to. In what world did examiners nitpick each other''s decision in front of the examinee?


    This one, apparently.


    Also, in what world were examiners so biased? Jin was perfectly willing to admit that his rendition of that particular Dark Souls level was a bit challenging to go through from a simple aesthetic perspective, but it was still clearly visible that the work was quality in its own way.


    Novelty was something to be celebrated, not cursed at. Was he really going to experience the fate of Ibn Al-Haytham?


    "Going in," Elder Qin reported.


    "The combat system was clearly innovative, and the argumentation that we need novel opponents to prepare for demons is very much valid." Elder Flower said back to the other Elder.


    Jin didn''t know if he had the mental capacity to listen to their argument. After all, he now stood on a precipice, Elder Qin holding his fate quite literally, in his hands.


    At least he could trust a man to be purely objective, considering that his reputation amongst the outer disciples was very much that of a fair if strict Elder. The only issue was naturally that if Jin had indeed made an actual mistake,


    Elder Qin wasn''t going to pass him simply for any sentimental reasons.


    "What''s the point of fighting someone in an environment that is so decisively out of one''s experience that one first dies several times from the distraction of the novelty?" Elder Lung retorted in the background, while Jin continued having his existential crisis.


    If he got expelled from the sect now, the amount of fucked that he was could not even be quantified. He would have wasted his initial cultivation pathways on this stupid scenario-generating piece of garbage, only to have a masterpiece like Dark Souls insulted by someone who probably wasn''t even as educated as the average American high school student, which was an insult in itself really.


    Thankfully, unlike Elder Flower and Elder Lung, Elder Qin seemed to actually be efficient at his job. It was only 5 minutes of pure earth-shattering anxiety that Jim had to suffer before the man exited the illusion Room.


    "He passes," the man said clearly and calmly.


    The words caused Lung, who had lost the Elder epithet in Jin''s internal narration, to throw his hands in the air and promptly storm off. Literally, in his case. He dissolved into a tornado of wind which flew up into the air and up the mountain.


    Very dramatic exit.


    -1/10 for shit personality.


    Jin just stood there, confused. He had been working and thinking only about this exam for seven days straight now with no minute of respite. To have it end in such an anticlimactic manner, the two Elders looking at him expectedly as if they wanted him to thank them or something, made him feel more than any of his other experiences that he was in another world.


    However, in a setting like this, there was a general rule one could follow when one got confused.


    When in doubt, bow.


    Jin bowed at a stiff angle towards the Elders and put his fist in his palm. "Thank you, Elders, for your guidance," he said.


    "Well, I haven''t guided you in any sort of way, but you''re welcome nonetheless," Elder Qin snarked, while Elder Flower simply put her hands together and gave Jim a short nod. As sure a sign of respect as any that he was going to get. Especially from someone of such a comparatively higher rank than his own.


    "I must commend you for having created such a unique fighting style. Obviously, it has issues and repetitive instances but perhaps the scenario actually merits an updated version once you have had more time to truly think about how the weight of the lance can be used," Elder Qin said. "About the aesthetics, while I do see what Elder Lung meant, I rather appreciated the destabilisation that such a new environment would have on a warrior. Combat, which is what we''re training warriors in, does not generally occur in a comfortable or familiar space. It is rather in an unfamiliar place that warriors die, which is why it''s good to prepare them for that. All in all, I have to say that I do not believe your scenarios will find mass appeal considering the difficulty and the feeling of unease such a new environment generates. That doesn''t mean, however, that they are not useful and won''t help anyone."


    Jin nodded. That had been a very thorough explanation. Also a very fair one. He wasn''t able to create a combat system that made perfect sense in such a short amount of time. His level design and architectural aesthetic would also naturally appear odd to people from this world, who did not have the historical context of the gothic period.


    He bowed once again. "Thank you, Elder Qin, for your guidance. Perhaps it is better to succeed in a small pond first before losing one''s will to fight in the big sea," he added metaphorically, which elicited a small smile from the man.


    It was Elder Flower who stepped forward next. "The combat system was very new, and also very difficult to beat on the level of physical restriction I was functioning under. However, it is definitely noticeable that you do not have any resources available to you on how such an opponent would actually fight. After a certain amount of time, I was able to determine a set of movements that I could commit to with a sword, which would elicit a very specific reaction from Ornstein. Since this is very much the death sentence of any fighter, being predictable, in the end, he was not even able to touch me, even though I was functioning at a physical level slightly beneath his. I understand of course that you had to create the whole thing from scratch yourself, but this is still a fatal flaw that we will have to fix. Perhaps it is unavoidable that the fighting style that does not in fact exist will eventually fall into a predictable pattern, however, extensive work should be invested into making the period before this happens as long as possible," she said. She seemed to consider for a second before saying another thing. "If this is the path you''re going to walk, I would suggest dedicating a few of your cultivation nodes to more martial purposes."


    Jin nodded and bowed once again. "Thank you for your guidance, Elder Flower."


    His mind meanwhile was stuck on something else that she had said. ''A fatal flaw that "we" will have to fix.''


    He wasn''t the only one who''d noticed.


    "That is a very direct proposition, Elder Flower", Elder Qin said with a small grin. "After all, you are currently the only true martial cultivator in our entire sect."


    The woman smiled beatifically. "Well, being the only one of something does mean that the price of my services trumps the price of other things which exist in abundance," she turned towards Jin. "What do you think? If you''re going to be creating combat systems you''re going to need the help of the only person in the sect who knows about fighting on a very personal level. In that regard, I''m also visiting the Mad Monks Sect soon. They are known for using staves and if anyone will be able to help you achieve the next level for Ornstein, it will be them. I think it would be a sad thing to see the scenario you''ve created decay because it was created by a relative amateur."


    Jin bowed, for the umpteenth time today. "I would gladly accept such an offer."


    Apparently, it was time to ride the coattails.

 Chapter 5: Laying the Foundations

    Of course, simply because Elder Flower had so graciously offered Jin help that even core disciples would have likely fought to receive; this did not mean that there were not at first several other things to handle.


    After all, as surreal as it still felt, Jin had just passed the examination process for his ascension to the role of inner disciple. This meant that he had to be shown his new accommodations, the new cultivation and knowledge resources he now had access to and just generally acclimate to his new standing in the sect and in the wider world.


    For this purpose Elder Flower had told him that he should first get used to the part of the mountain he was now inhabiting and to make a plan for his future.


    More specifically, she had said that her offer was most definitely not an offer of apprenticeship and that she was simply interested in helping him perfect the combat system used by Ornstein. She was not taking charge of his entire career, as an apprenticeship would have implied.


    Jin was quite happy with that. In a way, this was actually the superior relationship to have. After all, he had a lot of his own ideas of what he needed to create. It would be sad if the scenarios he could bring in from his past life would have to be put on hold because he was fulfilling some arbitrary tasks for a master who quite frankly did not have access to such a well of genius as he did.


    But first, before thinking of his future projects, before he started meeting the Elder, Jin was planning on relaxing. Elder Flower had said that the visit to the Mad Monks Sect was still a few weeks off after all.


    Jin was planning on using this time to familiarise himself with the situation he was now in and to rest his mind. The past week had simply been a blur of work and deadlines, and he wanted to visit the scenario library.


    He''d been an avid enjoyer of video games for the past few years of his life; being offered free access to an inner disciple library full of scenarios created with the different cultural contexts might as well have been heaven to him.


    But before he could get started on any of that, he had to go through the most dreaded and boring thing of any new entry into an institution.


    The orientation.


    The guide for this orientation was a wispy old man, who approached Jin after the boy had said goodbye to Elder Qin and Elder Flower and walked through the stone gate, forced his way through the group of inner disciples and politely shook everyone''s hand and just generally introduced himself.


    Jin would have guessed his guide to be around 75, but because the man was an inner disciple and the cultivation level implied in that position still slowed down ageing somewhat, he guessed that he was around 200.


    It didn''t seem like he would be going anywhere and would die on the level he had reached, but for all of that, Jin found Francis a peppy if a bit boring man. The boring part couldn''t really be helped considering the age difference, and the relatively different levels of education the two of them had, but he appreciated the energy.


    During the orientation, Francis explained several things, some of which Jin hadn''t known before.


    Firstly, being an inner disciple was better than becoming an outer disciple because the former, upon entering the rank, received a grace period of one year to acclimate to their new surroundings, before having to contribute sect points.


    Back when Jin had entered the outer disciple ring of the sect, he''d had to start contributing immediately, having to do a variety of small jobs to get the requisite amount of sect points to pay for his stay.


    In a similar vein, he didn''t at the time of being an outer disciple have the option of contributing illusion Rooms.


    Contributing illusion Rooms was one of the important ways that one could earn sect points as an inner disciple. After all, it was at the inner disciple level that people actually started getting good at making them.


    The Rooms one made after passing the exams could be shown at the visitor library, where people from other sects came to look at scenarios. One''s contribution would be measured by the amount of people using one''s Room in particular. Alternatively, if one had enough of a reputation, or if the client was enough of a cheap skate to go with an inner disciple of low standing, one could get the commission to create one particular scenario.


    Both of these methods were not that useful for people who had just gained the rank of an inner disciple, considering that both the library method and the commissions required a certain reputation to succeed. However, at least inner disciples had an eventual "financial" out, when they improved their craft enough to earn their stay with it.


    This was why the inner disciple ring had actual servants, because unlike the outer disciple one, it was not completely self-sustaining with the labour of the disciples. The majority of them got paid through creating illusion Rooms and not doing menial chores.


    At this point of cultivation, everyone in the inner ring had reached at least the foundation establishment stage. It would be a complete waste to make people like that sweep the floor.


    One gained a personal servant as a sign of status after one''s illusion Rooms became one''s sole source of sect points. It was quite obvious that the disciples with servants were the ones more likely to ascend to core disciple status.


    The Illusion Room sect was weird in the fact that it was one of the few ones which did not have more outer disciples than they had inner ones. It made sense in a way when one thought about it though. Martial sects profited from a large group of outer disciples that served as fodder in the case of conflict.


    A sect based on craftsmanship only had so many resources and teachers to go around, so they rather restricted the intake but invested more into their higher stage members since those created higher quality products.


    Jin''s next goal in this pyramid scheme would be to attain the role of a core disciple.


    These were the disciples who had been specifically picked out to have enough potential to form a nascent soul and who essentially got put into an acceleration program to achieve that. After having done so they would contribute long enough in that position until they got named Elders.


    Jin wasn''t anywhere close to that, having not even attained a servant, but it was good to know where one was headed.


    He considered these things as Francis showed him around the inner disciple ring; the library, the mission exchange board, the food market, and the apartment blocks.


    It seemed that in the inner ring, the sect wanted to further collaboration between disciples instead of isolating them so that they could focus more on the test that was coming at a set timeline. Similarly in Jin''s previous life, the best video games had been collaborative efforts.


    For this purpose, there was no more food delivery, unless one had a servant who would bring it. Instead, there was a gigantic mess hall where food was being served at all times.


    In a similar vein, disciples did not live in isolated huts anymore, but in large houses with several apartments, where one had to deal with having neighbours.


    This was the explanation that Francis had given, hinting perhaps that the two of them should collaborate at some point.


    Jin politely refused stating that he first wanted to acclimate himself to the sect before even thinking of producing a new work.


    As an addition to Francis'' explanation he also suspected that one of the reasons why the disciples lived in the apartment blocks was the fact that the higher up the mountain they were, the less space was available. As a sect that had more inner than outer disciples, they had to use the space that they did have wisely.


    The tour ended at the apartment building that Jin would be living in. It seemed that the sect simply built one new building once in a while and filled it up sequentially with the people who passed the exams. It also meant that the later one joined the inner ring, the further out one would live from its central amenities. Jin for example was now an inner disciple who had joined perhaps 15.000 years after the sect had formed and was already 2 km out of the centre with the library and the food hall.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    This wasn''t a bad thing though, after all this also meant that he had the newest building, a yellow brick house, towering into the sky and differing in architecture wildly from the simple hut he''d been living in previously. The roof was out of stone, and the windows were inlaid with glass so that one could open or close them at one''s leisure. A luxury that he hadn''t even known had been a luxury until he''d spent a draughty evening in his last domicile.


    "This is where we part ways young man, do come find me if you ever need help. Who knows if you help me enough I might even let you inherit my apartment right next to the food hall after I die, haha," Francis joked with a full-bellied laugh and walked off leaving Jin standing in front of the building with nothing but the clothes on his back and his illusion Room in his hands.


    The exam really hadn''t taken that long and it was still day. Jin could for example use his time to go to the library, to get some food, or to otherwise explore the area.


    However, after the week that he''d had he definitely deserved some rest. He entered the building through the front door and walked up the steps to the third floor, where he found his name engraved on a door. Next to it was a little bell attached to the wall which one could ring in a very fittingly old-fashioned manner to summon the inhabitant of the apartment. He chuckled and entered.


    It was a quaint little two-room affair, with one room that was obviously meant for work, and one that was meant for sleep. His amenities hadn''t improved too much, still not having a real bed but simply a futon on the ground this time. His workbench was only slightly larger with the writing equipment graciously donated by the sect already on it.


    There was a wardrobe with five of the beige disciple rules already in it. There was also a bucket to get water from a well that must have been somewhere near, and some glasses and some wooden containers for personal effects of which Jin at the moment had none.


    There was a tiny balcony, which he promptly entered when he found it. It consisted of two wooden beams that had been extended beyond the perimeters of the walls and on which a plate of stone along with a wooden railing had been installed. It was just big enough for a small table and a chair, both of which were still missing. He would get something like that later on, he quite enjoyed sitting on a balcony and looking at the sunset and the sunrise respectively.


    The floor would do for the moment. Jin promptly sat down.


    It had been a wild week, but there was still one last thing to consider before he could truly let himself rest.


    His cultivation


    The first stage of cultivation was the qi condensation stage. It consisted of learning how to perceive heavenly energy, which was the prerequisite to gathering it. This in turn was the prerequisite for circulating it throughout the body, which purified it of its impurities.


    Parsing through the memories that the body''s original owner had of that stage very much made Jin grateful that he hadn''t had to live through it. Purifying meant purifying and nothing less, the previous Jin had been forced to lay in a tub full of hot water outside of his hut and had expelled from his body more black sludge than anyone would have thought possible for a society where everyone ate organic food by default.


    Once the body had been purified, it became an imperfect conduit for the heavenly energies which could now be channelled towards an effect. The effect in the case of the illusion Room sect, was the creation of illusions and the ability to insert these into the appropriate Rooms.


    Naturally, every sect had different techniques for how they went about qi condensation, which depended heavily on what kind of techniques they wanted to be using and which attributes of a cultivator they valued. Quite generally these attributes were divided into body, mind, and soul. The illusion room sect was a sect of mind cultivators. This meant that in the limited amount of purification that could happen in the qi condensation stage, they focused mostly on the spiritual nodes present in the brain. This essentially allowed for the better processing power of the mind and thus for a better control of illusions. It was also why they valued disciples with a yin affinity, which was what Jin had.


    If Jin had been a body cultivator, he would have instead focused on specifically purifying either his muscles, tendons or bones, depending on the martial technique of his sect. They would have preferred him to have a yang affinity.


    Naturally even if one focused one''s refinement on one particular aspect, all others were still uplifted. One could say that on average 50% of the purification occurred throughout the entire trifecta, while one could allocate the other 50% as one wanted. It was here that talent cut a line between those who had it and those who didn''t.


    Being able to direct more or less of the optional half, reflected one''s general ability to cultivate and use the appropriate spells. Jin had, if he quickly recalculated into percentages the garbled spiritual nonsense taught in the manuals, diverted 56% of his purification and resulting refinement into the brain. This was considered quite above average, as most people only managed to control 50%. One was considered a genius if one managed to allocate as one wished more than 60%.


    This was what Jin had accomplished before James had taken over the body, he''d finished the Qi condensation stage, focused most of its improvements on the mind, learned the appropriate basic techniques and was now decisively in the early stage of foundation establishment.


    Foundation establishment was concerned with refining the body further so that it would be able to take in heavenly energy more efficiently and then serve as a better conduit for spells. While the first stage had been concerned with purifying the body, the second was concerned with refining it.


    One generally spoke of nine pillars. Each set of three representing one section of the stage. Each pillar in turn consisted of the refinements of several spiritual nodes, of which there were hundreds in the human body. If Jin were to follow the general rule of the illusion Room cultivation sect, he would refine all the nodes and all the pillars he could in the area of the mind.


    However, Elder Flower had suggested that he focus at least some of them on his physical capacities.


    These were all decisions that would be made after he really sunk his teeth into the library. The later stages of cultivation consisted of messing with one soul, and he wasn''t willing to do that without understanding the process at least somewhat better.


    The understanding that Jin had brought with him was very rudimentary. Not the boy''s fault, of course, since the sect simply didn''t allow their disciples to have access to a lot of knowledge. This was what allowed them to actually expel the failed outer disciples, instead of having to kill or cripple them to protect their secrets.


    This was supposedly the fate of failed outer disciples in other sects. They were either killed for trying to leave if they did not manage to pass on to the next level, or they were held in the outer ring as servants until they died of old age.


    Cultivation was a demanding, exhausting, self-perpetuating process with several bottlenecks. People could get stuck and never recover or advance between every one of the stages of qi condensation, foundation establishment and so on. People who had failed to align their heavenly energy intake channels properly and had thus sabotaged their further ascension were as numerous as there was sand on the beach.


    Jin sighed and entered the meditative position that he had been taught by Elder Qin when he entered the sect all those years ago. It was simply the lotus position but with his hands placed on the sides of his temples. A bit weird, but that was cultivation for you.


    For the first time since he entered this new body, he focused on his inner world, instead of the outer one.


    A meditative trance wasn''t easy to achieve, considering that Jin or James in this matter was still relatively shaken by his entry into cultivation land, but after several minutes, perhaps even half an hour he finally managed to block out his surroundings and focus only on himself and the heavenly energy permitting every single atom of this world.


    What he saw when he looked within simply confirmed the things that he had been experiencing for the past few days in his new body. His mind was faster, his body more healthy. Aches that he had not even known existed in his previous body had not been carried over. He felt as if he was walking on clouds and now as he was looking at the inside of his being he could see why.


    The remnants of the qi condensation process, the purification had left him with not a body, but a temple. He was essentially inhabiting a villa made completely out of marble, whereas beforehand he had simply been bumming it out in a dirty cave with weird mushrooms growing on the walls. The occasional cockroach.


    And to think that this wasn''t even the final form. That higher stage cultivators felt even better.


    Well, feeling better wasn''t necessarily the way to describe his state of being. It was rather that he was lacking in any ailments. Negative effects like an aching tendon or persistent cold, things that one didn''t truly care about anymore after they were gone. But of which a complete and utter lack was stunning.


    Rather than just wanting to stay in the sect to live a decent life and access some luxury, Jin decided then and there that he wanted to stay also to cultivate more, to attain more of this goodness consisting of a complete lack of negativity.


    All his bones felt as sturdy as iron, his tendons like ropes and his muscles like pistons.


    His mind? A crystal cathedral in which information was sent from neuron to neuron mapped onto grey tissue faster than any supercomputer.


    Jin didn''t know how long he simply sat there in the meditative position. How much time he spent simply breathing in, and out, marvelling at this new existence. Took in the heavenly energy as he had been taught to do and used it to improve himself. He disregarded the cryptic instructions of the sect which still focused on the Eastern equivalent of the four humours when it came to foundation establishment and rather went through every part of himself slowly but surely cell by cell. Leukocyte by leukocyte. DNA string by DNA string.


    When he opened his eyes not knowing how much time had passed he felt possibly even more refreshed than he had before. More importantly, he could feel the difference between how easily the heavenly energy entered and exited his body as he directed it through the little cantrips that were taught to disciples so they could start on something easy. Expelling a bit of air, a bit of heat, condensing a bit of water.


    He didn''t know if the improvement of his channelling and technique came down to the fact that he was only now starting to familiarise himself with it, or that he had applied the knowledge of his previous life to the spiritual concepts of his current one.


    Anyone looking from the outside would have been shocked at discovering that whereas he had sat down in the very early stages of the foundation establishment¡­ In one cultivation session, he entered the middle stage of foundation establishment.


    Only time would tell if such jumps would become the norm, or if it had simply been the result of integrating the life experiences of another highly educated human being into the context of someone who had already been quite talented.


    One thing was sure, James had a lot to show this world, and it wasn''t just his knowledge of video games that would bring him forward.

 Chapter 6

    The tip of Jin''s lance shot forward before quickly retracting again along with the wooden shaft. The jiangshi that he had just decapitated with the move fell to the ground, just as another one of the eastern zombies managed to latch itself onto his back and drag him down to the panelled floor of the mansion he was fighting in. It was in that position that he lost the battle and the zombies swarmed him and tore him to pieces.


    The first time it had happened several weeks ago, it had been a very traumatic experience. However, now he was getting used to it and very much realised the importance of the fact that the scenario did not simply end when he fell to the ground.


    In honour of his first copyright transgression, Jin had in the past weeks been training in his use of a lance. Not that he owned one, of course, it was just that in the bountiful scenarios he now had access to in the sect library he could simply generate his own weapon. The lance was simply what he had chosen.


    There definitely was something to the Illusion Room Sect''s philosophy of throwing enemies at warriors to improve them. Jin had died numerous times and every time he went back in he felt like his skill in battle had improved significantly. It was in those last deadly moments of a fight that one gained the most insight into how one could have avoided death. Going in again immediately after and correcting one''s behaviour in another attempt was where the biggest improvements came from.


    The basic scenario that Jin was undergoing right now consisted of several waves of what he recognized as the Chinese folklore version of zombies coming at him until he dropped. Usually dressed in rags or official robes which had for some reason not decayed, these stiff corpses, often with a talisman covering their face, hopped in his direction and if they got their grip on him would tear him apart with their sharp fingernails and teeth. One of the least threatening enemies that he had found so far, however, the numbers that they came in could be quite staggering.


    The first time he''d played the specific scenario he''d managed to defend himself against the first wave, which consisted of five of the monsters. The second one consisted of 13, the third of 47 and so on. Jin was now currently on his 5th wave and had just died for the sixth time that day.


    It was actually kind of fun, but his improvement had been plateauing to the point that he decided to stop, while he was still ahead. The thing about having such a variety of scenarios available was that he didn''t have to continue grinding at one particular piece and could therefore avoid diminishing returns. He''d already beaten countless scenarios containing a variety of Eastern mythological creatures and there were still countless more to go through.


    He looked around the white space that he found himself in from which he could enter the scenario again. A simple visual representation of a placard with the word zombie inscribed on it would allow him to jump right back in. Instead, he picked the second option and exited the Room.


    He came to himself in the gigantic library of the Illusion Room Sect, with its high walls and meticulous record keeping. He stood up from where he''d been sitting on the floor and picked up the illusion Room that had recently been preoccupying him.


    He put it back on its shelf. All around him thousands upon thousands of Rooms buzzed. He was all alone in this part of the library. and that was for one very interesting reason. He was in the section designated for the scenarios that had not stood the test of time.


    In other words, he was in the section with outdated products. After all, if someone made a newer version of the zombie swarm scenario in which the zombies were somehow more adapted to the needs of the warriors trying to learn from the experience, then what was the point of keeping an inferior version of the same product in the main part of the library?


    This was one of the issues of using illusion Room submissions as the way to earn sect points. One was always at risk of having someone else develop a superior product, and thus having one''s own being pushed into this relegation zone. Once here, naturally, one''s Room did not earn any more sect points since no one was in fact using it. Unless one''s name was Jin of course. He was probably making some people mildly happy.


    However, because having one''s Room relegated, and considering that new scenarios were usually better due to the discovery of new techniques or memory slips, most of the people who had produced the games that he had been playing in the last weeks were probably already dead.


    He stretched with his hands up in the air and looked around. As always the area was completely empty. One of the reasons why he was here. The main area was actually quite busy. Visiting cultivators, and inner disciples trying to learn the newest tricks, everyone was there and there were comparably fewer Rooms in there as well. After all, there were so many zombie swarm scenarios, but only a few of them could be shown. Sure the inner disciples who had made the successful Rooms in the showroom could make copies, but considering that the production of the artefacts that contain the illusion also cost money and production time there needed to be a very strict balance of determining how much of what was actually needed. Worst case of course, Jin had learned from the librarians that people could still be sent back into these relegated archives if they were fine with learning with the second best, but after thousands of years, the librarians had also figured out a pretty good system for avoiding this.


    He scratched his chin and hoped that his practice was enough to satisfy whatever expectations Elder Flower would have for the improvement he could reasonably make in three weeks. She seemed to put a lot of value on combat systems and Jin had learned a lot about those in the past few weeks. Especially about the way that they improved over time, scenario by scenario.


    This was why he had been going through older obsolete models. To find out exactly what breakthroughs made one version superior to another. Eventually, he hoped that this would allow him to have such an oversight of the creation market, that he could predict and leapfrog the next future development and stay in the relevant zone for longer when he actually sat down to make another scenario. Which would probably be after his trip with Elder Flower.


    He walked out of the relegation part of the library, absolutely stuffed to the brim with the creations of the sect''s inner disciples over the ages, and exited into a large open space.


    It was in this hexagonal room with its many attendants and cultivators from all the different parts of the world that one generally chose which part of the library to enter. This usually coincided also with the question of which part of the library one was qualified to enter.


    After all, the visiting cultivators who paid a daily fee for access to the scenario storage did not also have access to all the memory slips, and to all the publicly available techniques of the Illusion Room Sect or its shelves stocked full with cultivation strategies, techniques and journals of those who had come before.


    And as always in a room as large as this, through the bustle and hustle one could identify a group of young masters with seemingly nothing to do with their lives other than to simply stand there sipping tea, or alcohol, or whatever was in those little gourds they were carrying around.


    "Still strolling through the relegation library in search of inspiration to one day join its ranks?" One of those inner disciples jeered at Jin as he walked past. He had long black hair tied together in a bun. Instead of wearing the basic beige robes, he was wearing an elaborate red and gold outfit overdrawn with motifs of phoenixes and Imperial mountain landscapes.


    "I mean, I agree. Trash has to stay with the trash, but aren''t you at least smart enough to know that you can only learn from what''s good today?"


    A small sigh escaped Jin''s lips as he glanced at the idiot and at his giggling clique of school girls who were actually several decades-old men. This of course made the whole thing even more pathetic.


    "Alas," Jin started. "I still have many centuries of knowledge to catch up on before I can truly call myself qualified to make a scenario worthy of this glorious library," he said diplomatically, earning himself a sneer from Lung junior, which was in fact the boy''s name.


    "Perhaps by the time you''re a desiccated corpse, you''ll have managed to make the basic stickman, to join the other failures," Lung junior said and demonstratively looked away from Jin as the latter continued strolling out of the premises, getting some pitying looks from the other illusion Room cultivators.


    The others, those visiting from other sects and paying exorbitant fees to even be present here, were too busy to care about anything and were simply hurrying around, trying to use what little time they had to get in as much training as possible.


    "I''m checking out," Jin said when he arrived at the front desk where a bored grey-haired Elder was sitting, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling. The woman imperceptibly nodded and Jin left the building.


    It might have seemed odd to have an Elder be the receptionist in a library for inner disciples, but the fact was that since Jin''s sect was one of the few sects that allowed the entry of outsiders, there needed to be a strong presence in the rooms to prevent the sects with feuds from starting a fight and wrecking something.


    He''d heard that the Elders simply switched the responsibility around between them and that each and every one of them had to do only a year of the service per millennia.


    Exiting the library into the fresh air Jin breathed a sigh of relief.


    Every time he was forced to interact with Lung Junior he felt slightly afraid that it was going to go horribly wrong. It was very obvious that the boy, or rather, 79-year-old man from what Jin had found out, didn''t like him. It was even more obvious that this dislike had been inherited from the boy''s father, Elder Lung.


    Jin had been confused for the longest time after his passing into the inner ring about why exactly the man had been so triggered by him. However, despite no one being willing to give him any answers he had soon come to deduction on the reason for the man''s dislike.


    There was another part of the library that he hadn''t mentioned previously, mostly because he never truly wanted to go there. It was the part of the library filled with templates for illusionary attributes. For example, if an inner disciple wanted to only create an enemy, he could just use template A for the surroundings in which the fight would occur. That way they had less work, but also the person who had created the template and made it available earned a small amount of the fee charged for the use of the Room. A win-win so to say.


    Well, as it turned out the entire template section of the library was mostly taken up by members of the Lung family. They seemed to be one of the oldest noble families of the sect and had specialised over the years in creating templates for others to use.


    Jin suspected that due to the rather high level of architecture he had exhibited in his illusion Room, they thought that he was going to try to become a competitor.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    This of course wasn''t the case, as he found the usage of templates to be completely devoid of any sort of creativity and that was coming from him as a professional plagiarizer. Nevertheless, this didn''t prevent Lung Junior from trying to stick a foot between Jin''s legs every chance he got.


    Considering the boy from what he heard had been an inner disciple for several decades now Jin was honestly quite surprised that he wasn''t trying harder to rise up, or was there perhaps a system of seniority when it came to being promoted to core disciple?


    Anyway, it didn''t really matter. The Illusion Room Sect wasn''t as inherently violent as warrior sects were, so the most that Jin would have to be afraid of would be some sabotage, maybe some petty theft of ideas.


    He heard that several gangs of inner disciples simply waited by the library for a new concept to be dropped into the room full of worthwhile scenarios.


    They would then quickly collaborate with their friends and create a slightly superior version of the scenario to knock it into the relegation zone. That way they didn''t have to be creative, come up with a concept themselves and with a minimal amount of effort invested could reap a somewhat middling salary.


    It really took all kinds of people, he thought with a shake of his head as he made his way back to his apartment. All of this didn''t really matter that much at the moment. Tomorrow he would be meeting Elder Flower, and soon after he would be leaving with her for the Mad Monks Sect.


    -/-


    Jin found Elder Flower after having walked around what he felt was half the mountain. On one side of the inner ring, the inner disciples had their space to work, study and live. On the other side of that ring was still relatively untouched wilderness. It was there that cultivators could stride through nature, and meet up without the hustle and bustle of the disciple village.


    It was also somewhere where Jin could meet an Elder without having to be bothered by people coming in to interrupt their interaction or maybe even spying on it.


    He''d walked through mostly forests and meadows, some rock outcroppings which got more common the more up the mountain one travelled and the occasional cloud, which from his position engulfed him like a particularly thick fog.


    Elder Flower was waiting for him in a meadow full of bright green grass that swayed in the wind, sitting under a blossoming Sakura tree with the same outfit she had last time. Wide green pants, sandals, and a tight shirt, her sword scabbard hung at her waist. She was sitting on a large grey boulder which looked out of place in the grassy clearing. As if she''d brought it there with her.


    "Junior greets Elder," Jin said with a bow, fist clasped in his palm.


    "Elder greets junior," Flower answered and motioned for him to sit down in front of her.


    Jin did so, committing to a seiza, uncaring of the grass stains he would likely find on his robes later. It wasn''t like he was the one who would have to wash them. He didn''t have a servant, but facilities were available.


    Elder Flower looked him up and down and it was the first time that Jin had the opportunity to truly look her in the eyes. They were a clear white. Hadn''t they been a different colour last time?


    Did it matter? This was cultivation land. These things could change.


    "I''m glad to see that you followed my advice and directed some of your nodes to more physical attributes," she eventually said.


    Jin nodded. "It is foolish of the inexperienced to ignore the advice of the wise," he said politely. Without posing the burning question he had of why exactly she''d wanted him to do so.


    A smile hushed across her features. He felt like she was reading his mind and laughing at his unwillingness to ask.


    "What do you think of the martial capacity of our sect?" she asked. She elaborated at his confused look. "How strong are we in a fight?"


    It sounded like a trick question, if he said that they were weak, as expected from a craftsman sect, then he could be accused of not being loyal enough. If he said they were strong, it could be considered a stupid answer considering that warrior sects should obviously be stronger.


    Always fun to try and unravel these complex social situations in a world where powerful people took offence very easily. Jin sighed inwardly.


    "It''s a complicated question because the product that we are focused on making would technically make us into better warriors." He started. "Over the last weeks, I have been improving my martial abilities against the Rooms in the library. I think that with the unfettered access that I have as a member of the sect, someone could advance very quickly, very far. However, on the other side, there''s the fact that we assign so much of our cultivation to the mental while only learning spells unsuited for combat."


    "I guess I''m trying to say that I don''t think that we''re particularly weak or strong for a sect that does not focus on producing warriors. Martial sects are definitely stronger, while other craftsman sects likely lag slightly behind."


    Elder Flower hummed and seemed to consider his answer. "A very incomplete picture," she eventually decided. "It likely makes more sense for me to simply tell you things instead of asking you questions which require knowledge you do not have."


    Jin wasn''t mad at that, she was right after all. He was a newbie in this world, in more ways than just one. What was the point of asking him anything really?


    "The Illusion Room Sect suffers the same issues as all non-combat sects do. The higher up the cultivation ladder you go, the more the difference in martial prowess shows. Other cultivators were focusing on becoming stronger while we were focusing on getting better at our craft. I''m sure that if you put the same amount of training into your skills with any given weapon you would end up being able to hold your own against the inner disciple of a martial sect. However, the second they start learning techniques and advancing beyond the core formation stage the whole equation becomes very very skewed."


    "That makes sense," Jin said, occasionally making sounds of agreement and nodding.


    "However, it is a mistake to think that the Illusion Rooms Sect is completely helpless. It is just that most of our members focus their cultivation in a direction that doesn''t necessarily use our greatest strength to its fullest."


    "What is our greatest strength, if I may ask?"


    "There is no single reason why things are done a certain way. The enemies we create in scenarios do not need to have completely logical combat processes simply because we want to create as realistic an experience as possible. After all, making something unrealistic, and defying the logic of our world would also offer a very interesting combat experience. That is why I''m so impressed by Ornstein and his abilities to follow the logic while creating something new."


    "Thank you, Elder."


    "There are spells that we learn later on in the sect that will likely make you a combat threat considering your apparent proclivity for meaningful innovation. That is why I have instructed you to dedicate at least some of your cultivation to physical attributes. Eventually, depending on your talent you will learn Templating," she explained before leaning black and looking at him closely.


    Jin knew that she would continue with her explanation when she saw fit and didn''t see the need to interject by asking what templating was. They sat there in silence for several minutes which slowly turned into half an hour which turned into one hour.


    Jin didn''t mind, as he could spend the time looking at a beautiful woman, as much as he didn''t try to let that part be noticed, but he did nevertheless find it curious.


    It was after an hour and a half that Elder Flower spoke again, the sun having moved a significant distance over the sky. "If an illusion creator can create a combat style for a human-like entity and stick it into a Room, is there any particular reason why he can''t externalise that combat knowledge, consisting generally of a series of specific movements onto his own body? In simpler words, templating is taking on the attributes of one''s creation that one so intimately knows and using it as a guide using one''s own body as a conduit to bring that combat effectiveness into reality."


    Jin''s entire world shook as Elder Flower spoke. He finally understood why she had told him to focus on physical attributes. From what she was saying, he could take Ornstein''s combat ability which was already several times higher than his own after weeks of practice and simply take it for himself? The dash wouldn''t work, of course, he didn''t know how to do that. But all the other ways of wielding a lance, after being adjusted for height? He could have all that, really?


    Elder Flower closed her eyes at his obvious excitement. "I see that you understand what I mean. If you had a lance like your character does, you could wield it the exact same way assuming that the way it is being wielded now is logically consistent with the reality of the world we live in instead of just with your scenario."


    "That''s why it''s so important to perfect it," Jin realised out loud. "Not only will it provide a more worthwhile experience for warriors challenging the illusion, but it will also make me stronger in return."


    Elder Flower nodded. "There is always more than one reason why something happens. If the only good thing coming out of me taking you with me to the Mad Monks Sect would be the improvement of one product, I would not. However, it also raises the general combat potential of our sect, while also showing face to the monks whose use of quarterstaff resembles your creation. You will show them Dragonslayer Ornstein and they will appreciate the intricacies of his combat style."


    Jin nodded earnestly. "Understood Elder."


    "Good, templating is the skill that is probably next on your chopping block. However, you are nowhere near close enough yet. It''s not even worth discussing anima yet, solid projections constructed in the shape of those monsters you are intimately familiar with. I simply wanted to inform you what you will be working towards," she said and Jin''s world shook again.


    Anima? He could one day create the monsters from his games? Wouldn''t that make him invincible? No, of course not, there had to be a weakness.


    "What will we be doing until then?" Jin asked.


    "You will continue honing your weapon skills against the Rooms and perfecting the design of Ornstein. However, you will be doing so with a sword," she said and pulled out a bamboo sword from somewhere. She threw it at him and it flew through the air to land with its handle first in Jin''s hand.


    He looked at it curiously and guessed that it made more sense to become proficient with a sword rather than a lance considering the latter didn''t really exist in this world for a reason. He sighed. He would still have to learn the lance, however, to perfect his Ornstein.


    "Most cultivators use a sword, so any disciple of the sect benefits from knowing how it is used and getting as good with it as possible. After all, you have to know what the general audience has as an option when they face your scenarios," Flower said.


    Jin nodded, understanding the logic.


    Elder Flower stood up and pulled out her own wooden sword.


    "We start now," she said calmly and swung at him.

 Chapter 7: Travel the world, meet interesting people, kill them

    It was after another three weeks of tutelage from Elder Flower that Jin was standing in the mission room of the middle ring. Well, calling it tutelage was probably an overly enthusiastic way of describing it. They rarely met, and Flower simply directed his training, telling him what to focus on and giving him the opportunities to do so.


    That was why he had been focusing almost solely on swordsmanship and cultivation. His enthusiasm for delegating more of his cultivation nodes to physical pursuits was even higher now that he knew the actual reason for such an action. Templating, especially with the innovative combat styles he would be creating, would make him a relatively dangerous fighter even if he never spent nearly as much time or effort on it as the cultivators of a warrior sect.


    He was pleased with his progress, and his rising understanding of this world he was now trapped in. Elder Flower similarly didn''t have anything to complain about.


    Even after getting more exposed to him this past month, she still wanted to take him with her on the trip to the Mad Monks Sect. This was why Jin was in the mission centre. A place that he had originally decided not to visit until the end of his one-year grace period allowed by his promotion to inner disciple. For some or other reason, Flower had told Jin that she would pick him up from here before their departure.


    Considering her focus on meeting him where they could remain unseen previously, it was weird why she wanted to showcase their relationship like this now. There must have been some internal sect politics involved in the decision, however he had decided not to get involved and to simply go along with the flow. He wasn''t qualified to have an opinion on the matter and even if he did, there wasn''t much he could do to change Flower''s intended actions when one considered what she was doing for him. He would go down in the sect''s social context as ungrateful and no one would help him out of their own volition ever again: Essentially, he was being forced to pick a side, without knowing what side he was picking, or knowing if the reward was worth it.


    Such was life.


    Regardless of the reason why he was here, Jin was here now. This meant that he could look around.


    It was a busy place, perhaps the busiest in the whole inner ring other than the library. Several wooden counters stylized with dragon carvings were set up to face the entrance hall and there were multiple boards stacked full of missions and what seemed to be bounty posters.


    There was a constant stream of beige-robed disciples going in and out and talking to the clerks, who were disciples themselves, to register a job or to get their reward in the form of sect points or something else.


    As expected, it was the bounty board that had the least disciples standing in front of it. The Illusion Room Sect was not necessarily known for its combat prowess and violent pursuits.


    It was thus there that Jin walked to, wanting to see who this world considered to be worthy of having a price on their head.


    The general currency of cultivation land was spirit stones, which could also in the sect be exchanged at a ratio of either one spirit stone for 96 sect points, one-third of the yearly upkeep of an inner disciple. Or the other way around, 106 sect points for one spirit stone.


    Naturally, the highest bounty, all the way on top of the board, gave the person who succeeded in beheading and proving the death of the Black Immortal Chen Ju, 136,000 spirit stones. This would be enough to set up Jin for life if he only ever wanted to be an inner disciple. It was mentioned on the poster of the youthful-looking man with black hair wearing a black kimono that he was presumably at the nascent soul formation stage and that as a demon cultivator, he might have the combat potential of someone well above that.


    It was quite obvious to Jin that everyone higher than halfway up the board was too powerful for him to even bother thinking about. He thus turned his attention downwards where he found that the lower a cultivator''s cultivation, the stupider the nickname they would get. For example, Chicken-headed Pig God was an experiment gone loose from one of the more experimental sects. A man with the head of a chicken, he was regularly seen riding on the back of a domesticated wild boar to loot vegetables off different farms. The reward for his capture was set at 15 spirit stones.


    Next to the picture of the comical chicken-headed man was a more worrying portrayal of an insane-looking young woman with murder in her eyes. Apparently, she was a Mad Monks Sect outer disciple turned bandit after her cultivation had diverged into insanity.


    It turned out, that one of the side effects of fucking up one''s opening of mental nodes or certain spells could very well result in harming one''s sanity in general. Not something that Jin wanted to mess around with. That was why he was very non-experimental with his cultivation and mostly listened to the advice of his elders. The time for innovation would come someday in the future. Very, very far in the future.


    "Thinking of taking a bounty?" a voice suddenly said behind him.


    Jin jumped in surprise and twirled around to find Elder Flower leaning against a nearby wall and looking at him with a small smirk.


    Not wanting to give the wrong impression, Jin quickly raised his palms in the air and shook his head as rapidly as he could. "I''ve only been training as a combatant for less than a year. I don''t think that this is what''s best for me," he said hurriedly.


    Elder Flower kicked off from the wall, drawing the looks of some of the other disciples milling around the mission centre. "Well, I think you''re at least not an embarrassment now," she glanced at the bounty board. "Chicken-headed Pig God shouldn''t be that hard to beat, should he?"


    It was after the last few weeks of instruction, that Jin had gotten used to the peculiarities of the Elder''s humour. Therefore he knew that she was joking and did not actually plan on throwing him against a dangerous criminal.


    "Well, if I face someone with even a bit of training as I am now. I think I''m going to be the pig to the slaughter. Not them," Jin murmured as the two of them slowly removed themselves from the building and the centre of the bustling inner disciple town. Elders were not that uncommon, there was always one of the library after all, but Elder Flower was a special Elder. She was beautiful and had the grace of a warrior, not a scholar. The male disciples couldn''t help but glance her way.


    It symbolised the male desire for women who could easily break them in half, either physically, or emotionally.


    Jin, for his part, was not nearly as masochistic and while he knew that marriages and affairs occurred within the sect, he had been too busy on not getting cast out and making sure his career was on track to focus on such activities. In addition to that, he was now in a different culture and he didn''t quite know if he found the way that the natives approached relationships to be attractive.


    It was all very transactional.


    "Will we be going to the harbour?" Jin asked after they''d walked a bit. The harbour was a designated outpost higher up on the mountain that he had only seen from below since it belonged to the core disciple ring. It was the place where other cultivators could land their flying devices to visit their mountain, and pay for entrance into their scenario libraries. He didn''t quite know if this was the case, but he presumed that it was also the designated area from which people generally left the sect if they were to do so with flying. He couldn''t imagine they wouldn''t fly, as the Mad Monks Sect was quite far away. Far enough at least that they would need several weeks of walking to reach it and that was with their improved cultivator physiques.


    "No, we will not be going to the harbour. As an Elder of the sect I can lift off from anywhere," Flower responded. "But before we go, there''s something I have to give you," she said. Jin looked at her and waited expectantly as she pulled an entire sword, a real one this time from the leather pouch at her hips. She handed it to him, handle first. It was a simple thing, unadorned and made out of pure bone. It didn''t have a cross-guard since it was a jian.


    Essentially a long sharp stick. A pointy one.


    "I don''t think you''re quite at the point where you merit a sword," Elder Flower said ruining the moment. "But, as we leave the sect I cannot exclude the possibility that you will at some point have to defend yourself. For that occasion, it is better to be prepared."


    Jin nodded and took the sword, looking at it awkwardly since he had not received an appropriate scabbard. Seemingly noticing his confusion, Elder Flower handed him the sort of scabbard popular in cultivation land. Made out of cloth and leather it allowed Jin to strap the sword to his back where he could pull it out over either of his shoulders depending on what kind of situation he was in.


    "Thank you, Elder Flower. I shall endeavour to become worthy of it soon," Jin said with a serious nod as he adjusted to the new balance of his body. The sword wasn''t overly heavy, but it was different and he was much more aware of his body than he had been in his past life.


    "Do try to do that," Elder Flower said, stopping on a bare patch of land now that they''d entered a more empty district and pulled out her own bone-white sword from her scabbard. She dropped it onto the ground where it promptly grew several times in size until it was about as big as a canoe. It floated in the air at the level of her knees and she promptly hopped onto the surface, unafraid that a simple slip could have divested her of a leg.


    She gave her disciple an expectant look and Jin awkwardly made his way onto the sword after her. He didn''t quite know how much he trusted the stability of this thing. The nimbus cloud, sure, but propelling oneself into the air on the flying sword? That just seemed¡­


    Whatever thoughts and doubts he may have had were obliterated as the sword lifted into the air tip first and rocketed from the grounds of the sect as if they were... on a rocket.


    Had there not been some sort of protective enhancements, the initial burst would have surely thrown Jin violently off the vehicle, but for some odd reason, he found his feet firmly rooted on the bone and no wind buffeting his face and hair. This was good, as since the transportation method had edges, he did not necessarily have any place where he could really hold on. Unless he wanted to hold on to Elder Flower, which might just be considered offensive enough that it would have been better to just die instead.


    "You''re very well acclimated to flying," Elder Flower commented as they burst through the clouds and the world suddenly opened before them.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Jinn was too stunned to answer.


    If he thought that the view from the mountain had been amazing, or that the view from his aeroplane trips in his previous life had been comparable, then this blew everything out of the water. The air was fresh, the sky stretched out in front of him endlessly, and the sun turned the few clouds that they flew over into pink cotton candy. The horizon stretched out further than his eye could see, and from this angle, it seemed like the world was much larger than Earth. The curvature was significantly smaller. They continued speeding along until Jin almost forgot Flower''s comment. However, he remembered just in time to not be rude.


    "The only thing to fear is fear itself, I would have had to fly anyway, and it is better to choose to do so without anxiety," he said calmly. Flower nodded in front of him, her long black hair bobbing up and down. He''d never talked to her from this angle. Jin laughed inwardly.


    "Some details of the trip," Flower said after a while.


    Jin wondered if she sometimes undertook the trips just to enjoy the scenery. It was a magical moment. He nevertheless listened attentively.


    "Warrior sects earn currency through hunting monsters and defending the border when a demon incursion is suspected to occur. Their payment and their prestige depend heavily on their martial prowess. In contrast, we are a commercial sect. We sell a product, of which there is no true intrinsic value like the martial prowess used against demons and beasts. This means that we need to upkeep good diplomatic relationships with as many sects as possible," Flower explained.


    Jin nodded along. It made sense to him. They were essentially going on a public relations tour in a way. Perhaps the Mad Monks were valued customers, or perhaps his sect was trying to turn them into such.


    "Obviously the better we can showcase our competency during this visit, the more likely the Mad Monks are to visit our sect with their disciples to give them combat experience, or to commission Rooms outright. In addition to this, the Mad Monks Sect is one of the sects close to ours geographically. Thus in the event of an attack, be it from demonic cultivators, monsters or demon incursions, we are somewhat reliant on the kindness of our neighbours to survive. Despite our templates and our anima, our combat prowess is not sufficient to be self-sufficient."


    "Do martial sects not respect those who do not follow the path of the warrior?" Jin asked. "Is that why it is you who is going?" He had gleaned contextually during his tenure in the middle ring, that Elder Flower was one of the few elders in the sect actually capable of fighting against another elder from a martial sect.


    Flower nodded. "It definitely helps. Also being a relatively young beautiful woman is always a plus," she said bluntly, making Jin almost choke on his spit. While Elder Flower was indeed beautiful, her outward appearance wasn''t necessarily in his focus whenever he thought about her. After all, she was an authority figure first and foremost.


    "I understand," Jin said. "I''ll be as diplomatic and polite as possible."


    He could see from her hair that the Elder nodded. "It''s good that you understand. While you might also be challenged to a sparring match by some of their disciples, accept and lose gracefully. If you can win, of course, do so, but you''re neither good enough with a lance, nor with a sword to beat someone who''s been training their whole life."


    Jin clenched his fists at his side. His combat prowess was increasing at a decent pace in his opinion, but six weeks were obviously no replacement for a lifetime. "I''ll do my best Elder Flower."


    She threw him a backwards glance at that, her green eyes meeting his. "I''m sure you will, you''ll get more opportunities in the future," she muttered. "I think they''ll be more impressed with your illusion Room rather than your fighting ability. The focus is to get them invested enough in it to help improve Ornstein. A collaborative project like that will surely help the diplomatic connection we have with their sect. Regardless, these are all worries for tomorrow. My sword is fast, but the mountain of the Mad Monks Sect is still too far away to get there in one day. We''ll have to stop to rest at some point."


    Jin hummed thoughtfully wondering at what sort of rest station they would be sleeping at. There were countless villages in the empire, each one of them smaller than the next. He didn''t know much about Flower, but he felt that as an elder cultivator, despite how much she likely thought of herself as an ascetic, she would still hesitate before sleeping on a pile of straw which was likely the best they would be able to get in a village.


    Did that mean that he would get to see a bigger town? He''d never actually done so, only hearing about them. Tales from the capital. His body had belonged to a farmer boy, whose first ascension to a higher status had occurred with the sect. There had been no in-between of visiting cities and earning money as a mortal.


    "We will be staying in the village Xaingur. It is one of the villages on the outskirts of the border of influence where we still recruit disciples from. We have a small outpost there. It is commanded by an inner disciple responsible for our efforts in the region and for providing an outpost either for defence or for sleep for those of us who travel."


    Jin had never heard of the village, but that was to be expected with his lack of education. He would have been more surprised if he''d known the place.


    "Is serving at an outpost like this a job that I will also be able to take at the mission board later on?" he asked. Perhaps it would be nice to take a break from the sect sometime in the future and maybe talk with someone whose entire life wasn''t completely controlled by the wish to become immortal. Cultivators were weird, and not really his people. This was showcased by the fact that he hadn''t made a single friend after or before his promotion.


    Solitary creatures, cultivators mainly stayed amongst themselves, and even amongst themselves, didn''t interact much with each other.


    "Yes, it''s one of the jobs you can take later on. Generally, it is given to someone who has all the resources necessary to create a scenario anyway, which they can just as much do in one of the outposts. It generally pays enough that for a 10-year stay, one can then be back in the sect for 40 years without having to do another job."


    Jin nodded assuming that even from the back she could feel the movement.


    The two of them descended into silence after that conversation and it was a few hours later that the sword they were flying on tilted downwards and started homing in through the clouds towards what Jin recognized to be a little village consisting of around 200 farmsteads.


    It was the average farming village really. Most houses had a large garden in which they grew vegetables. A pig pen, some cows, goats, chickens, and the entire village was surrounded by rolling hills and flatlands full of what he recognized from the top as rice paddies. The landscape looked plaid.


    It was still the early afternoon, which made him wonder why Flower didn''t want to do the whole journey in one day. If today represented half, then they could have arrived at the Mad Monks Sect in the evening. Maybe she wanted to arrive there at a certain time? Or fresh from the journey? Or was checking up on the village like this one of her responsibilities as an Elder?


    Whatever the case, the scene that he was seeing from up above looked quite idyllic so he didn''t particularly mind going there and having a look around. After all, he had been working incredibly hard ever since his promotion back at the sect. He deserved a vacation, even if it was only an afternoon.


    "Something is wrong," Elder Flower suddenly said with a harsh voice, causing Jin to perk up from his dreams of taking a walk along the rice paddies and petting a cow or two.


    "Huh?" he articulated eloquently.


    "There should be people around, but I don''t see anyone. Even the animals seem to be mostly inside their pens. This isn''t how it''s supposed to be. People should be running around, farming, doing something," she explained. Jin refocused his gaze and after a second purview noticed the same thing and also came to the conclusion that something was not quite right. The thing about villages back in the day before everyone worked from home was that they were always bustling. If the people weren''t on the fields they should be filling up the streets of their little hamlet. The fact that there was no one outside was incredibly suspicious.


    The flying sword changed direction, and where before it had been aimed at landing directly in the middle of the village from where they would have probably walked to wherever their sect outpost was, it was now flying directly towards what looked to be a medieval tower made out of stone on the outskirts. Perhaps made like that so that one could purview the domain from above. The thing grew larger as the flying sword grew nearer, and Jin soon made up a brown blur which actually turned out to be a landing platform probably for exactly what they were about to do.


    Elder Flower pulled up the sword, finally initiating the landing sequence and the two of them gently tapped down not a second after the sword landed on a wooden platform extending out from underneath the tower''s thatched roof from where they could see all around the village to once again ascertain that no one was out.


    They turned towards the structure they just landed on, a large door leading to the top floor of the tower. Elder Flower held a hand over the door, and a small flash of light escaped it and the door knob rattled for a second. She then opened the door, just in time for a sword to be thrust directly at her torso.


    Seemingly undeterred, Elder Flower grabbed the weapon by the edge and held onto it, kicking the person who had tried to assault her back into the tower where they landed on their back with a groan.


    However, rather than some evil assassin, what the Elder and the disciple found writhing on the floor was a young woman of about 20 years wearing the high-quality beige robes that were emblematic of the Illusion Room Sect.


    "Report the situation, disciple Ting," Elder Flower barked.


    From that Jin concluded that they had in fact not been attacked by an assassin, but simply by a coward trying to defend themselves. Or maybe this was the normal greeting in cultivation land when one met one''s sect members outside of the mountain?


    Inner disciple Ting was a small woman with short brown hair twisted in elaborate braids, big expressive green eyes and a terrified expression on her face. She promptly kowtowed on the floor and apologised.


    "There''s a monster on the loose!" she exclaimed hysterically as an explanation for her actions.

 Chapter 8: Bad Memories

    The hysterical exclamation that there was a monster on the loose would perhaps have suggested that Elder Flower and Jin would immediately run out to hunt said monster.


    However, the statement was not actually that informative and inner disciple Ting was too scared to truly give them more information than that.


    It was here that Jin got to see another side of his mentor. Elder Flower sat down the female disciple on one of the elaborate wooden chairs in the so-called landing room of the watchtower and quickly brewed her a cup of hot tea with ingredients and utensils from her pouch. She''d made three teas, in fact, one of them which Jin was sipping right now.


    It reminded him slightly of Oolong, but he wasn''t really an expert despite his now very much asian looks so he could only guess and hum in enjoyment as he drank. He wasn''t too afraid to enjoy it, unlike Ting. The reason he wasn''t afraid was because he was being accompanied by an Elder of his sect. And not a scholarly one either. What could really happen to him under Flower''s supervision? Ting eventually also came to the same realisation, drinking her tea, and letting go of the fear she''d exhibited earlier.


    It was thus five minutes after arriving and almost getting stabbed by the disciple in charge of the outpost, that they were not hunting any elusive monster, but just now starting to listen to the story of what had actually happened.


    The room they were in was very different from the ones that Jin had gotten used to since his insertion. It was oddly non-oriental, composed mostly of large stone bricks. It looked more like something out of mediaeval Europe. A castle tower so to say. This made listening to Ting''s story a slightly odd experience, because he felt for some reason that he was back home as a tourist in some Italian village. However, the contents of what was being described were very much not congruent with that illusion.


    "It happened three days ago," Ting started nervously with shaky hands which had already spilt some tea on her beige sleeves. "With no warning at all, one of the farmhands who was out late never came back. People weren''t overly worried at first as he was known to partake in drink. However, when he didn''t appear for his work the next morning I helped organise a search party. We found him in a field not far from where the farm''s cows had grazed yesterday with a square indent on his forehead. His skull was crushed inwardly." She trailed off with a faraway look in her eyes.


    Elder Flower remained patient and sat elegantly on her chair. One hand was on the sword at her side and the other was holding her brown ceramic teapot. She didn''t look like she was in a hurry, which was probably the correct decision to make in terms of outward appearance and energy projection. The more nervous she was, the more nervous Ting would get and the more slowly the story would come out.


    "It looked like he''d been killed by someone pressing an iron cube into his skull until he died. There was no indication of who or what could have done it. He wasn''t an overly popular man, so while this was certainly concerning, we didn''t think too much about it. It just happens, sometimes," she said. When she saw Elder Flower raising an eyebrow she quickly corrected herself. "Naturally I looked around and I sent a report to the sect. The first bird should be arriving any second now. However, I wasn''t able to find anything during my own investigation. It was simply as if something had fallen from the sky, knocked the man on the head and killed him for no reason. I told the villagers that help would be arriving within the week and that they should simply continue work as always, but to be a bit more careful."


    Jin wondered if the girl served as some sort of feudal lord of the village. What exactly was her political position? She was the one who scouted the danger and advised the villagers and how to behave. Was there no mayor involved? No official from the empire? What role exactly did sects have in the administration of hamlets such as these? He continued listening, not posing any of his questions, knowing that it was not the time.


    "Work resumed as normal and I went into my rooms during the day to work on my scenario. A wyvern," she said excitedly before a pallor was cast over her face again. "Everyone went to sleep, as did I. The next morning when we woke up there was an entire field of cows who had died a similar death, along with the family of those who had owned the herd. 40 or so bovines, and a family of seven. Grandparents, parents and children."


    "Did they have the same square imprint on their foreheads or were they killed differently?" Jin piped up. Inner disciple Ting looked at him as if she was noticing him for the first time, with wide confused eyes. However, when she saw his robes were of the same design as hers she simply nodded.


    "Brother, it was the same wound, just on the different sides of the head, not only from the front. The sides, the back, from above. It looked as if the people had tried to escape. They were scattered all over the house."


    Jin hummed thoughtfully while Elder Flower retained a strictly remote facade. She turned towards him at the sound he made and questioned him. "Do you have an idea?"


    "Well, the story is not over. There''s still one more day left after all," Jin said. "But, if we can see the people had the chance to run away, then that can mean one of two things. Either the entity that committed the murders was not powerful enough to do so before their targets noticed or were able to react to their approach. Or, they like to play with their food. I would personally prefer the first option to be true. Someone, or something, that''s only powerful enough to kill civilians one at a time cannot be more powerful than an inner disciple," he concluded.


    "That''s not necessarily true," Elder Flower rebuked. "There are several beasts which have special powers that are much more dangerous than the simple threat of their physicality."


    Jin nodded in referral. Flower was much more likely to be right than him and he hasn''t been planning on saying anything anyway. The hum had simply escaped him.


    Flower turned back to the girl and bid her to continue.


    Ting seemed to hesitate for a second. "I looked around again, but there was nothing I could do. I could only send for help. There''s no one within a running distance that I could summon."


    Jin wondered why cultivators didn''t have some sort of immediate transmittance slip. They had spells and artefacts after all. Maybe a village like this simply wasn''t important enough to bother with?


    "Anyway," Ting started with a nervous shake of her head. "I couldn''t do anything other than tell the people to stay inside and wait for help while I retreated into the tower and tried to, well, be on guard," she said with a blush. "This morning," she continued with a sigh, "we found more than just one family dead. It seemed like someone had snuck into one house after the other and killed the residents. The neighbours told me that they heard some screams, but that they were too afraid to leave the house and come get me."


    "How many households?" Elder Flower asked.


    Ting almost seemed like she didn''t want to say, before she eventually sighed and opened her mouth again. "19 households. 200 people."


    Jin released an unbidden gasp. "Fuck," he muttered.


    "All the same wound again, I still have no idea what could have caused it," Ting said.


    To Jin, the situation started to sound like the beginning of a murder mystery novel. Just without any of the anxiety since Elder Flower would protect him from harm, hopefully. He turned towards the older woman and tried to discern from her blank gaze what she was thinking.


    No information was to be read from it. However, that didn''t matter as the Elder opened her mouth and spoke. "We are on a time-sensitive mission, so we will be leaving tomorrow morning," she started.


    The blood in Jin''s veins froze, and he wondered if they would be leaving these people here to their presumed fate of death. Inner disciple Ting similarly didn''t look like she was doing too well with the implication. Whatever colour had returned to her face during their little chat and tea party, promptly left.


    "We can''t just leave all these people to die," Jin complained, forgetting himself. Some of his sense of justice from his last life resurfacing at an inopportune occasion.


    Elder Flower promptly turned to glare at him, which shut him up. He remembered that he wasn''t a citizen of a democratic nation anymore. Now he was just a disciple at the mercy of his masters. Human rights? What are those? It was jarring and he gritted his teeth.


    The memories of his body''s previous owner had resurfaced.


    In cultivation land, life was cheap. Mortals were seen as a disposable resource because they bred incredibly quickly. A second of a cultivator''s time was worth more than a mortal''s entire life. After all, what was a blip of 60 years in comparison to potential infinity?


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Jin lowered his head. "I apologise for speaking out of turn," he said concisely.


    "What would you do? Inner disciple Jin, if it was up to you?" Elder Flower asked in a deadpan voice. "The diplomatic mission we are on is much more important than the lives of thousands of mortals. After all, it is these small details that in the end determine the value and survival of our sect."


    Jin frowned and thought of an answer. Obviously, he couldn''t take everything back, or else he''d just seem disingenuous. "I would try to resolve the situation in the time we have, and leave tomorrow morning regardless of outcome," he eventually replied.


    Elder Flower pursed her lips, before eventually nodding.


    "And more specifically? How would you resolve the situation?"


    Jin went through several areas of knowledge in his head before answering. "I would analyse the scene of the murders to try to discover any clues that might have been left there. I would do my best to identify the creature responsible for the deaths. I would also question the villagers, perhaps they have some information that makes sense when placed together. Then, hopefully, I would be able to hunt the monster down."


    "An incredibly foolish plan," Elder Flower critiqued, causing Jin to bow his head in frustration.


    What exactly did she want him to say?


    "It seems like you''re approaching this very calmly, which is good. But, you''re not taking advantage of all of your resources," she hinted.


    Jin thought the words over, before realising with a sigh that this was a reminder of who exactly was wearing the pants in this relationship. It wasn''t even that metaphorical, considering that Elder Flower actually was wearing pants.


    "Of course. I apologise. The smartest course of action would naturally be to ask my knowledgeable and skilled Elder for help resolving this issue."


    Elder Flower nodded, finally seeming somewhat satisfied. Perhaps there was a glimmer of pride at having successfully imparted a lesson in her eyes? Jin couldn''t really tell.


    Jin meanwhile realised that no matter how much he was now used to this magical world, he still sometimes forgot the very big personal difference in power that could exist between people here. Back on earth, no matter how powerful a man was, he was still a man. Here, that wasn''t necessarily the case.


    He looked up to see Ting giving him a very scared look. Jin understood why, considering that what he had just done could have gotten him killed if it had been any other Elder.


    Thankfully Flower was more rational than her contemporaries and had seemingly let it slide.


    Jin himself wouldn''t have committed the error, had the amount of deaths that had occurred not shocked him. He''d never been so personally involved in a tragedy such as this, and to hear that he was now in a village where 200 people and more had been murdered. It just made him lose his rationality for a bit.


    "Regardless, just because I said that we have to leave tomorrow does not mean that I cannot resolve the issue today," Elder Flower said as she stood up, patted herself down unnecessarily and bid for the two inner disciples to follow. They strolled down the tower like obedient ducklings, Jin getting only glimpses of the different rooms as they quickly traversed the spiral staircase all the way to the ground floor.


    They burst through the front door of the tower and exited onto a small grassy hill to the west side of the village which they quickly left behind as they entered the village proper. It seemingly wasn''t very difficult to find a house in which one of the massacres had found place, as Ting dully pointed at the first house on the left when Flower threw her a questioning look.


    Jin meanwhile, was looking around and noting that the village looked oddly normal considering the tragedy that had occurred within it. It was quiet, but nothing seemed destroyed, and no blood was spilt on the muddy streets themselves. The only movement came from the eyes looking at the trio fearfully through cracks in the window shutters and doors.


    "This is the house in which a family was killed?" Elder Flower confirmed with her hand on the door handle, looking at Ting, who was standing behind her nervously fidgeting with the hem of her robes.


    The inner disciple nodded, causing the Elder to open the door.


    Jin promptly looked away from the scene that revealed itself in front of him, rather focusing on the cute vegetable patch in front of the house. Were those cabbages? They looked very orange, but the shape was about right.


    "Come in Jin." He heard Flower order from the inside and he reluctantly entered the ramshackle wooden house with the sloping thatched roof. There were oddly shaped wooden talismans covering it.


    He sighed and refocused his gaze as he entered. He couldn''t look away anymore.


    The horror started in the corridor and simply got worse from then onwards. A dead woman was lying on the floor, a hand extended towards the door as if trying to escape. She was about 50, or so, from what he could see from her face, cast in an eternal grimace of horror as it was. She was dressed in a rough linen combination of shirt and trousers with some bandages to serve as shoes. There was a square indent on the side of her head, but the skin wasn''t too torn and her body didn''t look like she''d received any other injuries.


    The first door to the right led to a rustic kitchen which had a small group of dead children. They were all lying in different positions on the floor with dead bloodshot eyes pointing lifelessly at the ceiling.


    "I told the villagers to leave the bodies as they were for the investigation," Ting said from behind Jin and Elder Flower, the latter of which was squatting down and examining one of the bodies. A little girl with long brown hair. The square indent was stamped directly onto her forehead, crushing it inwards.


    "Good job. It might seem disrespectful, but it would be even more disrespectful if we were unable to find the culprit due to sentimental reasons such as burials," Elder Flower answered cooly. A white light suddenly lit up her right hand as she ran it over the body of the girl.


    "This is indeed the only injury," she muttered in a low voice. "Interesting. I can conclude quite clearly from this that this was not done by a monster."


    Jin''s thoughts immediately went to the dark realisation that it had been done by a human. "Well, whoever did it is a monster," he moralised.


    Elder Flower had a much more meaningful contribution to add. "Whoever did it, used a quarterstaff. Infused with qi, hardened to ridiculous proportions. It''s the only thing that could make such a perfect square in someone''s head."


    She stood up.


    Something clicked in Jin''s mind. They were going towards the Mad Monks Sect. Back in the mission centre, he''d seen that one of their escaped disciples turned bandit was loose in this general area.


    He was just about to say what he''d figured out when the Elder held up a hand to shush him. The other slender hand went to the seemingly infinitely big pouch at Flower''s waist and pulled out a little packet of paper, which she opened to reveal a luxurious amount of what seemed to be ruby dust. It glistened in the afternoon sun which pierced its rays straight through the semi-open window. The luxury contrasted the general shabbiness and the horrible mess of the scene. Elder Flower dipped a pale finger into the mixture and gently let a bit of the dust fall on the dead body of the little girl.


    Jin observed this and sighed as he realised that he was completely useless and that hadn''t needed to say anything right from the start. It was very clear that Elder Flower was doing much better than he would have in this situation. He wouldn''t have even figured out that the wound had been caused by a quarterstaff. Here he was just a spectator, and he had been foolish to think that he would have been anything else from the get-go. Perhaps it was his previously American sensibilities that had made him not understand this reality earlier. He was unused to being a side character in his own life.


    He clenched his fist and hoped that the murderer had not seen their flying sword land in the village. This would have likely caused them to flee immediately, which might prevent Elder Flower from bringing them to justice.


    He didn''t doubt for a second that she would, either. After all, she had essentially done exactly what he had suggested. She''d questioned one of the people who had been here for the attacks, inner disciple Ting. She''d analysed the crime scene, identified the murder weapon, and from the penetrating gaze she was now casting at one of the corners of the house towards what Jin knew to be a rather dense-looking bamboo forest, she had figured out where the perpetrator was hiding. He didn''t know how exactly the ruby powder had helped her figure that out, but he wasn''t going to complain.


    "She''s hiding out in the bamboo forest to the east of the village," Elder Flower said. "Alone, quarterstaff, ripped robes, talking to herself. Didn''t see our approach. Let''s put an end to this."


    "Who is she?" Inner disciple Ting asked, unable to hold back her curiosity.


    "An outer disciple from the Mad Monks Sect," the Elder said. Ting hissed, but Elder Flower continued. "Her cultivation obviously diverged dangerously. She''s probably insane. Knowing what I do about our allies, she likely wasn''t able to handle the mental strain of the cultivation but somehow escaped the measures they have in place to deal with such failed products. She likely doesn''t know more than how to strengthen the weapon and how to use it. Some stealth? Perhaps, but it''s not particularly hard to sneak up on mortals," Elder Flower rattled off.


    Jin breathed a sigh of relief. Would it really be this easy? Elder Flower would find the perpetrator and finish them in whichever manner she saw fit. All in time for dinner and rest before they set off again tomorrow.


    This was the difference in power between a mortal and a cultivator. It was like comparing an ant to a human.


    When Elder Flower turned around and exited the kitchen, Ting and Jin followed along wordlessly. They exited the house, trying to forget the horrors that they had seen. Ting continued a process of repression that she''d probably already started much earlier, while Jin wrangled with the new visual stimuli and nightmare fuel that he''d received. He''d thought that perhaps as a disciple of a sect focused on craftsmanship, he could continue the tradition of his previous life to not be confronted with an overly large amount of dead bodies. He saw now that he had been incredibly naive. It seemed that while his body''s previous owner had left him memories, he had not left behind true understanding.


    Elder Flower pulled out her sword and threw it on the ground once they exited the house. Just like earlier, it grew to several times its size and floated about a foot above ground. She gave the disciples a glance over her shoulder and hopped on. The meaning was clear. Jin got on the sword. Ting hesitated.


    "Come along," Elder Flower ordered. "I won''t force you to fight."


    Ting nodded and hopped onto the sword.


    They flew off and landed in front of a bamboo forest less than a minute later. The trees were several times higher than them and cast an otherworldly shadow across the leaf-covered ground. The Elder''s sword minimised again and she stepped forward before glancing at Jin "You take front and fight the mad-woman. It''s about time you gained some real experience."


    Jin mechanically turned his head to meet his teacher''s cool gaze.


    "Huh?"

 Chapter 9: Crater-Face

    There had been a lot of crazy things happening in Jin''s life ever since he''d been shoved into this new body in this new land. However, if he had thought that trying to pass the exam to become an inner disciple had been nerve-wracking, then he obviously hadn''t truly considered what being taught by Elder Flower would entail.


    If anyone had told him back on earth that he would be forced to fight an insane magical bandit by a teacher of his, he would have told that person that they read too many of those weird Chinese web novels.


    Obviously, the situation was completely ridiculous, and the only kind of tutor that would actually send out their pupil like this would be found in a story, not in real life.


    Nevertheless, despite all his doubts about the rationality and the likeliness of this occurring. Here he was. standing in front of a large bamboo forest with shaking knees and holding his newly received jian in front of him.


    He looked back over his shoulder, at Flower. She was looking at him with a cool gaze. Ting, slightly behind her, looked incredibly glad to not be in his place.


    Jin took a step forward into the forest, glanced back again and saw that his two followers had also taken one step forward, Ting taking extra care to fall behind the Elder.


    He took a step back, and Elder Flower raised an eyebrow, also taking a step back.


    She said that she would interfere in the battle if his life was in any danger, but she hadn''t said anything about his limbs. Also how fast could she really move if a staff was already on a trajectory that was set to crush his skull? That didn''t sound like a pleasant death. Mostly because he would be dead. Dying sucked, or so he''d heard. He didn''t have any memories of how he''d gotten here in the first place. Maybe it had been by dying. That didn''t mean he wanted to do it again!


    Jin sighed and took a few deep breaths with his eyes closed.


    Maybe his behaviour was ridiculous? A lot of people, even back on Earth, had gone into battle with less of a safety net than he had. They''d been fighting for money, like the French, or for honour, like the English, in either case, they''d been fighting for something they didn''t have.


    Maybe Jin was scared because his battle was useless. It was a bit difficult to bring up the motivation to risk one''s life because someone else wanted him to.


    Teaching moment? Wasn''t this basically the purpose of Illusion Rooms? Wasn''t sending him out like this denigrating the status of the sect product.


    This could only be referred to as bad marketing and brand destruction, no? Truly, Elder Flower was likely the nightmare of any marketing department. once you got past her amazing looks.


    "Okay, Jin," the young man muttered to himself. "You can do this, you can do this. I believe in you. Mama didn''t raise no quitter." He started advancing again, sword pointing lightly at the front as he used his left hand to push away the bamboo twigs and leaves that were getting in his face.


    Occasionally Elder Flower corrected his trajectory with her words, but stayed unerringly several feet behind him. However, with each step, he cared less and less. He was quite frankly fucked with no way out. What exactly would Elder Flower do to him if he ran away? Possibly execute him and call him a coward. Possibly ruin his reputation back at the sect. There wasn''t really any chance of dying with her here right? That was the belief that he decided on for himself that day.


    The shadow of the bamboo forest hung ominously over Jin''s head, making the atmosphere even more depressing than it needed to be. Even if his emotional state had become better during the last few minutes, his anxiety levels have been rising. After all, after he decided that he was going to fight, he just wanted to fight. He didn''t want to nervously look through the entire forest for his foe and get potentially ambushed.


    His eyes suddenly alighted as they made out a clearing waiting in front of him. Another nervous shudder ran from his body before he steeled himself.


    He could see through the dense foliage, a bit of brown sitting on a large rock. Doubtlessly his enemy. Should he ask her to surrender first, he wondered as he approached? Wasn''t that what everyone always did in shows? They offered their opponents the chance to get on their knees and receive a painless death?


    It never seemed to work. But maybe he should do as locals do in this case?


    "Idiot, duck," a voice suddenly said from behind him after Jin had almost entered the clearing.


    It was Elder Flower''s voice, so despite not knowing what that was all about, he threw himself to the ground.


    Just in time for a square piece of wood to come shooting out of the clearing through several bamboos which broke with deafening cracks, before shooting for where his head would have been. Then, what must have been the quarterstaff was retracted. It disappeared as quickly as it had come.


    Jin stumbled to his feet into the clearing to face his foe.


    She was a slip of a girl that would never have seemed to be too threatening. However the staff that she held nimbly in her arms along with her ripped brown robe, unwashed and scuffed black hair going to her chin and dead eyes make him want to be anywhere but here.


    "Any chance you would surrender to the authorities? Surely there''s a rehabilitation process that could help integrate you back into normative society. Despite popular belief, corporal punishment doesn''t scare off any other potential perpetrators," Jin said hopefully.


    An awkward moment descended on the clearing and he thought he heard the sound of a palm meeting a face from behind him.


    The girl, for all her supposed madness, managed to give him a queer look before her eyes reverted to those of the seasoned psychopath. Dead like a dead fish with the only emotion inside them a murderous madness.


    "Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool," Jin mumbled, as he raised his sword. His knees were shaking like leaves in a fart storm, which actually helped him fall to the ground again to dodge another extension of the quarterstaff. It was all happening a bit too fast, really. His opponent took 1/10th of a second to adjust the staff so the end was pointed at him, and in the next 1/10th of a second, the thing already filled his entire vision from its incredibly quick extension.


    It seemed like she really liked aiming for his head, which made the job a little bit easier. But he shouldn''t attempt to find a pattern in someone else''s madness. It could just be a fake out after all. That was the thought with which Jin found himself stumbling to his feet again.


    Nervousness left his body like an expired aubergine. Quickly and violently.


    After all, nervousness and fear were only strategies of the organism to prevent its host from going into potentially dangerous situations. Once that dangerous situation had already been entered, with no possibility of escape, it left.


    Only completely maladjusted people still felt nervous while in the middle of combat. This was the time for focus. So, when Jin stumbled to his feet, jian raised in a defensive posture, he was essentially a different person than the one who had fallen down a second ago.


    The girl wearing ripped brown robes seems to realise this as she intensified the tempo of her attacks.


    The staff shot forwards, retracted, shot forwards, retracted.


    Jin ducked, weaved, jumped, batted away with his sword, dodged.


    It was an incredibly fast-paced battle that mortals back on earth probably couldn''t have even kept up with. Unless, of course, they were trained soldiers or fighters or something.


    At this range, despite how it seemed like, it was actually Jin who had the advantage.


    Because his mental properties were very developed, he found himself perfectly able to predict the trajectory of the staff, whenever it was aimed in his direction.


    This allowed him to start dodging before the attack was even initiated.


    And while all he had to do was dodge, the girl had to have been spending at least some amount of qi to expand and contract the staff like that. Unless of course, it was an artefact, but if that had been the case her bounty would have definitely been set to a higher amount.


    Thus they entered a stalemate, one to Jin''s advantage


    The girl seemed to realise this and paused in her attacks as if to consider. There was a slight sheen of sweat covering her face, and Jin similarly was starting to feel the physical exertion of the fight getting to him. It had only been ongoing for a minute or so, but the intensity of a life-or-death battle seemed to trump any other sport he had ever participated in.


    Perhaps if he''d been more used to fighting in general, he would have used that short moment when his opponent deliberated to press forward and take the momentum for himself. However he wasn''t, thus when the staff extended the next time, he simply dodged again. He wasn''t thinking too much about the fact that the girl seemed intent on repeating patterns, until a length of bamboo that the extension of the staff had broken when he''d dodged it, fell unerringly on the top of his head from behind. This distracted him just long enough for the girl to jump forward and swing her staff at him from a close position for once. Jin barely managed to raise his sword, vertically, putting his elbow at the flat of the blade to block the impact.


    The staff struck on the bone sword and his entire body quivered with exertion as he was unceremoniously pushed back and onto his ass.


    From there the girl pointed her staff at him and extended it again. Jin had to do a very inelegant backwards roll with his butt in the air to avoid the attack. From there he jumped to his feet and had to block another extension, which threw him even further back.


    Their positions now reversed, Jin found that the girl was actually closer to Elder Flower than himself. However, if there was any hope of a switch of opponents occurring, it was dashed as the girl herself dashed at him again. It seemed like she wanted to kill him first before finding new victims. For whatever reason.


    It was in close quarters that Jin was made painfully aware of the gap in ability. The girl was just better than him. When she swung her staff and changed its direction in midair, he could only awkwardly deflect the blow enough to receive a glancing hit, rather than a direct one.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Bruises started to accumulate on his body like flies on shit and as several attempts to gain distance failed miserably, he realised that he simply wasn''t good enough to win this fight from a purely technical perspective. It also seemed to him that he was starting to flag earlier than the girl, who was sweating but still going strong.


    It was here that a lesson from his last life came in handy. Elder Flower had said she would save him if he was ever in actual danger, but he still didn''t want to get beaten to a bloody pulp before the actual decapitation strike came. If an amateur wanted to win a battle against a technically superior opponent, the amateur had to create chaos. Every master feared a real noob, because they could not for the life of them predict what the idiot would do next. In other words. Jin was going to do something stupid.


    The next time that the staff came at him from his side, Jin, rather than dodging or parrying, stepped into the blow. The closer one was to the arms holding the staff, the weaker the strike.


    The hardwood hitting the left side of his torso still probably ruptured an organ or two, but it finally got him into a position where he could do something. He swung his sword with his right hand at the girl''s neck causing her to dodge to the left. Right into Jin''s raised left hand which grabbed her by the hair. He then dropped his sword, grabbed again with his right hand and brought her head down to his raised knee for a very satisfying smash. And then he did it again, and again, and again. It was after the fourth time, when he felt a very satisfying crunch signalling a broken nose or a tooth, that the girl managed to swing her staff in a manner that allowed her to extend the tip straight into his ribs which threw him off her in a rather violent fashion. He spun in the air several times and landed on his back with a sharp pain in his side.


    He got incapacitated from the sheer shock of his flying, which was thankfully reciprocated by the girl stumbling around confusedly with her staff held loosely at her side. One dainty hand was gripping her bleeding face.


    She removed the hand to glare at him and to enter a fighting position again and Jin almost lost his breakfast, lunch and dinner. She didn''t really have a face anymore, all she had was a caved-in ruin from which one eye was glaring at him hatefully, while the other swam down the side of her face to gather on the floor in a disgusting puddle of gooey liquid and blood.


    Had he done that? Jin wondered.


    He''d never hurt anyone before.


    Had it always been so easy?


    The girl raised her staff, and Jin was able to read from the trajectory that it would crush his face in return for what he''d done to hers. He also knew at the same time that he couldn''t dodge. Stabbing pain in his chest distracted his biology too much to escape in time. That was why he was grateful that a white line traced through the girl''s neck from behind.


    A disfigured head flew into the air with a spray of blood and landed on the floor with a thump.


    Jin sagged in on himself, and let his head rest on the leafy ground as Elder Flower walked past the still-standing corpse of his opponent. It was as she arrived at his side and kneeled down to inspect his condition, that the body finally collapsed in on itself like a puppet with its strings cut and fell first to its knees, then on the ground.


    The fall revealed a green looking Ting, looking at Jin and Flower from behind the corpse. She did not approach.


    "I think she broke a rib and it''s poking my lungs," Jin said with a pained voice while the Elder ran a glowing white hand over his body.


    The woman simply nodded in agreement.


    "Seems like it," she said in a nonchalant voice as she looked down at him with a blank gaze.


    "You," Jin coughed," happen to have any lung and rib repair potions in that pouch of yours?"


    Elder Flower raised an eyebrow. "It''s an expensive concoction. You could just walk it off."


    Jin grimaced at her shit sense of humour. At least, he hoped it was a shit sense of humour. "If I walk up to the Mad Monks tomorrow looking like a corpse, they''re going to think our sect isn''t prosperous enough to take care of its disciples," he argued.


    A grin hushed over the Elder''s face, and a small vial was raised to Jin''s trembling lips.


    When had they gotten covered in blood?


    He drank what was given to him. It tasted very fresh, like a bushel of mint. Maybe with a bit of ginger.


    "You did well," Elder Flower said gently from his side. Or maybe she didn''t. Maybe, with how much he was losing it, it could have just been a dream version of her that said that


    "Most of our members aren''t suited for combat at all. So I''m glad to see that the sect has gained another protector."


    Jin''s last thought before he passed out went as follows. ''Bitch. What about me? Who''s going to protect my ass?''


    Then everything went black.


    -/-


    Jin awoke while it was still dark out sometime later in the day. Or perhaps it was already the early morning of the following day. His eyes fluttered open and for a few seconds, all he saw was darkness. Then a small green light burst into existence in the air above him.


    He turned his head and was surprised to see that it was inner disciple Ting who was sitting at his bedside. She looked calm, and reserved, but also glad to see him awake.


    He looked around and determined from the look of the walls that they were back in the tower. The outpost. Stone, stone. One chair, currently occupied. A bed of straw under his back. A nightstand. A glass of water. He raised an arm to get at it, and was surprised that he could do so. His other arm went to travel up his body, which seemed to be naked.


    Jin blushed, as his hand went to explore the left side of his torso, where he''d gotten his rib cracked in the fight. The injury was gone. He breathed in deeply, and breathed out. No pain. Insane.


    "What happened?" he asked very nonspecifically.


    Thankfully Ting was smart enough to know what he meant. She sighed, brushed aside a strand of hair from her face and met his eyes. "After Elder Flower decapitated the divergent and gave you that healing potion, you passed out. I took you back to the tower and took care of you for a while. Then I went to the village to tell them that the threat had been resolved. After I came back the Elder told me to stay at your bedside for when you woke up. She said she needed to rest. It''s not easy flying those swords around."


    "I see, that''s why we stopped here."


    Ting shook her head. "Not really, from how I understand it. I think the point of leaving one day before your appointment is to prevent any amount of trouble delaying you. It would be disrespectful if you came late after all. It''s better to do half a trip one day and the other half trip the other day. Also, the Mad Monks Sect is covered by a powerful array. You should try to arrive at the hour you''re supposed to. They might suspect that someone else is knocking on their door if you don''t."


    Jin sighed. "I understand, there''s still a lot of things I don''t know," he said with a sigh.


    "You were only recently promoted, right?" Ting asked.


    Jin nodded. "A few weeks ago."


    "Well, if they''re already making you fight someone in real life, they must see potential in you," Ting said, perhaps a bit bitterly.


    "What do you mean?" Jin asked, slightly confused. "Is this normal?"


    "Define normal. The thing about illusion Rooms is that the creator can only ever put in stuff that they themselves have experienced. How is someone who has never fought a life-or-death battle supposed to inject that feeling of danger into their illusion? They obviously can''t, all their deaths have been simulated up until that point. The fear isn''t there. It is this urgency, this knowledge of how war looks like, that one needs as an inner disciple to elevate one''s illusions. If you can only get the technical details right, and nothing else, you weren''t made for the job."


    Jin turned his gaze away from the small woman and looked back at the ceiling. More stone.


    Of course, Elder Flower had described his fight as a learning experience, but it was only now that he fully understood what that actually meant. Sure he''d fought to the death numerous times in the illusion Rooms in the library. But, he''d never actually been afraid for his life.


    Even right now, he knew that the Elder would save him if he''d made a mistake in the fight. Still, the danger had been elevated. Illusion Room cultivators created illusions. But, how can one create an illusion of something that one hasn''t experienced?


    If you wanted to accurately confer to someone else the feeling of being burned alive, that meant that one had to experience being burned alive. If one wanted to confer the experience of a life or death battle, that meant one needed to know how one actually looked like or felt like.


    Perhaps the way of the illusion Room cultivator was indeed more difficult than he''d imagined. After all, he''d thought that becoming a craftsman would ease him into a sedentary lifestyle. Little work and many pleasures. He now understood however that the product they created necessitated for them to suffer as well.


    Less than the suffering of a warrior sect, for sure. They had to fight regularly, but still. Being an illusion Room cultivator apparently meant that he would have to experience a variety of sufferings to be able to create the perfect product.


    "Also," Ting started. "The borders are always stirring. Demonic cultivators always abound. Nobody is safe. Not really."


    Jin sighed. "Thank you for taking care of me. May our sufferings be many, and our lessons bountiful."


    Ting showed a smirk at his weird phrase. How old was she? He wondered.


    Probably old enough to be his grandma twice over. She was cute though.


    "May you survive everything life throws at you and come out on the other end stronger than before," she said, nodded at him, and left.


    "Get some sleep. You''ll need it," she said over her shoulder, before opening the wooden door and leaving him to a fitful sleep.


    Caved in faces and headless bodies haunted him that night.

 Chapter 10: Go to Hell

    It was on the next day that Jin and Elder Flower were once again standing on the flying sword as it thrust its way through the heavens unerringly in the direction of the Mad Monks Sect.


    There were dark bags under the disciple''s eyes. The dead face of yesterday''s enemy had not let him sleep. His body was in perfect condition once again, but his mind was full of doubts.


    He knew now some of the cruelty of this world but had undoubtedly just scratched the surface.


    Elder Flower was, of course, unaffected.


    When they''d left in the morning, Ting had pressed his shoulder reassuringly.


    For all intents and purposes, the village had returned to normal, minus a few families that no one seemed to care about too much.


    It was like the fight yesterday had never happened and the murder spree had never occurred. A few mortals had died, and a divergent had been killed as practice for a disciple of a lawful sect.


    Nothing of value had been lost.


    Jin closed his eyes and let the slight amount of wind that got in through the barrier protecting them from falling off, caress his face.


    Elder Flower didn''t seem intent on speaking, and neither was he on prompting a conversation. His view of his mentor had undergone rapid development in the last 24 hours. He spent the rest of the trip in silence, immersed in his own thoughts and feelings.


    He was slowly starting to come to terms with what had happened the day before. It was as if he was traversing distance at the same time as his mind traversed trauma. It had all been quite cosmically meaningless, despite the appalling emotional subjectivity of the matter.


    Elder Flower suddenly spoke.


    It had been several hours since they''d set off, so Jin had been expecting her words for a while now.


    "We''re almost there, get yourself together," she ordered.


    With those words, the flying sword pointed its tip downwards, and they left the beautiful blue sky behind to descend underneath the rainy grey clouds that were gracing cultivation land on that day.


    The heavens weep, does anyone listen? Jin thought philosophically.


    They emerged from the clouds like a silver bolt of lightning, and Jin was once again able to enjoy the bird''s view of Imperial geography.


    There were a few villages scattered about, but they blitzed by too fast for him to make out any details. The rest of the countryside was made up of forests, plains, rivers and mountains.


    After a few more minutes, they started slowing down, allowing him to enjoy the view of their destination for longer than just the one second that he otherwise would have gotten.


    It was a mountain just like theirs. From underneath the clouds they were only able to see the bottom half of it. But already that was covered up with little traditional wooden huts which turned into more classy Buddhist temples of the Japanese variety as one''s eyes travelled upwards.


    There seems to be some sort of commotion at the bottom of the sect where one set of stairs from stone led to what must have been the outer ring of the Mad Monks Sect.


    There were people there, dozens if not hundreds of them. They weren''t doing anything in particular, just hiding from the rain under different trees, cooking what food they had over fire pits and conversing with each other. Probably about the bad weather. Their chatter reached them even in the sky.


    Jin was confused because they didn''t look like merchants. There weren''t any wagons with them. Neither were they cultivators, for which they were dressed too shabbily. There also wasn''t a single building in sight, which indicated that this wasn''t a permanent village. It didn''t look nomadic either, since everyone was dressed too differently to be part of the same tribe.


    "What''s happening down there?" Jin asked curiously. The first words that he''d voluntarily spoken since the beginning of the trip this morning.


    "People waiting for the disciple selection process." Elder Flower said.


    Jin nodded in realisation. He''d been discovered by a wandering cultivator affiliated with the sect in his home village and had simply been drafted. That had been that. He never had to go through any sort of exam, nor had he met the man who had brought him to the sect since.


    It had been a very random occurrence, and if he were any more self-centred he would have thought that it was fated.


    "Nothing to concern ourselves with then," Jin said with a shrug and looked away, returning his gaze to the fast approaching five-floor temple that they seemed to be aiming for. There was a large strip of stone emerging from its first floor which jotted out of the building by several hundreds of feet. It looked to be a landing platform, and there was already a small delegation of undistinguishable orange shapes waiting for them there.


    Instead of completing landing manoeuvres, Elder Flower stopped in front of the mountain, and simply waited there.


    A few seconds later, what had previously been a translucent, or invisible film became visible as a hole emerged within it. Its edges glittered a pale blue. It looked like paper having a hole burned into it. Just that, after they flew in, the hole closed itself behind them and they slowly and non-threateningly descended towards the landing platform, where Elder Flower and Jin hopped off the sword.


    Flower sheathed her weapon and transportation method back where it belonged, onto her belt and the two parties started walking towards each other on the long stone walkway.


    The three individuals that the Mad Monks Sect had put forward were all dressed in burnt orange robes and had staves in their hands. The weapons evoked bad memories in Jin, but the tranquil-looking faces and the bald heads make him feel strangely at home.


    He''d never been to Japan, or any other Buddhist countries, but seeing something so similar still made him feel strangely at ease.


    "Greetings Elder Flower. We welcome you to our sect," The first person in the little greeting committee said. A man of indistinguishable age, with a glittering bald head which would probably have reflected the sun had it been out, and a somewhat muscular appearance. Covered as he was in its entirety by the garb of his organisation, it was hard to tell.


    The man bowed his head slightly, as did the people standing behind him. One similarly bald woman and one very old-looking man with a wispy beard going all the way to his waistline.


    Elder Flower returned to greeting, and bowed a bit lower, while Jin tried to make his forehead touch the floor behind her. "Greetings Elder Kwang. I''m glad to be welcomed in your beautiful sect once again," Elder Flower said.


    This confirmed to Jin that Elder Flower was a common liaison between at least this martial sect. Perhaps they could respect a warrior more, or she had more diplomatic talent than Jin had assumed. Actually, thinking about it, the only other Elder he''d met that would be suited for the role was Elder Qin. But he had the very important role of instructing the outer disciples and likely couldn''t travel so freely. Elder Flower had at least been the kindest Elder that he had ever met. Sure, he hasn''t met many but it still counted right?


    "I would like to greet our guests properly with some tea," Elder Kwang said, seemingly satisfied with the ceremony of greetings being exchanged. "We can discuss your stay while sitting down comfortably, rather than standing around in this frigid wind and rain."


    It was still raining on them, but as a cultivator, Jin had learned to blend out these things. His body was too strong to go down to a common cold anyway, so the rain was just a discomfort which was impolite to not be able to ignore. It was one of the few pieces of culture that Jin had managed to understand since his abrupt entrance into this world. Showing an inability to handle basic discomforts such as rain, and hunger was a quick way to get oneself branded as weak of will.


    "I agree, a cup of tea would be nice," Elder Flower said and the five people started walking towards the temple to which the landing platform was attached, with its red arching roofs, and its seamless brown wooden construction.


    Throughout the entirety of their interaction, only two of the five had actually spoken and it seemed like it would stay that way, as the older man, or at least the older-looking man, and the woman of the Mad Monks Sect remained completely silent. Jin walked all the way to the back and was able to just relax his face a bit from the placid mask that he had put on earlier.


    Their walk was sedentary, and slow. Considering how fast cultivators could truly be once they chose to kick their feet, it was odd that they liked to do things as slowly as possible sometimes.


    They entered the temple through the front door, and Elder Kwang led them to a room where five cushions were placed around a low wooden table with five cups of steaming tea already waiting for them there. There would be no ceremony, apparently.


    The five of them sat down. Jin made sure to sit down slightly behind and to the right of Elder Flower so that he would be on her left from the view of the monks, who were sitting opposite them. This was the lowest station that one could take upon themselves in a seating arrangement, so it was his duty to take it.


    On the side of the monks, Elder Kwang said in the middle in the front, the older man sat slightly behind him on the right and the woman sat even further back on the left. These were differences of a few inches, but they determined and communicated a strict hierarchy.


    Without talking, the cultivators first enjoyed the tea for a few minutes, or hours. It was hard to keep track of the time with these people. It was good tea at least and it seemed to stay perpetually at the perfect temperature no matter how long they sipped at it.


    Eventually, Elder Kwang spoke. "You know Elder Zhao of course," he said to Flower, pointing with his chin in a small gesture at the old man. "He is responsible for the care of our outer disciples. To my left is core disciple Fangqia, she is researching a new spell. Upon completion, she will attain the rank of Elder."


    "Junior greets senior," core disciple Fangqia said, bowing her head slightly.


    Flower nodded at the introductions and flickered her eyes to her right, where Jin was seated. "This is inner disciple Jin, he is a talented new acquisition of the sect and has developed the gift that I am bringing to thank you for your hospitality." A hand went to her pouch, and she pulled out the illusion Room that he''d given to her for safekeeping. It was easier for her to carry it around with her dimensional pocket, then for him with his perfectly normal pockets.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Elder Kwang tilted his head sideways, as the square artefact hummed with low amounts of qi and lit up in purple and blue.


    "Many thanks," he said as the illusion Room slid, without anyone touching it, across the table to land at the man''s hands where he curiously grasped it, before putting it back down.


    It was now Elder Zhao who looked at the Room in curiosity and spoke for the first time. "May I?" he asked. "I assume this is meant more for our outer disciples. If I understand the restrictions of Illusion Room creation correctly, then they are mostly conceived for those of either the same level of cultivation or lower."


    "Elder Zhao remembers perfectly," Flower complimented. "That is indeed the case."


    The Elder nodded. He stroked his beard once with his left hand and touched the illusion Room with his right pointer finger, and his gaze went blank.


    Jin was surprised to see someone not from the sect interact with the Room so easily, but if the Mad Monks were indeed a sect that they had dealings with often, then it made sense for them to be familiar with their product.


    Nobody spoke again for the hour or so it took for Elder Zhao to properly inspect the illusion Room from within. Jin assumed that was because it would be impolite to ask him to leave before his gift had been properly inspected, but that his seniors didn''t want to speak about certain topics in front of him.


    Flower hadn''t really communicated to him that his Room would be a gift, but considering the template was already in his mind he doubted that she wouldn''t simply give him another Room he could insert it in when they came back to their mountain.


    Thankfully Elder Zhao came out of the Room with a tight smile instead of a frown at which point he addressed Jin with a simple nod of approval.


    "We graciously accept the gift in the context in which it was given," the man said in a slightly raspy tone of voice. "It gladdens me to see that your disciples are developing properly."


    "Thank you for your kind words," Elder Flower replied while Jin bowed his head in thanks behind her.


    Elder Kwang spoke up, getting to the point of the meeting. "Perhaps you would like to show inner disciple Jin more of the sect while we discuss?" Elder Zhao?"


    The old Elder thoughtfully stroked his beard and shot Jin a penetrating look.


    "Actually," he started. "Perhaps it would be better for inner disciple Jin to stay here. He might have something to contribute to the discussion," he said.


    Elder Kwang shot his neighbour a sharp look, and even Fangqin''s eyes widened at the suggestion.


    Jin, for his part, was mostly confused. He couldn''t really imagine any sort of scenario in which his opinion would be considered valuable by the people in the room. Although, Elder Zhao seemed to disagree.


    "Inner disciple Jin is certainly innovative. He could certainly provide an interesting insight into most matters. And if he is to be wrong, we can simply disregard his opinion without much worry," Elder Flower piped up.


    Jin inwardly rolled his eyes at the wording, outwardly, he simply nodded his head. "This inner disciple is flattered by the Elder''s words," he said. Leaving out which Elder he actually meant.


    Elder Kwang seemed to have gathered his wits about him during the exchange and seemed to hedgingly agree, considering his lack of insistence that Jin be sent away for the sensitive conversation to come.


    "I will trust my colleagues'' judgement in this case and examine the Illusion Room you have gifted us with great interest later on," the man said thoughtfully. "Now on to other matters, the relevant ones." He paused for a few seconds as if trying to find the right words.


    "We are finding ourselves, as a sect, at a precipice. As you know, Elder Flower, our techniques require a great amount of mental fortitude. That is why we are much more ascetic than other sects and why we focus so much of our time on non-cultivation-based meditation. The issue that we are experiencing in recent times is that we are finding it difficult to find outer disciples who have the necessary prerequisites to mentally withstand the harsh requirements," he eventually said.


    Elder Flower nodded, as if she understood perfectly, while Jin remained mostly in the dark about what had actually been said. Apparently, the Mad Monks Sect was based on a cultivation method which required a strong mental fortitude? And they hadn''t been successful in finding disciples who had that mental fortitude?


    "I see," Elder Flower replied. "I understand the need for a fighting method of unleashed emotions to require a calm counterpart in daily life, but I do not think the Illusion Room Sect is qualified to help train people''s minds."


    Elder Kwang shook his head. "No, there is indeed nothing that you can do to help train the necessary mental fortitude."


    "We were recently discussing how we can tackle the problem," Elder Zhao said. "We concluded that there is simply an original element which must be present in a cultivator to properly learn our meditation skills as well as to not be prone to losing one''s self. Rather than seeking assistance in the training of mental fortitude, we have considered a variety of ways through which we could better screen the initiates we let become outer disciples. The amount of divergence has been too high because the potential of the initiates has been too low. We need a better way of finding disciples who can contain the beast."


    Jin wondered if Elder Flower was going to reveal to them that they had met a disciple unable to contain the beast on the way here. He naturally wasn''t going to bring it up, of course.


    "I see, that is indeed difficult, as most tests can only show at what rate a potential disciple might gather qi, or how strong your body is. Determining mental fortitude has always been one of the hardest tasks for the examiners," Elder Flower mused. Jin thought on the sidelines that the dilemma was very similar to the athlete selection process in his last world. It was hard to measure intangibles such as mental ability and performance under stress. That was why the NFL apparatus found it much easier to predict the career success of a defensive lineman who relied on their body rather than a quarterback who relied also more on their mind. Flower continued. "We are not immune to it, and it is rather our exam between outer and inner disciple which filters out those who are unsuited for our path," she said. An admittance of weakness should face an admittance of weakness, to retain a common ground. Face saving, essentially.


    "In the past, we have relied on common tests by making the initiates climb the thousand steps, or having them meditate for differing amounts of time to test patience," Elder Zhao said. "However, these methods have shown themselves to be fallible, and we have considered if there would be more illusionary possibilities to discovering the mental attributes of our potential disciples."


    "The first problem I see," Elder Flower said, "is the fact that we have yet to discover a way through which someone''s time in an Illusion Room can be spectated by another. It would be rather difficult to see how the initiate handled their scenario."


    "A code perhaps," Jin suddenly piped up. "Upon finishing the scenario they receive a code which they must tell the examiner. Without the code, they cannot pass."


    "That''s a good point," Elder Flower admitted. "However, what kind of scenario would let potential disciples prove their mental fortitude? Scenarios are made for training already present martial abilities."


    It was an interesting question. Unlike the games in his past world, the scenarios of Cultivation Land were much more fixed in their purpose. They were not there for entertainment, but for one specific reason and thus any divergence from this reason was considered to be a breach of the philosophy behind the whole thing.


    But if Jin thought about it, wasn''t there one specific game genre that was perfectly suited for testing out a disciple''s mental fortitude? Especially when one had access to what was essentially perfect 3D technology?


    Elder Flower crossed her arms. "The scenario would have to consist of something which would require mental fortitude rather than martial skills. But, most scenarios can be solved more easily with martial skills rather than without. This would skew the results of the test towards those mortals with combat experience."


    "This is an issue indeed, someone more suited for combat will find themselves requiring less mental fortitude to pass a test than someone who has never fought. But, while combat skills can be learned, a mental inability to retain a stable mind frame is something that has to be somewhat present from the start." Elder Kwang said. "And this is where our dilemma starts. We can hardly develop a real-life scenario which would be threatening enough to test for mental fortitude, and thus we consider one of our possibilities to be illusions. We simply wanted to consult with an expert to see what would be possible."


    Elder Flower turned to Jin. "What do you think? One of your biggest strengths is innovativity."


    Jin hummed thoughtfully. It wasn''t particularly difficult to come up with a scenario that would test someone''s mental fortitude. But explaining it wasn''t that easy especially when faced with a bunch of people who outranked him.


    "One way that I see with which we could eliminate the advantage that people with martial abilities possess, is simply by removing their ability to fight back against whatever threat we introduce. That way, everyone is equal," he said. "Remove the option to bring a weapon, and remove the option for obstacles to be destroyed by violence."


    "And the scenario itself, what would it consist of?" Elder flower asked.


    "We all know that mental fortitude can only be measured by coming up against adversity. The best test of mental fortitude would likely be to elicit as many negative emotions as possible and see how the initiates fare. Since most fears are very individual, we need to base the scenario on something universally horrifying, which can be surmounted by the ability to act under pressure. Universal fears such as that of the inhuman, of being chased, of dark places and of horrible consequences for failure. Those who break are weak. Those who do not break are at least strong enough to realise the fact that they are in an illusion and that rationally, they should fear nothing. In essence, I am speaking of a scenario directed solely at making the user go through the worst experience of their life. Nothing more and nothing less. The best test of mental fortitude is to send the subject straight to hell."

 Chapter 11: The Road to Hell...

    Later in the day, after Jin had finally been kicked out of the meeting he wasn''t qualified to attend, he was laying on the futon that he''d been given, in the room that he would inhabit, thinking about the task that he''d been tasked with.


    He knew exactly what type of game he needed to make to fulfil the requirements that the sect they were visiting had.


    A horror game, a game designed to make people as scared as fucking possible. If you could handle a complete and perfectly immersive illusion of being a horror game protagonist, then you probably had your shit together right?


    Well, no, not really, it could also just mean you were mentally deranged.


    The idea of using such a process as a selection tool for disciples was perhaps a bit weird to consider from the standpoint of the sensibilities of his life on earth.


    After all, if anyone had asked him in his last life what kind of process the Mad Monks Sect would need to pick the mentally stable disciples they needed, he would have told them hire a bunch of psychologists. But obviously, even if psychologists existed here, a martial sect was one of the factions least likely to use them. In a mediaeval society where people were already incredibly emotionally repressed, cultivators went, as always, beyond the norm. They mostly talked about transactions and cultivation and killing demons and heavenly beasts or something, trying to get them to open up about feelings and thus respect the profession of which the goal was to make that happen, was likely more difficult than ascending to immortality.


    A horror game was a nice compromise and quite frankly exactly what the people there had wanted to hear. Cultivation was often about surpassing the frailty of one''s form and psyche. So even if Jin would admit that there were likely better methods, currently as someone who made Illusion Rooms, and someone of relatively low standing, creating a horror scenario was the best one he had available to him.


    It was simply the solution the mad monks would most likely understand


    The only question that remained was which horror game he should use as a template for the scenario?


    He had been tasked with making the scenario because Elder Flower was more of a consultant than a designer and she trusted his artistic vision somewhat, as odd as that sounded considering she''d only ever played one of his scenarios. Unbeknownst to him, however, ascending into the role of an inner disciple meant that he had become a potentially valuable skilled professional in his field. Sure, he was a little inexperienced but everyone was at the start. The Mad Monk Sect was a relatively small client which didn''t merit sending Elder Flower back to get a core disciple or an elder either. A perfect storm.


    In terms of how Jin understood it, he was that one intern who had given an idea at a meeting and had thus been tasked with fulfilling the idea. If he succeeded he would jump beyond his current status because the task he had succeeded in was much higher profile than his position, but if he failed he would suffer smaller consequences as no one had really expected him to succeed anyway.


    Cultivators counted time differently than mortals, if Jin''s approach failed the Mad Monks Sect could simply try something else. Maybe they would start getting stressed once their plans continued failing for a thousand years. They certainly wouldn''t give up on everything and lose their minds only because their first had fallen through. Or even their second, or their third, or the fourth.


    Perhaps it was even good that it was the mad monks commissioning this, considering all their higher-ranked members were a bit more mentally stable than the average cultivator from what Jin understood.


    The meeting had actually been nice considering the strict power dynamics and hierarchy present imbibed into Cultivation Land culture. He even really wanted to do his best, since he''d gotten a good impression of their allies.


    The issue was, he noted, as he went through his mental catalogue of horror games. Was that all the horror games that he''d played had been set in modern times. He would have to revise a lot. Remove guns and put in bows, stuff like that. Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Alien: Isolation, took place on either modern or futuristic Earth.


    Dragonslayer Ornstein had worked because the Dark Souls setting didn''t have anything that people here didn''t understand. But he couldn''t really input Dark Souls because firstly, Dark Souls would only have someone''s perseverance, not really their mental status. Secondly, he had specifically wanted to create a scenario where the user was not tested on their combat potential, because, once again, firstly, this wasn''t the point of the test and secondly, his skill at making viable combat characters was not that good yet. This was why he was here, after all, to improve Dragonslayer Ornstein.


    In that sense, he would just have to suck it up. He would have to take a horror game with a modern setting and he would have to medievalize it. The opposite of digitization. Putting things back into the Dark Age, so to say.


    Ideas swirled in his mind as he got ready for bed, before this he''d just been laying down fully dressed. He took off his robes, washed his face in the provided water bowl and finally laid down once again, this time with the intent of properly falling asleep.


    Tomorrow he would get a guided tour of the sect, he needed to stay fresh and make a good impression.


    He didn''t have to have an answer on how exactly the scenario would look like yet, and wouldn''t have it tomorrow either. He didn''t even know which exact game he would use as a template. It was good that he had started the thinking process though. He''d always worked well under a certain cycle. He would start thinking about a problem and then sleep.


    During sleep his unconscious mind reordered his ideas and when he woke up, it was usually with more clarity that he''d gone to bed with.


    At the moment there were just too many horror game titles swirling around in his head. Decisions were hard to make. Should he try to make Silent Hill 2 but as a non-combat-focused game, or should he do something else that had more elements of a modern setting and thus give himself more work. Which would be more difficult?


    These were all things that this subconsciousness would likely process throughout the night. Tomorrow he would start working on it again actively. Write down some ideas, talk with some people and perhaps start creating different illusion frames in his mind to check them out, see how they really felt.


    But in a way it had really been an exhausting two days. Yesterday he''d been running around in the forest forced to fight for his life against one of the escaped divergent disciples of the very sect he was now sleeping at, and today he had actually ended up involved against his expectations in a very high stakes meeting between very very powerful people.


    He was tired


    He deserved a good rest.


    He closed his eyes and the night took him before he could even notice that he was falling into it.


    -/-


    The next morning Jin woke up not feeling particularly amazing. He didn''t know what sort of dreams he''d had, but he decided upon waking up that whatever they were they had made him extremely nervous and stressed. In fact, he was finding the simple act of waking up and getting out of bed to be more relaxing than the sleep had been.


    Quite obviously it had not been a particularly good idea to go to bed with thoughts of different horror games swirling through his mind, especially considering that he had a photographic memory and could remember those in great, great, excruciating detail.


    He shook his head like a dog trying to get rid of water clinging to his fur and exited his room by sliding open the door out of rice paper that blocked it off from the corridor.


    There was already someone there waiting for him so he didn''t have to go through the confusion of finding the dining room. The servant, or disciple, or whatever led him to a large hall in which one of the walls was made out of glass and allowed the habitants to look out at the view offered by being on a mountain.


    Jin couldn''t help but wonder if the room was repurposed in times of conflict to be the war room out of which the decision-makers could see approaching enemies and plan accordingly.


    Elder Flower was already present at a large round table with the same characters from yesterday, minus the female core disciple.


    As the three Elders nodded at Jin''s approach, the newly promoted disciple bowed deeply before kneeling down on one of the cushions.


    After being bid to eat by the monks, he put some porridge into his wooden bowl and accompanied the brown sludge with some fruits and nuts.


    It seemed that the monks here followed similar dietary restrictions as the monks Jin had known of in his last life. There was no meat or fish on the table, and the most protein-heavy thing that he saw was tofu and egg.


    "This evening you will present to me a clearer idea for the scenario you were describing yesterday," Elder Flower told him from his right as he was almost finished eating. She had clearly already concluded that act a long time ago and was now only sipping tea and looking introspectively into the distance.


    Jin nodded in silent acquiescence at her order as his mind started churning.


    "One of ours will give you a tour of the outer and middle ring, inner disciple Jin," Elder Zhao piped up. "But you best hurry, the most interesting activities happen in the morning. At noon everyone goes into secluded meditation and the only thing to admire is the tranquillity of nature."


    Respecting the Elder''s words Jin quickly shoved the rest of the food into his mouth and stood up. If he had been told to jump he would have simply asked how high. This was his current state of mind and actual status


    Exiting the dining room Jin was met by what must have been his designated guide.


    Clean-shaven and androgynous in all features, presumably at the rank of inner disciple, Shen was an individual of few words. All they had to say to him was to follow, and to observe,


    Apparently, all that was truth could be glimpsed directly from the context, and one''s own interpretation will always be more truthful than a truth spoken by others. That was the motto of the tour.


    Jin was actually grateful for that, after having been inflicted a similar tour back at the Illusion Room Sect upon his promotion by the very talkative Francis. There was just something nice about being led around by someone who didn''t try to talk and who simply decided their direction with their sandal-clad feet.


    Whoever said that words were silver? Silence was obviously gold.


    Taking large strides to keep up with his quick-footed guide, Jin started properly observing the Mad Monks Sect.


    The architectural style of the building that he''d first seen retained a sense of continuity through other examples. Most of the buildings were built similarly to those of the Buddhist tradition in East Asia in his previous life. He didn''t know that much about it to be honest but he could recognize some of the symbols and some of the colours. To him, it looked more Japanese than Korean but that was the point where he was likely not qualified enough to speak of it anymore.


    This brought up the interesting question if perhaps another person from Earth had transmigrated here and had founded this sect. Perhaps a Buddhist monk of some sort. Weren''t they always going on about reincarnation?


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Or in a more funny thought experiment it had happened the other way around, perhaps a member of the Mad Monks Sect had ascended to immortality and had been transported to Earth where he had founded the Buddhist religion.


    There truly was no way to know, he decided with a shake of his head as his guide started descending a long series of stone steps which took them through several wooden temple gates. Shouts full of effort were heard in the distance as Jin got an idea.


    There was actually a way to know, perhaps.


    "Do you happen to know where the architectural style of your sect comes from? I haven''t seen buildings like this before?" Jin asked.


    Inner disciple Shen nodded seriously at the question and put his hands together in a praying pose as he closed his eyes. He continued walking despite this, apparently knowing the path by heart. "Things emerge as they must always have been to be what they were meant to be, to question the emergence of beauty is to diminish its value." Was the response that Jin got.


    The young man from the Illusion Room Sect nodded very slowly and filed that information away for whenever he needed it next.


    The energetic shouts were getting closer as he tried to untangle what had been told to him before he decided that he''d essentially been told to stop asking questions.


    The reluctance to answer made a certain amount of sense considering that he was just an outsider, but he truly did wonder if he shouldn''t know a bit more about the sect that he was being tasked with creating a scenario for.


    The shouting got louder and slowly, but surely, as they descended the steps which seemed as endless as Shen''s wisdom, they came into view of a humongous stone platform covered entirely by burnt orange dots and shining bald heads.


    "The outer ring, they are training harder today in hopes of being accepted for the tournament," inner disciple Shen was kind enough to explain.


    "There is no ring that is out and no ring that is in when all exists in a balance preordained by the heavens," Jin answered as he beheld the scene of the outer disciples practising their staff work.


    All in perfect synchronicity it was as if he was watching a movie. A dance, or a performance.


    "Inner disciple Jin is wise in the ways of the world," the guide said softly. "What is outer, other than something that has to become inner and what is inner than something that has been out in the past. The core of the issue is that if one wishes to ascend further beyond, one is required to have done so in the past already."


    Jin nodded wearily as they continued approaching the stone platform. As he got closer he was able to distinguish some of the moves that the outer disciples were learning and distinguish between which ones were following the kata well and which ones were failing to live up to expectations.


    They were a ragtag bunch and he imagined that it was after they became inner disciples that the fighting skills and ability became more uniform and fluid.


    There was an older woman at the front who was performing the katas and leading the flow of the practice.


    He wondered if he was being let here because he too would gain training in the way of the staff. However, just as they got close enough to the tumultuous morning exercise to make out the words that were being shouted by the disciples upon every move, inner disciple Shen struck a rather sudden right to walk through a bamboo forest that had been accompanying them on both sides of the descent.


    Not having had particularly good experiences with bamboo forests, Jin hesitated for a second before sighing and following his guide.


    It seemed like he would be shown the entirety of the outer ring, not just the place where the combat practice occurred. He wasn''t complaining. He was curious in a way, after all, it must have been rather rare to get such access to another sect''s inner sanctum. Although the outer ring certainly wasn''t an inner sanctum of any sort, which was likely why it was being shown.


    It had outer in the name.


    They traversed the bamboo forest through an already beaten path hardly large enough to fit two people next to each other. There were many little statues of praying monks and of frolicking animals in the forest and it was actually a bit like walking into a museum.


    They emerged on the other side after a dozen minutes or so to behold a small disciple village.


    It was very different from the Illusion Room Sect, where the outer disciples were kept apart so they could focus on the projects and the requirements they had to fulfil to get promoted.


    Here it seemed like there was more of a culture of togetherness, little huts with straw roofs and vegetable gardens clustered together and groups of perhaps 50, before a longer distance was put until it came to another village. Through all of this, an intentionally shoddily cobblestone path ran like a winding snake.


    Jin was surprised that all the disciples that he had seen back there on the platform fit in this row of villages he saw before him, but he imagined that this wasn''t everything. It must have been rather unfortunate to be a disciple who lived on the wrong side of the mountain. Didn''t that mean they would have to walk the furthest to get the combat practice and back?


    Maybe it was a matter of seniority, when one joined one was on the wrong side of the mountain and as other people graduated or dropped out, one got closer and closer.


    There was a system, for sure. There just wasn''t really a point in asking about it considering inner disciple Shen''s preferred way of speaking.


    "It''s quaint," Jin commented as they moved through the village, "but I imagine it''s completely empty because everyone is at morning practice right now."


    "The disciples will come back after the practice to meditate and to cultivate in silence," Shen said, for once not putting on airs. "It will not become any more lively if that is what you are asking. Their life and our life is a life of silence and contemplation. Anything else threatens destabilisation and ruin."


    Jin was impressed by the amount of sensible words the guide had expressed and was just about to comment on it when he looked over to see that Shen''s face was cast in a rigid mask of stone. He looked incredibly concentrated as if he was trying to hold back some sort of emotion.


    Jin refrained from opening his mouth and let the inner disciple continue leading him. He didn''t know where they were going, but they simply passed the time by strolling along the cobblestone path, past clean little settlements which together built a string of anal beads around the mountain.


    The walk must have surely taken them an hour or two and it was only after they reached what must have been the complete other side that they stopped once again. They had left the grass and the trees behind, reaching an area which was more stony than anything else.


    Jin wasn''t able to determine if it was by design or not. A building emerged and for once it did not at all resemble Buddhist architecture at all. Rather it reminded him of those European castles hewn into the sides of the mountain. Simplistic, blocky and not at all gothic, this fortress built into the side of the mountain which was steeper than he had previously seen, resembled more a defensible structure than a place of prayer.


    Had it been ornamented then it would have certainly counted as gothic and merited a few bats flying out of the windows when it came into view. But, as it was, it simply looked like a blank stretch of walls forming and fusing together to create a structure that looked barely semi-inhabitable.


    Jin and Shen were looking at the place from a slightly elevated position as the pleasant path through the meadows and the occasional bamboo forest turned into a steep mountain trail which even the bravest goat would have hesitated in trying to conquer.


    Shen, however, unlike a goat, had no fear and his sandaled feet carried him onto the trail after a minute or so of contemplatively looking at the grey structure. Jin naturally followed doing his best to not fall and gripping at the jutting rocks and weeds emerging from the walls as he crawled forward.


    Shen had been more forthcoming in his last few pieces of dialogue so Jin decided to ask a question. "So where exactly are we going? This place looks very different from the rest of the sect."


    Instead of giving a lucid, or weird answer, Shen remained silent and they traversed the rocky outcropping without further words. They occasionally kicked free a pebble which loudly rolled downhill to create the only sound accompanying them.


    "Is it the fault of those who failed for their failure or was their failure always meant to be? Do the responsible take care of the forgotten or should all traces of ignorance be erased from human history?" inner disciple Shen decided to say at some point, not turning his head to do so.


    Jin remained silent as they continued approaching the fortress, trying to decipher the words. Was he going to be shown the failure of the sect? he wondered. That didn''t necessarily sound like something one showed outsiders.


    They eventually reached a small stone bridge which connected their path to the entry gate to the fortress. It wasn''t barred as one would have expected from the implication.


    Another disciple was standing at the entrance looking at them as they approached, crossing the stone bridge which was only as wide as one man, but not making any move to approach or to speak.


    Eventually, Shen and Jin, who felt stifled by the atmosphere came to stand in front of the waiting robed monk. They were all so different, but so similar. This one was also bald, but older. Of course in Cultivation Land that didn''t really mean anything. A young outer disciple looked older than an old inner disciple due to their different cultivation levels.


    "They are rather agitated today, I would not recommend a visit," the man who had waited for them told Shen, ignoring Jin''s presence completely.


    The Illusion Room cultivator tried to glimpse behind the man but all he saw was a long corridor leading into a courtyard with what appeared to be a small patch of grass and some trees. There were a lot of doors. Locked doors. Doors with bars of iron and magical seals on them.


    "I introduce inner disciple Jin from the Illusion Room Sect," Shen said. "He is here to attempt a solution to our disciple selection process. Perhaps he should see what he is fighting against," Shen said bluntly.


    The older monk looked Jin up and down critically but didn''t respond. He nodded, just as a howl pierced the stifled atmosphere.


    Not an animal one but the voice of a human clearly exerting their mental anguish into physical reality with their vocal cords. This was the hoarse voice of someone who had been screaming for too long, for too hard, without any respite.


    Jin suddenly realised where he was and with this realisation came another. The scenario he created would be best confined to as little space as possible. He was still at the beginning of his cultivation and didn''t have as much memory space available for scenarios. Even if he was designing for mortals this time, and could make everything lower definition, a smaller space would allow him to maximise realism.


    Small space and the fact that he was in the cultivation land equivalent of an asylum for the mentally deranged?


    There could only be one game for him to use as a template. If his efforts could prevent this from happening in the future he would have to bring out his most horrific memories.


    And those most certainly belong to the game¡­


    Outlast

 Chapter 12: First Thoughts of Adaptation

    Outlast was a first-person survival horror game that had scared the shit out of Jin when he had first played it shortly after the lockdowns had started in his last life. Considering that at the time the game''s graphics had been more than five years out of date. That was very impressive since it suggested that the horror of the game had come from the elements of it that weren''t purely visual. Any studio could create a grotesque high-definition monstrosity, but most couldn''t make an atmosphere with just the music, storyline and game mechanics.


    Outlast also fulfilled his biggest requirement for the scenario, namely that there would be no combat ingrained into the core elements of the game.


    Combat systems were much more intertwined into games than most people thought. If you took any amazing game based on combat and removed the fighting, one would be left with an empty husk. The surrounding designs which had been input to accentuate the combat, or the other way around, simply didn''t work anymore. Outlast in this case would require the least reworking to fit the psychological purposes of Jin''s project.


    Of course, there would be numerous things that would have to be changed, however, that would only require plastic surgery, not a full osteotomic makeover of the core elements. It was always easier to change the surface than the underlying structure.


    These were the thoughts that occupied his mind as the two mad monk''s disciples gave him a very brief but informative tour of their little asylum.


    Even if they didn''t call it as such.


    They simply referred to it as "The Place of Rest".


    The horrified and insane people that Jin got to see, hear, and smell in some instances were resting all right, it just wasn''t anything resembling sleep. It was rather an absence of responsibility due to a lack of sanity. He was sure everyone present would have preferred to not be resting if this was the definition.


    In the end, however, he had to conclude that the Mad Monks Sect was actually one of the good guy sects. Relatively speaking, of course, in comparison to the mostly non-existent moral standards of Cultivation Land.


    Naturally, locking away the people they''d helped drive insane with their flawed cultivation methods into small rooms was hardly nice of them, but it was more than most other sects would have done, which would have simply been to outright kill them.


    Shen also confided in him that those divergents who weren''t as insane as to be completely dependent, or violent, weren''t locked up here but kept at a separate part of the mountain where they could go out, breathe the fresh air, touch some grass, grow some cabbages. That was how the crazy lady that Elder Flower had killed in the bamboo forest had escaped. She''d retained enough of her sanity to be able to pretend that she was not murderously insane. She''d used that higher amount of freedom to escape. She''d stolen a staff and had run away. Simple as that. She must have gotten lucky in some way as other divergents were killed upon making escape attempts. There must have been patrols and such. The only real cruelty the Mad Monks allowed was the fact that none of the divergents could ever leave. They wouldn''t be killed, but they would die on the mountain. They knew cultivation secrets that weren''t allowed to come to light to other sects or mortals in general. They would die after perhaps a hundred or so years of living in an asylum under strict guard without ever seeing their families again.


    Jin would have just preferred to kill himself and wondered if he would have been allowed to do that.


    The atmosphere in the fortress was daunting, and neither of his two new friends spoke throughout the tour. They simply walked through the corridors and let him look through the small food doors of the cells. Patient confidentiality, what was that? Personally, Jin had never been so uncomfortable in his entire life. In either one of his lives for that matter. It really was something, even at such an advanced age you could still learn new things and experience new emotions.


    There was just something disturbing about looking into the crazed or empty eyes of people who had lost their sanity and reasoning, arguably the thing that most closely defined a human. Empty pitiable husks with no chance of recovery. Once one diverged, that was it, unless a sect was willing to put in the same amount of resources they needed to create an Elder to unfuck you, which would only return you to a baseline human unable to ever cultivate again. Suffice to say, there was no such sect.


    Jin only ended up glimpsing into two of the cells, not having the stomach afterwards to continue doing so, despite the reproachful look of his guides. They thought he needed to horrify himself to properly motivate himself to help create less of these people. He didn''t have the heart to tell them that projecting their lack of professionalism onto him was a sign of an inferiority complex. He did his best in any job he accepted, this whole thing had just helped him come up with new ideas, it hadn''t actually been necessarily to steel his resolve.


    He exited the fortress not long after his entry, with the screams and the babbling of the insane following him on the way out like the bad stench of moral decay and neuroses that clung to a high-level business executive as they flew out of Davos after having visited the World Economic Forum.


    Jin was shaken, even if he tried not to show it. Inner disciple Shen seemed to respect that, not speaking as he started the long walk back to the visitor''s pavilion. Maybe he was just shaken himself, who knew.


    The journey dragged on as Jin yearned to either eat or sit down and start creating. They passed the little villages they had traversed on the way to the asylum and Jin saw that all the outer disciples were already going into secluded meditation and that no other sound was to be heard.


    At best he could hear a cricket every now and again, or the sound of wind passing through the bamboo forests and the high grass enclosing the small paths they walked.


    Jin had seen all that he needed to see, had decided on the template and now he could distract himself by thinking about the practical aspects of the scenario he was developing.


    If nothing else he did genuinely think that this scenario would help the Mad Monks Sect better weed out those too mentally fragile to follow their preferred cultivation path.


    Being scared for one''s life because one had to play a scenario that was completely optional and fake was much better than eventually losing one''s mind down the line. If one couldn''t handle an illusion, how was one meant to handle reality?


    In fact, it was good to know that asylums existed in this world as well. This meant that the concept wouldn''t be too foreign to those doomed to experience his version of Outlast. Many things would have to be changed, but the madhouse wasn''t one of them.


    The main story arc would be simple enough. The main character of Outlast was a freelance investigative journalist. Journalism obviously couldn''t really exist in a world of cultivation, but the narrative justification for the experiencer going to investigate the Mount Massive Asylum could easily be fabricated with some changes. The main character simply belonged to some faction which was interested in figuring out the disappearances in the region. After all, even presuming that the Mount Massive Asylum took only those that wouldn''t be missed, the insane, the sheer scale of the operation would elicit attention. The experiencer could be led towards the asylum by a whistleblower, and then once they got trapped inside while trying to investigate, they would have to escape. Simple enough, from that point onwards the gameplay could essentially stay the same.


    The Murkoff corporation, the pharmaceutical and weapons giants that they were, had created the asylum to experiment on the mentally deranged, and whomever else they could get their hands on, to find a host for a supernatural entity existing outside of human reason, the Walrider. They''d done so through the morphogenic engine program, which tested different patients for their host compatibility. Those who weren''t compatible degraded on a physical level and those that survived the process became the variants that made the asylum dangerous to explore. Easy enough. The Murkoff corporation would become the Murkoff demonic sect, who were trying to find alternative ways to cultivate immortality, such as by hosting a supernatural entity in their bodies. Project Zero was simply established to test the feasibility of the theoretical process. Worst case if the host became too mentally unstable, but still had the power of what was essentially a dark god, they could still release it on their enemies.


    Considering how comically evil the Murkoff corporation was, changing them into a demonic sect wouldn''t really take a lot of work.


    The devil, as always, was in the details.


    One of the main components of the atmospheric horror of Outlast came from the fact that the electricity was killed throughout the whole building at some point, which forced the main character to see through the night vision lens of the camera they had with them. The fact that this camera ran out of batteries, which one then had to find and replace, increased the urgency of the escape and also the resting heart rate of the player.


    If there was even anything resting about the heart rate of the player when they went through the game. Jin remembered taking numerous breaks to avoid what he felt was an oncoming heart attack, but was probably just him about to shit his pants.


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    The camera could be easily replaced with some sort of enchanted recording lens. Cultivation was magic and magic didn''t always have to explain itself. The lens would obviously need to be powered by the occasional spirit stone, and these would be strategically placed around the map in the same places that the batteries had been in an attempt to mimic the camera part of the gameplay and thus raise the urgency of the escape.


    Then there would be a thousand other things. Electrical appliances would have to be switched out by more mediaeval methods of achieving the same thing. The room in which the Walrider was being summoned would have to lose its computers and its high-tech pod machines, and become a chamber with a high ceiling decorated with seals and artefacts which invoked suspicions that someone was messing with forces they really shouldn''t. Some blood splashes here and there?


    Guns would be replaced with crossbows, medical files with scrolls, computers with large ancient tomes and the tactical gear of the security company that had failed to establish a perimeter by leather armour.


    All of this was doable but would require him to go through the entire scenario with a fine-tooth comb to eliminate any indications of his nature as a transmigrator before he showed the product to Elder Flower. He wasn''t really looking forward to having to relive Outlast the amount of times it would doubtlessly necessitate to get anywhere with the scenario.


    But, now that he had decided on the direction he was going in, everything else was simply a matter of time and effort.


    And, as a cultivator in a world where hours were treated as minutes and weeks as days and months as weeks and years as months and decades as years, time was something that he had.


    Effort, motivation? This was an opportunity to recreate something amazing and share it with the people in Cultivation Land. Additionally, he would be helping potential disciples not go insane, which was always nice, and at the same time, he would be bettering his own position in the Illusion Room Sect by successfully fulfilling a contract and presumably improving their relations with an allied sect. The motivation wouldn''t be an issue and thus the effort also wouldn''t be.


    "Thank you for your guidance inner disciple Shen," Jin said to his silent and oftentimes confusing guide as they arrived back at the pavilion where they had started their journey earlier that day.


    The sun had started sinking instead of rising in the meantime and it was soon getting to the point where Jin needed another meal before he secluded himself into his room to work through all the ideas he had and all the things he had to change. He needed some fuel for all that thinking he''d be doing.


    Inner disciple Shen slightly bowed his head. "It is an honour to work and to work is an honour. Especially when the task is honourable and aims to change the karmic inversion of the wheel and create a change worth risking heavenly retribution for," he said and promptly turned around and left.


    His sandaled feet clicked on the cobbled stone path as he walked away before quickly disappearing out of view and leaving Jin alone standing in the front arched doors of the temple tower seemingly designated for visitors.


    "What a fucking weirdo," Jin muttered to himself, shook his head once, turned around and walked inside.


    Thankfully he knew how to get to the room with the food on his lonesome by now, since nobody was idling around to ask for directions.


    -/-


    It was several hours later that Jin was sitting down in a small room with many fully scribbled notebooks in his lap.


    Elder Flower was also there.


    They were having the obligatory tea necessary to be drunk by all cultivators whenever they were doing anything but training and cultivating. They''d just started discussing the inner disciple''s idea and what he had experienced that day.


    "So they showed you the Place of Rest?" Elder Flower wondered idly and sipped at her brew. Her long hair seemed more lustrous than usual and to Jin, it seemed like she had spent the day at a spa. It must have been nice being an Elder, the young man grumbled internally. Just sit there pretending to be wise and let the inner and core disciples do all the work. The rewards would just fly in. He wasn''t bitter, he wasn''t bitter. Going to the Place of Rest had definitely been more rewarding than going to the spa would have been.


    His eyebrow twitched.


    "Yes. I think they were trying to properly motivate me for the task at hand, by showing me that the goal was worthwhile in a moral sense." Elder Flower raised an eyebrow at him and Jin clarified. "Of course, it was completely unnecessary as I give my all at every task. Nevertheless, I did gain some new ideas. It''s a dreary fortress and a horrible place quite frankly. It''s something that if it were unleashed on the psyche of a mortal, would have a quite debilitating effect."


    "Are you thinking of replicating the Place of Rest?" Elder Flower asked. "You think that scaring them with what they could become if they fail will weed out those who wouldn''t manage?"


    "Not completely replicate of course. I just think that losing one''s sanity and with it one''s humanity is one of the scariest fears that one can be confronted with. Trapped within one''s own body perhaps, watching as a crazed intelligence takes control of your life and destroys it, confining you to imprisonment until you wither away and die. It is a quite rational fear, why not recreate it? Confront people with it?"


    "What would this confrontation look like exactly? I''m curious as you did say that you were aiming at a scenario that had no combat. I agree that it would miss the point of the scenario, but it does mean that my largest area of expertise becomes less useful," she admitted with what seems to be a slight inflexion of humbleness.


    It was a bit shit for Elder Flower that her greatest area of expertise became unnecessary, which in a way sort of forced her to rely on Jin more than she otherwise would have had to.


    This was on the one hand a good opportunity for Jin, but on the other hand, also an opportunity to make an enemy and lose brownie points if he handled the whole thing badly.


    "I was thinking of a larger scenario. The fact that I''m developing for mortals means that I can decompress the data that goes into determining the sensory definition of the experience. It allows for more space and at the same time more characters and a more complex narrative."


    "Narratives are relatively unpopular, but that only makes sense when one is aiming for combat experience. When one tries to evoke a feeling, narratives become a very necessary aspect of any scenario," Elder Flower mused.


    Jin nodded. "I agree. Although after having read some literature on it, I think that narratives would also be useful in furthering the experiencer''s combat potential since it would create a higher emotional investment and immersion."


    Elder Flower shrugged. "Of course, but for that to be worth it the narrative would have to be good enough, which is not as easy as it might sound. Anyway, tell me about your idea. I''m curious what you''ve come up with."


    Jin considered how he should start explaining this before deciding that it was best to start at the beginning.


    "The premise is relatively simple, similar to many of the fiction novels that scatter the libraries of the young and impressionable. A demonic sect has set up a base in a relatively uninhabited region of the Empire. They are conducting experiments to see if by summoning an outside entity, a dark god and hosting it within the body they can break through the cultivation barriers they have imposed on themselves by splintering away from the traditional way of achieving immortality. Worst case they are planning on using the body that hosts whatever they end up summoning as a bomb against one of their enemies. Simply drop it in the middle of an inhabited place and watch the chaos."


    "Technically you wouldn''t have to include any details of cultivation in the narrative. It is catered to mortals after all," Flower pointed out.


    "Well, I think that making it as realistic as possible, and fitting into the world that the mortals are trying to enter would make it seem more real and thus more scary."


    "I understand what you mean," Elder Flower said and waved him to continue.


    "Regardless, the demonic sect, the Murkoff demonic sect in this case, has started abducting the people that nobody misses, the insane and the homeless. They have created a process in which they''ve isolated the dimensional pathway towards a particular outsider, the Walrider and are cycling through the people they''ve kidnapped to check for compatibility. Upon failing the compatibility tests the inmates of the asylum -it is essentially a prison for insane people- start degrading physically. Their flesh rots and their skin develops sores, whatever mental issues they had before are exacerbated. Those lucky enough to be at least slightly compatible become mutated with some supernatural abilities and bodily changes. They become variants, who haunt the asylum and make it impossible to fight through for a mortal,"


    "As is always the case with experimentation like this, eventually the Walrider finds a perfect host, which allows it to exhibit some of its power and come to this world through the body it is attached to. Quite naturally it has no particularly warm feelings for the demonic sect who has been trying to summon it and starts going on a rampage."


    "Demon summoning, a classic," Elder Flower muttered with a small smile.


    "This conjoining of the perfect host and the Walrider coincides with a mortal investigator sent by a faction I haven''t decided on yet, to look where all the people have been disappearing to. Perhaps a demonic cultivator who had a change of heart can lead him to the asylum before running away. Our investigator then enters the enclave but gets trapped inside as a wall behind him collapses. He then has to essentially escape, as investigation becomes a secondary purpose to surviving the ordeal to reveal what he has found.


    "As he escapes he is caught and mutilated by different variants who have become even more insane with the appearance of the Walrider and whose powers have been strengthened by the proximity to their source. Solving puzzles and walking through a continuously self-destroying asylum/demonic sect outpost, the experiencer is faced with a variety of enemies which are to be avoided and a variety of what are essentially puzzles which test for intelligence, to open doors and pass security measures that were left by the now dead demonic cultivators. There will be several records which can be read to heighten the sense of immersion and a recording device of some sort will be used to provide enough vision to see after the lights go out, however, the recording device will need to be charged with spirit stones which eventually run out, this should technically increase the urgency of the scenario and also the stress on the experiencer. That''s all I have right now. In a week or so I can perhaps have the introductory scene for you to look at."


    Elder Flower sipped at her tea while tilting her head to look at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I mostly wanted to check where you are at with the process. It seems you''re at least going in the right direction. I would just suggest not including a demonic cultivator with a change of heart. It''s not really something that happens," she said.


    Jin nodded in understanding. "Perhaps it can be one of the subjects who escaped with most of their sanity intact who can point the investigator towards the asylum," he decided.


    Elder Flower continued. "Otherwise, I am mostly curious how you will design a scenario so that the experience doesn''t result in combat with these variants as you call them. I would say that you should start designing a sketch of the first part, upon which I will probably be able to give you better feedback."


    Jin nodded. "Good, I''m glad that''s settled then. Now it''s just the easy part. Actually making the thing," he joked.


    Elder Flower laughed. "Whatever you say."

 Chapter 13: How its going

    Jin was sitting inside the room he''d been given, designing the scenario. He had outlined some of the important characters and decided on the ways that different technologies would be represented in a more cultivation-friendly manner.


    It had been a week since he''d pitched the original idea to Elder Flower and had gotten the green light. Ever since then, he''d been working uninterruptedly.


    The lessons that he''d used to have with Elder Flower back at the Illusion Room Sect had been put on hold. It seemed like she did not want to entertain the possibility of being spied on as she taught him, which left her no choice but to interrupt the practice entirely. They were on another sect''s mountain and there was no way to truly know what kind of spells were woven into the place. Well, there was a way, but Elder Flower simply wasn''t powerful enough, and if she had been she wouldn''t have been sent on such an insignificant mission but would have rather become the sect leader.


    She had for the most part taken to just enjoying the hot springs that the monks had at a higher part of their mountain and occasionally chatting with Jin over dinner. The rest of the time she spent meditating in her room.


    That was one thing that freed up time for Jin to work like a horse. Another was the fact that as an outsider he obviously did not have access to any sort of library. This meant that his favourite pastime was also gone. There was nothing to read since he hadn''t known they would be staying for so long and he hadn''t brought anything.


    Socialisation was out. He was encouraged to move about as little as possible unless accompanied, and the monks here were not interested in idle chatter.


    The only thing that remained was cultivating. However, whatever quick progress he had made immediately after transmigrating and becoming an inner disciple had slowed to a crawl that he understood was actually the norm. He was still in the middle of the foundation establishment phase and it looked like he would remain there for a very long time. The process of cultivating the stage involved a lot of meditation and the cycling of qi inside of one''s body through distinct patterns which were individual to every cultivation technique. Through time this would refine the body to become the perfect container for qi, slowly using the ingredients that he ate, or at least the mystical parts of it, to replace those of his cells that were deemed unworthy by the heavens to channel their energy.


    In one week, Jin had progressed in the middle of the foundation establishment stage by 1%. This hinted at the fact that he would need a hundred weeks to attain the late stage of foundation establishment. 100 weeks was just short of two years, but the issue was that he noticed, that as every week passed, it became more and more difficult to continue. Not to any truly ridiculous degree, but to a noticeable one.


    The only other thing of note that he was doing during all of this time was working on his project.


    He''d started constructing the first minutes of the scenario, which was much more complicated than he had assumed initially. The fact that he had only ever developed one Illusion Room, which had consisted of only one actual room and one Dragonslayer Ornstein, had made him underestimate the difficulty of creating a progression of environments. He had started on a long road initially, which the experiencer would have to walk down slowly to get to the menacing Mount Massive Asylum glaring down at them from its perch on the hill.


    Just this walk alone had already been taking way too many resources. That''s why he shortened it. Now it was just 30 seconds long or so. 30 seconds spent on a dirt road, walking forward with everything that entailed. Thankfully a mortal''s senses were weak, which allowed the view of the valley the asylum was hidden inside to not be too sharply refined in terms of visuals. On the way to the asylum, the experiencer met an inmate who''d managed to escape. The man was of course quite insane, but the short conversation one could have with him could be summed up as follows.


    ''They''re doing horrible things. Someone has to stop them. I can''t stay. I have to leave, don''t talk to me, don''t talk to me, don''t talk to me, don''t talk to me.'' Throughout all of this, the inmate''s eyes would twitch in different directions as if he was seeing things that weren''t there.


    Unlike if this had occurred in real life, Jin didn''t have to be afraid of the experiencer simply turning around and leaving at this ominous and deranged-sounding conversation from the clearly insane man dressed in bloody rags. The point of the scenario was to clear it and if one didn''t one wouldn''t receive the appropriate rewards. Namely the position of an outer disciple in the Mad Monks Sect.


    The experiencer would then eventually get off the road when they saw the asylum and walk through a forest to get close to it from a stealthy angle rather than going down the main road like the original protagonist had done in their car. After all, they were here on a mission of espionage, not that of reporting. It was a very subtle difference. The night was setting in as they approached, casting the building that they were getting closer to into a pallid gloom. Jin had decided to retain the original architecture while changing the inside of it. He didn''t particularly care if people found the look weird. If anything it would increase one''s sense of estrangement from reality. Obviously, the main door would be locked, as it had been in the game. The experiencer would walk around the empty grounds trying to find a way in.


    Meanwhile, from the windows, moving shadows cast against the glass would move and quickly disappear again. Splatters of liquid would sometimes gush onto the see-through surface.


    The experiencer would eventually find a way up to the second floor, which they would immediately use to go inside. They would come into a room that would have perhaps looked like a lounge if it hadn''t been completely trashed. Chairs had been thrown against the walls with their broken legs lying on the floor. Shelves full of trinkets had been knocked over, and the walls had been scratched at, leaving behind traces of blood.


    The wall didn''t collapse behind them yet, as their goal was still to investigate the matter. If they went back out they were free to do so, but going back in the second time would just be harder.


    The goal in this case was not to provide a good player experience, but to challenge people even more than the original game had. There was a quest line, yes, and occasionally the experiencer would find themselves holding up notes that their body had inadvertently made to increase the immersion. But, everything else was left up to the person doing the playing.


    That was how far Jin had come in terms of the actual scenario and it had taken him a whole week.


    It just went to show how much more work he had to do. Although he hadn''t only been working on the approach of the asylum. He''d also been working on designing the important characters whenever he felt bored of just dealing with architecture and the roads and trees.


    The most important character that he had to nail down for the moment was Chris Walker. A large and grotesque man who led the experiencer on their first few chase scenes. Chris had a rather intense backstory and considering that he provided a large part of the horror in the first half of the game, Jin was putting a decent amount of effort into the design.


    He had already created the insane man''s outside appearance, which was that of a large hulking fat man with a mutilated face. Most prominent was the scalped forehead which Chris himself claimed gave him a sort of third eye and the missing nose and mouth which the man had inflicted on himself in a bout of extreme anxiety.


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    Chris''s main fixation was on an exaggerated version of military protocol due to his past as a discharged military officer. This was the reason why he was so intent on patrolling the asylum and ended up attacking the experiencer and chasing them for the first half of the game.


    The experiencer could find out more about the past of Chris Walker by reading some case files that the demonic cultivators had left behind about the man''s past. After all, while they might not have an in-universe reason to study the mental diseases and histories of their inmates as much as Mount Massive Asylum had in the original games, they still were trying to perhaps find what sort of psychology and life story was most compatible with that of the dark god they were trying to summon.


    This at least was Jin''s excuse for including all of the rolls of parchment and paper which depicted the various phobias, anxieties and fixations of the madmen trapped in the asylum/demonic cultivator fortress.


    Jin had already input all of the information he remembered about Chris while creating some more of it to complement the experience. He just hadn''t designed the rooms in which these files could be read yet.


    Done with the outside appearance of Chris, Jin was just in the process of animating the construct to showcase the appropriate movements for such a large man. Suddenly there was a light tapping at the paper door to the room he''d been given in the large temple outpost meant for visitors.


    Even if apparently the Mad Monks didn''t get a lot of visitors considering there hadn''t been any new arrivals since he and Flower had come.


    "Come inside," Jin said to whomever was there. Meanwhile, he quickly saved the progress that he had made in the privacy of his own mind and disentangled the mental threads he had been reinforcing with qi to create the large data structures.


    He was becoming more and more like a computer as he walked the path of an Illusion Room cultivator.


    The paper door slid open, revealing the dignified visage of Elder Zhang, the Elder responsible for the outer disciple ring on this mountain.


    Jin stood up and bowed. "Greetings Elder Zhang. What can this inner disciple do for you?" he asked.


    Elder Zhang replied with a nod of his own. "Greetings inner disciple Jin. Rather than being here to inquire as to the progress of your work, I have come with some rather good news," the man announced.


    Jin raised an eyebrow but didn''t further question. If Elder Zhang had something to tell him, he would himself have no standing to elicit an answer that wasn''t forthcoming.


    "After looking at your Illusion Room containing the entity known as Dragonslayer Ornstein, we have decided on how to help you further enhance the combat style of said entity. This is a way to repay in advance the purchase of the Illusion Room for use by our outer disciples," Elder Zhang said.


    Jin nodded thoughtfully. While he had shown the Mad Monks his lance-wielding Ornstein, and they had liked it, he naturally had had no power to truly negotiate anything in that regard. This had been Elder Flower''s job. She has been involved in negotiations, probably about this exact topic for the last week on the occasion that she wasn''t bathing or getting massages. This was apparently the result. A very satisfying one all in all. Jin wanted to improve Dragonslayer Ornstein, and the training that the Mad Monks could offer would undoubtedly help with that.


    In return, he would simply have to infuse a new Room with the Ornstein scenario and give it to them. In the end, the cost would only amount to one Room considering that Jin''s version of the scenario could be put into more Rooms which would later, back at his sect, enter the library after he was satisfied with them.


    All in all, it was a good deal and it seemed that either Elder Flower was a good negotiator, or the Mad monks didn''t put that much value on teaching someone a few of their tricks. Or maybe they were just trying to further motivate him to work on his horror scenario.


    Jin bowed again after he considered the deal. "Thank you for this opportunity, Elder Zhang," he said.


    The Elder stroked a frail liver-spotted old hand through his long white beard and slowly nodded with an imperceptible gaze at the younger man. "Follow me then inner disciple Jin," and turned to leave.


    Jin''s body stuttered for a second, unsure if to follow or not. He had just finished a 7-hour marathon of scenario design, and he hadn''t expected that the offer of tutelage would be consummated immediately.


    Nevertheless when opportunities came one had to grasp them. Quite frankly he needed something else to start filling his days with, or he was going to go quite insane. Outlast was not an easy game to trawl through in his memories and to bring into this world considering the genre that it so exemplified. He had not slept very well for a week now, haunted by bad dreams of insanity and death.


    It was as he followed the Elder out of the outpost, that the sun assaulted his eyes as if it was a thunderbolt thrown at him by a nascent soul-level cultivator. He inadvertently raised a hand to shield his eyes.


    How long had he not been outside? he asked himself. Too long for his mental health to bear the deprivation, was the answer. He sighed. He would have to remember to not get so involved in the workflow in the future. Fiddling with the mental threads and creating scenarios and characters in his mind was very fun, which was what allowed him to do it for so many hours every day, but it wasn''t a replacement for vitamin D. Most likely, at least, Jin didn''t quite know how his new cultivator biology affected these things.


    He would have to start involving more outside activities again in the future whenever he has such a job going on, or else he just might turn into a complete shut-in. He followed Elder Zhang as these thoughts flitted through his head. Rather than taking any path that Jin had taken before, mainly the one leading down to the outer ring, they ascended slightly, walking up as the peach and viola trees grew slightly sparser. However, while he was able to make out the start of the inner ring signified by a gigantic gate of wood, not so dissimilar to the one they had back in the Illusion Room Sect, he realised that what they were walking towards was a simple clearing, rather than the inner ring. It was there that a bald-headed inner disciple was waiting for them.


    Jin wasn''t able to determine their identity because the Mad Monks distinguished themselves from each other with their garb in any way, but simply because he knew this particular inner disciple. It was Disciple Shen.


    Elder Zhang and Jin approached the younger androgynous-looking man until they were all standing on the slightly dirt-trodden clearing. Upon arrival however, Elder Zhang simply disappeared into wisps of smoke, which dispersed into the clear sunny sky.


    "Talk about a dramatic exit," Jin decisively did not mutter to himself, before turning to inner disciple Shen and bowing. "Inner disciple Jin greets inner disciple Shen. I imagine that you are to be my tutor?" he asked.


    Inner disciple Shen looked at Jin with his androgynous face before eventually nodding.


    "I was told that you needed guidance in the way of the staff, although I am unsure if I can give it to you considering that what you are using is decisively not a staff. Although perhaps everything is in fact a staff when one considers the simple properties of the weapon?" the man muttered to himself while tapping a finger to his chin.


    A tick mark was already threatening to start developing on Jin''s forehead but he took a calming breath and continued smiling. Perhaps someone else would have been insulted by the fact that their teacher was to be just another inner disciple. But what one had to consider in this case was that Jin himself was very young for an inner disciple due to his very recent attainment of the role. Inner disciples ranged in age from anything between 18 to 200. It could very well be that Shen''s life experience was nine times more than that of Jin. Another important thing was the fact that while Jin was learning a mental cultivation method, Shen had likely been working on his body for more than a century now. Not only on this body but also specifically on the weapon skills associated with such a path. It would be completely irrelevant of Jin to say that the man had nothing to teach him. And even if the boy had a limited amount of things to teach, Jin was very much more likely to finish the Outlast scenario and leave the mountain than to exhaust what he had to learn. After all, he couldn''t imagine that he would be here for longer than a year, and his ability to wield a lance would definitely require more than that to reach the point when he would need the personal attention of a core disciple instead.


    "Inner disciple Jin is happy to learn," he thus said cheerily.


    Shen nodded absentmindedly, a hand going inside of his robe to what must have been a dimensional pouch at his hip, because from inside his robe, he pulled out two things that never would have fit into it otherwise. It was a large wooden construct, which Jin immediately identified as the replica of the weapon that he had given Ornstein.


    The wooden lance flew through the air and Jin caught it in his hands, idly twirling it to his side.


    Inner disciple Shen meanwhile hefted a quarterstaff which was much less long than what Jin had available to him.


    "What has been granted by the heavens cannot be taught and thus the only way forward is to correct the mistakes of those that know nothing," Shen said as an explanation for how their tutelage was going to go.


    Having grown slightly adept at analysing the nonsense the man liked spouting, Jin understood that while Shen would not be instructing him in any particular techniques of the sect, which were understandably limited to those actually in the sect, Shen would allow Jin to spar with him and correct any mistakes that the latter made.


    "Let''s do this."

 Chapter 14: How its going

    If Jin thought that the seeming mental tranquillity of inner disciple Shen would help make the training of the lance anything but hellish, then the next few months firmly disabused him of that notion.


    Every morning he would wake up and the first thing that he would do would be to meditate to prepare himself for the gruelling start of the day ahead. Then he would take the wooden carving of the lance reinforced with some sort of spell resin to hold its shape no matter the abuse it took, to climb the mountain for a bit towards the clearing in which Elder Zhang had led Jin all that time ago.


    There he would find inner disciple Shen already waiting for him in a cross-legged position with his quarterstaff balanced perfectly on his two knees.


    The inner disciple of the Mad Monks Sect would stand up, they would bow to each other and they would fight.


    They hadn''t exchanged any words ever since that first initial bout. Speaking was done through their weapons.


    Jin would attack, swinging his lance to cut Shen with the blade at the tip. Inner disciple Shen would either parry or block, his quarterstaff would spin on the palm of his hand as if controlled by telekinesis to lightly, but painfully, tap whichever part of Jin''s body was overextended.


    Jin would take a step forward, pull the lance back, and stab at the seemingly unbalanced staff wielder, only to miss and receive another painful tap on the wrist for his wrong form.


    This combination of attacking, getting flawlessly countered and having his posture fixed by painful raps of the staff, continued for hours. Considering that they were moving at speeds beyond that of a normal human, Jin was receiving approximately one tap every second. Each time it happened, his posture improved slightly, and his eyes became more focused. The mental cultivation that he had undergone allowed him to process these corrections at a much faster pace than anyone else could have in his position. Unless of course they would have been guided by pure talent alone, rather than just intelligence.


    The increased physicality granted by cultivation however didn''t only grant speed, but also stamina. This meant that the spar could uninterruptedly last for an hour, two hours, or three hours and even then they wouldn''t stop because they were completely exhausted, but simply because the prolonged practice made Jin sloppy which led to no real results being achievable after the third hour.


    That was when they would bow to each other and part ways for the day.


    Only to meet again on the next day, and go through the whole thing again.


    Three hours a day, for a period of already three months.


    It was undoubtedly the most brutal training that Jin had ever undergone.


    At a rate of one correction tap per second, Jin accumulated around 10,000 taps a day. 10,000 Taps a day for three months with no break meant that he was rapidly approaching a million. Only 30,000 more to go. Three more days. The taps never reduced in frequency despite his rapid improvement at the beginning of the training, rather the mistakes that they corrected simply became smaller and smaller.


    Jin had never thought that there would be such a depth in the wielding of any weapon, but such was apparently the case.


    Whereas in the beginning Shen had corrected his footing, and then the positioning of his legs in general, and then the positioning of his upper body, and then the positioning of his arms, now the taps were directed at the way he held his wrists in very specific moments and the way his toes and head faced.


    The wielding of a weapon in a land of cultivation where people lived for thousands of years, was as endless as the depths of the unexplored sea.


    The impression that Jin got was that he would never ever reach the bottom, especially because his martial prowess would never be his main focus.


    All he could do was endure, and crawl back home consisting of more bruises than man every day to spread the healing ointment he''d received from Elder Flower over his body, lay down and immerse himself in either cultivation or the development of his scenario.


    He knew that this unusual punishment was technically called training and that he should be happy. However, cultivation fell to the side as he accelerated the completion of the scenario. It was only when he was done that he could leave. He had no illusions that he could learn the lance faster than he could finish his main task. Outlast would take a year at most, and the lance would take a lifetime.


    Considering his days consisted solely of this, without any socialisation with anyone except occasionally Flower, one would have expected that he would have gone insane by now. But for some reason his heightened mental faculties allowed him to repress his human need for contact. He was beginning to understand how cultivators could potentially cultivate in seclusion for decades on end. This was likely where their inhumanity started, and they diverged very much from their mortal counterparts. He vowed to himself to never do something like that.


    Despite his neglect, his cultivation still chugged along at a decent pace, his body purifying itself a bit to become a perfect conduit for qi.


    However, his main focus was undoubtedly the scenario.


    He developed the main characters that needed particular attention, like Eddie Gluskin, the perfect host that the Walrider used as a conduit to enter the world. Abused as a boy, Eddie became a serial killer by his adolescence, eventually being taken prisoner by the Murkoff sect who explored his psychology and history which could be found in a variety of notes hidden around the compound. Called ''the groom,'' Eddie was obsessed with the idea of getting married, but due to the Asylum being an all-male facility could only turn to his other inmates to facilitate his wish. He would mutilate them in an attempt to alter their appearance towards what he considered to be a perfect woman.


    He would get his hands on the experiencer at some point and express his desire to do the same to them. Captured by Eddie, the experiencer would have to consider the possibility of actually undergoing such a crude surgery, before circumstances beyond their control would save them from their fate.


    That was likely enough already to destroy the wish of any mortal to go through the scenario. Especially because Jin could make the pain appear very very real, making them develop a fear of how an actual mutilation would feel.


    And this was just one of many horrors to be found within the Murkoff compound.


    The twins, brutish-looking cannibals chased the experiencer down long corridors and eventually only let him live due to the orders of Father Martin.


    Father Martin was a man who had started referring to himself as a priest of the Walrider, thinking it as his calling to spread the gospel of the outsider. He was amongst other horrible things the only ally the experiencer would have in the asylum. However, Father Martin was the one who had in the original series shut down the electricity of the Asylum making escape for the player increasingly more difficult due to this action. In Jin''s scenario, the man would similarly be the one who would shut down the sealing formation of the compound, just as the experiencer thought that they had perhaps ended their nightmare, throwing them into an even deeper pit of despair.


    There were other encounters with variants throughout the storyline, such as the one with Richard Trager, a former member of Murkoff who had betrayed them and suffered the consequences. Driven into insanity by the experience of trying to host the Walrider, the man would strap the experiencer to a wheelchair, and show them the exit to the compound. Tell the experiencer to leave, but considering that the player was at that point strapped to a wheelchair they obviously couldn''t. This was used as an argument that the player didn''t want to leave, at which point Trager would take them to his so-called laboratory where he dissected other inmates in an attempt to further his knowledge of biology. He would cut off two of the experiencer''s fingers before they finally escaped.


    The more time Jin put into developing the story of Outlast and its characters, animating the movements of the variants and inputting the sensory deprivations and pains of the scenario, the more sorry he started feeling for the mortals doomed to experience the horror that he was creating.


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    As the person who had to go through their memories of the game to adapt it to cultivator aesthetics and historical context, he knew more than anyone how painful and frightening the experience could truly be once one was forced to go through the asylum without the ability to engage in combat, and forced to follow the convoluted path of escape.


    However, he assuaged his conscience with the fact that if the mortals could not handle the scenario, then at least they would not become disciples who couldn''t handle the mental requirements of being a Mad Monk.


    A day of horror was undoubtedly better than a lifetime of actual madness. The scars that people would bear from going through the scenario would be less painful than what they would lose if they didn''t.


    Thus he continued working, tirelessly, hour after hour, every day. Month after month the scenario started looking more and more complete. Soon he would be able to show it to Flower who would undoubtedly have a few comments on the content which would force a bout of revision.


    But afterwards, he would be mercifully done. The Mad Monks Sect was very slowly starting to become his very own personal hell. Painful training every day, followed by immersing himself into the horrible world of Outlast which he had so foolishly chosen only to then go to sleep and repeat it all over again.


    Working on Ornstein? Even with his increasing martial capacities he simply didn''t have the time or energy. He wanted to finish Outlast as quickly as possible so that he could put the entire thing out of his mind for the rest of his life.


    Dragonslayer would come after, doubtlessly improved by his increased capabilities with the lance. But right now he simply couldn''t afford the distraction.


    Time passed. Three months turned into four, four into five and five into six.


    It was on the 6th month that Jin finally concluded the scenario with the escape of the experiencer from the compound which had been torturing them, and him for the last 6 months. In the end, the experiencer would receive a number code which they could tell the invigilator of the exam to prove that they had managed to complete the entire scenario.


    Jin sighed, knowing that this wouldn''t be the end. Elder Flower would doubtlessly have something to say. Nevertheless, he put a little digital bow on the whole process and sequestered it away into his mental library where he kept these sorts of things.


    Tomorrow he would have to go to Elder Flower, and get her opinion on the matter and hear her ideas on how he could revise the scenario to be even more frightening, more effective, and more streamlined.


    For now, however, he laid down on the futon that he''d been provided by the Mad Monks Sect and closed his eyes, starting to circulate qi throughout his body instead of just his brain as his cultivation method required.


    This was a trick he had figured out to recover his muscles after the brutal workouts that they had to undergo everyday and to relieve the soreness and the bruises covering him like sores covered the asylum inmates of his scenario.


    -/-


    Elder Flower sat in front of Jin with her hand touching the brightly shining Illusion Room. Not just any Illusion Room, but the Illusion Room containing the Outlast scenario that had been completely overtaking the last half year of Jin''s life.


    However, rather than being nervous about the fact that Elder Flower was testing one of his works, of which success was fairly necessary if they wanted to improve their diplomatic relations with The Mad Monk Sect, Jin was too busy being enchanted by his senior''s beauty.


    He hadn''t seen her for a few months now, she had gone on a mission in the middle there, meaning that he hadn''t actually glimpsed a woman in two months. His stay on this mountain had as always consisted of gruesome training with inner disciple Shen, and then being immersed into the horrible world of Outlast.


    He had essentially for weeks now been living the life of an orthodox monk on Mount Athos not glimpsing a woman for almost a quarter of a year.


    In other words, unable to even enjoy the beauty of the sex that he was attracted to, he had become incredibly backed up.


    It didn''t help that Elder Flower was of course as an Elder in the nascent soul cultivation stage one of the most beautiful people he''d ever seen. Immaculate pale skin and red lips created a face of utmost perfection framed by the black straight hair of a professional model.


    The only reason he could enjoy such a sight was because she had her eyes closed at the moment due to being immersed in his scenario.


    He sighed, wondering if upon returning to the Illusion Room Sect he should find himself a girlfriend.


    His body was still biological for now and had certain sexual urges. This meant that if these remained unaddressed for too long it was very likely that even his cultivation would become impacted.


    That''s at least what he told himself as a rationalisation for the relatively unnecessary waste of time that being in a relationship would cause. After all, at this stage of his life, he needed to concentrate on his cultivation to break into the next level. Otherwise, he would die an inner disciple due to old age.


    Flowers'' eyes suddenly fluttered causing Jin to look at the ceiling pretending that the wooden beams up there held some utterly fascinating heavenly mysteries in the groove of the wood.


    "Interesting," Elder Flower commented as the first thing after coming out of the scenario.


    Jin naturally had not assumed that the Elder would come out scared or anything, but still, a simple ''interesting,'' wasn''t really what he''d been hoping for. He flinched slightly.


    "I can see that at least some thought went into the story, and I think that the basics of it are easy enough to accept. A demonic cultivation sect has once again been doing experiments that backfired on them because of the inherent flaws in their approach." She shrugged. "Simple enough," she said. "No need for improvement. As for the aspect of not including combat," she hummed. "I think that worked out quite well."


    Jin breathed out a breath that he hadn''t known he''d been holding in. That sounded good, didn''t it?


    "As for everything else," Elder Flower started again. "I guess the saving grace of it is that it will only be shown to mortals. That helps somewhat with the low resolution of, well, everything," she commented like a true follower of the peak gamer race scripture.


    "Thank you for your kind words, Elder Flower," Jin said with a grateful nod.


    The woman sitting opposite him at the tea table waved him off. "That wasn''t praise. Praise would be saying that I felt deeply uncomfortable at some parts of the game. Which I did," she said with a resolute nod. "It was doubtlessly the most unpleasant scenario I''ve ever had to experience," she said.


    Jin helplessly tilted his head. "In a good way, or a bad way?" he couldn''t help but ask.


    "In a good way," Elder Flower responded. "I guess the worst ones would truly be the ones that were so badly made that they made me want to explode my soul and die, but this one was intentionally horrible. Very ugly, very very ugly," she muttered.


    Jin wondered if the reason she had such a light response to what was supposed to be an absolutely horrifying experience was because she knew more than anyone else, as an Illusion Room cultivator herself, that she was never in any danger, or if this was how everyone was going to respond.


    Was the benchmark of horror just so much higher in a world where everything sucked anyway? He hadn''t just wasted 6 months on a product that had given him more nightmares than anything before in his life only for people to say that it was deeply unpleasant and very very ugly.


    "I have a lot of suggestions, of course, the movements of a lot of the characters were a bit stilted. You do have to work on the fluidity there. Similarly, while I do appreciate the variety of information and psychological profiles that can be found scattered throughout the compound, I do wonder if they may detract from the pace of the scenario, allowing people to relax a bit."


    Jin hadn''t thought of that last bit, he''d simply followed the directions of the original game at that point. He personally thought that it heightened immersion, and if anyone wanted a break they could just stand in a room to catch their breath. Not moving forwards wouldn''t trigger the next horrors to come which meant they could catch a breather.


    "The biggest issue I found in terms of content is with the Eddie character. He is naturally interested in women, which means that he mutilates the men to fit his aesthetic standards. However, some of the mortals trying to qualify to become outer disciples will doubtlessly be women, at which point the whole thing becomes a bit odd?" Elder Flower said while running a finger through her hair.


    Jin on the other side of the table barely refrained from facepalming. How could he have forgotten that? Such a basic thing as well. It was always the little things that bit you in the ass. Illusion Room scenarios had no concept of a player character who was immutable in form. Every experiencer brought with them their own body since the whole point was to experience the whole thing with their own skills. In this case, female mortals would bring with them their female bodies. This was naturally problematic as then that part of the story wouldn''t necessarily make sense. He had to fix that.


    "Other than that I also included some feedback on the general atmosphere and look of the place. I see that you continued with your trend of creating a novel style of architecture, and I will praise it here because it will make people even more disconcerted. However, as someone who has experience of raiding actual demonic sect compounds I do understand how you were able to miss out on some things which are generally present there which can help create a more realistic atmosphere," Elder Flower commented.


    She pulled the roll of parchment from the pouch at her hips, put it on the table and touched it with her finger. Black characters suddenly started streaming onto the page, filling it out completely.


    "This is all the feedback I have. I don''t imagine that you''ll need more than just another month," she said consolingly. "In fact, your speed of work is remarkably fast," she praised.


    Jin, meanwhile, was crying on the inside. He had started developing a phobia of training with the lance but knew that he couldn''t just stop now because he''d never get the opportunity again. Staying here for another month? Working on Outlast? This just meant that his personal hell had been extended once again.


    "All right, Elder Flower. I''ll get to work immediately," he whimpered.


    The woman gave him an odd look at his tone of voice. "I''m sure you''ll do fine," she reassured him before standing up.


    "Do try to get some sleep. You look incredibly tired," she said before promptly leaving the room.


    Jin started crying. He knew he looked horrible. He hadn''t slept in days finishing this thing as fast as possible. Even if he actually got to bed on any given day, nightmares wouldn''t let him sleep.


    Why the fuck had he done this to himself?

 Chapter 15: Two sides of a different coin

    It was a warm summer day in the city of Wu, one of the more important trade cities in the region. Housing approximately 200,000 people, it served as a home for many wealthy merchants who profited richly from the intersecting rivers that met at the city gates.


    However, no matter how powerful a merchant, they were still mere ants at the feet of a cultivator. That was why, whereas a decade ago the city''s administration had been equally influenced by the merchant clans of Yung and Bao, now there were only the Bao left. The Yung family had run afoul of a core formation stage cultivator to whom they had sold false goods under the presumption that they were just a beggar who had lucked into some sort of treasure.


    The cultivator had not been happy with the slight to his face and had exterminated the main branch of the family thus greatly reducing their influence. The only member of the family left was a young boy by the name of Xiao, who the cultivator recognized as having a modicum of talent in cultivation, already being able to perceive qi at the young age of six. Unwilling to kill someone who might potentially one day become an equal rather than remain an ant, he let the boy live. However, a boy of six could not lead a trade empire.


    After that massacre misfortune seemed to continue following the Yung family, what remained of them at least. A great many businesses failed, trade deals went askew, shipments went lost, and warehouses burned.


    Everyone of any standing in the city knew that this was likely the Baos using the opportunity to kick an enemy while they were down, consolidating their power and influence. The Yungs found themselves hopelessly suppressed, forced even to engage their prodigious son, their last bargaining chip, with the daughter of the Bao family.


    It is always the bigger shark who swallows the smaller in the womb, so the plan was that the boy would marry into the Bao family. The Bao family would then swallow the rest of the assets of the Yung family, and then the boy would be sent off to cultivate after conceiving an heir and become a protector of the Baos by association once he entered the world of immortals.


    However, who could have foreseen that the Yung holdings would continue to deteriorate even after the Baos stopped suppressing them, leading to the extinction of the entire trade union? The Yung family members scattered in all directions of the winds, leaving young Xiao behind in the care of the Baos. He was taken care of and praised because he still represented something of value, namely a potential future cultivator tied to the family.


    Alas when another cultivator passed by in search of disciples for her sect and more closely analysed the boy''s talent, fate took a turn for the worse once again.


    A young woman from the Sect of the Illustrious Blaze Fire Reaching the Thousand Heavens of Akash had taken a drop of Xiao''s blood and had determined that his bodily constitution was composed of two elements that existed in an unfortunate juxtaposition.


    Generally, when a cultivator began their path of immortality, their element alignment determined which method they would use. Those who were predisposed to water would learn something like the Eternal Sea Suppression method, while those with a predisposition to yin, like the little-known Illusion Room Sect, would use their increased mental capacities to cast illusion spells and create artefacts.


    It was always better to have one talent so that cultivation would not be muddled, as, when breaking into the foundation establishment stage, one would have to balance all of one''s predispositions to begin perfecting one''s body for the eventual core formation. While those with two predispositions might still find themselves fortuitous enough to become foundation establishment cultivators, those with three or more were generally discarded as useless.


    While Xiao having two predispositions might have in other circumstances led him to become an external member of a sect, it was the arrangement of these two talents which was problematic.


    The elements which could be taken by one''s heavenly root were divided into two groupings. The five-element grouping of water, fire, earth, metal and wood, and the second was the obscure dualism of yin and yang. Those whose heavenly root was a mixture of elements from the two groups were doomed to failure before they had even walked the path and Xiao was one of those people possessing the talent for wood and yin. These two elements were seen as particularly incompatible by anyone who understood the basics of internal alchemy. Wood, like metal and earth, might have worked with a yang predisposition, whereas yin mixed well with water and fire.


    That was why on this warm summer day, a scene occurred in the city of Wu, which finalised once and for all the demise of the Yung family.


    A bundle of blue robes was thrown out of a tall and imposing gate painted in gold and red, which served as the main entrance into the compound of the Bao family.


    As the robe rolled to a stop on the dirty floor of the street, it was revealed that what had been thrown out was actually a person. A young man with a defiant expression rappled himself up to all fours so he could glare at the large heavyset warrior in leather armour who had just committed the deed of throwing him out to the street.


    A young female voice spoke up from next to the warrior. It belonged to an enchanting beautiful girl clad in a dress of red, the traditional colour of the Bao family. Her voice would have been a pleasant sound had it not been so dripping with disgust. "To think that in addition to losing all of your wealth, you also wasted our time with your delusions of ever becoming a cultivator," the girl said hotly with her nose in the air. Her black hair, tied into buns, jumped up and down as she shook from anger.


    The girl''s face flushed red to match her outfit, as if outraged that someone dared to not be utterly aware of all their invisible spiritual qualities. A hand went to a ring on her finger which she took off and carelessly threw at the young man''s feet. It fell to the floor and got covered in dust immediately, rolling to a stop in front of the young man.


    "I can''t believe I wasted years being betrothed to a waste like you," the young woman said with a scowl before reeling her head back and spitting with pinpoint precision at the ring.


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    She turned to the hulking warrior by her side. "If he''s ever seen in the city again, kill him. There won''t be anyone who will complain," she said coldly, huffed and stormed off back into the compound.


    The hulking warrior threw a glance at the young man, and then shrugged at him as if saying, ''What can you do?'' He then stepped back, put his hands on the ornate gates and swung them shut.


    The young man, whose name was Xiao Yung, shakily picked up the ring, and wiped the spit off with his robes, knowing that he would need it.


    "This cursed Bao family," he muttered to himself. "Do you think I do not know that it was you who eradicated the business of the branch family left behind after the massacre? Now that even the path of cultivation might be closed to me, do you not think that the cornered dog bites the hardest? What else do I have to live for other than revenge?"


    With the diagnosis of his heavenly roots, no matter how little he understood them, he knew that most sects would not accept him as a disciple barring him from whatever personal power he could have attained with that method.


    There was no point in staying in Wu considering that he was now essentially banished with the Bao family holding a death grip on the city''s economy.


    What the Bao family didn''t know however is that he had flagged the cultivator that had delivered that fateful diagnosis this morning before she''d left. He''d asked her if there was no other way for him to ascend to the path of a cultivator. Were all paths truly barred to him?


    The beautiful red-haired woman had seemed to consider for a second, looking resplendent and dignified in her golden robes. He could not fault her for simply telling the truth but only cursed the ears into which it had been whispered.


    ''There is one sect in the vicinity which I know does not care as much about the talent of their disciples, but rather their willpower. The Mad Monks cultivate a method which requires inner peace, furthermore, they are a martial sect focusing on the use of a weapon rather than on spells, which suits your chaotic disposition more. Other than that I''m afraid you are beyond help,'' she had told him before walking off at a speed that he could not follow even if he ran as hard as he could.


    He had kept that information close to his heart, knowing that his days with the Bao family were limited and that if they thought he could recover from their banishment they would kill him on the spot rather than just threaten to do so if he did not leave.


    He picked himself up, knowing the general direction of the mountain on which the Mad Monks had built their temples and began his journey with nothing but the clothes on his back and a spit-covered engagement ring he would have to sell off for the gold it was made out of.


    "I vow revenge on the name Bao and on you evil cultivator who killed my family," Xiao said to himself as he left the city gates behind him. "One day I will give you not what you want, but what you deserve for your evil deeds," he said coldly as people avoided walking too close to him due to his dirty appearance and dark countenance.


    -/-


    As Xiao began his journey to the mountains, leaving the debris of his past life behind him, Jin wished that he wasn''t currently present in these very mountains.


    He was crying tears of blood at his absolutely disgusting schedule. Brutal martial arts training in the mornings, the rest of the day filled with lonesome cultivation and redesigning the horror scenario to the specifications of Elder Flower.


    Worker''s rights? What were those? He hadn''t spoken to another person since his talk with Elder Flower and his nights were fitful and full of nightmares.


    He noticed as time progressed that while his body was becoming a better conduit for qi due to his cultivation, the rings under his eyes grew deeper and deeper until they formed into fully designed Gucci bags.


    The circumstances were special. He was visiting another sect and didn''t necessarily have the right to go beyond his abode and the place where he was supposed to meet inner disciple Shen for training. Elder Flower was mostly gone, and the one time that she had shown up recently she''d simply given him more work.


    Looking at it from any sane perspective, what he was experiencing was an extremely perfidious torture consisting of physical pain, sleep deprivation, social circle destruction, and leisure time evaporation.


    The most horrible thing about it was that the memories of this original body''s owner were informing him that this was considered a relatively light schedule for a cultivator as well.


    The stories spoke of cultivators going into secluded cultivation for centuries on end with only their minds and a cultivation technique to keep them company. Maybe some pills or other items if they were lucky.


    "What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?" Jin muttered to himself as he worked restlessly on the Outlast scenario knowing that his torture would find at least some respite as soon as he got done with it.


    Was cultivation truly the path to follow or should he maybe just excommunicate himself and live the rest of his life as a peasant until he died of natural causes? It seemed to him that if he did so the amount of free time he would have until his death would actually be superior to the amount of free time he would have for the rest of eternity if he remained a cultivator.


    A change of phrasing here in a parchment roll in the library, a small remodelling of the movement structure of the twins, and an update of the graphics of the Walrider to make the effect it had on the world more imposing.


    The work was as difficult as it was finite, however his mind was descending more and more into madness with every day.


    That was at least until one day he was sitting in his room in a lotus position, focused on his mind as he always was, and paused. He looked at the scenario that he had created in his head. He slowly pored over the data shards that it consisted of. Looked at his own cultivation, double-checking that he had used the maximum amount of space he could impart into any project.


    A disbelieving sigh of relief escaped his parched mouth. With the crazy workload, he had forgotten to drink for several days on end now, simply seeking to be done with it as soon as possible. He felt dizzy, but the seconds that he''d saved by refraining from food and water had been worth it if it meant finishing this hell schedule even one minute faster.


    He needed to talk to someone, he needed to¡­ His thoughts suddenly trailed off, struck by a bout of dizziness now that they weren''t performing the high-speed calculations necessary to create scenarios.


    "I''m done!" he shouted. "I''m done!"


    That was of course only the case if Elder Flower did not find other small things to correct.


    He started crying on the floor, he was perfectly aware that the narration describing his current life was becoming just as disjointed as his psyche had become in the past months.


    He babbled to himself for several minutes before he pulled himself together, dragged himself to his feet, and started going towards the sliding door on all fours, barely managing to stand up and open it.


    He slowly but surely made his way towards the rooms in which Elder Flower tended to reside, knowing that in all likeliness she wouldn''t be there. However, by some stroke of luck, after he traversed the wooden floors, he heard something.


    The sound of a female voice coming out of Elder Flower''s room. He gently knocked on the doors not forgetting his status even as his mind descended into madness.


    The voice stopped, but Jin had been able to make out the last words.


    -/-


    "Would I rather go to the hot springs, or should I ask to get another massage?" Elder Flower had been wondering aloud in a whimsical voice. However, when she heard the knocking she turned more serious. "Come in!"


    Jin entered and looked at the radiant beauty who seemed to be becoming more relaxed with every day that passed. He knows that she trained, or something, but did the difference between their minds at the moment really have to be so different?


    "It''s done," he said, voice raspy from complete misuse.


    Elder Flower nodded thoughtfully and bid him to come over to the table at which she was sitting, peeling an apple with a small string of qi extending from her fore-finger.


    "Show me," she demanded and handed him the Room that he had put the last illusion into the last time they spoke. They''d wiped it after she''d seen what needed improvement. Now again he put his finger to it and infused the scenario into it. It flowed like water, the horribleness that he''d created escaping his mind like a bomb going off. The loss of a deprivation is more pleasant than any blessing.


    He sighed in relief.


    Elder Flower nodded when he was finished, put her palm on the warm metal of the illusion Room and delved right in.


    A few minutes passed. Doubtlessly she was simply checking what she had commented on the last time instead of going through the whole thing again.


    She came out quickly and gave a slow and approving nod. "Not perfect, but any more tweaking would require more time than it''s worth, for mortals it will suffice," she determined.


    Jin, in an act of sheer joy, passed out. His head hit the table edge as his body crumbled, the more than half a year of hell giving him a head laceration on the way out.

 Chapter 16: The Sect Leader

    After Jin recovered from his happiness-induced bout of dizziness, Elder Flower informed him that now was the time to show the Illusion Room to the Elders of the Mad Monks Sect.


    It went to show just how much importance the monks put on better vetting their disciple candidates, that it was only 3 hours later that the meeting began. Jin and Flower were sitting in the large conference room with the two sect elders who had met them upon their arrival all those months ago, and for some reason, inner disciple Shen.


    Back in Jin''s world, even setting up a meeting like this would have taken a week as everyone would have searched through their calendars, bouts of self-importance would have slashed most days a week, and someone''s daughter''s violin practice would have nuked everything in the end anyway.


    The cultivation world was a lot smoother somehow. One would think that people living much longer would move more slowly, and while this was the case usually, this was an interesting exception. Jin guessed that this was due to sects having clear hierarchies, and if a particular Elder was busy cultivating in solitude, then the person below them would be sent to make the decision in their place in case it was time-sensitive. It kind of made sense that sects were composed of a very fluid structure when one considered the amount of time that cultivators liked to seclude themselves.


    The inclusion of inner disciple Shen in the talk bothered Jin for a bit however, then he got even more confused when the Mad Monks contingent sat down, with inner disciple Shen in the middle and the two Elders sitting slightly behind him.


    "Sect leader Shen, Elder Kwang, Elder Zhang," Elder Flower started, addressing the three men. They each nodded in a sequence of their names being called, which confused Jin even further. Why was inner disciple Shen being referred to as sect leader?


    Jin refrained from saying anything, but his mind was racing.


    "Greetings, Elder Flower," sect leader Shen said. "I''ve been informed that significant progress has been made in the task at hand. Is it perhaps time for us to offer our input?" he asked calmly.


    Jin could almost hear the smirk in the man''s voice. The man who''d been beating the shit out of him for seven months now. He''d gained some insight into Shen''s character throughout all of this.


    If he actually was the sect leader, then that meant that the level of instruction Jin had gotten was significantly higher than he''d suspected. However, it was very confusing why exactly it was the sect leader who had been teaching him.


    "Inner disciple Jin has made significant progress in the creation of the Illusion Room, to the point where it is time to show the product and to integrate the feedback of the client, rather than just the creator." Elder Flower said politely.


    Jin''s mind startled to a halt, forgetting all matters of sect leaders and whatnot, as he realised that if the Mad Monks had an issue with his Illusion Room, then he would again have to go back and revisit the work process.


    He felt like he aged a hundred years in a second at that realisation. Considering how hellish the creation process of that thing had been up till now, if he had to do it again he might just age a hundred years in terms of stress.


    "Inner disciple Jin is a very hard worker, and a very creative thinker," sect leader Shen praised. "I hardly think that what he has created is lacking enough for us to criticise," he said.


    Elder Flower pulled the Illusion Room up on the table and floated it towards the man through a flexing of her qi.


    Jin meanwhile was mentally putting his hands together in prayer, while Shen looked at the Illusion Room curiously. ''Please like it, please like it, please like it, please like it, please like it,'' was running through his mind like the forgiveness mantra of a Latin-fluent priest in a Catholic church on Easter Sunday.


    If it hadn''t been considered rude, Jin would have immediately abandoned this conversation and bowed down towards Mecca to ask for help from all sorts of deities for help in this matter.


    Sect leader Shen calmly raised his right hand, his forefinger extending to rest on the shining surface of the metal cube that was the Illusion Room. "I should survey," he said calmly before his gaze went slightly blank and he disappeared mentally from the conversation.


    Perhaps feeling Jin''s confusion, Elder Flower spoke up while they waited. "The Mad Monks Sect is indeed fortuitous to have a sect leader who has mastered the partitioning of the body so that he may be present in a variety of ways and affect change throughout the entire sect," she said calmly, causing Jin to realise what exactly had happened.


    The powers of cultivators were as endless as they were varied. Once they obtained a high enough level, naturally splitting oneself up into aspects would be possible. It would make perfect sense for a leader of a large organisation to want to create copies of himself to walk the mountain and help with a variety of tasks. Keep an eye on things. After all, as was always the case if you wanted something done well, you had to do it yourself.


    The pressure on Jin increased with the realisation that it had been the sect leader who had shown him the Place of Rest in an attempt to motivate him. It meant that it wasn''t just the people in charge of the Outer and Inner rings who wanted to create a more efficient solution, but that the question of the testing went up to the highest authority.


    "We are indeed blessed to have a leader as wise as the one we have," the middle-aged Elder Kwang said from behind Shen. Although, he did say it in a manner that indicated he wasn''t interested in pursuing the conversation further. The tone implied something like, ''What are you talking about right now? There''s other stuff going on.''


    Jin sighed, internally complaining at the ridiculous amount of subtext that was present in any conversation between cultivators and wondered if he would become like this once he reached a few hundred years of age. It sounded exhausting, to be honest. Hiding behind a mask, visually and verbally for the rest of one''s life.


    A slightly harsh intake of breath suddenly resounded through the room as sect leader Shen opened his eyes and removed his hand from the Illusion Room thoughtfully.


    "I see that inspiration has been found where it was given and that the dissuasion of the damned becomes the salvation of the unworthy," he said cryptically with a nod. "An intelligent man with no skill may survey the work of others and pass judgment, but a wise one knows that the best evaluators should be those for whom it was meant."


    If Jin understood correctly, that was the sect leader giving his agreement.


    The trend of people not being particularly scared of Jin''s scenario continued. However, someone from a combat sect would definitely be less affected by the horrors Jin had brought into this world.


    "Perhaps I should test it next, sect leader?" Elder Kwang asked, causing Jin to internally raise an eyebrow. After the sect leader agreed, was it in fact an Elder''s role to second-guess that decision? Was there an internal power struggle going on?


    Sect leader Shen seemed unperturbed. "It would be folly to not curiously gaze into the beast that others must enter unwillingly," he said and lightly pushed the Illusion Room to the right on the table to where Elder Kwong was sitting in a seiza position. The middle-aged man frowned and put his hand on the Illusion Room, before blanking out.


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    "The Illusion Room has centred the core subject of its fear wisely, if the biggest fear that is to be resolved is the loss of one''s sanity, then that is what one should be confronted by," the sect leader muttered.


    "I''m sorry for referring to you as an inner disciple," Jin blurted out, causing Elder Flower, surprisingly enough, to chuckle and Elder Zhang to crack a small smile.


    The sect leader simply grinned mischievously. "I never introduced myself and it is not wrong of an inner disciple to assume that it should be another inner disciple who should lead him. There is no offence taken where there was none intended and being a disciple is an honourable role indeed when one considers the lessons that life has to teach us¡­ for which it uses a variety of mouthpieces," he said cryptically.


    Jin, unfortunately, now knowing that the man was not an inner disciple, did not have the status to be annoyed by the speech pattern anymore. He simply nodded pretending as if what had been said was actually relevant instead of just hot air.


    "Sect leader Shen is wise indeed," he said.


    "It is a dilemma for any Elder indeed," Elder Zhang piped up. "When one considers the powers that we wield at our level of cultivation, is there a point to let our disciples do anything? However, by doing nothing they have no opportunity to grow. It is a precarious balance indeed deciding on when one must act and when it is better to not do so. The preservation of our sect however is something that cannot be miscommunicated by someone who does not have a perfect overview of the situation," he said.


    Jin nodded thoughtfully, realising that perhaps it had been necessary for someone high up the chain to show him the Place of Rest, and to tell him the troubles that had befallen the sect. It would have been foolish for this person to reveal their position of authority because this would have caused Jin to have been socially obligated to kiss their ass more than to offer actual solutions.


    It seems that the Mad Monks were very well aware just like he was of the pitfalls of cultivator courtesy, and had their own strategies for avoiding the mistakes that this sort of behaviour often caused.


    "If only all cultivators were as clear-sighted as the mad monks," Elder Flower said kindly. "Then the world would find peace and the demons would have been banished long ago."


    The implication was obviously that most cultivators weren''t particularly rational. Jin sincerely hoped that he wouldn''t have to deal with a lot of those particular types of cultivators anytime soon.


    "The fates determine the pattern of the heavens, and the heavens dictate the lives of their subjects. Everything that is must be, and everything that is not was never meant to. Karma resolves all in the end," Sect leader Shen said, which could be understood as a condemnation, as well as an offer of forgiveness. One couldn''t really tell and that was perhaps the point. People would hear what they wanted to hear, which in itself was a powerful rhetorical strategy.


    The conversation was interrupted.


    Elder Kwang came to himself with a light gasp instead of just an intake of air, his previously flinty steeled eyes flitted about for a few seconds before he caught himself. He frowned. "It is seldom that I have witnessed a work of art so grotesque. I am afraid of what lurks in your head young inner disciple, but I am glad that is being used for a good purpose," he said with a resolute nod, before crossing his arms and returning to silence.


    Sect leader Shen turned to Elder Zhang. "Would you like to try it as well?" he asked.


    Elder Zhang just shook his head. "It is good that the disciple selection process can finally begin. They have been waiting for a while haven''t they?" he mused. ''They'' in this case refers to the people who were waiting at the bottom of the mountain.


    Jin wondered if these were the same mortals that he''d seen seven months ago when arriving at the Mad Monk Sect. If so then they''d been waiting a while, no?


    However, from a cultivator''s perspective, anyone who wasn''t even willing to wait such an amount of time was unlikely to have the necessary willpower to achieve anything. Jin did wonder how the disciple selection timing was decided. Was there one disciple selection process a year, did they wait for enough people to get here to justify the test?


    Jin didn''t know, since he''d been personally scouted, just like all other members of the Illusion Room Sect. Their mental techniques required the predisposition towards Yin energy, which meant that there wasn''t much point in taking people whose heavenly roots had different components.


    Additionally, unlike combat-oriented sects who always profited from having more bodies to throw at a given problem, a production-focused sect lived and died by the reputation it accrued for the quality of its craftsmanship. In that sense, it was easier to simply invite those who were fitting and to not hold general admittance exams like this.


    "Tomorrow then?" the sect leader asked whimsically. He closed his eyes and seemed to think for a second. "The weather will be very clear and the sun will be brutal," he said. "A good day."


    "I seem to remember there was a pilgrimage coming, they should be arriving within the week," Elder Kwang spoke up.


    It was a polite way of saying that they should perhaps wait. However, the sect leader shook his head. "Do you know what the most important attribute for a cultivator is?" he asked, his eyes locking on Jin.


    "Hard work?" Jin wondered. "It must be either that or talent." You couldn''t really accomplish much without one or the other.


    The sect leader shook his head. "I would say it is luck. Those unfavored by the heavens forever fight an upward battle. That is why it does not make sense to tailor one''s decisions to such lengths. Those who are fated will and those who are not will not."


    It seemed like a spiritual version of determinism to Jin, but what did he know about the will of the heavens. He was just some random dude.


    "Would you be interested in witnessing the selection process? As visiting cultivators from an allied sect?" the second leader asked Elder Flower.


    Elder Flower tilted her head for a second. "I don''t particularly feel the need." She turned to Jin. "Do you want to?"


    Jin idly scratched at his chin. It wasn''t like he was going to get many opportunities like this. He might as well, right? He shrugged. "It would be interesting to see the effect of the Illusion Room, wouldn''t it?" he wondered aloud. This was him implicitly agreeing.


    "Good, Elder Zhang will bring you down when it is time tomorrow. I will attend as well for once." The sect leader decided.


    "Is there any particular reason?" Elder Kwang spoke up.


    The sect leader shook his head. "I feel as if something is fated to happen, the strings of the heavens are being woven into a new tapestry."


    Elder Kwang nodded respectfully as if that made any sense. "Then I shall also make the time to attend." He decided.


    "If the selection goes reasonably well then our visit will be running towards its end," Elder Flower said out loud. It sounded like she was looking forward to leaving, but that would have been impolite and so she phrased it differently.


    "Perhaps after the selection process inner disciple Jin can crystallise the advancements he has made in the way of the lance into the scenario of Dragonslayer Ornstein, and then we will gladly bid you farewell," the sect leader reminded them. The Mad Monks had after all handed over a very lucrative trainer in return for the eventual finished product.


    Jin nodded, never having intended to back out on that one. Considering the template and everything being mostly done¡­ "It shouldn''t take more than a month," he said.


    At this point everyone at the meeting nodded, satisfied with what had been decided. They would meet again tomorrow.


    -/-


    Xiao''s formerly blue robes were covered in mud and dried blood from the challenges that he had to undergo to arrive here. He didn''t care, he had more important things to do. The young man wearily hefted his body over a stone ledge to arrive at the top of a hill.


    It was in this area that the map given to him by an old-looking gentleman with a very impressive beard showed the Mad Monk Sect to be. As he finally stood on the hill overlooking a grandiose valley ending in mountains and streams he was immediately able to make out the mountain which would hopefully become his home.


    The day was yet young, and the sun had yet to fully rise. This cast the mountain covered in temple-like architecture and a variety of blossoming trees into a pink light. It was a beautiful sight, one for sore eyes, especially because it signaled the end of a journey,


    Xiao had been fighting his way through the countryside for a month now.


    The roads had stopped three weeks ago and everything else had been wilderness. He''d had to hide from spirit beasts, fight against wild animals and scavenge for food as his supplies ran out.


    He took a moment to put his fist into his palm and to bow down in the direction he had come from thanking all the people who had helped him along the journey.


    The old man with his map, the young lady with the talisman which had protected him from pestilence, and the talking thunder beast that had spared him his life when he had mistakenly encroached on its territory.


    Some had tried to hinder him. The Foul Water Gang of the Shao River, the scammer who had tried to extort him of his last coins with fraudulent claims and the swarm of demon birds that had attacked the caravan he had joined for a day only to be barely fought off by the joint efforts of Xiao and the mercenary captain.


    "It has been a long road, but I swear upon the heavens that today it shall find an end and begin anew," Xiao swore before starting his hike to the large encampment of people that he saw waiting at the base of the mountain, likely there for the same reason as him.


    He was sure that some of them would become disciples of the Mad Monks Sect, however it would be him standing at the top.


    If he had thought that time would quell his desire for revenge for the humiliation he had experienced, then he had been very wrong as every day the desire to destroy the Bao family simply grew.


    "I swore vengeance and I plan to upkeep that promise," Xiao said as he approached the camp.

 Chapter 17: bread bread bread bread bread

    Jin woke up bright and early the next day, as had become his habit. Fear suddenly overtook him as his eyes fluttered open and he lay on his futon before he remembered that his training was done.


    The Illusion Room was finished and had been accepted by those who''d commissioned it.


    He took a few moments to appreciate this fact and that his nightmare was coming to a close. The moments turned into minutes turned into hours as he simply lay there watching dust motes dance in the sunlight streaming through the windows.


    One thing that people didn''t mention enough, which was one of the amazing things about being a cultivator, was that one''s senses improved to the point where one could find beauty in anything.


    This in addition to the physical health he felt in his body was almost worth the unequal hierarchies, the high demands, and the long working hours.


    He breathed out a sigh of relief and stood up, using the wooden bucket full of water to wash himself. A small exertion of qi turning into heat dried him. He got dressed.


    Exiting his room, he made his way to the landing platform where he and Elder Flower had arrived all those months ago. The sect leader had been right, it was an incredibly sunny day. Almost too sunny. A small filter of qi went over his eyes to block the harsh light and he wondered if the mortals of this world made sunglasses to protect themselves against the rays of the sun on the occasions on which they were particularly punishing, he knew eyesight corrective glasses existed for the rich.


    He turned his head downwards, looking to the base of the mountain where the make-shift camp of mortals waiting for the outer disciple selection process had grown by another few people.


    Did they know the risks and dangers of becoming cultivators? Or was it simply such a prestigious position that they felt like they had to try regardless of anything else.


    Upon acceptance, one would be taken away from one''s family and one''s friends. Trained brutally and discarded ruthlessly if one''s talent wasn''t sufficient. Only one in a thousand ascended to a meaningful position within a sect. Everything below the rank of an inner disciple was just functionally being a slave.


    "I see that you are awake," a female voice suddenly said from behind Jin, and he turned around to look at Elder Flower, who had somehow snuck up on him.


    "I am curious about how my Illusion Room will function," Jin said lightly.


    At the mention of the scenario, Elder Flower pulled a disgusted face. "It''s a much more brutal selection process than the journey of a thousand steps, or even the boulder challenge," she said. "You will likely hear a lot of screaming."


    Jin sighed. "That''s better than them losing their sanity afterwards isn''t it?"


    "I agree, regardless I''m not too interested in spending more time with mortals than I have to." She twitched her nose. "They smell."


    "I can''t imagine that the amenities at the base of this mountain are particularly awe-inspiring, yes. Where are they even getting the freshwater from?" Jin wondered. Staying at the base of this mountain for several months, wouldn''t people at some point start running out of food? Also, he hadn''t seen a water source anywhere when he''d been flying over the landscape on the flying sword.


    Elder Flower stepped forward to look down at the encampment. "They''ve dug wells and they''ve brought enough food to be here for a year. It is common knowledge that one might have to wait a long time before undergoing the test," she observed calmly. "Regardless, I will be going now. Do try to not get invested in any of the participants. Most of them aren''t worth much," she said coldly before jumping into the air and disappearing from his side.


    "Why would I get invested in anyone?" Jin muttered to himself. "It''s not even my sect."


    After a few more minutes of waiting, Elder Zhang came to find Jin and touched him on the shoulder to carry him down to the mortals.


    The disciple selection process was about to begin.


    -/-


    As Jin joined Sect Leader Shen, Elder Kwang and Elder Zhang at the base of the mountain still a few hundred metres away from the impromptu camp of potential disciples, he wondered how exactly they were going to officiate the selection process.


    At the end of the day from the outside, they just looked like three monks and one incredibly handsome young man. Wouldn''t it be too awkward to simply shout at the mortals until they came over and then tell them that the selection process was about to begin?


    His question of how exactly this would be done was answered very quickly when Sect Leader Shen who was standing in the middle of the group put his hands together in a praying posture and closed his eyes.


    "Earthly Rights of Heavenly Eternal Wood Rising," the man recited in a low tone of voice and suddenly Jin heard the earth beneath him cracking and rumbling.


    He remained as still as a mouse knowing that the original position he was in right now was the one that the sect leader had calculated for him to be safe in. If he followed his instincts and jumped out of the way then god knows what would happen to him. So he clenched his buttcheeks, closed his eyes and pretended that he was contemplating the eternal dao instead of just trying not to shit his pants.


    Didn''t the sect leader know how scary it was to have spells suddenly cast in one''s presence by someone eternally more powerful than one''s self? Especially when one didn''t know what that spell would do?


    Wood suddenly erupted from the ground underneath the quartet. Brown barked, strong and twisting. It reminded Jin of a certain anime where ninjas had abandoned stealth to throw magical mechs at each other.


    The wood continued emerging.


    A structure that was in a way similar to an unpainted torii gate erupted from the ground carrying the quartet dozens of metres into the air until they could once again behold the entire valley like they had been able to previously when still on the mountain.


    Surprised shouts and exclamations erupted from the shabby camp they were now looking down upon and countless round and shocked faces turned in their direction. With his heightened senses Jin was able to tell that dozens of eyes were fixed on him despite the distance.


    It wasn''t a very comfortable experience.


    That''s certainly one way to make an entrance, he thought to himself.


    -/-


    Xiao had not done much after arriving at the forward camp of the Mad Monks Sect disciple selection grounds. After all, he was tired from his journey and mostly wanted to gain knowledge about the situation.


    The group of people were nothing like what he had expected to be waiting for him here. Of course, he''d known that there would be others similarly trying to become cultivators, but he hadn''t expected there to be so many and he hadn''t expected them to be this entrenched.


    He was very surprised to find that the people here had even dug a well and that some of them had arrived in luxurious carriages full of preserved food and had been waiting here for almost a year.


    Exchanging some animal pelts that he had learned to skin during his travels for information, Xiao found out that the general consensus of the hopefuls was that this particular sect had no specific schedule for when they selected their disciples. However, the general consensus was also that it occurred every year when enough people had arrived to justify doing so.


    At least no one had been able to find another rhyme or reason to the timings.


    At the end of the day, Xiao didn''t see why cultivators would want to work under a schedule. Having met two cultivators in his life and having been heavily impacted by their attitudes and decisions, he was very clear in the fact that cultivators did not care very much for their so-called mortal counterparts. This made his blood boil at the injustice that resulted from this attitude but he was very well aware that when one was an ant one could not protest being stepped on without first gaining sufficient strength.


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    He had asked around if anyone knew what the selection process would maybe entail, and had received a variety of different answers. Some mentioned that they could be asked to meditate for a long amount of time to test their mental fortitude, while others swore that it was going to be an endless series of steps that ate up willpower.


    After exchanging some more of his inventory for a bit of food, Xiao was just about to sit down and consider what kind of training he could reasonably complete here while waiting when people suddenly started shouting and running around in a confused mixture of elation and fear.


    Xiao jumped up but refused to drop the piece of bread that he had purchased at a very steep price. He turned his gaze towards the mountain that the Mad Monks Sect inhabited, with its temples and its bamboo forests, only to find his view obscured by a gigantic wooden gate which towered over their camp with its ridiculous proportions. One could barely make out four human figures standing on top of it and looking down at them imperiously, doubly so because the sun was rising over the mountain, blinding anyone who tried.


    A deadly calm struck him as he realised that before he had even gotten the opportunity to sit down and adjust his nerves, fate had decided to roll the dice for him once again.


    -/-


    Jin wondered if this was what it felt like to be Moses speaking down to one''s followers from the mountaintop holding the stone tablet with the Ten Commandments.


    It hadn''t taken long for the mortals from the camp to start approaching the gate clearly having identified the fact that its appearance was the announcement of the disciple selection process.


    They stumbled over slowly and reverently with either respect in their eyes or bowed heads.


    Jin examined them curiously, wondering if there was any sort of way of identifying who had it in them and who didn''t. There were not any older people present, most looking like they were at least less than thirty. There were more men than women and some were obviously from richer backgrounds than others. This was mostly delineated by clothing and average hygiene. Some were dressed in rags and some were dressed in clean if crinkled robes. Some were dirty and some were freshly washed. Some of them looked like farmers and some of them looked like merchants.


    However, from this perspective all the way up they all blended together into one indistinguishable mass of hopefuls. In front of the heavens, every mortal was as irrelevant as the next. This was the perspective that Jin gained from the height that he was standing at.


    His eyes briefly passed over a boy dressed in a shabby blue robe that might have at some point been luxurious, who despite the atmosphere was managing to find the time to munch on a large piece of bread.


    Jin cracked a small smile. If nothing he had to respect those wise enough to know that one couldn''t write an exam on an empty stomach.


    "Welcome to the Mad Monks Sect," sect leader Shen''s voice suddenly boomed out from next to Jin loudly enough that he could almost imagine the sonic shockwaves. Jin flinched at the leader''s loudness but managed to quickly gather himself to continue standing there imperiously.


    "Today we will be initiating a test to determine if any of you are qualified to become valued disciples of our sect. You will be tested on your intelligence, your perseverance, and your willpower," sect leader Shen suddenly snapped his fingers, releasing not one, not two, not three, but five Illusion Rooms from the pouch at his side.


    With five Illusion Rooms, Jin naturally meant that these were five separate artefacts created to store scenarios. The scenario inside of them was all the same. Every single one of them contained Outlast. Once Jin had created the data comprising the game in his mind he could very easily inject it into as many Rooms as he wanted. The issue was mostly that Illusion Rooms were not cheap to make. However, if they''d only have one then this whole process would really have lasted way too long.


    With his increased mental abilities, Jin completed a quick headcount of the gathered mortals coming up with the number 84. Most of them would doubtlessly fail the process of testing very quickly, while some would manage to make it further along. All in all, he assumed that an Illusion Room would require on average half an hour to fail. That meant ten mortals per hour, which meant that he was now stuck here for approximately eight hours.


    He sighed. The five Illusion Rooms gleamed in the sun and projected a mysterious purple light which illuminated the front of the gate even more brightly than the sun did. Another snap of sect leader Shen''s fingers and suddenly a purple film was covering the inside of the torii gate, barring entry.


    The only way for a mortal to enter was to complete the scenario, get the passcode and then think about the passcode while walking through.


    The catch that made it difficult was that if one ever voluntarily paused the scenario one would be disqualified. One could restart from the beginning if one died, but one couldn''t take a break. Those with too little ability to solve the scenario in a reasonable time frame were just as unwanted as those too cowardly to endure it.


    "The five artefacts you see in front of you are all the same so there''s no advantage or disadvantage depending on which one you pick," sect leader Shen said.


    "These are so-called Illusion Rooms which contain a mission which you must complete using the template of your body that will be projected inside of it once you touch it. You can always quit, but beware that this means failure. Death simply means you have to start from the beginning. Completing the scenario will grant you the key for passing through this door. Once you have passed this door you have successfully been selected. Congratulations." The sect leader looked down at the mortals who were exchanging cautious glances with each other. "Do not fight for the opportunity as there is no advantage to going first or last, simply handle it amongst yourselves and begin!" Shen announced loudly.


    -/-


    The "begin!" loudly shouted by the monk standing in the middle of the quartet on top of the gate echoed through the valley as if unwilling to leave its airspace until everyone had surely heard it.


    Xiao took a bite from the piece of bread in his hands and looked around curiously to see the response of the other participants. None of them had walked forward yet and seemed to be cautiously observing each other rather than the so-called Illusion Rooms as I was trying to find who would go first.


    Many of them were clearly confused, not understanding the explanation of what the artefacts floating in front of the torii gates actually were.


    Of course, Xiao wasn''t sure what they were himself, but he knew that all he had to do was go over and touch one and then he would obviously find out. After he shoved the last piece of bread in his mouth and started chewing he didn''t hesitate in stepping forward from the crowd to go towards the floating cube on the right.


    That was when the patience of everyone around him broke and a large burly man stepped forward, grasped him by the shoulder and pushed him back.


    An ugly and scarred face obviously belonging to some sort of mercenary glanced back at Xiao with a hideous grin. "Let me handle this one kid, didn''t your mom tell you to be cautious before she sent you here?" he asked, swaggering over to the cube that Xiao had been intending to touch along with several other men who were bumping into each other in the attempts to get there first.


    They still somewhat respected the words of the cultivator and didn''t aggressively fight for the right, but it was still a bit disrespectful.


    Xiao stepped back and looked on. He wanted to go first because he was a bit nervous about the selection process and wanted to get it out of the way. Either he was qualified or he was not, but it was better to find out early so that he would have time to process disappointment or to enjoy his success.


    He watched as the burly man who pushed him aside reached the floating artefact and with a slowness mirroring the anxiety he must have been feeling touched it with a large calloused hand.


    At the same time as this happened the other four artefacts also became occupied by four other people who touched them.


    A few minutes later, the screaming started.


    -/-


    "The ones rushing forward, it can already be said that they failed," Elder Zhang commented idly as he looked downwards at the scrambling scene of people trying to be the first to reach the Illusion Rooms without fighting so overtly as to draw negative attention from the examiners.


    "Well, if they manage to pass the test and escape that unpleasant experience then they can still take some courtesy classes once they are disciples, no?" Elder Kwang wondered aloud.


    Zhang simply shook his head. "Those who do not even have the basics of politeness, cannot possibly have the mental fortitude necessary to undergo the harrowing experience," he claimed.


    Shen and Jin remain silent on the matter, simply looking curiously at the five men who were now blanked out, standing in front of the Illusion Rooms. Their consciousness taken away by the magic inherent in the artefact.


    Jin''s neck felt very uncomfortable and he wondered why the sect leader hadn''t put the artefacts more to the front so they wouldn''t have to glance down at such a steep angle. Didn''t the man know that this is how one developed cramps? It was in fact very unhealthy to not take care of one''s body like this. The neck was one of the most important parts considering its connection to the spine and head.


    Jin''s hand went up to massage his right shoulder as he curiously continued looking at the disciple hopefuls.


    He wanted to know how the mortals would face the challenge that he had created for them. In essence, he agreed with Elder Zhang''s assessment of those currently being tested. However, he thought that rather than the lack of grace it was the lack of intelligence that this act displayed that would make them surefire candidates for disqualification.


    Obviously, it was always difficult to put oneself in the shoes of others, but what Jin would have done in the situation of those mortals would have been very different. He would have leaned back and waited to see how the first few people challenged the Rooms. After all, the sect leader had confirmed that there was no advantage to being the first or the last and that none of the rooms were any different from each other.


    However, the sentence was in a way misleading because while there wasn''t any change in the scenario that occurred between the experience of the person who first underwent it was different from the last person. The difference was in the knowledge of the experiencer.


    After all, one of the things that one could do when someone passed or failed the scenario was to simply ask this individual what they had undergone. If the other person was willing to answer then the person who''d asked would be going in with an absolute information advantage. In this case, this information advantage would actually alleviate some of the fear that the scenario tried to produce. After all, knowing at least a bit about the tasks one has to undergo meant that they became less daunting than if they remained complete unknowns.


    In this regard, the selection process was actually a mind game to pick out those who had the most patience. Because that was the attribute that would be most strongly rewarded in this case. If all of the mortals had actually been educated and intelligent enough it would have led to the horrible result of them simply refusing to go first. In the end, this would have dragged on for months and the people who would have to go first would be the ones who didn''t have enough food supplies with them to sustain a longer waiting period.


    Because of this Jin felt really grateful for the five idiots who had stepped forward to become the first sacrifices and he agreed in a way that the lack of grace indicated a lower likelihood of success. However, the lack of intelligence and patience was a much more damning factor.


    His ears picked up on a conversation that was happening below before another quickly emerged to fill up the space with a bunch of inane chatter. Immediately after the introduction of the artefacts everyone had been too intimidated to talk with each other. However, now that five people had stepped forward and were simply standing there silently touching the Illusion Rooms people were starting to lose some of their anxiety.


    Nothing bad had happened yet so what exactly was the issue? That was probably their thinking.


    Jin thought that this turn towards a more relaxed atmosphere was actually being too naive. But, that was perhaps simply because he knew that out of the five, at least one of them would not have the mental qualities necessary to survive long.


    While the elders might have brushed off Outlast as something that was at best disquieting and at worst a bad experience, mortals shouldn''t have such high standards right?


    Right on cue seven minutes after the first five participants had touched the artefacts, one of the large men who had pushed their way forward released their hand from the artefact and fell back on their ass shaking all over and paler than a wedding dress.


    The man didn''t scream as much, as he simply opened his mouth and fought for air as what was doubtlessly an intense bout of anxiety overcame him and threw him straight into a panic attack.


    Jin was very well aware that people had already been unable to complete Outlast due to issues of fear and psychological distress when it was only a 2D experience. Now that it was completely immersive with completely realistic graphics, he knew fully well that some people would be unable to handle it.


    He watched as the atmosphere of the mortals dialed down to a scared zero as the man struggled to breathe and clutched at his throat as he choked for air. Eventually, he managed to calm down enough to lay there sweating profusely. Then he promptly stood up and started running, pushing for the crowd to come out on the other side and sprint out of the camp as fast as he could. Everyone was too dumbstruck to truly question what he had experienced. However, the chance would soon come.


    A scream resounded through the clearing and the second person who first touched the artefact ungraciously removed themselves from the scenario and fell to the ground. Shaking all over and pale as a ghost the symptoms were incredibly similar. However, this man didn''t run away and simply slumped to the ground like a boneless sack of meat.


    Now the test of intelligence would truly start. Would anyone be capable of coaxing information out of the man who had failed but remained conscious enough to answer questions?


    People went up to and worriedly asked the man what he had experienced.


    The true test started now.

 Chapter 18: First Dive

    When the first man had fallen to the floor and then ran away, nobody had reacted. When the second one had let go of the artefact and started screaming, people started asking questions about what he had experienced.


    Whatever lightness of mood had built up during the first few minutes of the test had all but disappeared leaving behind a frenzy of people worried about their chances of becoming disciples and asking themselves if it was even worth it.


    While everyone was focused on the man who''d failed the exam, another one joined him shortly after with the same scream and a pallid face. Xiao meanwhile had finished eating his bread and felt rejuvenated. Rather than immediately stepping up, however, he looked at the top of the wooden structure from where the cultivators were looking down on them


    He didn''t know if he did so because he thought he could glean something from their reactions or because the queasiness and his stomach made him want to look away from the people who were behaving as if they just lived through their worst nightmare.


    Now that the sun had changed its position slightly, he was actually able to make out more about the cultivators. The first thing he noted was that they were all men and the second was that one of them obviously did not belong. The one in the middle, the one who had announced the beginning of the exam was bald, androgynous and was wearing orange robes. Two others, one middle-aged and one elderly shared his style of dress and baldness.


    It was the fourth with a full head of dark brown or black hair that stood out. He was looking down the most intently of the four with a weird smirk on his pale face, on which the dark malicious bags under his eyes stood out all the more. Instead of orange robes, he was wearing a slightly different cut of beige. The other three were standing a bit separate from him as if not wanting to associate themselves.


    A familiar anger started bubbling up inside Xiao. The cultivator looked like he was enjoying himself. Getting off on their suffering. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do at the moment. But in the future, when he was a powerful cultivator himself it would be these people who treated mortals simply as toys to be played with and discarded when they broke, that he would banish from the cultivation world.


    Xiao''s eyes opened and glazed over with a burning determination as they refocused their attention on the exam that was going on. All but one of the examinees had dropped out, two of them lying on the floor and occasionally screaming in a catatonic state while the third was mumbling something about big fat demons and crazy people.


    Most noticeably, no one was going up to take the space of the four who had failed. Xiao looked carefully at the floating purple artefacts and moved a bit closer to the babbling man with whom the others were trying to interrogate.


    It was after a few more minutes of rough dirty hands pushing their victim around and demanding answers that finally revealed some basic facts about what had happened.


    A dark mansion, something they''d never seen before, housing what was presumably some sort of great evil that they had to investigate. Only that, when they entered the house, everything had started turning for the worst.


    Nobody had gotten much further than that, simply saying how they''d been killed by a big screaming man with no forehead and sores all over his body. They couldn''t handle their death, which felt real, and gave up.


    Xiao leaned back and watched the situation with narrowed eyes, wondering if there was something he was missing. The longer that the four Rooms remained untouched, the more he started to suspect that there was a bigger game at play here.


    After all, who said that the instructors had to tell them everything about the exam?


    No one had said that, and feeding into his belief that cultivators didn''t even see mortals as human only fed his suspicion.


    It was after another few minutes and some brainstorming, that he came to a possible conclusion as to the hidden parts of the exam.


    The revelation came to him as those who had failed regained their bearing and having given all of the information that they could be forced to give, left the clearing to wallow in their shame. There was only one man still standing and holding a hand to the floating artefact. However, going from the shaking of his arms and the absolute whiteness of his face he might not last long either. Although, considering that no one truly knew how long the exam was supposed to take this didn''t necessarily mean much. But, Xiao couldn''t help but think of what would happen if the last man standing also failed and if no one was brave enough to step forward. Wouldn''t that mean that the cultivators would simply be standing there above them looking at nothing? Wouldn''t that mean that the exam would simply end, no one left being brave enough to become a disciple?


    His eyes widened with realisation. "Everyone listen up!" he shouted, gathering the attention of the other examinees. Everyone from those dressed and rags to those dressed in riches cast suspicious glances his way.


    "There''s another hidden aspect to this exam," Xiao began. "The behaviour of those that failed is supposed to scare us off from attempting it. But, do you truly think that if no one is currently getting tested, the cultivators won''t simply end the exam claiming that there''s no one with enough courage to be worth testing anyway?" he propositioned.


    "You go and touch the fucking thing then!" one woman dressed in an elaborate golden toga yelled at him with fear in her eyes. "You''re just trying to trick us into touching those Rooms so that you can then do better with the information gleaned from our mistakes!" she accused.


    Xiao reeled back as if struck and realised something else. The fact that there was an information advantage to those who came later and the requirement that someone had to be trying at any given point of time meant that¡­ he glanced to the side as he heard a groan. The last man who''d been standing and clutching the artefact¡­ his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he was falling over backwards, the arm holding on to the cube was in the process of slipping, with just one finger remaining.


    Before Xiao could think, he''d already jumped forward and touched the cursed cube. The world around him disappeared.


    -/-


    "That kid has some courage," Jin commented. "And some serious balls on him. Jumping in like that without that much of an information advantage after seeing what happened to everyone else." He glanced to the side toward the monks.


    "I think he realised something that we didn''t yet. Perhaps we were foolish and underestimated how terrible the Illusion Room would be for those without our life experience," Sect Leader Shen began. "Consider this, would we truly stand here watching if no one was attempting to defeat the scenario because they are too scared to even try?"


    "Preposterous. Mortals wasting our time? We could simply end the exam right here and leave. Obviously no one valuable left in this batch," Elder Kwang grumbled.


    "Yet that was exactly what was about to happen," Elder Zhang interjected. "If the boy hadn''t thrown himself forward to prevent that from happening."


    "So not only smart, but also brave," Jin commented. He scratched at his chin, he was getting some serious protagonist energy vibes here. Perhaps he should put in a bit of effort to be nice to whoever ended up being selected. Considering the difficulty of what he''d created for simple mortals who''d never heard of an Illusion Room, well, whoever won would have to be quite talented, no?


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Unbeknownst to him the simple creation of this Room and by default this exam had already made him an enemy of said protagonist.


    That just went to show how good deeds never went unpunished.


    -/-


    A bout of disorientation hit Xiao as he opened his eyes only to find himself sprawled on all fours on a gravel road. Trying to not puke he noted that the feeling of discomfort was leaving him as fast as it had come over him in the first place.


    Rattling himself up to his feet he looked around to find that he was on a hill, well, he was on a road leading up to the top of a mountain on which he could already make out a weird tiled roof made in a style that he hadn''t seen before.


    One of his hands suddenly went out of control and went up to his face, holding up a roll of parchment in front of him which he could read despite the bad light conditions.


    It was weird because the sun had already set and usually he wouldn''t have been able to make out the small lines. He read through what was being shown to him, not as disturbed by the casual control of his body that this Illusion Room displayed as he probably should be.


    The scroll only confirmed the information that he already knew from the interrogation of the other examinees. He was to finish walking this path and to find the cause of the disappearances around the region. People, mostly the insane and the homeless, had been vanishing from their homes and from the streets and finally, someone had taken enough notice to send out an investigation.


    He was just about to set one foot in front of the other to begin his hike up the hill when a sound distracted him. A rustling from the grass to his right which was tall enough to reach his chest. He jumped back and put his hands up in a fighting pose only to lower them again when he beheld the scrawny ragged man who stumbled out of the bushes.


    "They''re doing horrible things, I can''t stay, leave me alone!" the man shouted at Xiao with wild eyes as he ran past him. Too surprised to hold out an arm and stop the man by grabbing onto his clothing, Xiao simply stood there as the calls of, "Don''t talk to me, don''t talk to me, don''t talk to me," faded into the distance.


    While all of this had been slightly disconcerting, he didn''t think that this was necessarily the part that had made people give up yet. He narrowed his eyes. Which meant that the true horror was still to come.


    He steeled himself and started walking up the road, trying to mentally prepare himself for whatever challenges would come his way. Already his journey to the Mad Monks Sect had been incredibly arduous, he was sure that he could handle this challenge as well.


    His opinion didn''t change much as he finished traversing the path towards the building on the hill. Neither did it change much when he chose to commit to a more stealthy approach and went through the dark forest surrounding his target to get closer. However, when he was hiding out at the line which demarcated the forest from the lawn before the building, he was starting to see signs of how exactly this was not going to be a pleasant experience.


    He grit his teeth as he saw through one of the brightly lit windows how a bunch of human shadows ganged up on one another to tear them to pieces.


    He knew everything that was to come up until this point, but it was very much different when one saw it by oneself. He hadn''t travelled a lot by night since that was when the unpleasant things came out, so already that made him a bit discomforted. The casually shown murder did not make him feel any better.


    Nevertheless, Xiao slowly but surely walked around the property, avoiding the main gate as best he could. There was supposed to be a way to enter the building more stealthily somewhere around here. He eventually found a hole in a wall on the second floor. It seemed that it was being renovated and that if one knew the basics of climbing one could grapple up.


    Patting his hands together he grabbed at the exposed red brick of the mansion and started pulling himself up, finding easy footholds as he did so, as if they had been placed there specifically for him. The implication was naturally that this path had been provided by whoever had made this illusion, specifically to enter the house.


    Xiao couldn''t quite shake the feeling that he was just a puppet dancing to the tune of another.


    The room that he entered had been broken apart as if by a raging beast. It seemed like the chairs and tables had been thrown violently at the walls. Rolls of parchment were scattered on the floor and there were bloody fingernail markings, or rather claw markings on the half-wooden half-brick walls. Reluctantly, Xiao, knowing that he had to investigate this facility, walked slowly and carefully out of the room.


    The corridors that he exited into with their odd architecture were mercifully empty, although the rather horrendous amounts of blood pooling on the floor and splattered on the walls meant one couldn''t truly appreciate the difference.


    He began exploring slowly but surely until he reached the first intersection from where he took a left. Seeing past the open door of a room on his way he saw more scrolls. Deciding that it was better to know more than less he entered the room, only for the magical torch that had been illuminating it to flicker out. The light and the building were provided by a series of what looked to be small blue flames trapped in some sort of glass shell hovering in the air in the middle of the room. This one didn''t work and knowing that he couldn''t read in the dark he was just about to turn around when control of his hand was once again granted to some other entity. He held up a red lens to his face, over his eye to be more specific and suddenly he could see. Although his sight was weird as if everything was cast through a murky glass of water. Nevertheless, he picked up the nearest scroll.


    Apparently, the lens that he was currently using also allowed him to see enough to read. He started browsing through what must have been diagnostic reports talking about bronchial infections and migraines.


    There was also something more.


    Subject exhibits extraordinary amounts of distress when faced with liquids as if afraid that everything they are to consume is poisoned. Weirdly, while this might indicate that the subject had been poisoned before upon further analysis it was discovered that the subject had drowned his sister at birth to preserve food for his family knowing that his parents didn''t have the strength to do so. The liquid in this case seems to evoke a profound sense of guilt and disquiet and is thus avoided. The likelihood of summoning compatibility is low due to a frail body, is likely to die.


    There were dozens of such scrolls.


    Subject exhibits a near-religious following of military doctrine, and if commands are phrased as if coming from a superior officer of the same military structure they are followed quite regularly. The subject also believes to be clairvoyant in some sense, although all of the testing done due to this has indicated no such ability or even potential to develop it. The subject did remove the skin of their forehead to, as they said, allow their third eye to see better. Compatibility is likely high as insanity is not self-inflicted through traumatic actions but seems to come from somewhere deeper.


    If nothing else the short break had provided him with more context, he now knew why it had been the insane being targeted for the disappearances in the region. Apparently, it hadn''t been only because they would be less missed. It had been because their insanity in some way made them compatible for some sort of summoning, which was worrying. This was starting to look more and more like the work of a demonic sect, or at least what he''d heard of them¡­ Evil cultivators trying to attain immortality and power in ways that broke the laws of the heavens. Blood sacrifices, demon summoning and killing other lawful cultivators for their possessions and bodies.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t have a choice and had to continue, he exited the room with the scrolls and continued onwards thankfully meeting no one. He found a canteen, with food spilt on the floor and more blood, a corpse in the corner. It had been wearing a black robe which was now completely soaked through. Someone had gone to the effort of removing the head. He didn''t see it anywhere so he didn''t know what they''d done with it.


    "Shit," he muttered and continued exploring, eventually finding that he appeared to be alone in this particular wing of the building and that it was blocked off from the rest by a collapsed ceiling. Looking up he managed to spot a hole into which a human could probably crawl if they contorted themselves properly. It must have been some sort of air circulation system, he guessed. Taking a running start and jumping up he barely managed to clasp his fingers around the edge and pull himself up only to find that he had severely overestimated the size of the shaft.


    Putting his arms by his side, he slowly moved forward in the darkness by wiggling his body like a worm, the space enclosing. He started hearing more noises the further he went. It was the sound of dying animals, or in this case, dying humans, which rung against the metal construct he was currently working his way through.


    He took the first exit he could find, having started to feel sublimely claustrophobic. Using the lens he found that he was in what appeared to be a library with more scrolls and books this time, however, there was also more blood and it was there that he heard a gurgle and a gasp. Making his way past several corpses wearing black robes, lying on the floor in different states of mutilation he found to his surprise someone that was still alive.


    Xiao locked eyes with the man who was hung from the ceiling by what seemed to be a rope at first glance but which upon a second revealed itself to be an intestinal tract removed from the man''s very own stomach. He did his best to not puke as the man''s weirdly coloured eyes informed him more than any words could how much he wished to be released from his suffering.


    The survivor brought up a shaky arm to his neck and shoved a finger between the rope-like intestine and their neck. "The variants, they''ve escaped. Summoning was a success, report back, run," the man said before his eyes closed and he sacked together to hang limply from the rafters. Dead.


    Xiao left the library trying to parse the word variant and what it might mean. A variant of what they''d summoned? He put down the lens which he noted seemed to have a little bar in the bottom right corner indicating how much energy it had left. He didn''t know how he knew that but he assumed that this was connected to what he''d heard about cultivation artefacts sometimes needing to be powered by spirit stones.


    He exited the library into a large square-like corridor with large windows surrounding a gigantic room, however before he could try to look he suddenly had to duck down as he saw from his peripheral vision a man dressed in beige blood-splattered robes walking through the corridor and entering a room on the other side, closing the door behind him.


    Putting a hand up to his wildly beating heart, Xiao started crawling on all fours around the corridor, passing the room the man had disappeared into and continuing onwards to see where he had come from. Variants, summoning, insane people, it all had to fit together somehow. He just had to continue investigating and escape.


    After a bit more crawling he suddenly found himself blocked by a large wall erected in the middle of the corridor composed entirely of different pieces of furniture. Just as he was about to see if he could squeeze through, he heard what must have been an elephant rushing up behind him.


    "Little pig!"


    Xiao''s blood froze in his veins and he instinctively tried to jump onto the furniture to see if he could climb over it when a hand suddenly grasped him from behind by the neck and he was shaken like a rag doll. Two rough large lacerated hands turned him around as he struggled and found himself staring into the mutilated face of a large and fat man missing the skin on his forehead and around his mouth and grinning happily. The man heaved and threw Xiao to the side with another shout of, "Little pig!" The glass that Xiao was thrown against broke and as he fell he glimpsed a view of the room below. Then he landed, his bones rattling as if trying to escape his body and more pain than ever before erupting through his being.


    He realised that from the descriptions of those who had failed, this was where they''d given up. This meant that from now on he didn''t know anything anymore, not that the small amount of knowledge that he''d had had helped him any.


    The option of leaving the Illusion Room hung heavily at the back of his mind as the pain wracked his body, reaching if anything higher levels as his adrenaline subsided slightly.


    He refused to bow, however. Vengeance drove him and wasn''t so easily extinguished. This wouldn''t be enough to stop him.


    He passed out.

 Chapter 19: Perspective Switching

    "This is a bit awkward," Elder Zhang said while coughing into his fist.


    Sect leader Shen and Elder Kwang shared a look before giving the eyebrow equivalent of a full-body shrug. Jin meanwhile just sighed. He hadn''t really expected it to happen like this. Still, considering that this was to his knowledge the first time an Illusion Room was being used to select outer disciples it made sense that he couldn''t predict exactly how it would go.


    It started well enough, just as he''d expected. A bunch of brutes had forced their way to the front only to find that muscles were not what was going to bring them through this particular challenge. They failed, screamed, ran away and told the other participants approximately what to expect. The issue started after the teenager in the blue robes had jumped forward for some reason to get access to the Room...


    Almost nobody was using the other four Illusion Rooms


    The boy was currently still managing to hang on and was in fact the participant that had done so the longest. However, people watching this were actually making a decision that Jin hadn''t expected. They were simply watching the boy stand there with shaking limbs and a pale face, sweat running down his brow. Presumably they were waiting for this boy, who had been until now the most successful examinee to fail so they could get more information out of him before trying themselves.


    Sure every now and again someone else walked up to an Illusion Room only to fall down screaming after barely a few minutes. But, at the rate this was going, they were going to be standing here for days, if not weeks.


    "It''s quite clear that if we continue using this as an exam, we will have to change the structure," Sect Leader Shen mused.


    "Perhaps not explain to them what they will be doing, making them think that it''s real... Touch the room through a hole in the wall," Jin muttered thoughtfully. "And isolate them so they can''t start thinking too much about the information advantage they gain by waiting."


    "It''s definitely something to consider once we know more about the situation, but I imagine we must first see how today ends before making any conclusive decisions," the sect leader decided wisely.


    "That boy though. He''s doing quite well isn''t he?" Elder Kwang piped up for once having something positive to say.


    "He''s sweating and shaking much less than those that had failed in the end and he''s been under for much longer," Elder Zhang commented. "I''m curious which part of the scenario he is in currently," he mused.


    -/-


    Xiao was currently blindly touching his way through the sewers desperately trying to avoid the madmen he was trapped in there with.


    That blasted Father Martin might have provided some useful information, but the fact that he''d destroyed the sealing mechanisms of the front door of the building and of the lights made any good impression a bad one.


    Having to find those spirit stones just to be able to see¡­ He could feel how with every single sound around him his heart almost jumped out of his throat and his brain threatened to explode from sheer stress and anxiety.


    Thoughts about the demonic entity, the Walrider that the demonic cultivators of this so-called Murkoff sect had been trying to summon as either a weapon or a tool to achieve immortality swirled in his mind, further driving him mad from the implication that he could at some point actually be faced with a dark god of some sort.


    A metallic clang suddenly came from behind him.


    Not bothering to turn around, knowing that he wouldn''t see anything he could only hope at this point that whoever had made the sound would not be able to see him either. Rather than run away which had been one of his first mistakes, his feet having caused sound which had gotten him chased by the demented screams of the inmates, he dropped to the floor in a fetal position to make himself a smaller target.


    Tears started streaming down his face as he forcefully shoved a fist into his mouth to prevent any sound from escaping him involuntarily as shambling feet walked past him, so close to his position that he could almost taste the decaying wretched blood undoubtedly sticking to whoever was moving. There were only murderers left at this point.


    The feet stopped and his heart skipped a beat as another metallic sound ran through the darkness. As if the person was holding an iron rod they were using to touch around themselves.


    What felt like hours passed, but it must have been only a few seconds before the steps continued and the beleaguered breathing and shuffling went out of Xiao''s hearing range. Despite this, he laid there for a bit more trying to gather whatever wits he still had, unfortunately having to admit that he was just one more bad interaction away from a full-blown heart attack.


    -/-


    "I imagine he''s at the point where he figured out some of the underlying history behind the demonic sect," Jin mused. "I wonder if he''s enjoying the lore. Frankly, it has quite a lot of effort put into it and if you really bother reading it sounds quite interesting doesn''t it?" he asked in the air


    -/-


    Strapped down onto a chair with wheels, Xiao struggled against his bindings as the mad abomination of a variant calling himself Trager cut off two of his fingers and started talking about how his tongue and his genitals were going to be next. His muffled screams failed to burst past the gag in his mouth as his eyes rolled to the back of his head threatening complete unconsciousness once again.


    But, he had to stay awake. He had to perservere. He had to keep fighting because if he didn''t fight for himself now then no one would fight for the rights of mortals in the future and no one would be there to take revenge on the Baos and on the...


    -/-


    "I have to admit inner disciple Jin that the psychology and the human decision-making required for the scenario were quite well researched and used," Elder Zhang complimented. "Despite all of the nastiness of the business, of which I have seen a lot in all of my millennia as a warrior, I cannot help but feel that the people taking this exam today will be able to take some valuable lessons from it even if they do not pass. I''ve always thought that Illusion Rooms held an educational potential that wasn''t being fully tapped and while I don''t necessarily think that this is realising that to its maximum, I cannot imagine that the young boy taking the exam and succeeding unlike all of the other failures managing barely 20 minutes is not appreciating at least some of the horrible beauty of your product."


    -/-


    Mutilated and mentally scarred Xiao stood in the cell in which that crazy bastard Martin, who''d turned off the lights and the sealing array had crucified himself to the wall to prove some sort of point. That he was the chosen prophet of this Walrider monster the demonic cultivators had been trying to summon and which was now roaming these very halls haunting him just like the variants created through contact with the creature.


    The stumps of his two fingers itched and the many lacerations and broken bones that he was currently suffering from clawed at every atom of his being. But nothing was worse than his mind which was screaming for release which he couldn''t grant without sacrificing the mission that he had come here for.


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    Father Martin erupted in flames after he gave Xiao one last key. Hopefully, this help wouldn''t come with the negative side-effects of the man''s other efforts.


    -/-


    "Is he coming out?" Jin exclaimed as he noticed the boy in the blue robes moving and shaking his head sporadically. "He''s already been in there for hours, he should be done no?" he asked excitedly.


    "Unless he gave up just at the end. After all, they don''t know how long this whole thing takes so they may not push through," Elder Zhang muttered. "Perhaps that was a bit of a sadistic choice in hindsight," he added.


    "One of them passed," Elder Kwang commented as the boy, ignoring the shouted questions and the grasping hands of the other examinees passed through the purple light of the wooden gate only to collapse once on the other side.


    "One in 31 of those who have attempted have passed now?" Elder Zhang muttered.


    "I feel it is unlikely that any of the rest will succeed," sect leader Shen said decisively as he looked down at the remaining examinees, only one of whom was actually attempting the Illusion Room. One could see from their faces that they were all without a single exception terrified out of their minds.


    "They hadn''t even experienced the scenario so how exactly did that qualify to feel fear?" Jin complained to himself. "The longer they wait to try the more scared they get," he concluded. "And the longer they wait, the more likely it is that they are the type of people who easily get scared which is not necessarily what''s going to help them pass this kind of test."


    "Is the boy alright?" Elder Zhang asked abruptly and they turned their collective attention to their only new outer disciple who had fallen to his knees as his limbs apparently failed him. He slowly but surely curled up in a position in which he was hugging his knees to his chest and with their advanced senses they could hear that he was taking incredibly short and rapid breaths.


    "He''s having a panic attack," Jin realized. "It''s when the body encounters too much stress and shuts down. To think that he fought it off just to get through this, perhaps I should congratulate him in person after we''re done here.


    "It would be good for him to meet his benefactor," Elder Zhang replied.


    "After all, who knows if he would have passed the other possible tests. He should be rather grateful that it turned out to be something that he was suited for."


    -/-


    Shudders ran through Xiao''s body as he hugged his knees to his chest as hard as he could. From the edge of his vision, he could see all of the other examinees screaming at him to tell them what he had experienced, however, none of them rushed to the other side of the gate by going around it, too afraid of the retribution from the cultivators.


    Short breaths racked his body as the full stress of the experience fell on him like a whole quarry of stones. Keeping it all in as he''d gone through the nightmare was now coming to bite him. He felt like he was going to die here and now. His heart was beating at a rate that he had never thought possible before, faster than the wings of a fly.


    He couldn''t believe that he had apparently passed, mind still stuck on the horrors he''d witnessed


    He felt short of breath despite the amount of breathing he was doing and any second now he knew he would pass out. He tried to calm himself trying to preserve a good image for his new sect but inevitably failed.


    It had simply been too much. Darkness took him.


    -/-


    "I think we can end it here," Sect Leader Shen mused after the most recent person who had been attempting the Illusion Room failed and no one was willing to take their place.


    Elder Kwang scoffed down at the examinees. "Only 33 of them were even brave enough to attempt. How would they have cultivated with such a lacking mindset?"


    Jin meanwhile was looking down at the still passed-out disciple of the Mad Monks Sect. They hadn''t bothered going down to help him and transport him somewhere else, so he was still lying there. They could hear his breath and when did laying on some soft grass really hurt someone?


    His gaze then turned towards the mass of people who were all looking at the floating Illusion Rooms but who were apparently unable to bring up the courage to actually touch them. He wondered how he would have fared with this exam in their place.


    The answer was probably that he wouldn''t have come here in the first place. And then when here, he never would have been willing to work through something so nauseating just to pass.


    Secondly, even if he had made up his mind and tried his best there was still a very distinct possibility of failure, he realized now that he was looking at the examinees. His current view of this situation was slightly distorted.


    These were mortals unused to magic and most certainly unused to Illusion Rooms. What did they know about the death not being permanent, that the injuries would fade and that the scars would leave them after they finished the scenario. To mortals, this was probably all just a bunch of voodoo that would steal their souls. After all, the educational level of this world was quite low for those who couldn''t afford the best tutors.


    "With such a ratio, with one new disciple a year, assuming that none of them ever fall prey to the madness then we will just about hit replacement levels," Elder Zhang said, almost sounding as if to him the experiment was a success.


    "We will simply have to see with time if indeed none of them succumb. Or at least if fewer of them will," Elder Kwang agreed. "How long should we administer the test before checking back to see the numbers?" he asked aloud.


    "Not too long. It seems it was quite stressful even for those who failed after all," sect leader Shen answered. "I think a hundred years should do it. By then all of the new outer disciples will have gotten the time to either shine or not."


    Jin closed his eyes and mentally apologised for all of the future mortals who would be brutalised by his creation. ''I''m sorry,'' he said in his mind. ''You would thank me if you knew what fate you avoided had you gotten in without the prerequisite mental resistance.''


    The exam ended with 32 traumatised mortals, almost twice as many cowards and with one new outer disciple.


    -/-


    Xiao awoke from a land of nightmares, however rather than opening his eyes with a gasp he kept them closed. He could remember the code that he had received at the end of the scenario and passing through the barrier, but if it had all been a lie created by his own mind to soothe him then he didn''t want to open his eyes and see that he had been wrong.


    "You''re awake?" A voice suddenly said from beside him and it was filled with such peace and calm that Xiao immediately realised his nightmare was over. his eyelids fluttered open and immediately closed again at the bright light that irritated them.


    "Take your time. You are safe," the voice said again.


    Listening to the advice, Xiao slowly but surely started moving his body from his toes to his fingertips and noticed no irregularities. His eyes opened gradually, slowly adjusting to the level of light and once they had fully done so he beheld a calming wooden ceiling rather than the brutal weird architecture that he had been inhabiting for the past hours, or days, he did not know.


    "Did I pass?" Was the first question out of his mouth.


    "Yes, but unfortunately you also passed out after doing so. You are now currently on the mountain in the outer disciple ring. The infirmary, more specifically. It is empty so you may speak as you wish, we don''t have many injuries in the sect," the voice said.


    Xiao looked to the side wishing to put a face to the words and saw an androgynous-looking man wearing the burnt orange robes that he knew by now. By his side sat the young man with evil bags under his eyes and a sadistic countenance. Xiao immediately recognized him as one of the cultivators who had judged him during the exam. The man simply gave him a brief nod, seemingly distracted by something.


    He seemed kinder somehow, as if now that Xiao was someone who was going to be a cultivator instead of a mortal he had gained something of value in his eyes.


    Xiao scoffed internally but didn''t let displeasure show on his face.


    "I am Shen," the monk introduced himself. "May I ask how you feel?" he asked.


    "I feel fine," Xiao replied after a few seconds with a surprised tone of voice.


    The man who had not yet given his name once again nodded absentmindedly. "The trauma is most likely mental not physical. Although from what you experienced it could be that the former will show up as the latter, if you are a person so inclined to phantom stress," he said in a raspy unused voice.


    Xiao suddenly remembered something and slightly bowed his head. "Xiao Yung greets seniors," he said.


    The two cultivators by his bedside shared a glance before shrugging, both bowing their heads as well. "Shen greets Junior," the monk said.


    "Jin greets Junior," the other one said. "Although I should inform you now that you are not my junior and I am not your senior because I''m in fact not from the Mad Monks Sect, but simply a visitor."


    "More than a visitor," Shen interjected with a small smile. He turned to Xiao. "He is an inner disciple of the Illusion Room Sect and is the one who developed the scenario that you underwent."


    The blood in Xiao''s veins ran cold and he felt a spasm starting to emerge in his stomach. He clenched all of his muscles to fight back and managed to calm himself down but closed his eyes so the pair wouldn''t notice the irregularity.


    The twisted and sick mind that had come up with the nightmare that was likely to haunt him for the rest of his life was in the same room as him and yet it was at a time when he was still too weak to do anything about it. Under the covers, Xiao clenched his fists and grit teeth.


    "I know that you are likely not feeling very generous in terms of opinion for the person who created the scenario that you underwent yesterday, but I can assure you that it was not his plan to create something like that, but simply something the sect commissioned," Shen suddenly said, perhaps noticing his discomfort. "I will not get into the particular reasons why something like this is necessary as it will be a part of what you will learn later, but suffice it to say that mortals should suffer and fail now than to meet the potentially disastrous consequences of becoming disciples of our sect but not having the mental fortitude necessary to complete the cultivation process."


    Xiao belatedly listened to the explanation but realised that he was shutting down from all the information flying at him. He felt like an ant in a tempest. Inconsequential, small and weak.


    "Just as a question," Jin spoke up, ignoring the atmosphere. "While I certainly made what I did out of the desire of others. I am still a professional at heart so out of the one person who succeeded in the test of mental toughness¡­ How ready do you feel to challenge the endless path of cultivation? Death, hard work, eternity working towards a goal you may never reach. How do these things make you feel? What is your attitude towards the life of suffering and discipline you are about to undergo?"


    Xiao had never really thought about what he would do after he joined the sect because he didn''t have enough knowledge to even set up a reasonable expectation. However, if he was being asked this question now after what he just experienced. He smirked knowing that it was an ugly smile unfitting on his face. "The scenario definitely brought me to the limits of my capacity, but I feel like I could have kept going for longer. I''m only resting now because I have the privilege to do so, so I can face future challenges in a better state. I''m going to cultivate, I''m going to ascend and I''m going to change the world into what it should have been changed into long ago," he answered, staring Jin directly in the eyes and not seeing any shift in opinion from his statement.


    He''d been trying in a way to tell the man and perhaps the Mad Monks Sect as well, that in the future it was going to be him dictating how things were going to go around here.


    The two senior disciples didn''t have much of a reaction to his exclamation, simply exchanging an amused look.


    Jin stood up and clapped his hands together as if to remove dust from his palm. "You got a good egg here, lots of willpower. I think he will go far as long as he doesn''t¡­ slip," he said and turned around to walk away. "And anyway, I still have one more scenario to finish then I''ll be out of your hair," he said before chuckling, nobody at the Mad Monks Sect had any hair.


    Xiao''s eyes followed the beige-clad figure until he exited the room. ''Inner disciple Jin of the Illusion Room Sect,'' Xiao thought to himself. ''I will remember you.''

 Chapter 20: Enjoy Peace, prepare for war

    Considering the ridiculous focus that had been put on developing Outlast for nearly half a year now, suddenly being done with the job was in its own way slightly daunting.


    The Mad Monks had gotten their new disciple with all of his brimming protagonist energy, no matter how much of it was potentially negatively directed at Jin.


    Jin had stopped being plagued by nightmares the second that he had stopped having to deal with the scenario and Elder Flower had praised him in the privacy of their rooms about the increased goodwill they were likely to experience from their allied sect and the future if his scenario offered a long-term solution to their problem.


    Everyone was a winner, but the fact of the matter was that from working 16 hours a day for half a year, Jin suddenly didn''t have much to do anymore. He''d quickly but surely codified his new combat skills into Dragonslayer Ornstein. He felt very grateful as he saw its improvement caused by his training with sect leader Shen.


    However, after that was done, he didn''t have much to do other than cultivate in silence in his rooms. He was still visiting a foreign sect where he didn''t have freedom of movement after all, especially now that his lessons had ended. All in all, it was a rather sad state of affairs that he had just finished an incredibly tough project but was already wanting more. If nothing else just so he wouldn''t be so fucking bored.


    This was one of the things they didn''t tell you about when they discussed Isekai stories, the sheer boredom-inducing nothingness of a mediaeval society.


    Jin had gotten so used to the internet, having access to millions of books on demand, living in a city that had a higher population than the entire Empire.


    Now? In a world without freedom of movement, unless one was strong enough to enforce it oneself, no entertainment... Just the seriousness of a Confucian society based on magic meditation? He was literally feeling himself regaining the spiritual capacity to produce dopamine from just watching a leaf fall beautifully, it was crazy.


    He hadn''t noticed this as much before, because he''d jumped right into a deadline after his insertion into the new body, after which he had basically been forced to come to terms with a new environment and now for the last six months had been grinding his ass off.


    But now, he had nothing, which was why when Elder Flower came to him to announce they were leaving, he was actually glad, even if leaving probably meant that he would have to go back to work in some manner or form.


    "We''ll leave tomorrow," she said, standing next to him on the platform overlooking the valley in which the Mad Monks Sect was stationed.


    Giddy with excitement Jin simply nodded as he looked at the remains of the encampment where the mortals had been staying until very recently. From one to the next, they''d simply vanished. Failed the test and left.


    From what he had heard Outer Disciple Xiao had already started his lessons on the mantras of the sect along with some light physical conditioning that would prepare him for becoming a vessel for qi.


    Jin didn''t really want to know what the Mad Monks considered light physical conditioning. After all, the tutoring he had gotten from sect leader Shen had also been referred to as light training and it had brought him to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion every single day.


    "I''m glad. I really missed the library, to be honest," Jin said relieved, already thinking about how he was going to test out more and more of the Illusion Rooms. They were even more fun now that he wasn''t dying as much as he had in the beginning.


    -/-


    Once their departure had been decided it truly didn''t take long for them to finally leave.


    It was as if Jin blinked and suddenly he was once again standing on the stone platform looking almost nostalgically at the Buddhist architecture of the sect, while next to him Elder Flower dropped her sword to the ground where it hovered in its place and expanded in size.


    There to send them off was only Elder Zhang, who was thoughtfully running his fingers through his long grey beard.


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    It seemed like now that the job was done the sect leader did not feel like dispatching one of his clones to send them off, and Elder Kwang also saw no reason to further oversee their actions. Jin, personally, was glad. Had the sect leader been present it would have indicated a too high interest in his own humble person and sect and from his experience, such things always ended up hinting at troubles to come. All he wanted was a quiet life "developing" scenarios for the sect, eating three meals a day, hanging out with the friends he would hopefully make once he went back and maybe having a girlfriend.


    "I see that your time to depart has truly come," Elder Zhang spoke up. "It is curious how much has changed since your arrival, and how much more will change after. The new disciples we will gain from the selection process for the next 100 years will likely be very different from the ones we''ve accepted in the past. I imagine only time will tell if it was a good or bad change."


    Not knowing what to say to that statement of fact, Jin simply clasped his fist in his hand and bowed. "It was an honour to receive tutelage and to work towards the greater good," he said with his head bowed.


    "I think we certainly both benefited from that work," Elder Zhang said with a bit of humour in his voice. "Your improved version of Dragonslayer Ornstein will be added to the meagre amount of Illusion Rooms that we have available for our outer disciples. Another thing for them to break their head against and improve," he said with a grin. "Regarding that, actually, the reason sect leader Shen is not here is because he used his wood mantra this morning to make a departing gift. Time will tell if it will be a curiosity or something of real use," the Elder continued as he put a hand in his robe and pulled out what looked to be a miniature wooden spear in the exact form that Dragonslayer Ornstein wielded.


    Just before Jin could express his thanks, he suddenly felt a rush of qi envelop the Elder and rush towards the little toy in his hands which suddenly grew in size into something which was decisively not a toy anymore.


    It was still slightly smaller than what Jin''s "creation" wielded, but that was simply because Jin himself was smaller than the Dragonslayer.


    He marvelled at the artefact as he saw with his improved eyesight that the edge was actually sharp. But how did they manage that considering it was made entirely of wood? It was a beautiful thing in fact made out of what appeared to be, if his sense of smell was correct, sandalwood of all things. This was usually the wood that monks used to make their prayer beads out of.


    "Considering the skills that you will later learn once you ascend higher in your cultivation, we thought it fitting that you gain a weapon which can be used with those skills," Elder Zhang explained as he idly spun the lance in his hand to show off its balance. "Additionally, the calming properties of the wood should make the weapon a good focal point for formations designed to suppress an enemy."


    Jin nodded as if he knew what that meant. A glance sideways at Elder Flower gave him the impression that she would explain it to him later.


    Of course, had he received any gift he would have had to do the usual bowing and scraping, but in this case he was actually amazed. He bowed again fist in his palm. "Inner disciple Jin thanks the Mad Monks Sect for their incredible gift," he said genuinely, at which Elder Zhang smiled and threw the lance at him. In mid-air, it turned back into its miniature form causing Jin to catch it in between his forefinger and his thumb. He would have to make a necklace to hang it off, or a handband in the future, but for now, he simply stowed it in his robes where he knew it would not go lost.


    It was here that Elder Flower stepped forward and inclined her head. "To future cooperation and the peace of your sect," she said.


    Elder Zhang inclined his head as well and repeated the words while adding on a mysterious: "And we shall see each other soon enough." After that, both he and Elder Flower mounted the flying sword and shot off into the skies without any preamble.


    A hole in the array protecting the Mad Monks Sect opened once again letting them out and they quickly ascended above the sparse clouds to where Jin could enjoy the unparalleled view of the world.


    "Was it a fruitful visit?" Jin asked out loud once they were fully out of the hearing range of even the sect leader.


    Elder Flower nodded which he could see from the shifting of her hair. "You did well. Well enough especially in your training with the sect leader that I prepared an award for you."


    Jin puffed up his chest. He''d known that he did amazingly, but hearing it repeatedly still managed to improve his mood. "Thank you Elder Flower," he said graciously.


    "That is why I have decided to award you with an opportunity that inner disciples usually get towards the end of their tenure and before their promotion to core disciple."


    Jin''s mind ran as he considered what the reward was going to be. What was it that inner disciples would get towards the end of their tenure? Was it an artefact or was it perhaps access to a spell. In this case, the only spell that made sense to use as a reward was, considering his acquiring of a replica of Ornstein''s weapon, the templating spell, no?


    Elder Flower bashed that idea with her next words. "Dragonslayer Ornstein has improved a lot, however, you still lack something which could be necessary for finally perfecting it and that is combat experience."


    Jin''s heart dropped and he started shaking his head nervously despite knowing that she couldn''t see his gesture. His hands clasped together in a prayer motion hoping that what she was saying was not going to come true.


    "The Illusion Room Sect might not be combat-oriented," Elder Flower continued, refusing his refusal of reality, "but we still send out our older inner disciples to the inter-sect tournament of our region. There they can be put into the bracket of outer disciples from warrior sects and other inner disciples with creation-based foundations. It''s a necessary experience for our disciples so that they can create better products in the future, but also for them to experience combat in a non-threatening scenario that is not an Illusion Room."


    Jin''s heart calmed down somewhat. It was just a tournament in the end, wasn''t it? It was not the same as fighting the bandit lady who could have actually killed him if Elder Flower had been a second late with her interference. Sure, he didn''t like fighting, but this would be fine.


    "We need to grasp opportunities like this where death is uncommon and crippling relatively rare. It''s all been calming down a lot in recent years. In fact, the last time only resulted in five different blood feuds," Elder Flower explained gently as if reassuring him.


    Jin meanwhile buried his face in his hands and tried not to scream.


    "The tournament is happening in a month, after we return to the sect you will naturally work on your combat abilities first and foremost. After the tournament is when you can perhaps revise Ornstein with your experience wielding his weapon, put it in the library and start a new project."


    A singular tear fell out of Jin''s eyes and ran down his cheek. But, if this was a gift then maybe he could still refuse?


    "Of course, you cannot refuse as this great honour is something that if stricken aside will likely forever bar your advancement to core disciple due to doubts of your character," Elder Flower finally finished, stabbing him fully in the back once again.


    Jin felt the dagger enter his heart and slumped together. Yamete Sensei¡­

 Chapter 21: Next Level

    "And that''s basically what happened," Jin finished, recounting the full story of what had occurred since he''d last seen Ting.


    His fellow inner disciple kicked her legs out from where they were sitting on the wooden platform jutting out of her tower, which was there for others to land on when they came through the air.


    "It sounds like you had an interesting visit, perhaps too interesting. Sect leaders, crazy people, disciple selection ceremony¡­" the girl trailed off.


    "May you live in interesting times is technically considered a curse, I guess," Jin muttered thinking about the Chinese proverb.


    "It sure sounds like it. Interesting is never good. Stability is what makes for an easy life and cultivation."


    Jin hummed thoughtfully. Perhaps what she said was true for those talented enough to progress to the end without any fortuitous encounters, but he doubted that many such people existed. Those born with too much talent often faced greater heavenly tribulations to make up for their better starting point, or so he''d read.


    People of only slightly above-average talent like him and Ting would likely get stuck at a bottleneck of cultivation. Perhaps in between one of the stages of Foundation Establishment. Perhaps when they were supposed to form their core, or maybe when they were supposed to explode it to create a nascent soul.


    Spending long enough at such a stage without any idea when progress would come would likely make anyone obsessed enough with cultivation wish for their life to be interesting. With chaos, after all, came opportunity.


    Jin would remain uninterested in any chaos regardless. Fighting demonic cultivators for obscure texts that might help one breakthrough if one sacrificed the middle testicle of a literate goat to the god of blue cheese wasn''t his vibe.


    "I think it''s impossible to live a truly uninteresting life," he said. "No matter how much one tries it. It is better to simply accept it and to become better at dealing with the dangerous."


    Ting bobbed her head. She was wearing a ponytail, this time seemingly not feeling the need to do anything special with her hair. It seemed like now that the crisis in her village had been resolved she had quite literally put her hair down.


    "There is never any true peace anyway. Even here in the middle of nowhere, I keep hearing about stirrings at the border. There is a larger mass of dark forces approaching and the cultivators stationed there cannot really make out what they are. To be a cultivator is to walk with death, I guess."


    Jin shrugged. "To be a mortal is also to walk with death in a world such as this. Everyone is affected by circumstances beyond their control, no? Even those who truly become immortal simply pass on to the next plane where they most likely repeat the cycle."


    "I hope there''s no border conflict at least. The last one I remember was 50 years ago and already then it delayed the release of an Illusion Room I was working on." Ting tutted. "Every time it happens, until the resolution of whatever conflict there is, the sect always prioritizes making Illusion Rooms of the enemies currently making issues. If they conform to some sort of standard of course."


    "How''s your wyvern coming along anyway?" Jin asked, wondering how relaxing it would be to just make an Illusion Room based on a real monster that he could simply use memory jade slips to observe. He would only have to tweak how the inputs of the user translated to outputs from their avatar and perfect the combat system of the monster. Even though he was technically just recreating material he was slowly starting to realize that he was making it more difficult for himself than if he''d simply done it the normal way.


    After all, in the end, he still had to live through everything again in his mind, at which point he really could have just gone to the library to experience the memory slips. Similarly, everything had to be translated into the game engine stuck in his head and then be made to fit the consistent reality of the world rather than some sort of twisted video game logic.


    Considering that the things he was bringing out were then usually richer in story than any traditional scenarios he was likely putting in more work than people who weren''t plagiarizing.


    Which was sort of funny when he thought about it. Although, considering that Jin had created Outlast while Ting''s wyvern still seemed unfinished, there was an implication of something more complex going on.


    Maybe Jin was just big-brained, or the other people simply worked tirelessly on every pixel.


    He''d only been trying the Illusion Rooms fit for outer disciples back at the sect library so it wasn''t like he knew what the peak truly looked like. His cultivation and thus his perception simply wasn''t advanced enough to work through Illusion Rooms that had more complex scenarios and more detail.


    "I hope there isn''t stirring at the borders either," he said tiredly. This whole Mad Monks trip had exhausted him beyond compare and even now that he was done with all of it, feeling very happy about it, while also feeling unhappy about the upcoming tournament, he was still experiencing the consequences of some of that burnout he had been about to have right at the end there.


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    "Elder Flower signed me up for that fighting tournament or whatever, but at least that means I won''t have to make an Illusion Room for a month right?" he asked aloud.


    "Signing you for that tournament is a great honour", Ting said out loud without any seeming conviction.


    "Is it though?" Jin asked.


    "Well the Elders usually say so and if they do they are likely correct," Ting replied taking care with her words to not appear negative in opinion towards the Elders of the sect, which was important because Elder Flower with her advanced cultivation, no matter how she said that she would go into the bamboo forest to take a walk, could likely still hear them.


    "You don''t sound very jealous," Jin complained quietly.


    Ting didn''t say anything but simply gave him a look and a smirk.


    She obviously wasn''t very jealous, she just wasn''t brave enough to say it out loud.


    Jin buried his head in his hands and let out a loud sigh.


    -/-


    Xiao walked back to his house feeling more peace than he had in a very long time. Who would have thought that simply shaving his head and meditating for one hour a day for a week could give him such a new perspective on life?


    He''d only been at the Mad Monks sect for eight days, but he already immensely appreciated their different approach to life. The morning started with an intense bout of physical activity, being led through a kata by an instructor along with the other outer disciples.


    Those who had joined more recently and were thus lower in skill were at the back of the large square of disciples, while those more senior and thus more likely to ascend to inner disciple stood in the front filing away the last imperfections before potential advancement.


    After that, they all ate a nutritious meal which while lacking any meat, usually tasted better than anything Xiao had ever had before. He suspected that the monks simply used better ingredients, perhaps vegetables infused with spiritual energy. He''d heard that some plants could absorb qi from a senior whom he''d found munching on some purple bamboo.


    After the meal, Xiao was guided through a meditation session. It was a skill that he was still perfecting, so he needed a teacher for the moment.


    Exercise, good food, a sense of progression and a calm mind had made him feel for the first time in many years truly tranquil and thus happy.


    He breathed out a gentle sigh as he entered his little cottage which was simpler than any residence he''d ever inhabited for a longer period, but because it lacked the cohabitation factor with his greatest enemies, the Baos, he already felt at home.


    He wondered what the sect wanted to announce. He had been informed by his meditation guide that there would be a general assembly of all disciples because some sort of news had come in. Xiao didn''t know what kind of news, but it must have been big if they were willing to mobilise everyone to hear it.


    After freshening up at the cottage with a bucket of water and a rag, Xiao made his way to the outer disciple administrative pagoda, which he had been shown as a part of the orientation a few days ago.


    It was a quiet walk, the outer disciples walking beside him seemingly intent on not talking. It was a very peaceful place, the sect. Xiao would admit though that in time it would perhaps get a bit boring.


    Nevertheless, still in the honeymoon phase of the relationship, he walked in silence with the other disciples until he reached the courtyard in front of the pagoda. Once everyone had gathered, the Elder he recognised as responsible for the outer ring floated down from the sky and stopped a few metres above the ground so that everyone could see him.


    "Disciples of the Mad Monks sect," he greeted. "I am unhappy to announce that we are entering a state of preparation for potential conflict," he said without any preamble and suddenly the outer disciples were not so quiet anymore.


    But what did potential conflict mean in this case? Xiao wondered.


    "This means that all extracurricular learning and tasks you have been given will be cancelled and replaced solely with combat practice and meditation. The sect will handle your living conditions for the moment so that you may focus entirely on improving your combat ability. Cultivation is currently not advised as maximising one''s ability to fight while at a certain realm is a faster and better investment than trying to break through to the next one. The pagoda shall now become the centre of illusionary training as it will host a variety of Illusion Rooms, which most of you are already familiar with. They will help you familiarise yourself with life-and-death combat. You will be required to complete one scenario a day, and everything further will be discussed with your direct supervisor."


    The direct supervisor in this case was the oldest disciple in every enclave of cottages. Xiao instinctively looked around and found the burly woman heading his group standing not far away from him.


    "There is no need to panic as states of potential emergency are announced regularly every hundred years or so, however considering the lifespan of outer disciples most of you have not experienced this. I will say here that the majority of these alarms do not result in any of our disciples seeing actual combat, but we do see it as our responsibility to prepare you as best we can to raise not only your chances of surviving whatever might come but also those of the sect at large," Elder Zhang finished and with a consternated face turned around and went back into the Pagoda.


    -/-


    A few hours later after a much more exhausting training session in which they had also been asked to spar against each other, Xiao stood in a large room containing more of those devilish metal artefacts that he had been so tormented by before being selected as a disciple.


    "This one seems relatively new, probably for a more niche threat. It''s why you can get it to fulfil your quota, everyone else is doing the tried and tested ones, meanwhile, you''re the least likely to be sent out since you''re the newest member of the sect," the group leader murmured next to him as she guided him into touching the Illusion Room assuming he had never done so before.


    Oh, but he had, he had done it before.


    Mistaking his trauma for anxiety the group leader gave him a small smile which didn''t fit her muscular face. "Don''t worry, they''re harmless and any injuries you sustain within them can be easily healed. Quite frankly, considering how scripted some of the enemies are I don''t understand why we''re practising with them instead of against each other. I don''t quite know what this one contains, but it''s likely just another heavenly beast that you already know. Like a two-tail tiger or something, although I''ve never heard of a Dragonslayer Ornstein before. Just fight it as you would a normal enemy and you''ll likely succeed."


    Xiao gritted his teeth and entered the Illusion Room despite the protests of his heart and his mind.


    -/-


    Meanwhile, Jin and Elder Flower advanced on the mountain inhabited by the Illusion Room sect and in the same speedy manner as they had left it, zooming through the air. However, before they''d managed to arrive over the mountain, the sword suddenly ground to a halt in mid-air, ripping Jin out of his musings.


    He''d been thinking that it was funny that he left two different scenarios at the Mad Monk sect. But, because perfecting Dragonslayer Ornstein had only taken him a week or two, which in comparison to the suffering he had to endure with Outlast was nothing, he mostly remembered the latter.


    But, he still had enough thought to spare to wonder how the outer disciples were faring against the armoured knight. It was a much less stressful scenario than Outlast so he hoped they were having some fun.


    He looked up as the sword abruptly stopped, not being able to see much from his position behind Elder Flower.


    "Have we arrived?" he asked curiously.


    Elder Flower shook her head.


    This prompted Jin to tilt his head to the side and to try to see what was going on.


    His heart skipped the beat as he saw that the mountain he''d been reincarnated on was surrounded by what appeared to be a large army. His cultivation-enhanced brain counted at least 30,000 men, bedecked with different insignias and weapons, but who all shared a black helmet with a red plume of feathers trailing down the back, albeit the length varied.


    "It appears that we have a problem," Elder Flower summarised rather accurately.

 Chapter 22: The Incredible Mr Burnout

    <div>


    "It appears that we have a problem," Elder Flower summarised rather accurately as she looked down at the huge army surrounding the mountain of the Illusion Room Sect.


    Jin''s heart skipped a beat and he almost wanted to puke blood at the calm air of the answer. Their mountain, their home, their sect, was surrounded by a gigantic army and her reply was that it appeared they had a problem? For fucking sure they had a problem, they were being invaded!


    It was only the strict hierarchy of the cultivation world that stilled Jin''s tongue from giving a biting retort.


    However, the next words made him calm down somewhat.


    "I wonder what they want this time," Elder Flower muttered seemingly to herself as they stood still in the air on her floating sword.


    "Has this happened before?" Jin asked confusedly, trying to think of reasons why they were currently being besieged.


    "The red plume and their insignia are quite obviously marking them as a unit of the Imperial army. It''s an organisation primarily responsible for defending the realm and enforcing the law on mortals. They mostly end up working at the border, however. Them being here now likely means that there has been an issue," Flower answered.


    Jin''s heart rate lowered itself to a somewhat acceptable level of approximately 250 beats per minute. "So they''re not here to invade us?" he asked, just to clarify.


    It was at this that Elder Flower''s composure broke and she actually turned around to give him a flat look, as if asking him how he could have ever been so stupid as to believe that.


    Jin personally didn''t know what other reaction he was supposed to have when he unexpectedly found an entire fucking army camping at the doorstep of his sect, but excuse him.


    "Of course not, what would an army even be able to do against our sect? It''s mostly just composed of mortals, alongside a few imperial cultivators to fill out the command structure. I could probably beat their general without even using my sword," she muttered as if chastising Jin for his idiocy.


    The inner disciple meanwhile just looked to the sky close to his eyes and released the frustration he was beginning to experience from this stupid situation.


    Of course, it made sense that an army wouldn''t be able to beat even a crafting-focused cultivation sect. Armies were primarily made out of mortals, as no single sect could field more than even at most 5000 cultivators.


    Mortals fought in grand battles where hundreds of thousands lost their lives and fields were turned to mud and blood. Cultivators meanwhile fought one-on-one battles in which entire landscapes were rearranged and physics itself lost meaning as they exploded alongside the rest of the surroundings.


    "Anyway we should probably just go. They''re likely meeting in one of the pagodas," Elder Flower suddenly decided before the flying sword jetted again through the air towards the peak of the mountain, which Jin had not seen before in any great detail.


    It was a surprisingly modest affair which he knew was reserved exclusively for elders and the occasional core disciple. Some caves were hewn into the rocky tip of the mountain and simple huts along with more elaborate large buildings looking to be either libraries or workshops littered the space sparsely. Despite the area being smaller than the bottom parts of the mountain the elders had much more space available to them.


    It looked beautiful and all, however, Jin wasn''t really sure what he''d lost there. After all, he was still only an inner disciple and thus very far away from reaching the halls of power of his sect.


    "Shouldn''t I perhaps be deposited elsewhere before you join the doubtlessly important meeting where it might be considered insulting for me to partake?" Jin asked dubiously as they continued their approach, feeling comfortable enough in his relationship with Elder Flower to voice his opinion.


    The woman in front of him simply scoffed loudly. "Are you trying to waste my time? We have to debrief the sect leader on how our mission went. I''m not going to drop you off and then come get you again just to do that."


    "Okay," Jin whispered in a low voice and closed his eyes.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Why was he suddenly starting to feel as if simply preparing for that martial arts tournament would have been the easier option in comparison to what was about to happen?


    Regardless of any of his hesitations, their flying sword continued pointing stubbornly at a small one-floored pagoda where Jin''s enhanced eyes already saw a rather large assortment of beige-robed Illusion Room sect Elders facing what appeared to be a trio of the soldiers that were besieging the bottom part of the mountain. The only difference was that these soldiers were dressed in more fancy versions of the very same black chitin armour and uniform and had a more imposing air about them as if they were cultivators as well.


    It was as they drew closer that many of the people present in the pagoda, painted as it was in a creamy white paint topped with golden oriental accents, turned towards the two quickly approaching intruders.


    Jin clenched his butt cheeks and tried to pretend that he was not starting to feel supremely uncomfortable about the situation as the flying sword ground to a noiseless but somehow deafening halt in front of the little white staircase leading into the roof-covered structure where a meeting was being held.


    It was just as Jin reluctantly stepped off the flying sword alongside Elder Flower and she shrunk the weapon back to normal size to clip it at her belt, that an annoying and nasal voice spoke up.


    "I see that you finally deigned to join us as well Flower," Elder Lung, the Elder who had judged rather unfairly Jin''s attempt to join the inner Disciple ring back in the day, spoke up. Upon having addressed Elder Flower he turned to Jin and turned up his nose, making his moustache look ridiculous from the new perspective that it was being shown in.


    Moustaches weren''t supposed to be seen from below.


    Elder Flower at this simply glanced blankly at the man, down to the ground, back to the man before tilting her head to the side. "Huh, did you say something?"


    Jin coughed into his elbow in a very futile attempt not to break out and laugh at the face that Lung long made at that particular response.


    The sour old man was just about to reply something ungracious when a more authoritative voice interrupted the squabble before it could devolve.


    What had Lung been thinking anyway starting a pissing match like that in front of what were presumably outsiders? Jin wondered as a simply dressed older woman who looked for all intents and purposes as if she was approaching 90 years of age stepped forward and waved her hand and the air.


    "Calm down you two. We have visitors," she said first to Lung before turning to Flower. "Join us and observe, we have things to discuss with General Shroud."


    "I agree, sect leader Chun, who would ever be so crass as to waste the time of our precious visitors," Elder Flower said silkily before walking over to the line of elders standing there. At the same time, she dragged Jin behind her with one hand like a plush toy so that he stood behind her on the left.


    Elder Lung simply huffed and crossed his arms, looking away.


    The soldier with the most impressive plumage on his helmet coughed into his fist to restart whatever he had previously been talking about while sect leader Chun gave him an encouraging look, similar to the one an elementary school teacher gave her students when they had to present in front of class for the first time.


    "Anyway, as I was saying," the tall man started as he brought one hand onto the pommel of the ornate sword that hung at his side. He looked remarkably young for someone in his position, but of course, that never meant anything in this world. "The borders have been stirring and perhaps as a response to how the last conflict was resolved, there seems to be a lot of signatures being picked up that are below the level of even an outer disciple. However, these beings are being accompanied by more powerful demons which will likely serve as interceptors for any large-scale eradication attacks and use the opportunity to counter. After having examined the situation the consensus from the higher command is that we shall let the mortals face the weak masses while a select number of cultivators will be sent to dispatch the demons."


    "A hard balance, always sending out just enough cultivators to win the battle, but not enough to reveal all our techniques," one elder close to Jin muttered, before the sect leader spoke up and they all shushed.


    "I assume that due to your presence here, you are somewhat interested in modelling some of the threats approaching?" the sect leader asked, her wrinkled face pulled into a small smile. It seemed that she liked the idea of more business coming their way. "Are there any identifiable markings on the demons with which we could prepare a specific scenario? Just like last time maybe," she suggested.


    The general shook his head. "It is not the demons which we were able to group into some sort of class, which we could then prepare against. Rather it is the smaller threats that are appearing in recognizable multitudes. One of our cultivators was able to break through and capture some of them. It nearly cost him his life. We were able to figure out that this entire group, nearly 99% per cent of the actual incoming invasion, is composed of reanimated corpses."


    One of the elders spoke up here, an old man in a blue robe. Perhaps one of the elders who didn''t make scenarios, but rather the Rooms they fit into. "We already have so many Jiangshi scenarios, it wouldn''t be too difficult to dumb a few of them down so that even mortals could work with them."


    The general empathically shook his head. "The only similarity is that they are reanimated corpses, seemingly from the lost civilization of the Dark Side. They are very different in the sense that they do not jump, but rather walk and run. The term we are considering to classify the general category is zombie."


    Jin swallowed his spit at the utterance of that particular phrase and nearly choked. Thankfully it was only Elder Flower who seemed to have heard the small conundrum occurring within his throat as she tilted her head slightly to give him an odd look.


    "If the only scenario you wish for is to do with the mortals, then us elders will be unlikely to be able to help much. We are too advanced spiritually to understand their limited perception," sect leader Chun mused.


    "I do not care who makes the scenario, as long as it accurately reflects the threat at least somewhat, and as long as we can make a multitude of Rooms so that at least the army under my command can cycle through the training," the general replied calmly with a glint in his eye.


    "I assume that as always it is only your corps which will undergo the training?" sect leader Chun asked, at which the general nodded.


    "The others still refuse to see the use of preparing the lower ranks. This time I am preparing to hold a census to see how effective it truly is. If they do not trust me, perhaps they will trust the numbers. I consider it greatly fortuitous to have been born in the Illusion Room sect and to thus know the value of its products," the general muttered flatteringly.


    The sect leader waved him off. "We are similarly lucky to have sprouted a seed as good as you, even if your fate drew you elsewhere in the end."


    She turned to the blue-robed elder who had spoken previously. "How is the progress on the multi-access Room modem?" she asked brusquely.


    The elder in question tilted his head down and smiled. "Nearly finished, it will be even easier to progress if the users are mortals or lower-level cultivators. However, the progress should perhaps be measured in years, not months."


    "Good, you can''t rush things like these. Then the only thing we have to decide now is which disciples will have the privilege of working on this contract," sect leader Chun declared.


    Suddenly all eyes turned to Jin. The general also turned in his direction, although he seemed more focused on Elder Flower instead.


    "There is only one way, no?" General Shroud asked aloud. "We have only a few months before the conflict, so let''s do it the traditional way. Announce the competition."

 Chapter 23: Aint no rest for the Proletariat

    <div>


    It was a mentally confused Jin who returned after so long to his little apartment building and the outer reaches of the inner disciple enclave. Elder Flower had dropped him off at the food hall, so he''d eaten one meal before meandering towards home. The home he''d spent cumulatively less time at than at the Mad Monks Sect. He had to shuffle his feet, tired from standing all day but managed to reach his destination. Once in front of the cheery yellow apartment building slash house, he opened the front door and started going up the stairs.


    However, even the simple pleasure of entering his apartment after so long, laying face down on the bed and screaming into a pillow was taken from him by the inevitable reality of living in a shared building.


    After he''d ascended the flight of stairs, he heard a noise to his left just as he was about to put a hand on the doorknob of his apartment, causing him to look to the left where he locked eyes with an older-looking girl who was coming out of the other apartment on the floor.


    Before he could think too much of it, his right hand which had previously been hovering over his doorknob was promptly ripped away to be vigorously shaken by the dark-skinned woman now standing opposite him. Had she teleported? he wondered as he desperately tried to take his arm back before it got dislocated.


    "Oh my Heavens, it''s so nice to meet you. To think that I would get promoted to an inner disciple today and get to meet my neighbour," the girl babbled, her beige robe swinging with erratic movements revealing that she was if nothing else adult in body, if not in attitude.


    "What a day it''s been as well, an amazing inner ring truly, what a nice place to live. I don''t mind at all that I''m a bit away from the main buildings as it means that the walk I''ll need to take to get to the amenities will be invigorating every single day. Did you hear by the way that due to the stirrings at the border, a development challenge has been announced for all inner disciples?" she continued rapidly not letting Jin get in a word edgewise.


    "Apparently there are some of these so-called zombies down at the base of the mountain where the army is camping out. We can go visit them to base our scenario on their behaviour. I heard the winner of the challenge will get the necessary amount of sect credits to jump straight into having a servant even if we only got promoted from outer disciple recently. Isn''t this amazing?" she asked but didn''t let him answer the question before she continued.


    "By the way my name is Himashi and I come from a long line of painters based in the outer reaches of the Balkit mountain chain in the south of the empire. I was scouted by a passing Illusion Room cultivator a year ago and was brought here to begin cultivating and creating scenarios. I worked hard to pass the promotion examination and I''m very happy to continue working on my art here. I am 23 years old and was born in the year of the rabbit while Saturn waned. I like to spend my time painting and swimming. My favourite food is Natto but I dislike pickled radishes. I am 182 cm tall and I weigh approximately 72 kilos. What about you?" she asked and finally her mouth stayed closed after the verbal assault that she had just committed on Jin''s fragile psyche.


    Jin for his part stared blankly at the girl, and finally now that she stopped being so agitated managed to slowly pull his hand out of hers and gently massage it with his left to return the feeling it had lost being bullied around the airspace during that entire one-sided conversation.


    "I, -uh, ah- Jin," he eventually said tentatively.


    Himashi blinked slowly once as if processing the shortness of his answer.


    Jin meanwhile noted that she was taller than him. He''d never measured his new body, but if she was accurate, then by comparison he''d be about 1.75 metres tall. She had long brown hair tied into a very messy bun with two bangs framing her face and chestnut brown eyes that seemed to have more energy than a nuclear reactor swirling inside them. The pupils suddenly widened to a comic degree as his answer was finally processed.


    "Are you the one favoured by Elder Flower, the leader of the coalition of Elders who want to increase the combat training for disciples so that we might better protect ourselves in the future during altercations rather than only relying on our allies? I heard that you were integral to the diplomatic mission sent to one of our allied sects, the Mad Monk sect, that happened recently. Is it true that you''re going to be participating in the intersect fighting tournament after this whole border conflict has been resolved? Are you glad that you have more time to train now that it has been delayed? Are you planning on participating in the challenge of creating a scenario for the zombies? I feel I am because due to this one-year grace period where I don''t have to contribute any sect points I think it would be a fascinating challenge to make something that directly addresses a currently existing need rather than making something and trying to anticipate the needs of others," Himashi shot out rapidly, moving her mouth as Jin slowly but surely took small steps backwards towards his door and put his right hand behind his back on the door knob.


    How did this girl even know all of that? His meeting with the sect leader, which had occurred after the general assembly meeting with General Shroud, had concluded only an hour ago! He''d only stopped for one quick meal at the cafeteria before making his way here.


    "I think you might be confusing me with someone else," he said kindly, before quickly using whatever qi he had running through his body into his physical stats, opening the door and slamming it shut in the surprised face of his new neighbour.


    Once inside his apartment which was quite dusty, he sank to his knees and questioned reality. "What just happened?"


    First the talk with Elder Flower, and now this?


    -/- One hour earlier


    "I guess our original plan, the tournament was delayed. What do you think about the scenario challenge?" Elder Flower had asked Jin as she was transporting him back to the inner disciple ring. The flying sword was going much slower than he knew it could, implying that she had something to discuss.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    "The soldiers have some of the zombies captive in their camp, I''d have to see them before I make a decision," Jin said. If he even wanted to participate, of course. Did he have to participate? Quite frankly if the tournament was delayed and he didn''t participate in this zombie nonsense then didn''t that mean that he could finally snag some months for himself to relax? Maybe further explore his cultivation?


    Elder Flower shook her head. "You will participate of course. If for no other reason than for the fact that Lung and his ilk will try their best to win. They don''t know yet what you achieved at the Mad Monks Sect, so they cannot prepare against you in particular."


    "What''s the issue with Elder Lung anyway? He seems to have a problem with me, or you, or us," Jin asked directly. It had been bothering him recently. What exact side had he joined when he''d agreed to the offer of tutelage from Elder Flower all those months ago? Ting had implied that Elder Flower, being the most martially gifted of the Elders in their sect, was a proponent of them developing in a more martial direction but what did that mean?


    The woman in question hummed thoughtfully. "I guess the way you acted in the Mad Monks sect was admirable enough for you to know a bit more. One certainly can''t say you''re not mature enough after that fiasco" she decided, before explaining. "Me and Lung have never seen eye to eye, but recently it''s come to a head. What do you think about the amount of Illusion Rooms present in the library, in particular those that have been deemed unnecessary?" she asked.


    The disciple pondered the question. "Well, there''s a lot of them and they''re quite fun to go through," he started slowly. "Other than that it''s impressive how many little variations have been made to improve a product further and further until perfection."


    "Fun, most wouldn''t refer to it like that but I agree with you. It''s the same way I see it. It''s a fun way to train and fight without any of the risks. What''s not fun about that? The injuries don''t even hurt as much as they do in real life." Elder Flower mused. "However, it is the second thing you mentioned that I would say is at the core of this issue. The Illusion Room sect is production-based. We take contracts to develop scenarios for specific situations, as we did with the Mad Monks sect, and we develop our scenarios according to what we think people might be interested in and put them in our library demanding tribute for access. There''s an inordinate amount of energy being put into perfecting every single scenario and turning every single possible enemy anyone could meet into actionable training."


    "Is that not a good thing?" Jin asked. "From what I understand the disciples have to hone their craft on something so that they can advance." He didn''t quite understand where this conversation was going.


    "Is it a good thing?" Elder Flower wondered out loud. "Perhaps it is a good thing for Lung and his family who make most of their contributions through how other people use their environmental templates. At higher levels, they even provide the internal logic of the system all written out and ready to use. If the process ran according to their wishes, every Illusion Room Creator would simply change a few of the combat interactions and make one Illusion Room a day and use as many templates as possible."


    "That obviously doesn''t work, that would simply mean that we''d be producing so much garbage that it would become not worth the effort. Creating the artefacts in which the illusions are placed also requires labour," Jin said despite not quite knowing that much about the artefacts and their production. He was decisively on the scenario side of the sect, not that artificer one.


    "Isn''t that exactly what''s happening? Heaps of garbage being produced as an excuse to justify skill gain? You developed a completely novel scenario for the Mad Monks and I would argue that you learned more during that time than if you had created three scenarios containing only a simple beast. No, while we certainly need to continue improving our abilities in creating scenarios, it shouldn''t be our only focus. After all, even if we''re not perfect in what we offer, do the visitors have somewhere else to go?" Elder Flower argued.


    It was then that Jin suddenly understood the issue. "The library. If people had truly been making scenarios for so long and if they''d already covered so many possibilities¡­" he trailed off. "Couldn''t we just stop adding stuff to the library so that we can focus on other stuff?" He then realised why that particular trail of thought would not be well received by Elder Lung, whose family mostly focused on the production of templates. In Jin''s opinion, the artist who made the entirety of the work would usually create something of a higher quality than the one who took shortcuts. So, exactly how many of the best Rooms available in the library would be those using templates if the rate of development wasn''t so fast?


    "I see you''ve gotten the point, proving further that you have enough intelligence to see what''s necessary," Elder Flower said brusquely. "As you could probably tell from today''s very sudden change of schedule, our world is not safe and the idea of relying on the protection of our allies when we could protect ourselves is cowardly. The Illusion Room Sect has abilities that make us more suited for combat than one would think, it''s just that we are so exclusively focused on the production of scenarios that all else has been ignored for a very long time."


    Jin''s mind whirled. It became clear now why Elder Flower had been pushing him to learn how to fight. "So what, we split the focus 50/50? That''s already what we do with those who develop scenarios and those who develop Rooms, although I heard it''s more of a 90/10 split," he muttered.


    "Of course, it''s not as simple as that, but what I and many others in the sect believe is that if we stop diverting so much attention to rewarding an endless river of contributions to the library and instead start offering rewards for more martial pursuits, then overall the production quality of our goods wouldn''t decrease by a significant amount while our ability to defend ourselves will rise greatly," Elder Flower concluded. "The production quality might even increase if you consider that what our disciples lack most is combat experience."


    In essence, the argument made sense to Jin as well. Wasn''t this essentially the Pareto principle? By putting in 20% of the effort one usually achieved 80% of the result, wasn''t it better than to divide one''s time into five different pursuits of 20% with an overall result of 400%? However, this was a fallacy when one wanted to discuss the production of quality goods. At the highest level, it was this tiniest shavings of a percentage that mattered in cornering a market, if one was considering a rational consumer. Cultivators whose whole life revolved around combat were probably as close as one could get in regards to scenarios, however. If they could not hold the Illusion Room Sect accountable for the quality of their products, then no one could.


    It was at this stage of the conversation that they arrived at where Elder Flower was apparently going to drop him off.


    Her last words to him shifted the topic of the conversation again back to the scenario-developing challenge that had been issued today.


    "Considering how little time we have before the likely incursion I would suggest finding a teammate or two to tackle this project with," were her departing words of advice.


    Jin was not nearly stupid enough to think that what she''d given was advice. It was an order.


    Rather than training his martial arts to compete in a tournament, it seemed that now he had to form a team to compete for the lucrative contract of creating the scenario for an entire army of people instead of just one small group of mortal potential disciples.


    Great.


    He wondered for a second if he should bother listening, before deciding that he was currently too tired to make a choice or to even think.


    His stomach rumbled. He hoped he could eat in peace and crash at home, nothing more to disturb him until tomorrow morning.

 Chapter 24: Azn Lazy Boys

    It was on the next morning that Jin woke up finding himself a participant in a spiritual war fought by man since his inception.


    ¡°Ugh,¡± he groaned as his eyes blearily opened to witness the majestic ray of sunlight shining from light years away through his window directly onto his face.


    At first, he lay there not even finding the energy to move.


    Today was the day that he was supposed to go down the mountain to look at the zombies that the military had brought with them, wasn''t it?


    But today was also the day that was the day after two of the days at which he had still been working on Dragonslayer Ornstein back at the Mad Monks Sect.


    In other words, today was the day that he was supposed to have started relaxing to regain some of his mental faculties and avoid potential burnout.


    Unfortunately, today was also the day on which the previous day Elder Flower had told him that he had to participate in this scenario challenge to make an Illusion Room for the purpose that General Shroud wanted it.


    Make the Illusion Room Sect Great Again... Awesome...


    Today was also a day on which Jin felt bad enough that he was seriously considering disregarding that order.


    His thoughts were sluggish, his limbs were heavy, mom''s sweater was on his spaghetti already.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± he groaned. He just didn''t have it in him to wake up bright-eyed and run down the mountain to look at the shambling corpses that the army held captive. Did that make him an omega, or a sigma? On one hand, he was off that grindset, on the other he was disobeying the orders of a direct superior who could very easily kill him.


    What was the point of fulfilling an order that would only entrance him further into Elder Flower''s camp, assuring him of further tasks in the future?


    Protection? Sure, he knew that cosying up to older more powerful cultivators was one way of staying alive and securing one''s progression, however surely the Illusion Room sect wasn''t in a position where at any moment they could be wiped out by either a demonic sect incursion or by a war, right?


    His thoughts flashed to the conversation of yesterday, where Elder Flower had elucidated very clearly that if any conflict actually occurred, they did not have many ways of escaping it unscathed.


    Which left him with the option of cosying up to the one person in the sect who was useful in a fight, and if she liked him enough, might even escape with him if it ever came to that.


    And that person was Elder Flower.


    Despite his rationalisations, however, he continued lying there staring at the wooden ceiling.


    It was a very nice joining of the main support beams, and perhaps an analysis of the local architecture would help him in developing future scenarios.


    This wasn''t him being lazy, this was just him preparing for any eventuality. Who knew when a scenario in the future would depend on how support beams of an apartment building-like structure were joined together on a structural level?


    This was very important business.


    He suddenly noticed that he was very thirsty, and tried to use that need to make himself stand up.


    The cup of water that he had on the nightstand was empty, therefore his only recourse was the bucket that he¡¯d raised from the nearby well to replenish his source for drinking and cleaning. It was too far away. His body gave up before it could even start.


    However, where the human mind and the human body failed, qi came to the rescue. He forced a sliver of it out, now having enough to manipulate it outside of his body and sent it like a tentacle of a particularly molecularly unstable octopus towards the bucket.


    It floated in mid-air for a second, extending up to a metre, half of the way there, before it fell flat to the ground, unable to retain its position.


    Jin strained himself and imagined a snake, at which the tendril started undulating on the ground, wriggling on the floor, approaching the bucket at a sluggish pace before finally reaching it and clambering over the top. It sucked in greedily until it coalesced into a unit of qi holding up what was probably around a deciliter of the life-saving liquid.


    Another struggle brought the tendril back, less strenuous than it had been to get it there even if it now weighed more. The water soon came to hover precariously over Jin''s head, which he gently extended, lips puckered, to suck at the liquid.


    The first touch of his lips to his qi broke the spell''s concentration and delivered onto him a completely localised phenomenon of a miniature shower. He fell back into the bed, now soaked in water...


    ¡°That''s one way of waking up,¡± he muttered to himself, feeling some energy return to his body from the sudden baptism.


    He wondered what time it was, surely as tired as he was he had slept for longer than usual.


    ¡°Oh boy, I sure enjoyed that lunch I just ate at the Food Hall 15 minutes ago before I rushed home to have my daily session of painting!¡± a loud and exuberant voice suddenly resounded from the corridor.


    That answered that question.


    Now what?


    -/-


    It was around dinner time that Jin finally managed to leave his abode after having wiggled and laid about the space enjoying every single non-productive moment of it.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    He¡¯d made sure that his neighbour wasn¡¯t in the corridor between apartments before leaving and was now walking towards the food hall to soothe his complaining stomach before taking a stroll down the mountain to look at the zombies.


    He was trying to think of it as a not necessarily non-work-related expedition. It was actually more like going to the zoo, yeah.


    Walking around in nature, looking at some weird curious creatures trying to bite one''s face off. Wasn''t that the epitome of a careless evening for any man of sufficient class to not have to work a day in their life?


    He strolled, he shambled and he glided thusly all the way to where the food smell was coming from and consumed a number of calories which got him concerned looks from his contemporary disciples.


    They acted like they¡¯d never seen anyone eat meat for the first time after six months before. It wasn''t like Jin was against vegetarianism, but after a while, one did develop a craving for more easily accessible protein.


    He wasn''t all that much of a connoisseur of watching the light leave an animal''s eyes or listening to the sounds that they made right before death, but when it came to eating their flesh, he was very much an enthusiast.


    After three hefty portions of the meaty stew being served, Jin left the food hall feeling, for the first time in a while, truly human.


    The rest, the meat, the fact that he was once again home and free to walk around without an escort. It truly was an amazing feeling.


    He didn''t even mind that much having to go down the mountain to look at the zombies. It would be interesting after all. But, inadvertently as he passed inner disciples on the long staircase downward, his thoughts inevitably went into the direction of how exactly one could turn what he would see into a game.


    The biggest issue that he saw was the fact that what the General Shroud had described to be a zombie, was not necessarily going to conform to his previous world¡¯s understanding of what a zombie was.


    After all, this world''s reanimated corpses, the hopping Jiangshi, were only zombies on a very technical level. Reanimated corpses with a very odd movement ability for sure, they didn''t fit his old world''s definition because they lacked one defining quality.


    Namely, they did not have the capacity to infect others and turn them into zombies.


    Each Jiangshi was an entirely individual creation upkept by a complicated talisman with a certain storage of qi that became self-replicating when cycled through a body that could still produce bioenergy.


    The zombies from Jin''s old world however were more the result, in most fiction, of an infectious parasitic disease which sought to spread through humans.


    Even if the zombies captured by the army fit the requirements exhibited by the zombies in Jin¡¯s previous world in terms of looks, movement and attack vectors, if there was no infectious attribute then it all became useless. The possibility of becoming a zombie while still alive was where the horror came from. Without it, the narratives of the games that he remembered didn''t make a lot of sense.


    And if he couldn''t transcribe a narrative, simply having to rely on his observation of the monster to create a simple scenario as was common here, then he would inadvertently lose the challenge because there were surely other inner disciples who were more capable than him at creating non-narrative non-innovative Illusion Rooms.


    He couldn''t even make a game like the ones he knew himself, with his own storyline, if this was the case, because of the very short time frame that they had to actually develop the scenario. Additionally, considering that he was apparently supposed to work in a team, it was very much in the air if he could convince other disciples to follow his creative vision.


    ¡°Halt in the name of the Empire,¡± a bored voice suddenly said in front of Jin, causing him to look up at the two soldiers who barred his entrance into the army camp by crossing their bone-white swords.


    He''d been so lost and thought he hadn''t even realised that he''d traversed the entirety of the mountain during the last hour and had arrived at the bottom.


    ¡°I''m from the Illusion Room Sect, here to look at the monsters that you hold captive,¡± Jin said clearly at which the two guards clad in their light black carapace armour uncrossed their swords and let him through without another word.


    His momentary blocked passage was just a formality. Who else, other than the disciples working on the scenario, would go all the way here into this relatively obscure valley where only one sect lives, to enter the camp?


    For some reason, Jin didn''t think that in a world united by the permanent threat of incursions from demons, there were that many people interested in infiltrating the camps of armies which were composed mostly of mortals.


    Surely, if one wanted to steal something, there were easier or richer targets abound.


    After stepping into the camp, suddenly finding himself standing on a branching path full of neatly organised tents with soldiers lounging in front of them, Jin wondered for a second how he was supposed to find where the zombies were imprisoned.


    This was an army of around 30,000 people. It was essentially a small city of tents.


    He was just wondering if he should ask someone when a resounding cheer suddenly erupted from a point not far away from him.


    Already suspecting what he was going to find, Jin quickly turned in that direction and started walking.


    He didn''t find the army encampment particularly interesting so he didn''t feel the need to linger.


    It was essentially just a large assortment of sweaty smelly men who looked at him warily because of his obvious status as a cultivator, and who were unlikely to be dialogue partners of any particular interest.


    Even the surroundings themselves were uninteresting in their uniformity and while this was Jin''s first time walking through such a place and thus his first time seeing the way that ancient armies organised their camps, it wasn''t really anything special.


    What was interesting, however, was the large cage made out of overlapping wooden bars that he found upon reaching the source of the noise.


    As he had expected, this little clearing in the middle of the tent city was indeed the place where the zombies were stored. However, upon making his way for the crowd who respectfully let him pass, opening up a little circle of space in their midst, he found that it wasn¡¯t only zombies in the enclosure.


    They were ugly things, looking approximately how he''d expected them to look. Half rotten, in a state of decay with exposed bones and tendons, they shambled and moaned around like Computer Science students after someone had forced them to play sports for longer than five minutes.


    No, what surprised him was that inside the enclosure along with four of these badly kept corpses, was a man garbed in the leather armour and cap of the low-rank infantry who danced around his enemies and smacking away their jaws and claws with the flat side of his sword.


    ¡°Are they already practising?¡± Jin asked himself out loud not expecting an answer.


    ¡°No, idiot. The general told them to get in there so that we can get an idea of how they move,¡± a voice set from Jin''s right causing him to glance there and see that he was standing next to Lung Junior, dressed in his typical non-standard disciple garb, This time an elaborate robe of what looks to be silk with patterns of trees and rivers stitched onto it. His long ponytail had what seemed to be little shards of Spirit Stone woven into it.


    The boy, man, grandpa, having noticed who he¡¯d spoken to after Jin had turned his head decisively, looked away and put his nose further in the air.


    Jin, not feeling like starting a conversation, also focused back on the zombies.


    Both of them ended up observing the way the soldier deftly evaded the snatching attacks of the corpses inside the large wooden prison in which they''d been confined.


    The question now was. How closely did these zombies resemble those that Jin knew from his previous life?


    Even if the answer ended up being, not very much, being here with the photographic memory still meant that by looking at how they moved he would get the general idea of how he could model them for later.


    He settled himself into a comfortable standing position to start the information-gathering process of scenario development.

 Chapter 25: The Infection Question

    <div>


    It was perhaps after an hour of watching the zombies attempting to kill the soldiers who went in to fight them in rounds of five minutes, that Jin had gathered enough data to properly make a memory file.


    There was just one last thing that he wanted to know.


    Fortunately, or unfortunately, Lung Junior had already left, so this just left him the option of turning to his left where what looked to be an older more highly-placed soldier was watching the event with observant eyes.


    "They don''t get tired, do they?" he asked.


    The man startled, probably surprised that a cultivator had bothered to talk to him, before slowly nodding. "They don''t sleep, they don''t rest, if they have something to attack they will just charge at it relentlessly. Leave them alone for a bit and they''ll just push their bodies against the walls, scratching at the wood."


    Jin nodded thoughtfully. In a more rational world, their state of perpetual motion would have made sense through the fact that the parasitic disease in there was at the same time cannibalising it for energy as it was moving it around. Here, in this world, it could just be explained with magic, so the explanation didn''t bring him any closer to understanding the phenomenon.


    "Honestly, I don''t know why everyone is in such a tiff about these things. They''re about as threatening as the average beggar we have to sometimes put in the slammer for public disobedience back in the city," the soldier muttered. "The scratches they leave are annoying though," he said, putting up an arm to show that he had an inflamed lesion covering a small part of it. It looked like it was developing into a painful rash.


    "From what I understand, the issue is not that they are individually particularly threatening, but rather that there is a fuckton of them," Jin answered absentmindedly, still using his eyes to process the movement data of the zombies. "The issue will also be that once the main force of them arrives at the borders¡­ They don''t have to rest, they can just endlessly push against the walls in a wave of bodies. The quantity has a quality of its own."


    The soldier snorted, seemingly talkative now that a cultivator was actually being polite instead of saying something about eradicating bloodlines and face-slapping. "I''m more afraid of those goddamn demons that are gonna be flying above them and fighting with the cultivators. More likely to die as collateral damage than get killed by these stupid things," he said. Then he shook his head, scratching at the wound on his arm. "Whatever, I''m gonna go to the medical tent to get this checked out. It''s been itching like crazy for an hour now."


    Jin paused in his visual processing. "When did you get the wound?" he asked. Perhaps it would be good to know if he should add some poison damage to the zombies if they weren''t infectious. Nevertheless, the fact that the man next to him had a scratch from the things, with his previous cultural experience and influences¡­ he deliberately took a step away and looked at him from the side.


    "This morning, I was one of the first. Accident as well, damned thing just tripped into me changing its attack rhythm," the man said. "We were told to start fighting them so that you could observe."


    "Yeah, we should probably get that checked out. Rub some alcohol on it, I don''t know," Jin muttered and was just about to leave when he suddenly heard a series of screams.


    It was a very different sound from the cheering that he had heard intermittently from the crowd around him as people spectated the impromptu cage fights.


    It was the sound of terror, not jubilation. He perked up, his enhanced senses immediately locating the source to be one of the non-normative large green tents set up a few hundred metres away.


    The man next to him perked up as well, confirming Jin''s suspicion that he was some sort of officer.


    The other soldiers simply looked around in confusion as a first reaction, while the two of them were already running.


    Jin pushed his way through a few other Illusion Room sect disciples who''d just arrived and didn''t seem to have much of a measured reaction to the event either and were just looking around confusedly.


    Pushing his way through the crowd was surprisingly easy now considering he was more than twice as strong as the average mortal, and it also helped that the soldiers parted for him like the sea in front of Moses when they glimpsed his easily identifiable robes in a sea of black chitin and leather.


    He arrived in front of the medical tent, designated as such by the large symbol of healing that it had above its rolled-up entrance, and the scene that he found there chilled him to the bone.


    A woman dressed in green high-quality robes was running out of the tent clutching at her hand which was oozing blood. A shambling animalistic form of a soldier dressed in the black uniform raced after her. Jin''s eyes immediately identified the fact that there was no intelligence in the movement or in the gaze of the man who was chasing and that the blood around his mouth indicated that he had been the aggressor.


    Fuck, was what his mind thought while his body was already moving.


    A hand went up to his neck where he released the miniature lance hanging from the chain that he''d fastened. He ripped it off, having no time for niceties and channelled his qi into the construct. It enlarged in a movement that took less than a second. His body shot forward acting on pure instinct and training as the lance, blunt side first smashed out to break the left and then the right kneecap of the infected soldier.


    The man fell to the ground, but to further provide evidence he was no longer human, there was no surprise or hesitation due to the injury and he simply started using his arms to move forward. Jin spun his lance again and smashed both elbows leaving a groaning and slobbering mess on the floor.


    "What have you done?" a voice suddenly asked from behind Jin causing him to look back to see that the officer he had been talking to previously had caught up and was looking in horror at the mangled body of what had probably once been a comrade on the floor.


    Not thinking too much about it, working completely on instinct, Jin''s hand shot forward to grasp the man by the neck. He didn''t know how or why, but these zombies could infect other humans and turn them into more zombies. Just like in his old world.


    As the officer grasped at Jin''s arm, trying to release the hold with his feeble strength, Jin channelled qi into the appendage to prevent the man from breaking his skin. At the same time, his right arm shot out to the healer who had found refuge at his side to grab her by the nape of her neck and hold her up facing away from himself so that she couldn''t bite him.


    That was how General Shroud found him, as he descended from the skies smashing into the earth, and breaking it apart in circular ringlets around his landing spot. He looked at Jin with murderous eyes and released a wave of intent that almost made the disciple faint.


    Jin held on through the panic because this wasn''t a situation where he could allow weakness. He knew how this situation looked like; two of the man''s subordinates grasped his hands trying to break free, while the third one lay crippled on the floor trying to use his teeth to drag himself to more victims.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    The other soldiers who had also been present were thankfully standing in a ring around Jin and not approaching their turned comrade, knowing somehow instinctually that things weren''t adding up.


    "General Shroud," Jin said quickly before a misunderstanding could happen. "I''m glad you''ve arrived quickly. I have horrible news. The zombies can infect humans, and it is perhaps too late for any of the soldiers who have received scratches or bite wounds from the sparring that has been occurring since this morning." He of course didn''t know the exact situation that clearly, but a sense of urgency was to be communicated at the moment. Everything else could come later.


    He could see the general''s eyes widen as his pupils flickered down to the crippled zombie/soldier who was not in the state of mind that a human should be in and then at the two people held in Jin''s grasp, both of whom had for a cultivator easily identified injuries on their bodies.


    Jin blinked.


    When his eyes opened again, his hands were suddenly empty and two unconscious bodies were held under the general''s right arm. A boot held the crippled zombie face down on the ground and the general was looking at Jin more warmly than he had upon first arrival.


    "Stay here," the man ordered before disappearing as if he had never been there in the first place, alongside all three victims.


    Seconds later, Jin heard orders shouted from different parts of the camp and saw the whole army start mobilising in a cold and efficient manner. He could guess their task.


    They were to gather up everyone who had been in contact with the zombies and drag them into a common prison.


    Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.


    -/-


    Baffled once again by the efficiency of the cultivators when they set their mind to something, it was only 15 minutes after the attack that Jin found himself standing in a medical tent cleared of all normal staff along with a few very distinct personalities.


    On one side was General Shroud along with what seemed to be his main assistant, a man in the robes of a military scribe. In comparison to how Jin had seen the general the day before at the Pagoda, the man was now clearly agitated and one could feel it in the atmosphere. It was the first time that Jin felt such a high-level cultivator feel distressed in his presence, he noted that it was not a pleasant experience.


    Next to Jin stood Elder Flower, who was present primarily because if it was he who was to be interrogated about the events by the general, then there needed to be someone from his faction to represent his interests.


    Of course, it hadn''t been phrased that way, but had simply been described as ''the boy should be questioned in the presence of his master.'' Even though that was not the relationship that he and Flower actually shared.


    Additionally present was one woman dressed in green robes of a lighter variety than the one who had been bitten, and the functionally quadriplegic zombie that Jin had created minutes ago. He was tied to a bed, all limbs, broken as they were, restrained by leather straps.


    "I think everyone important has gathered here," the green-robed woman said with a frown on her face and a glare towards Jin. "Perhaps the boy can start explaining now? Why exactly one of mine is traumatised," she said brusquely. She was a cultivator of some sort if this was how she dared to talk in the presence of the people present.


    Jin coughed into his fist once again confronted with speaking to a variety of people who had the ability to crush him like a bug if they so desired.


    "I was watching the soldiers spar with the zombies when I had an interesting thought," he began, only to be interrupted by the green-robed healer and her perilously flared nostrils.


    "Get to the point!" she demanded, nearly shouting.


    Elder Flower put a hand to the hilt of her sword, causing the woman to pale, shut her mouth and stand at attention.


    "Let the boy speak," said General Shroud.


    Jin once again coughed awkwardly into his fist. "As I was saying, I was watching the soldier''s spar when I became curious about where exactly these corpses were finding the energy to move. After all, we know that mortals unable to access qi require sustenance to generate energy. The zombies are seemingly similarly disadvantaged considering that they have no significant heavenly energy in their bodies. After all, if they had it hidden somewhere, then a mortal would have never been able to fight them to a standstill, let alone four of them. While of course, this could simply be because of some complicated energy systems implanted by the demons, I thought of perhaps another possibility," he paused. "More specifically, about the possibility of parasites."


    "I''ve seen demonic cultivators use them for their purposes before. It wouldn''t be too far of a stretch to assume that the demons could do the same," Elder Flower mused out loud, a gesture that might have seemed random but was clearly in support of Jin.


    Jin nodded gratefully. "Particularly, I thought about those parasites which when they inhabit a host also kill it and then simply guide it along the path of their proliferation like a new flesh vehicle. The energy for the movement is provided by eating the host from the inside. This was at the time simply a hypothesis I was considering to better understand the scenario I could create with the zombies as a focal point."


    "It would make sense," the scribe next to General Shroud spoke up. "Of course, the demons would prefer to create simply one disease and let it spread rather than individually turning all of these corpses. A waste of qi which they could better use to fight the cultivators and let their new bioweapon shred into the ranks underneath."


    "I was thinking something similar to that," Jin muttered. "Regardless, the soldier next to me, we spoke, I don''t remember what about. He showed me a wound that he''d gotten from the zombies after sparring with them earlier. It was inflamed, as one would expect from a wound caused by a corpse. Those things are by no means clean. Then we heard a scream and I rushed to the medical tent to see that a soldier with a similar wound but with no intelligence or humanity left in his eyes was attacking one of the healers. He had bitten her hand, which was a weird priority for someone to have, but also reminded me of the fact that all the zombies in the cage had been simply attempting to scratch and bite people instead of for example punching them, kicking them, or headbutting them. This got me thinking that the goal was not to kill their adversaries, but to wound them and to transfer some sort of¡­" he trailed off. "You know what I mean. Everything is speculation. I could be wrong and have crippled the soldier for no good reason, at which point I would accept punishment for my stupidity."


    "The theory with the parasites is as feasible as any theory, albeit something that will have to be verified by someone qualified to speak on such matters." General Shroud decided. "Naturally, there are many odd and dangerous techniques in the world that you do not know of so there might always be another answer. But what matters the form of the scheme if the result is the same? As for your punishment, if you''re correct and being a zombie is an infectious condition then there will be none. If you are wrong, then you shall suffer the same indignity that you inflicted on the two wounded. Being held by the scruff of your neck by someone stronger than you who does not know their strength and who could very easily break something if they''re not careful."


    Jin looked down in shame, in hindsight, he had certainly overreacted. What was the likelihood that the soldier and the wounded healer would turn quickly enough for his apprehension to be necessary?


    The scribe spoke next. "Whereas your intentions were certainly just and I understand and respect your line of reasoning, the issue in your actions lies in the fact that you took into your own hands the justice that is reserved for those in the army''s command structure. I understand why you had to stop the rampaging soldier," he nodded his head towards the tied-down functional quadriplegic with a gag in his mouth who was desperately straining against his restraints, "but everything else was an overstepping of your position. Nevertheless, for protecting others I think it is only just that you do not receive the appropriate whipping that your overstepping would have generally demanded on principle. The punishment for that, in particular, will be left to your sect," he decided, seemingly speaking from some sort of rulebook.


    Jin nodded and turned his head to look awkwardly at Elder Flower who was standing next to him. Would the sect punish him?


    A smack suddenly hit the back of his head making it lurch forward and down. He hadn''t even seen her raise her hand.


    "Don''t do it again," she said. "Idiot," she added after a few seconds of contemplation. Then the Elder turned towards the general. "Now we wait?"


    The general nodded seriously. "This one," he started, referring to the gagged man, zombie? "was one of the first to be sent to spar with the zombies. But there were others after him who also carried away scratches and bite marks. We should know soon enough if the boy''s theory holds. Let us hope that it doesn''t."


    "I''m not needed here then. There are people I could be helping instead of wasting my time," the green-robed woman said in a cold voice before leaving the tent as the other four attendees of the meeting sat down on little foldable leather stools.


    The mood was sombre, as they waited for the results. While Jin''s punishment was one of the things on the line, the other issue was that if the zombie army could infect others, then their threat rating had suddenly shot up by several magnitudes.

 Chapter 26: Sabotage

    <div>


    As they waited to hear the news of potential infection from the wounded soldiers who had been gathered and put under watch, Jin couldn''t help but note that the time was passing slower than he''d ever experienced it.


    He''d waited for stressful results in the past, university, getting an Apartment. But, waiting here to find out if the approaching army set on exterminating humanity had suddenly gained a new powerful weapon was something that quite easily trumped whatever anxiety he had experienced in the past.


    He would wish even that he had been wrong and received that choking, as stupid as it sounded, as long as it meant that humanity would face less danger.


    Unfortunately, he couldn''t truly make himself believe that he¡¯d been wrong.


    It was with a sense of preemptive defeat that Jin slumped his head as a stone-faced soldier entered the tent to report on the development of the wounded.


    He¡¯d already read the answer from the man''s lack of facial expression.


    Hearing it, nonetheless, hurt.


    ¡°Two of the wounded, those who sparred earliest in the morning, have seemingly gone insane. They tried to attack the soldiers standing guard and had to be restrained. There was a panic from the other wounded when they saw that preemptive shackling would become necessary but Officer Leng used his paralysis scripture to bind them until enough chains could be brought.¡±


    ¡°It is better that we find out like this than on the battlefield,¡± the scribe next to the general said, trying to stay positive.


    General Shroud simply closed his eyes and asked the other important question. ¡°How many did we lose?¡± he asked.


    The soldier who had come to report hung his head. ¡°27, general.¡±


    ¡°This changes everything,¡± Elder Flower commented. ¡°We now understand why the abduction of these four zombies that we managed to get raised such an alarm from the demons and why the cultivator was almost killed by an all-out attempt to eliminate him.¡±


    The general took one second to process the useless loss of his troops before shaking his head. Had he made a mistake in sending out his soldiers to spar, simply to provide a viewing experience for the Illusion Room cultivators? Or would the scenarios they would create from the viewing offset the loss? Jin imagined that if one was in a position of power like that, one couldn''t dwell on things that could have been too often. One was likely to go insane if one did.


    ¡°It also strongly implies that the desire of the demons to protect the zombies at least long enough for them to come into contact with our mortal troops will be severe. We will need to brief the cultivators. Perhaps more of them could be convinced to come to the border and fight and perhaps with reinforcements we could eliminate most of the hordes before contact. However, I am sure that the demons have already thought of that and have prepared spells, techniques, strategies and troops suited for blocking wide-scale destruction efforts.¡± The general took off his ornate helmet and rested it at his side under his arm as he stood up.


    ¡°Back to the drawing board, we''ll have to notify the other legions.¡±


    The scribe similarly stood up and nodded, rushing off before the general. Probably to prepare the tactics room or something. Jin didn''t know.


    ¡°This changes things for the scenario as well. Notify your disciples that there will be no more sparring between zombies and our mortal soldiers. I will demand some convicts from the Bloody Pit, perhaps some with a cultivation basis. It can be a new execution method,¡± he said coldly to Elder Flower, before turning to Jin.


    ¡°You have a good head on your shoulders boy, to realise all of that in a split second and to make the appropriate if over-eager decision. You''d have a career in the army if the scenarios ever bore you, but I realise that creating the perfect preparation tool will save more lives than simply being another body in the meat grinder. The needs of the scenario have suddenly shifted away from one-to-one combat, I hope you understand the implications,¡± he said.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The general sighed and turned to Elder Flower with a complicated look in his eyes. ¡°Can we? Later?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Let''s see if there''s any time,¡± Elder Flower replied in a voice that was more warm than Jin was used from her.


    The general nodded and left.


    Jin hadn''t felt like correcting him that his seemingly quick decision-making and analysis had mostly occurred preemptively through his cultural biases and simply accepted the compliment as it was.


    But, while the zombies being infectious was a disaster for the war effort, it was good for him because suddenly all of his memories gained significant value.


    Now, he could actually pick a narrative while still sticking to his plan of doing something different to either win it or discredit himself so that he would be less burdened by the expectations of his superiors in the future.


    A win-win situation, one could say.


    The only issue left was the fact that he still needed to find a teammate.


    -/-


    ¡°Sorry, but I don''t feel like collaborating on a project with you,¡± the brown-haired disciple that Jin had specifically sought out for the upcoming scenario challenge said before promptly slamming the door of his apartment shut.


    Jin stood there with a confused look on his face, his hands still raised for a knock.


    He hadn''t even managed to get a word in edgewise before being refused.


    How had the other inner disciple even known that he wanted to collaborate?


    He exited the apartment building and stood in front of it looking at the sparse streets of the inner ring. After the discussion he¡¯d had yesterday in the medical tent with General Shroud and Elder Flower he had decided to bring one of the zombie games from his past life into this one. However, due to the short amount of time that he had to prepare for the challenge, he needed at least one collaborator.


    Having spent a lot of time in the scenario library back before he left for the Mad Monks Sect, he had a rather good idea of who he wanted to work with. He looked down at the list of names he''d written out on a parchment and crossed out the last one still open.


    Every single disciple still active who had created something that Jin had been impressed by, had outright refused to even speak with him. What was going on?


    Was it because he didn''t have any street cred yet? It made sense in a way, after all, none of his scenarios were yet in the library. He''d have to put in Outlast and the perfected Dragonslayer Ornstein later when he had time, so technically no one here knew about his abilities yet.


    But to be denied so firmly before he even got to say his name implied that it wasn''t really about that.


    ¡°Hey Jin, are you settling in well,¡± an old wizened voice suddenly said from beside him and Jin turned his head to see that it was Francis, the older disciple who''d given him the tour of the ring back when he¡¯d gotten promoted. ¡°What are you up to?¡±


    ¡°Not much, just wandering about,¡± the younger man muttered.


    Francis tilted his head. ¡°You''re looking for teammates for the scenario challenge, aren''t you?¡± he asked with a conviction that made it less of a question and more of a statement.


    Jin was startled and looked at Francis with wide eyes. ¡°How did you know?¡± he asked suspiciously.


    Francis looked around as if to make sure that no one was listening in on their conversation before leaning towards Jin, having to go on tippy toes to whisper into his left ear.


    ¡°Look kid, I''m not participating in the scenario challenge but someone was running around giving all the more successful inner disciples a small spirit stone each for the promise that they wouldn''t collaborate with you. I don''t know who it was, but they seem to have it out for you. I took one as well, even though I''m not even going to participate. Whoever is doing this is loaded, I''m sure they must have spent a significant amount,¡± he explained briefly before standing back and nodding.


    Jin''s mind meanwhile whirled. Someone had been paying off other disciples to not work with him? He hadn''t made any enemies in the sect from what he knew, unless¡­ he frowned.


    Unless he¡¯d inherited the enemies of Elder Flower due to his association with her.


    ¡°Thanks, Francis, I guess for all those insecure idiots one spirit stone in the pocket is worth more than potentially a thousand in the future. Then they¡¯d actually have to rely on their own skills to achieve something,¡± he said angrily.


    Francis shrugged. ¡°Don''t think about it too much, in a way it''s good you know that everyone who took the money is untrustworthy so you don''t have to associate with them in the future.¡±


    Jin looked at the older man and realised that his advice was good. Wasn''t it better that these people had taken the spirit stone to not collaborate with him in the first place, rather than taking more of them to sabotage him once they¡¯d already started working together? Now he knew not to trust these disciples and wouldn''t bother with them in the future even if they came to him.


    ¡°Maybe you''re right, and in the end, I''ll prevail anyway,¡± Jin said.


    ¡°Don''t feel too down, I don''t think that person managed to pay off everyone. There are others, probably ones whose skills aren''t as highly rated, who would be willing to work with you. You just have to find them,¡± the old man encouraged before nodding once. ¡°I have to go now, but stay upright. Remember, they can never take yer pride,¡± he said before walking off with a rare purpose.


    Jin wondered what the man was doing before shaking his head. It didn''t matter. He was tired.


    He started making his way back to his own apartment to rest, he''d have to rethink the situation and decide what to do about this new information he¡¯d gained.

 Chapter 27: Are Illusions Art

    It was as Jin got closer to his apartment building, which bordered the inner ring and the forest and the plains surrounding it, that he saw an interesting scene.


    It was his neighbour Hashimi, who he had gone out of his way to avoid previously. She was standing on the hill next to his apartment building and looking at the inner ring. She stood in front of a canvas held up by an easel, holding a paintbrush in her right hand and a palette in her left. She was painting and looked more serene than he''d ever seen her.


    As another one of his neighbours exited the apartment building, which now had four out of six apartments occupied, he gently tapped the man on the shoulder to gain his attention.


    "How long has she been at it?" he asked, nodding his head towards the woman on the hill.


    The boy tilted his head, looked at Hashimi and gave a disparaging chortle. "Whole day from what I saw," he replied. "I don''t know how she''s gonna make good scenarios if she wastes her time on such trivial pursuits. Well, not everyone''s made to succeed," he said before walking off.


    Jin watched the boy leave with a tilted head. What was wrong with being an artist? He wondered. Making Illusion Rooms was just a job, if perhaps already an artistic one. You still needed other hobbies to even out your life. It was this lack of free time and hobbies that probably made cultivators as unbearable as they were, he decided. Everyone was a bigger asshole when they were stressed, anxious and never rested.


    He shook his head and took a step towards the apartment building, before pausing.


    It seemed like Hashimi had not made a good impression on anyone really, which probably meant that she was potentially feeling quite isolated. At the moment she seemed at peace so maybe now would be the time to apologise for the brusque manner in which he''d handled her back then, as justified it had been.


    It rankled him that while others were paying inner disciples to have a bad relationship with him, he was creating a bad relationship with other inner disciples completely on his own as well. He thought about that for a second, before turning around and starting to trek up the grassy hill that the girl had occupied.


    It was as he finished ascending that he managed to glimpse what she was painting and paused in his steps. It was a painting of the inner ring, as expected but it looked different from what he had expected. He had thought that it would have either been realistic or in the traditional Asian monochrome. However, if anything the painting resembled Picasso. The edges were all fucked and showing the same thing from different perspectives. The buildings were looming over each other in ways that implied emotional saturation rather than architectural design.


    "Howdy neighbour," Hashimi said in a quiet voice as she put her brush on the canvas to give the hexagonal clouds in the sky a rougher edge.


    "Hello to you as well," Jin replied with a sigh. "I wanted to apologise for the way I behaved yesterday, but I do have to say that in my opinion, you came on a bit too strongly. You''ve calmed down since then it seems?" he asked.


    Hashimi shrugged as she continued painting. "I was very excited to pass and it is who I am. I''m not willing to change it for other people."


    "I agree, if you change for other people then you''ll just be sad because you can''t be your authentic self," Jin muttered lightly as he stood next to her and looked at the process of her painting.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "You''re quite good at abstraction," he commented after a while seeing the structure come together. It was an art form to be able to depict at the same time the reality while also depicting very clearly in what way this reality had been shifted to provoke a different emotion.


    Hashimi''s brush paused as she was adding shading to a corner.


    "That''s interesting," she said. "Do you need something?"


    Jin tilted his head. "Not really," he determined. "I''m doing quite well all in all."


    "Truly? I heard that there was someone going around giving spirit stones to people so they wouldn''t collaborate with you."


    "You have very big ears," Jin remarked, impressed. "You hear more things than me."


    "Do you not care? That there are forces working against you, people sabotaging you?"


    "Unless people start trying to murder me, success is inevitable," Jin said. "Also, life isn''t too bad even when you have enemies." He''d had business rivals in the past as well and some of the stuff that they''d gotten up to had been quite nasty. But here it was the exact same thing. As long as things stayed simply on the level of social sabotage, not physical violence, he didn''t care too much. "I think that all of those people spending their time thinking about ways in which they can make me perform worse, are themselves not improving the way they should be. In the end, assuming that they are sabotaging me because they cannot rely on their own skills to defeat me, this simply means that the moment the sabotage fails I win regardless. Sadly, some people are more focused on tearing others down rather than building themselves up, but that''s just the truth of life and you will meet people like this everywhere you go."


    "Even if you become an Elder?" Hashimi asked.


    Jin thought about it for a second. Did being an Elder truly mean that one had defeated the darkness in one''s own soul? The inferiority complexes, the greed, the hate, the anxiety. "I don''t think you change much even if you live longer and have a higher cultivation level. One man explained it to me quite succinctly. He was 64 years old and he told me that the people he knew now at this age who were stupid, had already been stupid back then. I think most humans lack the ability to self-reflect and to intentionally change their being into something better. Rather, whenever they fail at any given task, they blame the world rather than themselves because it is easier."


    "I hope that you are wrong," the girl said to him. "Do you really like my painting?" she asked, switching the topic.


    Jin looked at it again. It was beautiful in a way. "The clashing colour composition is good, and I think that it blurs the line between reality and fiction quite well. I understand the emotion you''re trying to depict with it."


    "And what would that be?" Hashimi asked. "I just paint, I don''t think about it too much."


    "Then it''s even more impressive," Jin commented. "But, reading into it. It''s an abstracted version of the inner ring that you have recently joined. You turned it into an effigy of different perspectives and the clashing colour composition of red and blue. You feel not at ease, alienated. You have recently discovered that simply because one progresses on the path of mastery, does not mean that the people one meets there will be any better than the people one has left behind. They''ll simply be different." He hummed thoughtfully, thinking about the lessons about being a good fortune-teller that he''d read about. It mostly boiled down to making general statements. He looked at the painting again. Colours clashed in an intentional manner. Long shadows were thrown in a variety of directions. No people were visible despite the fact that they should have been seen from this hill. "In essence," he determined, "You feel alone in a world that you do not understand. Perhaps in your eyes, it disappointed some expectations."


    "Has it not? I thought that in a sect focused on creating art, people would be different. That they would understand the need to create," Hashimi said bitterly.


    "People don''t change," Jin decided and glanced at the girl. He felt awkward when he noted that there were tears building at the corners of her eyes.


    "Maybe I should stop painting if it means that someone comes so quickly to analyze me just from a glimpse."


    "It''s the misfortune of the artist. Art requires emotions, and if you''re good enough these emotions become vividly perceivable to anyone who sees it. You must create to attain fulfilment, but doing so bears your soul to the world in a manner that can be both exhilarating and unpleasant." He thought back to the Mad Monk Sect where the same misconception had happened with that disciple who had passed the test thinking that Jin must have been a horrible person to create something like Outlast. Essentially someone had misunderstood his personality based on one of his creations. "Every act you do, artistic or not, will eventually draw the judgement of your social surroundings."


    "Would you say you''re good at architectural design?" Jin suddenly asked to change the topic before Hashimi started genuinely crying.


    "Yes, it''s one of my strengths," she said with a raspy voice. "But I heard everyone here uses templates, so what''s the point?"


    Jin thought of the zombie game that he would have to create. The level design couldn''t really use the Earth-level modern architecture and appliances. The best way to collaborate with someone would be to provide someone who was good with architecture and understood the cultural influences of the Imperium with the level design and the bare bones and let them create the buildings depending on how they thought they should look. Meanwhile, Jin would work on the characters and interactions.


    "Would you be interested in hearing a story?" he asked, wondering if she was willing to hear his vision.


    "Sure, I like stories," Hashimi replied, rubbing a beige sleeve over her eyes.


    "Then let me tell you a story about the last humans, although, considering we too are humans, perhaps it''s a story of The Last of Us."

 Chapter 28: Fallacious manipulation

    Hashimi was twirling a paintbrush between her fingers, her other hand propping up her head with the elbow on the knee.


    "And then the experience can end right there, right as the experiencer is about to make the decision to either save Ellie or to try and save humanity."


    "Do you think anyone would choose to save her? It seems to me that the choice is obvious," she said. "Although it is fake," she added.


    At this, Joey could only shrug. Of course, the decision seemed obvious; after all, he''d only told her briefly the synopsis of the plot. The experiencer''s love for Ellie stemmed from the fact that they''d interacted with her, protected her and were occasionally even helped by her for many hours of gameplay, which in this world in particular, with how immersive it could be, would further blur the emotional line between reality and fiction.


    "Let''s say you are to go on a mission to capture, let''s say, a Thunderbolt Oxtail," Jin started. "You go to the mission hall, and in front of you are three disciples who would like to join you, partake in the rewards, and reduce the risk. However, you can only take one of them with you." He paused here to hold up one finger. "The first disciple comes up to you and says, "I would be the best teammate because I have challenged the Thunderbolt Oxtail 100 times in the Illusion Room, which lets you fight it in a smaller arena. I am the most likely to win a one-on-one battle." Jin held up the second finger. "The second disciple comes up and tells you. "No, I am the best choice because I have practised in an Illusion Room, which depicts the entirety of the hunting process, from the tracking to the skinning, 20 times. I am the better choice because I am more well-rounded." A third finger. "The third disciple comes up and says, "But actually, I am the best choice because I have practised against the Thunderbolt Oxtail in one-on-one combat 50 times while doing the scenario which lets one track it, kill it and then harvest it 10 times."


    "Which one do you pick?" Jin asked.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Now ask yourself this: if everyone is doing what is easy, why would you get any more success than the average disciple is getting?" Jin asked. "Most of them never get promoted to core disciple."


    "I guess you''d have to stick out, but there''s always a risk." She looked at the painting that she''d made. "The risk of people not understanding your vision."


    Unfortunately for her, Jin was not actually that stupid. He knew how to bullshit people when he wanted to.


    Hashimi seemed to think of the invitation disguised as it had been as a storytelling and theory-crafting discussion.


    "There you have it," Jin said victoriously. "I''m offering you exactly that. Not making another beast scenario."


    Jin extended a hand for her to take, and she took it. They shook.


    "What do you mean?" she asked after a minute or so of thinking.


    Jin stared at her blankly. "I guess," he eventually said.


    "So, what are you waiting for? Give me the thing."


    Jin paused thoughtfully, bringing a finger to his chin.


    The technique for transferring data to a Room and a jade slip was different.


    And he didn''t know how to do it.


    "Wait," Hashimi said with narrowed eyes. "Me neither?" she realised with an open mouth as if surprised.


    They looked at each other blankly as they came to this realisation.


    The legendary Dumbass Duo that would etch their name into the annals of history had officially formed.

 Chapter 29: Babyrage

    As Jin walked to the sect library, he pondered on how quick Lung Junior''s response or whoever was backing him had been to divest him of any possible teammates.


    The boy had only seen him at the army camp this very morning but had acted incredibly fast.


    He wondered for a second if other inner disciples had been similarly targeted. He had never asked Elder Flower how many potential allies he actually had in the inner ring. But, he was finding this faction battle between the two sets of ideas that he had been told existed to be very blurry in their lines and definitions.


    Was he not being given access to the resources of his faction because he hadn''t inserted enough into it yet? Or simply because there weren''t any to share?


    For all he knew, Elder Flower could be a strong enough combatant in relation to all the other Elders of the sect that her opinion alone meant that she was the head of a political movement. After all, no one was bothering to tell him shit.


    If that were indeed the case, then what exactly was he signing up for?


    Although, it wasn''t that bad of a deal. In the end, everyone needed a backer, and it wasn''t like these petty rivalries were going to devolve into killing. Paying people so they wouldn''t collaborate with him was a relatively minor offence.


    He walked through throngs of other disciples on the way to the library. They were acting like a hive of bees whose nest had been kicked. All agitated. Maybe this competition was a bigger deal than he thought. He ignored the odd looks he was getting, probably because he was the disciple who had been singled out as undeserving of teammates for the upcoming challenge. This was actually the reason why he was going to the library alone. Hashimi would come later, and they would first act independently in public.


    He arrived at the large and ornate building. The library for the sect techniques was the same place as the library for the Illusion Rooms. The general idea was that there was no need to split things for operational security when there was always an Elder manning the post to catch any misdemeanours.


    And even if there had been no such security, would the martial cultivators visiting their sect for a fee truly waste their time trying to steal the techniques of the Illusion Room creation rather than using the library for its intended purpose? The fact of the matter was that a single person could only master so many techniques and cultivation paths. The only sensible reason to steal the techniques of the Illusion Room Sect was if they were planning to become their direct competitor.


    However, considering that there currently was no direct competitor, the amount of time it would take to build a reputation as such utilising the very same techniques but without any of the infrastructure or historical precedent would be a thankless task.


    In this way, the Illusion Room Sect was actually one of the safest ones to be in, as they didn''t particularly have anything worth stealing.


    Considering that they were selling their services to martial cultivators for spirit stones, he sincerely doubted that the Illusion Room Sect had any more liquidity than them either. Martial cultivators were directly at the source of the cash, whereas the production sects were downstream. Who''d ever heard of the ones selling products being richer than those providing the wealth in a feudal society?


    It just didn''t add up.


    Jin entered the library through the grand doors and found himself in the hexagonal reception room. He paused in his steps as he saw himself confronted with Lung Junior, someone he hadn''t expected to see here.


    Behind the young/old man was a gaggle of other disciples, all of them wearing the non-standard disciple robes that Jin now knew, indicating that someone came from a cultivator family with their own traditions and, most importantly, their own money.


    "Alone?" Lung Junior asked with a sneer. "Let me guess, you''re here to find a Jiangshi Room and to repurpose it for the current scenario. I''m afraid to tell you that won''t work, as there have been new developments in the threat ratings of the zombies. I''ll let you figure that one out yourself." The boy pulled out a fan from a ring on his left index finger and held it up in front of his mouth to hide his giggle.


    Jin simply looked at the man and wondered if there was a way to screw up one''s cultivation that made one lose a significant amount of IQ. Unfortunately, such a simple answer would have meant that the base attributes of humanity included being smart, which he doubted.


    For some reason, the words of Sun Tzu floated through his head as Junior looked at him as if expecting tears or something. When strong, pretend to be weak.


    Jin pulled his face into a rectus of agony and fear. "Wah, I am terrified of the upcoming challenge. Whatever shall I do," he said, stretching out both his arms and weakly waving them around as if they were landed fish.


    Rather than being satisfied with his display of weakness, Junior ran red in the face.


    "You''ll see," he snarled. "Someone with no pedigree like you cannot get anywhere in this sect, or any sect," he said before rushing out of the library past Jin. He took extra effort to crash his shoulder against Jin''s as he did so.


    That particular move turned out to be quite unsuccessful as it was Junior who stumbled from the meeting of physical forces, along with all of his cronies who followed behind him and, out of obligation, committed to the same physical assault.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Jin was simply left standing there unmoved with a confused look on his face.


    Considering that his faction was the one proposing a higher focus on martial strength, had they really expected to be stronger than him? He wondered. This wasn''t Earth. Cultivators who focused on developing their physical attributes here could very easily grow as strong as a hundred men.


    "Are they dumb?" he asked himself as he continued onwards to the technique library.


    "They''ve always been like that," a voice suddenly said from beside him, causing Jin to turn his head and lock eyes with another inner disciple idling about in the relatively sparsely populated library. He found himself looking at a lanky and tall man with long brown oily hair that partially covered his eyes as well as his cheeks.


    "The whole group?" Jin asked confusedly.


    The man nodded, putting up a hand to swipe away a strand of hair, which immediately fell into the same place again. "They are all descendants of Illusion Room Sect Elders who have sired over the last millennia enough progeny to create clans which focus on different parts of the creation process. Maybe one of them gets promoted, but then a new one comes in. They''re always behaving like a group of little piranhas. Don''t underestimate them, though," the boy warned. He was just about to walk off when Jin suddenly interrupted him.


    "Hey! Don''t walk off mysteriously after giving such a vague warning. Tell me why exactly I should be careful, or don''t bother making me suspicious in the first place," he demanded.


    The disciple seemed to consider the words before nodding and crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You''re that new kid who they decided to single out by paying everyone not to collaborate with you, right? Well, then, you''ve already felt some of what they''re capable of. If they really dislike you, what they''re going to do in the future is go through your Illusion Rooms when you submit them to the library before introducing the slightly superior version, which the librarian will then have to put in the active room, whereas your creation will go in the history room. That means you earn a much smaller commission, and they''ll have to do less work."


    "And no one''s tried to stop them before?" Jin asked curiously. "There''s no Alliance of non-heritage disciples or something?"


    The other disciple shrugged. "Not that I would know; I don''t think they''d let it exist long either. They don''t harm our goal of becoming core disciples, and while they may sabotage someone every now and again, it''s just one person at a time. They''re not really worth dealing with," he said, another helpless shrug.


    "So what, I''m just the most recent sacrifice?" Jin asked dubiously. This conversation was something straight out of a nature documentary where the presenter, with a heavy British accent, said that the oldest zebra in the group would sacrifice itself to the lions so that the others could get away. Of course, the only reason the older zebra was caught was that it couldn''t run so fast and so long anymore, and maybe one of the younger ones had given it a helpful nudge to fall down.


    "I wouldn''t say that; maybe it''s just a fixation. They''ll leave you alone if you don''t react long enough. They get bored very easily. I think it''s due to a life of easy stimulation," the disciple muttered. "Anyway, I should be going. Good luck out there."


    "Thanks for that advice, I guess," Jin said begrudgingly, shaking his head. It was a good warning, although he did wonder how exactly a bunch of spoiled young masters would go through Dragonslayer Ornstein and Outlast when he decided to add them to the library. Maybe he was underestimating then? Surely, they had some skills if they were in the inner ring.


    The thing with copying someone else''s Illusion was that one had to experience its entire complexity first to make the copy. Everyone essentially coded their Illusions in a language that was incomprehensible to others, unless, of course, they were collaborating from the get-go and made sure to be at least legible to the other person they were working with. Such was life when all coding essentially ran through one''s brain, and thus also one''s culture, history and opinions first, in a way. The best encoding, the entirety of your life.


    Jin didn''t really imagine that the group of heritage cultivators that he had encountered would do very well against Dragonslayer Ornstein, or Outlast for that matter, despite them technically being on a higher level than the mortals it was designed for. They seemed like the type of people whose only superpower was nepotism, not any other sort of mental or physical quality. To copy his rightfully gained copyright infringements, they''d have to play them long enough to discover every variation and interaction through several playthroughs. It was still a simpler process than coming up with something on your own, but not if you struggled with the difficulty level of what you were copying.


    In the end, there was nothing he could do about it, so he simply shrugged and headed towards the library section, which held the techniques of the sect.


    Perhaps in martial sects, this part of the library would have been oriented towards different combat techniques held in exactly the same type of jade slips that he found opening up before him as he entered the large space which consisted of three entire floors.


    However, Jin had already glanced in here once and had found a disastrously low amount of actual combat techniques. The slips were mostly concerned with showcasing the variety of ways in which one could collaborate with others, the most simplistic of which was the memory-sharing technique. It was a technique that one also needed to record the memories of various monster battles that one had fought. Or to decipher the memories of someone who had fought the monsters for you if you had paid them for that.


    Jin already knew how to read jade slips like that; he just needed to learn how to create them.


    Considering it was one of the most basic techniques that inner disciples needed to know. Jin only needed to take five steps inwards before he could take one of the heavily inscribed slips of jade from the wooden shelf it rested on to take a closer look.


    It was interesting how, in this world, without having discovered electricity, people had figured out so many other ways to store information with the use of magic. He could store information in his mind, he could put it in a Room, and he could also put it in a jade slip, or at least that was what he was here to learn.


    A bit awkwardly at first, Jin inserted his qi into the magical slot that the jade represented before finally managing to gain access and mentally blanking out to review the data inside.


    He wondered what Elder Flower was doing while he was running around at her orders, working like a maniac. Probably just relaxing. Relaxing sure as hell had been the only thing he''d ever seen her do at the Mad Monks Sect. And that had been someone else''s territory. How bad would she get when she was at home and feeling comfortable?


    -/-


    Unaware of the current slander allegations against her work ethic, Elder Flower idly swung her sword to deflect a black scale the size of a carriage wheel flying straight to her neck. She used the kinetic force of the block to backflip away and stabilise herself from the surprise attack.


    Standing on top of a snowy mountain, reaching way past the clouds and almost touching the line where the blue of the sky became the black of space, she frowned as she beheld the owner of the flying scale reveal himself to her as he flew from beneath the mountain to just above it, thus unveiling his whole body to her eyes.


    First came the black lizard-like head, as big as a house, with a wicked row of sharp teeth that were grinning an ugly smile at her. Then came the long serpentine body, spanning endlessly like a valley between a mountain chain. In the end, came a tail that ended in a halberd-like attachment, swinging dangerously in her direction.


    "So you can block the paltriest of my attacks. But, little cultivator reaching for the heavens, you think yourself ready to face the true eternal darkness?" the gigantic flying demon mocked, its presence suffocating any joy and happiness from the surrounding area, like a black hole of misery.


    Flower frowned up at the snake-like demon who dwarfed her in size like a skyscraper did a mud-house. "Demon general Hao Shun, what a pleasant surprise," she said mockingly. "I wouldn''t boast just yet. Didn''t you know that being bigger only means you''ll fall harder?"


    The demon''s acid green eyes narrowed themselves at her from where their owner was placidly winding and unwinding in midair. They were almost as big as Flower, those eyes. The hideous mouth beneath opened and unleashed a roar that started an avalanche across the entire mountain range. Tsunamis of snow rushed towards the earth below, shattering the previous quiet only interrupted by the harsh winds which would cut the flesh of any non-cultivator to shreds.


    The thunderous sound of snow crashing on rock and glacier''s cracking was then muted by the swing of Flower''s sword and the beam of darkness escaping that jagged maw meeting in midair and exploding with the force of a nuclear bomb.


    The world shattered around the Elder and the General as they met in the skies in open combat.


    -/-


    "Lazy bitch," Jin quietly complained to himself with shifty eyes in the library so that nobody would hear him, even if they wouldn''t technically know he was cussing out an Elder.

 Chapter 30: Perspectives

    Flower barely dodged another one of the darkness beams and adjusted her body specifically so that it would give her a minor laceration on the torso and cut in the cloth of her dress.


    The strategy of dealing with the large black serpentine demon general was simple. First, one needed to lull him into a sense of security.


    ¡°Do you think that dodging will win you anything on this day?¡± the gigantic snake roared as he rushed through the air after her while she continued jumping away. ¡°The only thing that running away in a fight gets you is a tired death!¡±


    Flower sent some restorative qi into the wound that had just been inflicted to prevent the darkness infection that came with the attacks. Then, she had to quickly parry another large black scale with her sword.


    The second part of the strategy was to frustrate the demon general, who was known for his short temper.


    After a few more jumps in the air, entire mountain chains underneath them becoming decimated as the black beams shattered their peaks causing avalanches of rock rather than snow, the general seemed to finally have enough.


    ¡°You otherwise wouldn¡¯t be worthy of this spell, but seeing as all you do is run away and waste my time, I¡¯ll use it anyway!¡± the flying snake roared with its house-sized head. Flower meanwhile stopped in mid-air to concentrate, gathered her qi, and cycled it through her nascent soul to taint it with her dao.


    From the outside, it would simply look like she was preparing to face a bigger attack and strengthening her defences. But actually, she was preparing a counter-attack.


    The snake clacked shut its jaw and through his native tongue of demonic gibberish the words that Flower understood due to her own study of the language escaped. One had to understand one¡¯s enemy after all.


    ¡°A World of Darkness extinguishes all Hope,¡± Demon General Chihuan Ru Chong, incanted with a more serious voice than he had used up until now.


    Flower could see with her enhanced senses attained by forming a nascent soul the qi inside of the gigantic monster surging before spreading outwards to encapsulate a radius of several dozen miles.


    It was exactly at this moment of expansion that she sent through the domain the general was creating a small sting of illusion to make it seem like she was looking around in confusion rather than forming her own hand seals. Her sword was clasped in her hands pointing downwards. Her fore and middle fingers clasped against each other while the thumbs pointed towards herself. The last two fingers were intertwined and locked in a fist.


    ¡°False World, Clashing Nirvana of the Heaven¡¯s Lament¡± she muttered quietly and took over the reality in a radius of approximately 5 square miles. The globe she created confined herself and the general.


    As she activated the technique, her awareness split into two parts. In one part, she could see the reality as unaffected by her technique, and then in the other, she could see the reality that she would soon change. As darkness expanded all around her, she first removed it as if using an ink eraser on a messy scroll in the False World. Thus, at least in the bubble of her own technique, she could see, feel, taste and hear. However, in the real world, darkness was all that she could perceive.


    ¡°Now that you¡¯ve entered the domain of darkness, you cannot run anymore because you cannot see where you¡¯re going,¡± the general said seriously all of a sudden. ¡°You should be honoured that you have the privilege of witnessing this before your death,¡± he said, and Flower suddenly felt how, in the real world, her entire body and soul were suddenly squelched together into a small ball of flesh, blood and bone, the size of a marble. In the False World, she simply counteracted the effect of the localised crush and set herself to changing the structure of the world around the floating general, she did that by jumping forward and putting more force into her sword than she could reasonably create in reality and promptly decapitating the illusion of the demon to whom she had sent the illusion of her death, as she had seen it in the real world with a microscopic delay. The head tumbled off the body, and they both started falling towards the ground.


    Then, dead in the real world, and alive and victorious in the false one she ended the technique. The two realities crashed together with all the violence of an exploding star. They fought for dominance and the only reason Flower¡¯s will was not crushed like the bug that she was in comparison to the will of the heavens was because she was only trying to affect such a small part of the universe.


    In the end, the two forces remained deadlocked, and she suddenly felt her consciousness cease to exist as she lost the gamble of how much she had tried to affect.


    A second later she woke up in the testing room with the sect leader, looking with some frustration down at the glowing Illusion Room she held in her hands.


    ¡°Five-mile radius, a simple modification of speed and cutting power of my slash with a negation of the sensory deprivation effect and the instant death compression. Failure,¡± she reported.


    The old woman slowly nodded her head with a contemplative look in her eyes, her elaborate beige robes staying completely still during the action.


    ¡°Always arrogant enough to fall for the simple trick when he drops his guard but powerful enough that it doesn¡¯t matter anyway,¡± the old woman complained.


    ¡°We have to make it work. He¡¯ll fall for it once,¡± Flower said. ¡°I¡¯ll go in again.¡±


    Sect Leader Shun shook her head. ¡°You cannot. False World, Clashing Nirvana of the Heaven¡¯s Lament, is a scripture that surpasses the small reality of the Illusion Room and brings large-scale consequences into the real world, too. You will try again in 24 hours. Perhaps by then, you will have thought of something else other than just rushing in with your sword.¡±


    Flower scowled. ¡°You know I had to save as much qi as possible to even have a chance.¡±


    Shun shook her head. ¡°It is pointless until you succeed. I discovered this weakness of the general 5,000 years ago when he decimated the entirety of the Eastern Brigade in the Great Wars of Darkness. That minuscule one-second window in which one can entrap him in an illusion when he is feeling particularly aggravated¡­ I have waited so long to use this information for the reputation of our sect, but I can wait a few hundred more years.


    ¡°Respectfully speaking,¡± Flower pointed out. ¡°You will ascend if you wish it or not.¡±


    ¡°I can hold it back for a few more decades, at least.¡± The sect leader dismissed with a wave of her hand. ¡°However, fate does seem to be weaving a tapestry in which the old guard will be replaced by the new. Me, Mad Shen, and others. The world is renewing itself in preparation for a new conflict. That is why you must be ready. Not being capable enough is not an excuse for failure,¡± the woman said harshly.


    ¡°Is that why you¡¯re still hedging your bets on Lung? That¡¯s why he knew so quickly to sabotage my new acquisition in the inner ring?¡±


    ¡°Until you bring a decisive victory, there will be nothing to base your reforms on; you will simply remain a dreamer,¡± the sect leader reminded. ¡°Until then, I shall hedge my bets so the likelihood of the sect surviving is as high as possible in my absence.¡±


    ¡°Lung would condemn us to ruin with his shortsightedness!¡± Flower exclaimed angrily, thinking of the idiot who thought that endlessly reducing the quality of what they created would not bring rise to some sort of competition or loss of revenue.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ¡°Lung would make our sect insignificant enough that there would be no point in erasing it. The tallest nail is the one that gets hammered in. If you want to resist the hammer, become strong enough that you can actually do so instead of only saying that you would manage somehow,¡± the sect leader replied harshly.


    Flower looked angrily around the large wooden room covered in seals and insignia which protected the mountain they inhabited from any errant attack a high-level cultivator might throw out in desperation at what they still thought was an illusion.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be going then. There¡¯s no point in talking to you until you get what you want, as always,¡± she said bitterly and made to leave.


    ¡°Have a nice day,¡± the sect leader said with a fake smile.


    Once Flower had left the room, the old woman shakily raised a hand to her face to gently run it down her wrinkled visage.


    It was getting harder to resist the pull of the heavens. She would have to go soon, but the sect was still split right down the middle. Would it be her legacy that would finally lead to the Illusion Room Sect being doomed to inconsequentiality?


    She refused to accept it, and she refused to go to the beyond before her foolish granddaughter was finally strong enough to shoulder the burden that she thought she could manage, not knowing that it would first deform her shoulders before destroying her soul.


    ¡°Children,¡± she scoffed and went to return to her chambers to meditate in peace.


    There were so many moving pieces that she needed clarity to guide. However, one could never predict everything.


    In the end, she could only hope that the next irregularity would be in their favour rather than against.


    -/-


    Sect Leader Shen calmly watched Elder Zhang enter his personal quarters while stroking his long white beard. The old man would never admit that this was a self-soothing gesture, which revealed him to be more sensitive than it would be beneficial to be perceived as.


    ¡°Old friend, so nice of you to come in person instead of talking to one of my dolls,¡± Shen rasped with an unused and wooden voice.


    The Elder looked around the large room before nodding and bowing.


    Shen didn¡¯t know why Zhang bothered, the room hadn¡¯t changed in hundreds of years. A large circular affair of pure stone with no windows and holding within it an absolutely hyperbolical amount of sand going several hundreds of metres deep into the earth below. Darkness was his friend for now.


    ¡°It is a pleasant enough walk,¡± the Elder said while trying to keep a placid face.


    None of the members of the sect liked seeing their leader in his true form. The form of a large tree with a weeping face etched on the front of its trunk, roots reaching so far into the ground but finding no sustenance and withered leaves hanging on only through the sheer power of the Dao and the internal qi of a high-level cultivator.


    ¡°What news do you bring to justify bringing in that small bit of fresh air and sunlight that you did?¡± Shen asked curiously. It was not very often that there was a need for anyone in the sect to inform him of things, considering how many of himself were currently running around.


    Even now, currently concentrating on the conversation as he was, he still saw through their eyes, spoke with their voices and moved with their bodies. He felt his roots stir at the light traces of air, sunlight and earth qi sticking to Elder Zhang and instinctually repressed the growth.


    He progressed that one tiniest bit towards ascension. His soul ached at having to reject it.


    ¡°I wanted to say that the thing you¡¯ve been waiting for. Perhaps it has happened,¡± the Elder started his eyes suddenly growing nostalgic and hopeful.


    ¡°Deliverance, worldly peace and harmony?¡± Shen asked with his cracked, barked lips.


    ¡°Hope, rather,¡± Elder Zhang replied. He was an Elder who had much to do with hope; after all, he was the one who cared for their outer disciples.


    ¡°Speak to me then of this hope. I presume you mean the newest addition to our family?¡± She asked. In the past, there had been many more of him present everywhere in the sect however, in consideration of his incoming departure, he had been weaning the structure of their organisation from his permanent presence and had not thought it justified to keep one of his bodies in the outer ring when he didn¡¯t even keep one in the inner one anymore. That scary little boy from the Illusion Room Sect had been the last one to receive his private tutelage on that particular part of the mountain, and it would likely stay that way.


    Unless¡­


    ¡°The newest disciple, Xiao Yung. He is progressing at a staggering pace. While I will say that his mentality has been strengthened and prepared for the challenges ahead by the trials he underwent to become our disciple, I do not think that we can put his talent only at the feet of the quest that he has undergone. There is something more,¡± Elder Zhang reported contently. ¡°He understands the mantras rather than just reciting them, fights with the staff rather than just using it, talks with his fellow disciples, and understands their woes despite not being from a similar enough background to have naturally developed that empathy. In other words, he is putting in effort but he is also a genius.¡±


    ¡°Curious,¡± Shen muttered. ¡°Not to say that you are not observant enough, but when I talked with the boy, I saw a hidden darkness in him. It was a small thing bound by the reality of his station, but I saw it unfurling and grasping at the things around him already when he changed from being a mere mortal to a mortal who might one day not be one anymore.¡±


    ¡°He has counterintuitive ideas about how cultivators should police each other for the protection of mortals,¡± Elder Zhang admitted. ¡°However, he does not yet understand the will of the heavens and how futile it is to fight against them. Of course, perhaps if they do bless his path, it is the correct one, and if they don¡¯t play, I imagine the future him will understand not to pursue things further.¡±


    ¡°Interesting, but not something that changes anything. I will continue waiting and watching to see if he is the one or if he is not¡­¡± the sect leader trailed off in deep thought. ¡°Is there anything in particular you wanted to achieve by giving me this information?¡± he asked straight out.


    The Elder nodded awkwardly as if he were a child whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar. ¡°Perhaps he needs personal guidance. I know that I¡¯m not the most suited for developing talents but rather someone who is simply good at the administrative part of it.¡±


    ¡°Do not count yourself short Zhang, you have nurtured many a seed for the sect. However, I do not think that I will listen to your request, because other than surviving that abomination of an entrance exam, the boy has not proven himself yet. I have limited energy and capacity to stay out in  the sunlight and it would be cruel to a child to bring them here to witness my frail form.¡±


    ¡°You are anything but frail!¡± exclaimed Elder Zhang, reassuring in a rush as if afraid that Shen¡¯s feelings would be hurt.


    The human tree chuckled. ¡°Frailty in the sense that if I were to exercise too much of my might, I would disappear. Not to die, of course, but from this world, abandoning the legacy entrusted to me before it is ready. No,¡± he suddenly decided. ¡°Let the boy prove himself first and think that he has earned his privileges rather than simply being gifted with them and not appreciating the opportunity. There will be a war at the borders soon; it would be a good test, would it not?¡± he asked.


    ¡°But if something were to happen to him,¡± Elder Zhang started cautiously.


    ¡°You can watch him from the shadows and participate in the extermination of these so-called zombies. Alternatively, he could also go to the delayed upcoming tournament.¡±


    ¡°The next one?¡± the Elder wondered. ¡°He¡¯s not nearly ready enough, and Elder Flower said that her boy will also be participating. The inner disciples of the non-martial sect go into the outer bracket. I do not think it is wise for them to meet. Xiao¡¯s mind is still overcast by the shadow of his test.¡±


    Sect Leader Shan would have wanted to shrug but was unable to. ¡°Our weapons are grown with care and diligence, sunlight and water. However, let us not be deluded enough to refuse the reality that one needs a certain brutality to transform the scales of the great heavenly snake into armour.¡±


    It was here that Elder Zhang proposed something out of character. ¡°Perhaps he can do both then,¡± the man decided. ¡°If it would make you feel better to offer him your guidance,¡± he finished.


    ¡°Let us do just that and see how the tapestry unfolds then.¡±


    -/-


    In an underground cave far far away from human civilisation, in the great desert of the east, in an underground cave housing a large lake, there occurred a meeting between a trio of independent cultivators.


    All three of them were famous, their names being whispered in the highest echelons of power in the cultivation world. One was known for his prowess in battle, one for her wisdom and one for their spiritual teachings.


    However, what no one else knew about these three figures was that they had not always been human.


    In that underground cave which was large enough to house a lake and high enough to erect a skyscraper; the churning of flesh and the breaking of bones suddenly resounded and all three of the human figures were no more.


    On the rocky shore of the underground lake now stood a trio of large beasts. One was a gigantic dark green turtle with a shining emerald embedded in its forehead.


    To its right, calmly packing at its feathers, was a brilliantly white crane which had eyes like placid water and as deep as the unexplored sea.


    The last of the trio was a mighty red dragon as long as a mountain was tall and as thick as the great icy river of the North.


    ¡°To feel once again the true body is a pleasure that I have waited a very long time for,¡± the crane suddenly spoke in a gentle voice from which it was hard to discern any specific gender.


    ¡°The longer one does not experience a pleasure, the higher the intensity of it,¡± the turtle joked.


    ¡°Would you enjoy it then if I buried you underground in your human form for thousands of years?¡± the dragon asked with his roaring voice. ¡°Get to the point. Why have you summoned us? Some of us have things to get back to other than just aimlessly flying around or tending to dead wood.¡±


    ¡°The spirits are telling me that a new cycle will soon begin. A new opportunity,¡± the crane said.


    ¡°The books are in agreement. What has once already come shall repeat itself once more. The great changes are always heralded by the same events.¡±


    ¡°And what are your genius plans to make humanity coexist with us intelligent beasts this time?¡± the dragon mocked. ¡°Will you give them more teachings that they are too stupid to understand or create new spiritual guidelines which they refuse to use because they would rather muck about in the mud? Let me take this cycle. Let me conquer them, and let me create peace through war.¡±


    ¡°We agreed that every cycle would have one leading thought behind it. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as the humans would say,¡± the turtle said humorously. ¡°And if I remember correctly, you agreed with our reasoning all those years ago that you shall take the last of the three cycles so that you do not destroy everything and leave us with nothing to work with. Would you seek to change the agreement?¡±


    The dragon reared back its gigantic head a bit before grudgingly shaking it. ¡°What is the plan then, oh wise one? I think we have all learned already in this cycle that understanding does not presage peace. The spiritual leaders failed to bring about real change, drowning in the piles of shit those cultivators call societies.¡±


    ¡°Then perhaps in this one, we shall see if a common enemy can unite all living and intelligent beings despite their species,¡± the turtle said.


    ¡°They have been fighting against the demons for an eternity now. I would say they¡¯ve had common enemy enough,¡± the crane interjected with ruffled feathers.


    The turtle gave the turtle equivalent of a shrug, which was hard to describe otherwise. ¡°The demons are as predictable and weak as they are evil by nature. Perhaps humanity needs a more complex challenge.¡±


    ¡°What do you need us to do then?¡± the dragon asked in a bored voice. ¡°Just be ready to listen to me in the next cycle if this doesn¡¯t work out.¡±


    ¡°I do not need you to do anything that you have not already been doing; one could say that the die has already been cast.¡± The turtle chuckled as if laughing at a private joke.


    ¡°You and your dead languages,¡± the dragon snorted. ¡°Do you think we do not understand your japes? No, they are simply dull, like you. But, we agreed, and it is your turn. Let us see then what your particular brand hubris will create.¡±


    ¡°I hope that your plan succeeds my friend, whatever it may be, I tire of this life of ours.¡± the crane said, ¡°It would be refreshing to change, to experience rebirth once again.¡±


    ¡°If I¡¯m correct in my calculations, then you doubtlessly shall,¡± the turtle reassured.

 Chapter 31: Its a different sort of trauma, trauma, trauma

    The contest to decide which Illusion Room would be used as an instruction tool for the army had been announced on incredibly short notice. It was matched only by the short amount of time that people had to complete their submissions before the deadline.


    It was thus not particularly fortuitous, that Jin, from his first visit to the library to look at the transmission techniques onwards, had needed four days to learn how to encrypt information onto jade slips to allow file transference between him and Hashimi.


    The girl meanwhile had needed five days to do the same, which was necessary since at some point she would also be sending data the other way around rather than just unravelling it.


    While they''d been working on this rather unfortunately necessary project, it had soon crystallised that to stop potential further sabotage by Lung Junior, it was best to not let it be easily perceivable that they were working together.


    This was why the two of them couldn''t use any of the public rooms set aside for collaboration and were forced to make do with one of their apartments.


    Considering that Hashimi''s was filled with too many paintings and the supplies necessary for creating them to walk more than one metre in any direction, the dubious honour of hosting the unlikely duo fell on Jin''s personal space.


    It wasn''t a big sacrifice of course, hardly mentionable as long as it was towards the goal of ultimate victory. Even if he sometimes grumbled that the girl forgot to take off her shoes when entering.


    Scratch that, not sometimes but always.


    "For fuck''s sake! How many times do I have to tell you," he started from where he was sitting down at his simple wooden work desk, scribbling notes into a large roll of parchment as he saw the tall girl enter from his periphery.


    Just because he''d been stuck learning the information transmission technique for so long didn''t mean he could get other stuff done in the meantime.


    The dark-skinned girl paused in her steps with her dirty feet raised in the air, set to take another crushing step against the hygiene of mankind. She cringed, like a child being caught in the act, before hopping around madly, falling over twice and finally managing to take off the offensive footwear.


    "Sorry about that!" she said loudly and came over to sit next to Jin, reading the words he was writing down over his shoulder.


    "Did anyone see you?" the boy muttered as he quickly finished up a paragraph.


    "Yeah, Arshat saw us again. I''m pretty sure he thinks we''re sleeping together," she said blithely, causing Jin to sputter. If he''d been drinking water he would have done a spit-take.


    "He winked at me," Hashimi added.


    Jin''s face looked like he had bitten into a lemon. "Well, I guess it''s better for him to think that than to know that we''re working together," he muttered awkwardly.


    The dark-skinned turned towards him with an offended look. "Is it so gross for you to imagine this body?" she said running her two hands down her curves which were hidden primarily by the beige robe that most inner disciples wore, not by their lack of existence.


    Had he been back in America Jin would have pleaded the fifth at this point, unfortunately, there was no such easy escape available here. Especially when faced with someone who''d badger his nerves out of existence if he didn''t give her a sufficient answer.


    "You''re like a sister to me?" he tried weakly, only to get a deadpan glare in return.


    "Yesterday, you said that you''re glad I''m not your sister, considering how you never would have gotten any peace until you''d moved out."


    "Well, to be fair," Jin argued. "That is generally how people feel about their actual sisters."


    Hashimi gave him a dubious look. "Hmmmmm," she hummed noncommittally. "Whatever you say, virgin."


    Jin gave her a flat stare. He was very much beyond the age in which accusations of virginity would make him flustered.


    He''d had sex in his last life, lots of it, in fact, despite the pandemic having put a bit of a damper on it in the later stages.


    He suddenly remembered that technically, however, inhabiting a new body, ¡­ that he had never¡­ he pulled the face.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Hashimi''s eyes widened as they locked in on him. Her hands shot up to her mouth as she gasped dramatically. "No," she whispered as if shaken by the insinuation.


    One should note here that while cultivators and nobles didn''t partake as much in sexual and romantic acts due to their inherent disinterest and prudishness, people with commoner backgrounds like he and Hashimi had often done the deed already.


    At the end of the day, even if the concept of marriage still existed well and good, that didn''t mean that people couldn''t experiment a bit before getting hitched for life with one person.


    "Leave me alone," Jin grumbled, not having any proof in this world that he had touched the pussy.


    "Come on, Jin, there''s nothing to be ashamed of, although maybe on our next trip outside of the sect, we can pass by a bigger town that has an establishment where we could find someone to take care of that last bit of¡­" she trailed off. Likely because of the look that Jin was leveraging at her.


    It was a gaze of sheer disgust at the suggestion. Going to a brothel in a world where slavery existed simply meant becoming a rapist. The fact that the suggestion itself was coming from a woman just went to show how sexism was often perpetuated also by the oppressed gender in any given society.


    Hashimi of course misunderstood his look of horror. She looked around shiftily, as if afraid that someone was going to overhear her next words. She leaned in to whisper closer to his ear. "Or do you prefer¡­" She put a big pause. "The flute?" she asked innocently with a blushing face.


    "I will literally punch you," Jin said calmly. It was smart of Hashimi to notice that if his anger was cold, then the possibility of retaliation was actually much more likely than if it had been hot.


    She mimed locking her mouth shut and leaned back in her chair. "It''s okay. We don''t have to talk about it," she said magnanimously. It would have been believable if she had not then spent the rest of the session giving him pitying looks.


    -/-


    One of the integral parts of the emotional effect that The Last of Us had on the player was created by the opening cutscene and the gameplay in which one played as Sarah, the daughter of the main protagonist Joel.


    It was here that as one walked around the average American suburban house of the family, while the father was gone for work or other such things, one discovered hints about the incoming zombie apocalypse. Hospitalisation and street violence rates were soaring, and when you turned on the TV, the news reporters were talking about what seemed to be a fantastically unreal situation.


    It was then that Joel returned, panicked and one got to play as a concerned father trying to evacuate his daughter from the dead zone that their hometown had become alongside his brother and their truck.


    Then, in a confrontation with a soldier sent to create a buffer zone around the city, which was essentially gone, Sarah was shot and died in Joel''s, the player''s, arms.


    It was this piece of initial trauma which was integral to understanding the tragic existence of the main character. Losing your child and then becoming a numb adult with non-existent coping mechanisms was the normal progression of such an event.


    Then later being forced to work with another girl oddly similar to the daughter one had lost, naturally led to the opening up of the previously closed emotional pathways and it was this slow recovery from the trauma which made the last scene of the game so impactful. Joel had to choose to either let Ellie die for a chance to defeat the virus or to save her and potentially doom humanity.


    Of course, the entirety of the beginning cutscene would have to be changed dramatically to fit into the cultivation land structure.


    The entire house that Sarah and Joey were first seen in had to change to something more palatable to the mediaeval Asian palate of the world that Jin now inhabited.


    It was here that the information-sharing technique both he and Hashimi had learned in the library came in handy. Joey was able to model a minimal requirement of structure that the scene and the gameplay needed in the introduction. Namely, the fact that it started inside a house with an open patio (a zombie would later crash through it). Then the streets which led to the eventual encounter with a soldier sent to quarantine the town.


    As an interface between the two of them served as was usual in such cases, an Illusion Room in which they had both logged their signature for admin access.


    Jin had dumped the base model of the level design into it so that Hashimi could start working on it and had then started working on the character design and the physics of the environment.


    It was here that Hashimi impressed him because only in a few hours she had managed to create a rough 3D sketch of how the entire thing should look like.


    Jin dropped into the still somewhat shoddy rendition of the now higher class house in which the subject would appear the first time they entered the Illusion Room and quickly shuffled himself through the sequences that led to the end of the cutscene at which Sarah died.


    "Oh, you just died in my arms tonight," the boy quietly sang to himself as he gladly admitted that he wouldn''t have been able to do what Hashimi had accomplished even if he''d had twice the amount of time.


    Not only was she somewhat artistically talented which made the entire thing look better than he likely could have made it, but she stuck to the briefing with remarkable dedication.


    The house looked lived in, but not like there had been too much effort put into doing so.


    The roads in which the escape scenes occurred were sufficiently muddy and dirty to justify their use by what was the equivalent of medieval peasants with perhaps Roman levels of technology, while the cart that replaced the pick-up truck in the whole thing was rough and prone to splintering as one would expect.


    The horses and the horrified masses filling the currently empty streets were up to Jin. He''d be able to reuse the movement models in the original game but would have to reskin the clothing of the people to fit the times.


    "Very good," he complimented as he exited the illusion.


    For her part, Hashimi was already starting to look drained even though they hadn''t even properly started the marathon yet, but the genuine compliment seemed to brighten her mood and she gave him a bright smile. She wasn''t a real game dev yet, obviously. A true game developer could marathon for 72 hours and the only thing that made them smile was black coffee with a dash of angustine bitters.


    However, in an odd twisted expectations the smile that the girl was forming turned into a worried frown.


    "Looking at the beginning part again, I have to ask. Is it necessary to have the daughter die in the arms of the experiencer before we start with the rest of the narrative?" she asked. "While we''ve made good progress in the last few hours, this will still need at least one more day to complete. I''m afraid that we might be losing too much time we could be spending doing something else."


    Jin for his part nodded sagely as she worded her genuine and justified concerns.


    The truth of the matter was that he knew exactly what kind of impact The Last of Us should have on the player. It shouldn''t be any different here. It triggered all of the same emotions which weren''t exclusive to Earth''s modern era. Love for potential children and the human race and whatnot and not wanting it to go extinct. Being able to form parasocial relationships with pieces of media would, if anything, be even more powerful here since people hadn''t experienced it before and because the Illusion Room, in comparison to a game, was fully immersive. They would smell Sarah, they would feel the slick blood escaping the dying child''s body, and they would hear her ragged last breaths as the light left her eyes and her body turned cold.


    The main issue, in this case, was that while he could change the surroundings and the character designs to fit more into the settings that he now inhabited, he didn''t have time to create other narrative threats to build the necessary tension and emotional immersion that the beginning had seemed to create back in his world.


    In the end, he had just about enough time to mirror essentially from the game everything that he could, and maybe then later he could start adding his own things. However, individuating the product based on personal preferences, beyond the necessary ones of setting and character design could also go very wrong. After all, the game had worked very well in his last life. Why change it?


    For the moment, the only thing he could do to assuage Hashimi''s worries was to nod seriously at her. "I assure you, Sarah''s death and its realism are absolutely integral to the plot." He silently sent an apology to all the mortals in the army who actually had daughters, or children at all, and how this scene would likely impact them a bit more than it did the average virgin gamer on Earth.

 Chapter 32: Talk Shit or get Shittalked

    The first problem that came up when he and Hashimi started working together on their version of The Last of Us was whether they should leave the cutscenes as they were to include Sarah''s death and other such things.


    In the end, Jin decided that when stealing someone''s intellectual property that had worked very well in another world, there was no point in changing more stuff than one had to. They were already going to have to change all of the character designs and the architecture; if they started changing the narrative and the missions (beyond the necessary), they would really be putting themselves up against the wall and pulling the trigger. At that point, they might as well make their own thing.


    With that settled, Jin started working on the character designs and Hashimi on the spatial requirements, both their paths intersecting bit by bit as they progressed through the beginning stages of the narrative.


    There was only one issue left.


    The enemies.


    Jin had gone to the army encampment a few more times to check up on the zombies there and had confirmed that at no point had they started to change from the very basic version that everyone knew and loved. They shuffled, they walked, they swung their hands in wide motions and tried to bite you.


    Suffice it to say they were a bit less complicated than the zombies in The Last of Us who went through a variety of stages depending on how long the corpse had been infected by the aggressive fungi which had been the cause of the apocalypse and had spread across the world with the globalised flour shipments.


    It was here that Jin had a choice to make. Simplifying the zombie enemies for the entirety of the experience would necessitate some light changes but nothing groundbreaking. In his opinion, however, it would detract from the whole thing and make it less¡­ engaging.


    He had another option then, the option to simply leave it as it was.


    After thinking about it for a few days as they finished modelling the starter town of post-apocalypse Boston and the first few missions where nothing came up that necessitated a decision, he came to an interesting conclusion.


    He needed to participate in this challenge partially because Elder Flower wanted him to, partially because he wanted to advance his career and partially because it was just a good thing to do.


    However, his work was already leaning in a different direction than most other disciples were probably going to take. He couldn''t imagine that anyone else would create a narrative piece. They would likely just go for an endless horde of zombies, focusing their energy primarily on the combat mechanics.


    Jin was doing something completely different that would hopefully help soldiers in another way. It would make them more experienced in a variety of situations, and underscore the gravity of the situation, of course, it would also give them some fighting experience.


    Considering that there was no known cure for the process of zombification, and cultivators likely wouldn''t care that much if the mortal world collapsed under the disease as long as they could keep cultivating in their mountains, The Last of Us captured one of the potential futures that could arise if humanity fended off the border incursion, but let the virus rampage through its population.


    It would never happen exactly like The Last of Us foretold, but the gist of a possibility was there. Enough to create fear, at least.


    Anyway, the realisation that Jin had come to was the fact that he was already doing something completely different, so why would he stick to depicting the zombies exactly as they were in reality?


    At the end of the day, once you were doing something different, you had to completely lean into it and succeed or fail on your own merit. You didn''t compromise a vision just because someone might not like it or appreciate it as long as the internal logic behind the value was sound. If it failed, maybe the world just hadn''t been ready.


    Additionally, at the end of the day, making a variety of zombies would make the game more fun to play and the experience more rewarding to go through. This meant that even if he didn''t win the competition, he could very well put the scenario into the library and start receiving sect points from people who went to try it out.


    And that was why he decided to keep the game as it was, at least in the sense of the zombies. The only thing he removed was the story of how it was the fungi that caused the infection and simply left the whole thing unexplained.


    Nobody knew yet in what way the virus functioned so it didn''t matter as much how he picked its symptoms. However, spreading false information by making a fake backstory to the infection was probably not a great idea.


    -/-


    Jin curiously tilted his head as he walked into the clearing where back in the early days of his inner disciplehood he had met Elder Flower for combat training.


    The woman was waiting for him just as she had been all those months ago and the only difference was that to his eyes she looked to be a bit fatigued.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    He remorsefully hung his head as he realised that despite how much he liked to slander her in his mind about how she wasn''t doing much, as an Elder she surely had responsibilities that required an exertion of her mental and physical energies. Maybe the sect leader had asked her to bring her a cup of water.


    "Elder Flower," he greeted, coming to a stop in the middle of the grassy clearing to look up at the woman sitting in a lotus position on the large grey boulder under the tree with her head propped on a hand.


    "Jin," she replied. "How is the project going?" she asked.


    The inner disciple, seeing an opportunity to communicate his woes, crossed his arms and sighed demonstratively. "Did you know that Lung Junior paid the inner disciples I was interested in working with to not collaborate with me?"


    "You do know that his name isn''t Lung Junior, right?" Elder Flower asked, interrupting the direction of the conversation.


    Jin blinked In surprise. "Well, yes, I just don''t know his actual name. Do you?"


    An awkward silence passed through the clearing for a few seconds before Elder Flower awkwardly coughed into her hand. "Anyway, yes, these are the sorts of tactics you can expect from the noble faction."


    Jin held up a hand and gave it a twirl, "And this, is there anything I could maybe do about that so I don''t get sabotaged in the future?" he asked.


    Elder Flower tilted her head for a second, seemingly deep in thought, before nodding once. "Not really," she said. "It''s not like they''re not allowed to pay people to do stuff. Also, it doesn''t do much. I found that people who sabotage others this way generally waste time they could have spent improving their actual project. In a way, they drag you down, but they also drag you down themselves, which means that you end up on the same level in the end. You could have both delivered a better Illusion Room had there been no sabotage, but there''s nothing you can do about the small-mindedness of other people."


    "So I should just," Jin trailed off. "Turn the other cheek?"


    At this particular phrasing, the woman gave him a confused look. "What cheek? Just get promoted to core disciple before him and then corner him into receiving some pointers. A black eye should solve the problem for future inner disciples who have to share a ring with him."


    On the outside, Jin nodded thoughtfully as if this suggestion made perfect sense. On the inside, however, he threw up his hands in the air.


    "Why can''t I just beat him up now then?" he asked.


    Elder Flower put up a hand as if putting a stop to the idea before it could finish coalescing. "No one said anything about beating anyone up; it''s called trading pointers. As for why you can''t do it now¡­ It''s because, with his clan''s influence, he has more clout than you when you''re on the same level. If you''re promoted, that''s not true anymore. There''s only so far nepotism can get you," she said with a faraway look in her eyes.


    "Okay, so get promoted, trade pointers and then forget about it," Jin muttered thoughtfully. When in Rome, do as the Romans do? he guessed.


    "But you did start on the project, right?" Elder Flower asked curiously. "Or have you not found a team yet?"


    "I managed to find one recently promoted girl who''s proving to be pretty good at designing the space while I do the characters," Jin said. "Her work has a decent amount of artistic value," Jin replied.


    "Characters, as in plural?" Elder Flower asked. "I''m assuming you''re committing to another one of your more complex structures, then?" She didn''t look like she was too enthused about that, but neither was she particularly disappointed. It seemed that Jin had simply acted within the realm of expectations.


    "Yes, considering that the end product is still meant for mortal hands and that my cultivation has improved somewhat in the past months, I have access to more data. I''ve decided to create a cross-country quest of meaning focused on exploring the complexity of the human condition. It will be a post-apocalyptic world and seen through the eyes of an embittered and cynical alcoholic who regains his hope in humanity and his ability to love by bonding with a young girl who reminds him of the daughter who died in his arms twenty years ago. Unfortunately, the fate of his new emotional attachment sits on a knife''s edge as her body might contain the cure for the plague, asking the question of whether we can sacrifice those we love for the greater good or if it is an impossibility for those of us who were broken before by the harsh circumstances of life and who just found something new to cling to," Jin narrated.


    Elder Flower stared at him with glassy eyes at that explanation for a few seconds while the words registered in her mind. "And the zombies?" she asked, as if unsure if that was even a question worth asking considering what she''d just heard.


    Jin perked up. "Oh yes, there will be those as well. They''ll represent a threat on the purely physical level but also serve as a strong metaphor for the all-consuming ideology of capitali- I mean cultivation." He reassured.


    "That''s good?" Flower stated unsurely.


    The woman was much more destabilised and confused than she had been in any previous interaction so the disciple was sort of curious what she had been doing recently to have entered such a state. Maybe he''d been a bit mean to her in his thoughts earlier. This seemed to go a bit deeper than just getting a glass of water. Maybe she''d been forced to cook a meal as well or to spend an equivalent amount of energy on some other task.


    "Yes, well, it''s chugging along nicely. We''ll be done by the deadline, and then we have to see, I guess. I wonder what the others have managed to create." Jin paused, suddenly remembering something. "Oh, and also, the zombies will be evolving beyond the basic version we''ve seen at the army camp. There will be a certain variety to spice things up."


    "Why?" Elder Flower asked, and the simple question pierced straight through the middle of Jin''s reasoning.


    Why? It was easy enough to answer. It was because Jin was a hack who, if he simply created a combat simulator, would lose to inner disciples much more experienced than him. To avoid looking like a fraud then, his only other option was to leverage the cultural prowess of his previous world into this relatively undeveloped one via his photographic memory. All the while pretending that he wasn''t just shifting the goalpost of the project due to personal inadequacy but because of some sort of philosophical conviction. Unfortunately, he only had the capacity to make the games of this previous life fit the aesthetic of this new world and didn''t trust himself to change the narrative to fit the history, which just made him a slightly more complex asset stripper. ''A man''s gotta eat,'' he justified himself. But of course, he couldn''t tell that Elder Flower.


    "I was just thinking since it''s sort of a disease, there are probably stages of progression. I mean, if you leave someone sick for long enough, then they start developing different symptoms, right?" he weakly argued at the blank stare of his superior. The disciple coughed into his hand. "I mean, it''s all about the feeling in the end, right? I''ll leave the specifics of the combat to the other people. I mean, the corpses haven''t been infected that recently, so I''m sure maybe we haven''t seen the extent of their transformation?"


    "Who said it''s a disease?" Elder Flower muttered more to herself. "I guess you could call qi infections that?" she asked herself as if unsure. She then shook her head as if awakening from a fever dream and seemed to get a bit angry. "That is by far this stupidest-" she was suddenly interrupted by, weirdly enough, a paper aeroplane flying into the clearing and almost bumping into her ear if she hadn''t leaned backwards to dodge.


    The paper seemingly wasn''t an attack or else Elder Flower would have surely reacted more adversely, which reassured Jin. However, he remained wary as the paper unfurled itself and started burning at the same time as a voice which he recognised to belong to General Shroud started to resound from it.


    "I have some bad news," the voice said. "Whatever this zombification process is, it hasn''t reached its later stages yet. At least not in the corpses which have been brought from the dark side. The oldest ones have mutated, is the best word I can find, and have lost certain abilities but have gained others. It is an odd development for sure, but there is likely to be more of the previous variety at the border conflict, which doesn''t invalidate whatever work the disciples have done yet. It simply means that the scenarios will have to be expanded in scope to contain this new information."


    Both Jin and Elder Flower listened intently to the message, after which the latter looked almost disbelievingly at the former before standing up and promptly disappearing faster than Jin''s eyes could track.


    Jin let out a sigh of relief that he hadn''t even known had been building in his lungs. "Saved by the bell," he muttered to himself. "You''re a lucky little bastard," he finished with a small smile, patting himself on the back.


    Then Elder Flower, as if having forgotten a purse, reappeared by his side, grabbed him by the shoulder and brought him with her to wherever she was going in a swirl of nausea-inducing colours and movement.


    Bleurgh.

 Chapter 33: The Bad Pus

    Jin stumbled with uncoordinated feet as he appeared in what looked to be the prison cells of the army encampment, which he had recently visited again to look at the zombies. The creatures had been recently cleared for sparring again after the convicts that General Shroud had been talking about had arrived from the ''Bloody Pit.''


    It had been interesting to see how the criminals fought since, unlike the army, they mostly didn''t have systemic training.


    "You brought the boy?" the unassuming assistant/scribe of General Shroud asked, seemingly more perturbed by that than the man himself.


    There was also the older woman wearing light green robes standing around awkwardly, likely because of how she had behaved a week ago when Jin had incapacitated one of her bitten healers.


    The disciple decided to stay quiet in the space where everyone but the prisoners outranked him and simply bowed to each person present in order of rank. First the general, then his assistant, then the healer.


    It was the simple gesture that made the healer once again bristle, likely because she perceived herself as having a higher status than the scribe. How was Jin supposed to have known this? No idea.


    "Considering his astute observational skills, that might not have been that bad of a decision. Intelligence does not discriminate between cultivation levels, and the only thing that truly tends to change is the level of general knowledge," the general interjected, subtly justifying Elder Flower''s decision. "And considering that the situation we are facing is completely novel¡­" he trailed off.


    "We have experts analysing the situation now," the woman complained quietly but went ignored.


    "Inner disciple Jin was just in the process of telling me something interesting when we received your message. That''s why I brought him,"  Elder Flower said before turning to the aforementioned disciple. "Repeat it," she ordered.


    Jin awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he looked around the long corridor of cells, which radiated some sort of iron qi that he hadn''t felt before. There were rows of cells at the front and behind him, leading into what seemed like infinity, putting into question really how many prisoners an army was supposed to hold. The prison cells were made out of bamboo which was covered in a variety of sigils. He couldn''t read them, maybe making out a fifth of the meaning, but at least he felt reassured by the fact that the prisoners were being held back by something stronger than bamboo.


    He looked to the left and the right, saw that the cells were filled with zombies who must have been the initial soldiers who had been sparring. The convicts were designated by the shabby black robe he already knew and a few soldiers were probably sitting off lighter sentences for petty army misdemeanours.


    Some of the convicts were opening their mouths at him and grabbing at the bamboo sticks which were set too closely together for them to wiggle out of their cells. It was quite obvious that they were screaming, but disconcertedly enough, no noise escaped their mouths. He could easily tell what they were saying from the panicked looks in their frantically swivelling eyes. ''Please have mercy, don''t make me do this,'' they said.


    "Repeat what?" he asked, having forgotten as he''d spaced out. This place gave him bad vibes.


    "You were suspicious about a possible mutation occurring in the zombies," Elder Flower grumbled with a sigh as if at a loss for what to do with him.


    Jin crossed his arms. He''d just been bullshitting to justify a bigger variety of enemies. Would everything he said come to bite him in the ass? he wondered.


    "Well," he started. "Going by the fact that the zombification process is transmitted through scratching and biting, I was thinking about it as if it were a disease or infection transmitted through physical contact that breaks the skin?" he asked into the room.


    The general nodded, "your thoughts were correct. Unfortunately, the swarm of yet unidentified microorganisms controlling the bodies is proving very resistant to removal. The great sage doctor Len has managed a purification, but that simply left behind a corpse. He was unable to repeat the feat with a recently infected criminal because there were not yet enough microorganisms present to reliably separate them by any identification method known to us."


    Jin nodded thoughtfully. "Then my classification of this being some sort of disease was correct," he determined. "The thing with diseases is that the longer you leave one untreated, the worse the symptoms will get. If we consider thus the first form of the zombies as the initial symptom, then it would make sense that the form, or expression, would change as the disease progresses. We can assume that the longer we leave them without a cure, the more the situation will worsen. Perhaps specifically worsen in the direction that the zombie will become more efficient at infecting others. Technically, there must be some qi or biological process to upkeep the reanimation part of the process, which also prevents the necrosis of tissue, which would at some points leave the disease with a useless skeleton."


    "No qi, at least not in the active sense" the scribe muttered quietly. "It''s why we''ve been having such issues. Trivial mortal sicknesses and qi infections are things that we can easily treat. This is something more complex."


    Jin nodded thoughtfully. "Well, in that case, the disease must be consuming the flesh of its host at some rate, no matter how efficient, to generate the movement. Unless it can get its energy from another source?" he wondered aloud before shaking his head. "I''ll simply go with the assumption that that''s not the case. This means, however, that with the progression of the disease, certain changes might be made to the host. Either it loses some abilities or gains new ones as the internal decomposition can lead to a different bodily structure than necessary for normal human life. In my opinion, it is possible that the zombies might lose certain abilities, forcing the disease to mutate to continue infecting humans by granting it new ways of doing so or simply improving the construct with no backlash with time," Jin explained.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    General Shroud and the healer shared a look. "Similar to what we thought and what the medical and flesh-grafting team have discovered," the scribe said with a note of surprise in his voice. "It was a bit naive to believe that what we''re dealing with was so simplistic as to be surface level. Out of curiosity, what do you think is the worst mutation that the disease could develop?" he asked.


    "Well, diseases, like anything, simply want to spread. Infect new hosts. It''s their biological prerogative one could say. Things that don''t spread after all don''t exist anymore after a certain time," Jin muttered thoughtfully. "Currently, the disease is transmitted by breaking the skin in some form. If the zombies were to suddenly become incapable of movement due to advanced consumption of biomaterial, then the disease might undergo a series of mutations in an attempt to continue infecting people despite the low mobility. The scariest mutation it could come up with would be an air-transmitted infection. That, in my opinion, would be the worst-case scenario as then the infection would spread through random gusts of wind and whatnot, and we wouldn''t perhaps even be able to tell how long it takes for it to completely dissipate from an area."


    "Currently, the infected tissue cannot remain infectious for more than a few minutes after being removed from the host," the healer muttered.


    Jin refrained from asking how they''d found that out. He inadvertently glanced at one of the prisoners from the Bloody Pit and his mind supplied him the answer regardless.


    "Well, thankfully, it hasn''t come to the point where the zombies can take advantage of that short window," General Shroud said. "All this talk of possible mutations, however, perhaps you should have a look at what actually happened," he said, stepping aside to show that he had been standing in front of a cell containing a single zombie.  The general then slapped one of the bamboo poles, which suddenly caused the group to be able to hear what was occurring within the dark cell.


    "Click, click, click, click," came from within in a low guttural voice in irregular intervals.


    Elder Flower stepped forward, Jin following closely behind as he wondered if he was truly going to be so lucky.


    What came into view once he came closer and his eyes got used to the light, or rather the lack thereof, was a zombie that had changed only slightly from its previous form. Firstly there were weird fleshy growths around its ear, secondly, the eyes had rotted away leaving behind empty holes congealed with solidified pus. Not the fun kind of pus either.


    "Of course," Jin muttered, remembering something that a biologist friend of his had once told him.


    "What do you mean?" Elder Flower asked sharply from his side while curiously tilting her head.


    Jin coughed awkwardly into a fist as he wondered how to communicate this information. The thing about eyes was that they were immune privileged, which meant that they did not have a regular immune response to infections but had to be treated as a separate biological category from the rest of the body. The only other normal part of the human body which was immune privileged was the anterior part of the brain. Thinking about the zombie virus as a disease that parasitically took over the host''s body to infect others while killing it meant that from that point onwards, the virus was responsible for upkeeping the body''s functionality to fulfil its purpose. However, considering that eyes were of a different category, it could be that it was a part that the virus had no real control over due to the lack of an immune system to subvert. It would then technically make sense that a virus or an infection would struggle to keep that part of the body in particular in functioning order.


    "The eyes are separate from the normal biological system from my understanding. They react to infections differently than the rest. It would make sense, then, that if we look at the zombie virus as a disease that, in the sense of upkeeping normal function, it might struggle with that particular area. Considering humans are visual creatures, it would need a replacement sensory function after the loss."


    "If you know that then you surely know which other parts of the body also react differently to infections," the green-robed woman said suspiciously.


    Jin nodded idly. "The brain and, I believe, the foetus and the surrounding organs when a woman is pregnant."


    The woman looked at him with cold eyes for a few seconds before eventually nodding and taking a step back.


    "It developed these growths in the ear to determine its targets because it lost its eyes. Can it locate things?" Jin asked.


    "Quite well, in fact," the scribe replied.


    "Echolocation then, it explains the clicks," Jin muttered.


    "Eerily similar to bats, yes," the man said.


    "Fuck," Jin sighed. "Either the virus is programmed to continue being dangerous no matter the state of the corpse that it is currently inhabiting, or it''s so highly adaptable that it finds solutions to its problems as they come about. Is this mutation the only one, or are others turning into clickers as well?" he asked, inadvertently using the terminology from The Last of Us, where such zombies existed as well, just looking a bit different because the infection was funghi based in the games.


    "They are also significantly stronger and faster than the previous iteration, and yes, we have two of them," the scribe said.


    "Programmed then, it is very hard to believe in independent mutations with the same results," Jin decided. "I don''t know if that''s good or not, considering that programming implies there is an end to this mess somewhere. Technically, the ability to mutate is infinite. However, programming means that all the stages will have a clearly defined combat potential rather than sometimes also being duds. How did they get such well-preserved corpses anyway? The dark side has been lost forever," he complained, not expecting an answer.


    "You''d have to ask a dark-side historian for that. Insane cultivators who sometimes go to the dark side to gather information," the general complained.


    "The noble families of the Kingdom alliance have the habit of embalming the corpses of their dead with qi, which can keep them fresh technically forever," Elder Flower suddenly spoke up, becoming an unexpected source of information. "I imagine it was the same there, which ironically means that the nobility preserved their ancestors only for them to become the perfect hosts for this rotten technique." She turned to the general. "I assume you have started creating different sets of armour for the soldiers to use in the conflict to prevent infections?"


    The general nodded, lips tight. "Equipment is being developed. I assume the fact that the zombies will be targeting mortals is intentional from the demons. There are more of them in the army, and we can''t use them, considering they have likely planned for our intervention more than ever going by this strategy. The production is not going to suffice to equip everyone. Our forces will either be at risk or cut in half from the get-go. However, matters of strategy should be discussed in a different council," he said.


    "Actually," the scribe suddenly spoke up with an unexpected suggestion. "Considering inner disciple Jin''s startlingly clear view of the situation, perhaps it would be wise to include him."


    Jin had thought the man didn''t like him. Maybe he''d been wrong.


    Unfortunately, Jin knew that most of what he''d said had been bullshit lifted straight from a variety of video games and other modern media. Also, considering they''d already told him from the get-go that a zombie had mutated, it hardly qualified as being smart to retcon an explanation that he had always expected mutations to happen. He didn''t know much about this world, qi, cultivation and military tactics. If he went to meetings like these, he''d just expose himself as a fraud. It was better to leave when everyone still fought. He had an above-average intelligence.


    Also, talking with people of higher rank had never sounded like a very good idea in the cultivation world. He''d rather abstain. He thus shook his head. "I am certainly unqualified to receive such a privilege. Other than accidental insights, I am better used to continuing my project with the inclusion of this new knowledge," he said, nodding towards the once again silenced clicker.


    The general scrutinised him for a second at the answer, deep eyes seemingly peering straight into his soul. The man was just about to say something when Elder Flower put a hand on the disciple''s shoulder.


    "He''s right," she said. "Jin''s skillset is extremely focused on producing scenarios. Perhaps he should go back to doing that instead of giving unfounded opinions on military matters he does not understand."


    The general raised an eyebrow at the words before nodding. "We''ll be counting on you then, inner disciple Jin. I am curious to see your scenario when it is finished," he said.


    Jin nodded back at the man before suddenly being whisked away again.


    No pressure, right?


    Bleurgh.

 Chapter 34: Getting in bed with your sister

    Instead of being dropped off at the clearing from which he and Elder Flower had initially departed, Jin found himself deposited, like an unwanted step-child, in the front of the apartment building where he lived.


    Perhaps it was a nice gesture from Elder Flower so that he wouldn''t have to walk all the way home after that exhausting conversation in the army¡¯s prison. However, considering exactly how exhausting the conversation had been, perhaps he would have appreciated some privacy to calm down again.


    ¡°I''m impressed that you were able to deduce what you did. Although, there certainly was a lot of luck involved as well,¡± Elder Flower commented as Jin tried to still his spinning head by attaching his hands to his ears.


    His stomach was doing flips in his stomach, a feeling that he decidedly didn''t appreciate. ¡°Thank you, Elder Flower,¡± he managed to grunt out. ¡°Luck is always a part of success no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that it was all due to our talents and efforts.¡±


    The older woman nodded. ¡°Indeed, regardless of your choice of scenario, you will be fighting an uphill battle for recognition and success regardless of your deductive skills. However, if nothing else, you will be doing something wildly different than everyone else. In that sense, I can only wish you the best. I''ll contact you again in a few weeks to check your progress,¡± she said.


    ¡°Thank you for your guidance, Elder Flower,¡± Jin managed to mutter as the woman disappeared in front of his eyes. The fact that all the Elders were simply fucking off like that instead of getting up to their usual theatrics of flying swords, swirling storms and golden clouds indicated how urgent the current situation truly was. It was mind-boggling to think that there were probably dozens, if not hundreds, of other sects currently undergoing preparations for the most recent incursion.


    Anyway, standing alone in the street in front of his large yellow apartment building with Asian characteristics wasn¡¯t the time to think about these things. It was simply a time to be grateful that he was in a non-combatant sect and his stress was thus not related to having to be on the front lines, and that as a newer disciple, he lived enough on the outskirts that Elder Flower escorting him to his front door wasn''t witnessed by too many people.


    He looked around, locked eyes with one inner disciple, pretending not to look in his direction, before shaking his head and deciding that he needed to lay down.


    He opened the door to his domicile and ascended the steps, where he entered his apartment, only to find it not as empty as he had hoped.


    Hashimi looked at him awkwardly while lying on his bed and sketching something on a large parchment propped up on her knees.


    ¡°I thought you would be gone for longer,¡± she eventually said awkwardly.


    Jin opened his mouth to say that he had been gone for ages before closing it again when he realised he''d barely left an hour ago. Walking to the clearing didn''t take long; he¡¯d found Flower already there, and she¡¯d promptly taken him to the prison cells, where he¡¯d had at most a half-hour conversation before quickly being returned home.


    ¡°The fact that you didn''t expect me to be home earlier doesn''t explain why you''re lying on my bed,¡± he instead said calmly.


    Hashimi awkwardly scratched at the back of her head and squinted at him. A weird laugh escaped her wide mouth. ¡°Well, actually, considering we''re working here, I wanted to be doing that by the time you came back; I just laid down for a short break.¡±


    Jin opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it and closing it again.


    Then he turned around and exited the apartment, going to the other side of the floor and opening the front door to Hashimi''s place.


    ¡°Wait, what are you doing?¡± a concerned voice said loudly behind him.


    Jin, meanwhile, had entered the girl¡¯s apartment and started fighting his way through the mess on the floor and the walls to get to her bed, which was the same make as his. Once there, he laid down and covered himself with the blanket, fluffed the pillow under his head, and turned towards the blank wall.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± The girl suddenly asked from behind him. She¡¯d come to follow him and was now looking at his back with a tilted head, her short dark hair brushing her shoulders. She¡¯d left his bed in Jin¡¯s apartment to come here and spectate what he was doing in hers.


    ¡°I need a nap,¡± Jin said, ¡°and my bed was occupied.¡±


    ¡°Are you trying to teach me a lesson by being more annoying than me?¡± Hashimi asked curiously.


    The young man let a long string of silence fill the room before he started fake snoring.


    ¡°Oh, it''s on,¡± Hashimi said behind him. ¡°No one is more annoying than me,¡± she said as if rising to a monumental challenge. She promptly shoved Jin further into the wall before laying down next to him and starting to use her mouth to make a noise that anyone from modern Earth would recognise as a police siren.


    It was all the more impressive that she could do so, considering that police sirens didn''t exist in this world.


    At a loss for what to do in response, Jin started recreating the noise of an ambulance as loudly as he could.


    Unfortunately, before it could be decided which one of them was the winner in the Illusion Room Sect''s most annoying disciple competition, loud banging started coming from the door to the apartment alongside a loudly shouted, ¡°Shut up you two freaks, I don''t care what you''re doing in there, just do it quietly!¡±


    The two awkwardly quieted down as they lay in the bed, essentially one touch away. Then Jin turned around so that they could face each other. ¡°You''re undoubtedly a sister to me,¡± he told her.


    Hashimi beamed at him with a wide, toothy smile.


    ¡°And your parents completely failed in raising you,¡± the boy added.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°We have the same parents, dumbass.¡±


    Jin grimaced, ¡°Fuck.¡±


    -/-


    Once the two of ¡®The Last of Us¡¯ collaborators had sorted out their differences and returned to Jin¡¯s apartment to discuss matters of work rather than adoption, Hashimi brought up a rather interesting topic.


    ¡°I''ve been talking to some people at the cafeteria today, you know, since I have friends, unlike a certain someone,¡± she started, looking at him for a reaction before continuing when she started. There wouldn''t be any. ¡°And I''ve been gathering data on what the other groups competing in the challenge are doing.¡±


    ¡°With gathering data, you mean gathering gossip, right?¡± Jin asked.


    Hashimi nodded seriously. ¡°Of course, gossiping is what socially competent people partake in to find out information before it is available publicly,¡± she informed him before continuing, ¡°Regardless, I''ve been telling people around the sect that you¡¯re a repressed homosexual, and in return, I have been making some connections that have led to a categorisation of what type of projects are being worked on.¡±


    Jin stared at the girl with a blank face, hoping sincerely that she was simply making a joke. Just in case she wasn''t, he decided not to ask. ¡°And what would those categorisations be?¡± he asked instead.


    ¡°I mean, obviously everyone is going for clear combat scenarios. The biggest difference lies in two factors. One category of groups is doing scenarios in which the Experiencer is a single individual battling against a horde of zombies. The only difference between this and normal scenarios we have a bunch of in the library is that zombies are a new type of creature, but also that the loose condition for the reset is simply getting scratched or bitten, not getting killed.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense,¡± Jin nodded. ¡°After all, at this point, without a cure, it''s essentially the same thing.¡±


    ¡°All right,¡± Hashimi said and continued. ¡°Of course, there are different variations. Some groups have a single zombie, which, when you defeat it, is replaced by two simultaneously, and then by three, you get the point. What''s interesting, in my opinion, is what some of them have decided to do to replicate the environment that will be occurring on the battlefield. Namely, they have decided that in addition to the Experiencer and the zombies, they will also simulate a variety of mortal soldiers you will be fighting with. This is the version, by the way, that your pursuers of noble birth are creating."


    ¡°It''s somewhat smart,¡± Jin muttered thoughtfully. ¡°We don''t have a way to hook various Experiencers into the same scenario, so a simulation of allies is the next best thing. My question would be how they''re dealing with the infection of an ally. Is the loss condition one of them being infected, or do you get extra points for them turning around and killing the comrade who was just scratched? But it wouldn''t make any sense considering that for at least another day, they can still fight before succumbing to the disease.¡±


    ¡°That''s a bit dark,¡± Hashimi commented. ¡°But no, from what I understood, it simply works like this. You complete one iteration of the scenario in which every time you extinguish a horde, another one joins and then when your whole group is wiped out, and you start again. To prevent falling into a pattern, the movements of the group of soldiers are randomly generated from a larger database so that they don''t act the same way every time, and it''s the same for the zombies.¡±


    Jin hummed thoughtfully. It was a good idea in principle, but he wondered about the execution. Hearing about it reminded him of the frustrating quests in Skyrim when you had to take an NPC with you to fulfil objectives. Also, what database of randomly generated NPCs? Probably just more templates, but for characters now. To Jin, it sounded mostly like tech bros talking in jargon to drive investment interest. AI, algorithmic parsing, userbase individualised marketing, AI, big data, personalised interface SSI injections, AI, compartmentalisation, kill the baby, AI. ¡°Would be nice if we finally had that multiplayer option,¡± he muttered to himself, remembering the Elder who had said that he was working on it at the meeting he¡¯d inadvertently been a part of when Elder Flower had brought them back from the Mad Monks Sect.


    One could see Hashimi¡¯s ears getting bigger at the words. ¡°Multiplayer?¡± she asked curiously.


    ¡°An Elder from the Illusion Room production side has been working on a way for Rooms to allow access to several Experiencers at the same time. From what I heard, it¡¯s not nearly complete yet,¡± he said dismissively.


    ¡°You do gossip!¡± Hashimi said excitedly, getting a queer look from Jin.


    ¡°It¡¯s called gathering data, thank you very much,¡± Jin said with a roll of his eyes.


    ¡°Ok, whatever,¡± the girl replied. ¡°Anyway, that last scenario sounds pretty good. Do you think ours can keep up?¡± She seemed worried for once, genuinely.


    ¡°There are a lot of groups. Technically, everyone has a low chance of actually winning,¡± Jin said in an attempt to calm her down. ¡°I think our chances should be relatively high, considering we¡¯re doing something unique. But, of course, we¡¯re also going the non-traditional route.¡±


    ¡°I understand more now why we¡¯re doing that,¡± Hashimi admitted. ¡°Some of the other groups are big. Five to six people are from cultivator families, so I¡¯m sure they have better resources than us.¡±


    Jin nodded. ¡°I¡¯m glad you understand that to succeed from a worse starting position, we have to take a bit of a gamble, and gambles sometimes fail. I don¡¯t want to discuss it negatively, but our scenario is good because it has value outside the upcoming conflict. It teaches valuable skills other than fighting, so in that way, we have a fallback option of gaining value even if we don¡¯t win.¡±


    ¡°I thought about that parable you told me, the one about picking a teammate for the hunting mission. I think if an Illusion Room simulating the entire process could help people mature and become more experienced in dealing with adversity in general, I like what we¡¯re doing,¡± she admitted. ¡°I just wish the challenge wasn¡¯t unfairly skewed to those with bigger teams and better resources. Of course, we can¡¯t challenge them on pure combat modelling; they have three times as many people to work on it as we do, and they¡¯re older and more experienced."


    A smile hushed across Jin¡¯s face. ¡°It¡¯s nice to hear you like our vision more now. Passion is often what drives greatness forward. We just have to hope it can beat raw computing power and experience. Hopefully, some of the judges on the panel will agree with our philosophy and see value in what we do.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I hope so too,¡± Hashimi said with a hopeful sigh. ¡°I heard that the judges will probably be the general, the sect leader, that Elder you¡¯re working for, and some guy Elder named Lung. He makes the best templates for surroundings available in the library, but you have to pay a ridiculous percentage to use them. I wonder what he¡¯ll think about my architecture,¡± she said excitedly.


    Jin couldn¡¯t help but wince.


    ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s see about that,¡± he said weakly. ¡°Anyway, we have an advantage that the other groups probably don¡¯t yet for another few hours,¡± he said, making the girls'' eyes light up.


    ¡°Really, what is it?¡±


    ¡°The zombies have mutated, so whatever the other groups have been working on¡­ They¡¯ll have to expand it.¡±


    Hashimi grimaced. ¡°But that also means more work for you,¡± she pointed out logically.


    Jin smirked at his luck. ¡°Well, actually, the zombies mutated into a variant I was already modelling the combat for.¡±


    The girl stared at him with an open mouth, slowly raising a hand to cover it. Her eyes were ripped wide open, and her pupils were tiny pinpricks. ¡°Wait, Jin,¡± she started in a shaky voice. ¡°Are you, are you,¡± she tried to say but kept breaking off. ¡°Are you actually smart?¡± she finally managed to ramble out reverently.


    Jin stared at her, wondering if he should take credit for what was essentially a coincidence. It would be a bit mean of him to use it to inflate his ego. Maybe he shouldn''t.


    His nose was suddenly lifted into his air as if pushed there by a mysterious force. ¡°Yes, everything is going as predicted,¡± he said haughtily. ¡°The other teams won¡¯t know what hit them when they¡¯re faced with my endless brilliance.¡±


    The sparkles in Hashimi¡¯s eyes made the lie more than worth her. Her disappointment when she found out he was just a hack would just be something she¡¯d have to deal with.

 Chapter 35: Kicking ass for the working class

    There were a lot of issues plaguing Jin''s life recently. He''d been reborn into a world which didn''t have a functional plumbing system. Everyone around him was suffering from some disease that made them unstable enough to declare blood feuds regularly. After this whole invasion thing was over, he would have to participate in a tournament and get his ass beaten. Additionally, because of his inability to compete with other disciples in the recent scenario competition with the traditional skills of the sect, he was forced to create a narrative structure game to at least make it look like he was trying. All the while, Lung Junior and his posse were trying to sabotage him.


    However, when you boiled it down, all of this was relative. The Chinese had a saying: do not look at the nation''s wealth, but at your neighbour''s wealth.


    It has been two days since the zombie mutation had been widely disseminated across the Inner Ring. A new enemy which abandoned eyesight for echolocation while also strengthening its basic physical capacities. Suffice it to say that it had changed the plans of more than just one team.


    Recently, every time Jin went to eat at the food hall, he had the pleasure of seeing a bunch of otherwise haughty beige-robed disciples run around like headless chickens, trying to modify their scenarios to fit the new context.


    It was very easy to see during the meals who was adapting better and who was adapting worse. Those who had been completely blindsided by the news simply sat there with their group in a daze, looking at nothing and not touching their food. It was obvious that they had started the creation process of the scenario in a way that made it hard to include new variables.


    Creating scenarios was something that Jin could often only compare to art, but there was doubtlessly also a sort of coding logic to it. It was very easy to create a set of two incompatible parameters, which were not as easy to untangle unless one had left behind sufficient safe points and documentation. The joke, of course, was that just like most programmers from modern Earth, most Illusion Room cultivators didn¡¯t bother doing that. The complexity of reversal and subsequent deviation was especially true in collaborative projects where, if several people made a mess, it would take all of them working together to fix it.


    A group of rather richly dressed young men walked past Jin, where he was eating his ramen and sneered at him. He ignored them and looked into his broth, grimaced and saw the reflection of his face on the surface of the liquid in its bowl.


    The team that had been seemingly the least impacted by the changing tides had been Lung Junior and his crew. They¡¯d likely gotten the news as quickly as Jin had, considering their connections.


    He¡¯d done his best to mimic panic in the last few days to make it look like he had either screwed up the introduction of the new variable or that perhaps he hadn''t even found a team in the first place. He let them think what they wanted. As long as he didn''t stand out too much, they probably wouldn''t even bother to investigate and find out that he was much further ahead than any of them thought.


    Slow and steady wins the race was perhaps a motto everyone knew, but another motto had to do with being stealthy to avoid sabotage. In other words, if someone heard you sneaking up behind them, they¡¯d likely dodge the stab in the back you were planning.


    Regardless, in a slightly better mood, knowing that with the new information, several groups had likely been kicked out of the running, Jin quickly finished his food and started making his way home.


    There was nothing better in life than seeing one''s competitors suffer from the introduction of information one had been privileged to already. Was this what it felt like to be a senator with a stock brokerage account?


    Unfortunately, once he arrived in the co-working space that he shared with Hashimi, his apartment, he received a confusing bit of news that would likely negatively impact his own efforts.


    Hashimi was sitting on one of his two chairs, reading the plot summary of the next arc that they had to cover. It was the cannibal arc in which Ellie ended up being kidnapped by David, the leader of a group of survivors who had resorted to eating human flesh to stay alive in the harsh winter.


    ¡°I''m sorry, Jin, but I just can''t work on this,¡± she started after the boy had entered his room. ¡°Just reading about¡­ I mean, eating other people, that''s just¡­ wrong!¡± she exclaimed loudly and slapped down the scroll that she''d been reading from.


    Jin, for his part, gave her a confused look before seeing from her stern face that she was serious.


    ¡°What''s the problem?¡± he asked.


    ¡°You don''t see the problem?¡± Hashimi responded and sputtered, ¡°They''re eating other people. We can''t show this!¡±


    ¡°But Hashimi,¡± Jin started before shutting his mouth and holding up a finger. ¡°Can you just let me think for a second?¡± he asked before going to his bed and sitting down with arms crossed.


    Hashimi awkwardly looked at him before nodding.


    Jin, meanwhile, retreated into his mind to try to understand what was wrong.


    The structure of The Last of Us wasn''t that complicated, at least in comparison to some other games from Modern Earth.


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    Joel and Tess, two smugglers, hunted down a man, Robert, who owed them a shipment of weapons. After killing several of his guards and finding him, they discovered that Robert had given the shipment to the Fireflies because he owed them a favour. The Fireflies were a group fighting against the tyranny of the government forces who held up what little was left of civilisation. After killing Robert, they met Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, who told them that they would receive twice the amount of weapons that they had lost if only they helped the Fireflies smuggle an object to the city hall outside of the still-inhabited Boston area under the control of the quarantine zone authorities.


    The journey to get even to this point was relatively complex, including a lot of combat with enemies that weren''t even zombies; Jin had, after some thinking, made this part much shorter to get to the meat more quickly.


    Joel and Tess soon discovered that the object they were supposed to smuggle was actually a young girl supposedly immune to the virus, which had been the cause of the apocalypse. Tess got bitten and died, but not before entrusting the cynical Joel with the mission of bringing Ellie to wherever she had to go to give humanity one last chance of fighting back.


    The pair continued their journey and acquired a horse with Bill''s help, which allowed them to eventually reach the next city. However, once there, they were held up by a gang of humans and could only escape with the help of the two brothers, Sam and Henry.


    Sam was only 13 years old and ended up getting infected in the process. Ellie desperately tried to make him drink her blood, hoping that there was something in it to reverse the infection, but it didn''t work. Henry, the older brother, was forced to kill the younger one and then immediately committed suicide afterwards.


    After meeting Joel''s estranged brother and continuing their journey, Joel was eventually injured while looting a university campus, where they discovered that the Fireflies had moved to Salt Lake in Utah. It was at this point that the experiencer took control of Ellie and found themselves confronted with a group that wanted to recruit her due to her ability to hunt. After trading deer meat for restorative potions for Joel, the group leader, David, captured Ellie, and it was revealed that under his leadership his group had resorted to eating humans. The implication that came with her refusal was that if Ellie wouldn¡¯t hunt for the group, she would provide sustenance in another way.


    Joel eventually recovered enough to come and help but arrived too late, as Ellie had already committed her first murder of another human being in self-defence.


    The reason Jin was confused as to why Hashimi suddenly refused to work on this part of the scenario was that they had already covered enough horrible topics. The fact that the scenario led the Experiencer to kill other humans, as well as zombies, was already controversial enough in Jin''s personal opinion.


    Hashimi also hadn''t spoken about the long paths that had to be taken to move between certain locations, which, in Jin''s opinion, were useful because they underlined that the age of man had ended. She hadn''t complained about Tess¡¯ sacrifice and her relatively pointless death. She hadn''t complained about seeing Sam become infected and then being killed by his brother, who then committed suicide.


    So why did this particular part of the scenario make her want to quit?


    ¡°We''ve already done so many horrible things. We have suicide,¡± Jin thus started, ¡°we have murder, we have smuggling. What is it about this particular part that makes you not want to work on it?¡±


    ¡°It''s because you can''t eat people, Jin!¡± Hashimi exclaimed once again.


    ¡°I''m not advocating that we eat people! I''m pretty sure that the game argues against doing that. The people doing it, in fact, mostly die. Implying that they''re being punished by the Heavens.¡±


    Hashimi threw up her hands. ¡°Did you grow up under a rock!?¡± she shouted. ¡°It''s just not done!¡±


    Jin crossed his arms. He''d been afraid during the whole time that if deviating from the script provided by the game, which had been wildly successful, he would fail to create something which merited a subversion of tradition and thus allow them to compete in the first place.


    Thinking about it, changing the fact that the group of people had debased themselves to eating other humans essentially made the whole arc of Ellies capture pointless. Sure, she would still undergo the traumatic experience of killing someone. However, not showing the fact that humans resorted to the lowest of the low just to survive kind of missed the point. The soldiers had to see the kind of world that their loss could create.


    He anxiously thought about what kind of effect this could have on the overall structure. He was pretty sure that he told the whole story to Hashimi back when he¡¯d explained his vision, but he couldn''t deny that he was the one leading most of this project and might have forgotten to mention everything.


    ¡°So by refusing to work on it, you mean?¡± he trailed off.


    ¡°The whole house, the prison cell, the butchery, I''m not gonna do it,¡± the girl replied heatedly with a red face.


    The way that Jin and Hashimi worked together was that the former gave the latter a base-level structure that she would elaborate on with the cultural elements and architectural aesthetic that she had mastered to a level higher than him. For this arc, he had given her the surroundings of this cannibal base and had specified that in the house, there should be a room with racks of meat and human bodies. It was rather grotesque, he admitted, seeing the skinned and disembowelled humans being hung up on hooks like cattle, but he hadn''t expected such a reaction.


    ¡°Would it be okay if I do this part then?¡± he queried. They weren''t really in a situation where they could stop dividing the tasks now, but he could take over some of the load. The results would probably just be disproportionately different enough to tear the Experiencer straight out of their immersion. He winced.


    ¡°If you told me clearly from the beginning, I wouldn''t have started this at all,¡± Hashimi argued. ¡°And no, I think this scenario shouldn''t contain these themes at all. Eating humans that¡¯s what monsters do. Monsters and demonic cultivators.¡±


    Jin considered for a second. Hashimi¡¯s reaction was too strong not to be genuine. She was also involved in the project, so it wasn¡¯t like she wasn¡¯t invested.


    He was starting to feel like he was missing something.


    It was almost like he was missing a cultural nuance. The equivalent of going to the middle east and suggesting to a Taliban member that their beard would look wonderful with a moustache to match it.


    He dragged his hands down his face. ¡°Explain, please,¡± he asked. ¡°Explain from the beginning, explain like I¡¯m five,¡± he begged the girl.


    Hashimi reeled back as if surprised that he really didn¡¯t know, despite all the previous indicators that he¡¯d given that he really didn¡¯t.


    ¡°I guess,¡± she started slowly, ¡°that it all begins with the first demonic


    cultivator.¡± A grimace. ¡°Shi Xin Zhe.¡±

 Chapter 36: The first of the sussy bakas

    The cultivation world, going along with the theme of being a ripoff of ancient China, had an incredibly long and complicated history in terms of military, philosophy, and dynasty.


    Sure, Jin had inherited the memories of the previous owner of his body, but considering that the previous owner had been a justifiably depressed peasant who had been a disciple for a few years before committing suicide, meant that he wasn''t the most well-informed of the bunch.


    As Hashimi started telling him the tale of Shi Xin Zhe, he was slowly beginning to understand that it would be beneficial for him to read a few history books to understand the culture he had been plunged into better.


    In essence, the crux of the matter in this world was the inequality of man rather than the equality of man that has been at the core of the issue on modern Earth.


    On modern Earth, humans were limited by the fact that there was not much variation in intelligence and physical strength that could be achieved by two separate members of the species. At least the variability was a joke in comparison to the difference that could occur in the cultivation world where one person could be a normal human and the other could lift mountains with their pinky finger.


    It was out of this difference that the culture and the resentment unique to the cultivation world came to be.


    Some people were born blessed by the heavens. They had superior spiritual roots and encountered crazy amounts of luck when developing their strength. They became immortal, beautiful, untouchable, and almighty.


    The others, those with no luck, or just less luck, were left behind and could only look as they were passed by. They could only curse at the unfairness of reality.


    According to Hashimi, tens of thousands of years ago, cultivators had cultivated in harmony with no large conflicts between demonic cultivators and orthodox ones as it existed today. That was because of one simple reason. Demonic cultivators hadn¡¯t existed yet.


    Back then, even the Demons hadn''t yet descended, splitting the planet in two and creating a dark and light side of the world.


    Resources had still been abundant, and those favoured by the heavens ascended and left to the next plane of reality.


    However, back then, there had been a man, cursed with the most minor of cultivation potential, just enough to know how unblessed he was. He could only watch as everyone he met quickly surpassed him and left him behind.


    He was not talented enough to join a sect and could only rely on secondhand texts that he was able to scrounge up to build a shaky foundation.


    A wandering cultivator, essentially.


    Every time he saw another heavens-blessed genius ascend before him, despite their starting point having come later than his, he cursed the heavens.


    The heavens, of course, ignored him.


    ¡°If only I had been born with a better spiritual root,¡± Shi Xin Zhe complained.


    ¡°If only I was more lucky,¡± Shi Xin Zhe lamented.


    ¡°If only I was more favoured,¡± Shi Xin Zhe bemoaned.


    But no matter how much he grieved, the heavens remained callous, and the wandering cultivator could only watch as his skin slowly grew old and wrinkly, his bones started aching, and it became clear to him that he would die before ever getting even a glimpse of true power.


    The world of cultivation was inherently unfair, and when a world was inherently unfair rather than just culturally unfair, it created a sort of resentment that a modern human could not even imagine. The sort of hatred and spite that could have blotted out the sun if it were to be physically manifested.


    Shi Xin Zhe tried everything to gain the favour of the heavens.


    He tutored its blessed sons and daughters in the hopes that by building karma, he could pave the path for his ascension.


    He ingested a variety of suspicious pills and cultivated in places that others would not even consider.


    He chased after treasures lost for millennia, which could promise him at least a chance.


    All for naught. His body continued decaying as everything he¡¯d built up slowly crumbled.


    It was as if he was almost on his deathbed, holding in his head more negative emotions than any other, and that a variety of information he had consumed over his life suddenly came together to illuminate a different path.


    As told previously, Shi Xin Zhe had, if nothing more, had the most eclectic understanding of cultivation in the Empire due to his sporadic access to texts. Obscure, theoretical, straight up wrong- all of these things mixed in his head.


    Wouldn''t it make sense that there would be at least one idea that would come of it?


    Hundreds of others must have had similar ideas and been just as desperate. It was just that they¡¯d tried and failed. He would not fail, however.


    Shi Xin Zhe realised something as he approached death. He realised that the point of cultivation was to terminate the biological and become the spiritual. It all had to do with qi. It was because of this focus on the spiritual that the end goal of cultivation was to become a being that had left behind everything that was physical, which was what allowed immortals to cross over into different dimensions; they weren¡¯t carrying anything with them.


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    However, due to the will of the heavens and the spiritual roots one was born with, the mental qualities which were rooted in the brain rather than in the soul, the prerequisite for cultivation, for spiritual attainment, was actually biological.


    And biology could be interacted with even by the most wretched and pathetic of cultivators.


    If there was one thing that Shi Xin Zhe could say to be good at, it was the cultivation of mortals into products that sects would gladly accept into their halls.


    That was why even in the end, as he was descending completely into madness, he still had a few disciples that he was slowly nurturing so as to hand them over to sects whom he knew would appreciate their spiritual roots. They had gathered some qi and refined their bodies somewhat.


    They were not yet ripe, but they had potential.


    The idea in his mind blossomed, and one night, when four of his other disciples were gone, he lured the fifth, the one whose spiritual roots he desired the most, into the ritual chamber. He struck them down, strapped them down and used their blood to create a scripture never seen before. It would have been insane under any other circumstances to see a room covered in squiggles drawn in blood by a man with more madness than reason. However, perhaps Shi Xin Zhe had been smarter than he¡¯d thought, or luckier.


    It would have been madness had it not succeeded.


    Shi Xin Zhe ate his first disciple over the span of four days. He devoured him raw, from toes to scalp.


    It was an inefficient method, an unrefined one. Shi Xin Zhe gained perhaps a hundredth of the potential that his disciple had lost by dying.


    Shi Xin Zhe said at that moment, ¡°Thankfully, I have four more disciples to refine the technique with.¡±


    Whatever had been human about him was lost in that one-year period where he slowly but surely butchered all of those who had previously relied on him to consume their flesh and, along with it, the beginning stages of their cultivation.


    In the past, everyone had thought that there was only one thing Shi Xin Zhe was good at, and that was teaching the first stages of enlightenment to the downtrodden and bringing them to sects who would appreciate them.


    Now, there was a second thing.


    He was good at eating the flesh of those with cultivation potential to subsume their future into his present.


    He combined the two, and with these two skills, he created the first demonic sect.


    Thousands, no, tens of thousands, no, millions were eaten. The heavens were defied for the first time.


    The decades that followed were some of the most turbulent that the cultivation world would ever experience as they suddenly had to band together and eradicate an abomination that they had never seen before.


    Unfortunately, even if Shi Xin Zhe had been destroyed and his sect eradicated, once others had seen with what ease he had initially gained power, the world was changed forever.


    It was impossible to kill an idea once it had spread to live inside the minds of thousands of people. An idea could only be killed if it was forgotten by those who knew it because it had no use.


    But to some, the ability to steal the cultivation of others by consuming their flesh was unfortunately very useful.


    ¡°Demonic cultivation methods are still based on this simple principle,¡± Hashimi elaborated as the story came to an end. ¡°You have to consume physically what you wish to gain, and while the techniques are more complex and people can be reduced to blood pills and their value can be extracted more slowly through death coffins, it is still the eating of flesh that is the basis of going against the heavens,¡± she explained.


    Jin, meanwhile, could only listen while shaking his head with a grimace. He hadn''t expected that there would be such a story behind her refusal to work on that particular arc of The Last of Us.


    It made perfect sense, as well. If demonic cultivators truly sprung up from the act of consuming the flesh of another, then the entire cultivation world would likely be horrified at even the depiction of the act for non-cultivation reasons.


    ¡°It''s taboo then, for cultivators and mortals?¡± Jin asked.


    Hashimi nodded. ¡°Already the topic itself is controversial. Showing anything in that direction is¡­¡± she trailed off.


    ¡°Inadvisable,¡± Jin finished for her before sighing.


    He stood up from where he had been seated on the floor as Hashimi told him the story and dusted off his robes.


    ¡°You''re going?¡± she asked curiously.


    ¡°You''ve given me something to think about,¡± Jin replied as he went to the door of the apartment and put his hand on the handle.


    ¡°I''m sure my idea can be changed; the question is just into what. This whole scenario. I never wanted to do it in the first place,¡± he admitted.


    Hashimi reeled back as if struck. She was shocked. ¡°How come? You have such a good idea!¡±


    Jin gave her a bitter smile. ¡°I obviously can''t compete with those more experienced than me in modelling an enemy that already exists. This whole idea was born out of the necessity to stand out where we can''t compete. It increases our likelihood of winning, but is also something that has value on its own if it''s adjusted and put into the library after.¡±


    ¡°Who''s forcing you to do this?¡± Hashimi asked worriedly. ¡°Can I help?¡±


    ¡°The only thing forcing me is circumstances, and what''s the problem with wasting a few months on a project that has less likelihood of success than something else I could have done?" Jin asked rhetorically. ¡°Let''s talk later,¡± he finished with a shake of his head. ¡°I need some time alone.¡±


    He left the apartment and the building and the girl to go walk into the woods next to the outskirts of the disciple village.


    Once he arrived at a sturdy enough large tree, he punched it out of frustration. The only issue was that he¡¯d forgotten he was now much stronger than he had been in the past, and an indent was formed on the bark of the leafy giant.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± Jin cursed.


    Developing Outlast had been a less frustrating experience than working on The Last of Us for the stupid competition, he determined.


    It made sense in a way. After all, with Outlast, he¡¯d simply been given a direction and picked what fit best from a vast library of works.


    Here, he¡¯d been plopped in front of a shambling rotting corpse and told that he had to compete with dozens of other teams much bigger than him with much more experience, all while being sabotaged.


    How was he supposed to compete with others on the pure combat ability of his product? He¡¯d never actually created something according to an existing creature. First, he''d made Ornstein and then Outlast.


    Modelling existing difficulties was what the other disciples focused on, so why exactly was Flower wasting his time by making him compete in something he had a disadvantage in?


    Maybe he¡¯d have to tell her that if she was trying to use him, she was doing so incorrectly.


    Or maybe, just like the protagonist of the story that Hashimi had just told him, he needed to shift his perspective and try a different approach.


    Shi Xin Zhe had obviously been a monster, but his thinking had been non-linear, and he¡¯d achieved success.


    Now, Jin just had to come up with something that could help him distinguish himself in this competition where he was severely disadvantaged.


    The question now was just what he could do differently.

 Chapter 37: An old mans experience

    As he was strolling through the woods to disperse his bad mood, Jin deeply considered the issues he was facing.


    Through Hashimi¡¯s explanation, he now understood that removing the cannibalism aspect from the scenario was necessary to fit the narrative of The Last of Us into this new world.


    After all, when in Rome, one had to do as the Romans did. While he still might have some doubts about how extreme of a taboo cannibalism was, he decided that in this situation it was better to trust her rather than himself considering her native status. In the end, it would be extremely arrogant to presume that he could port in all of his previous world¡¯s cultural heritage without any change. Considering the vastly different realities and histories, wouldn¡¯t the two being fully compatible be incredibly illogical and unlikely?


    The problem was now, of course, that the cannibal part of The Last of Us showed a harrying portrayal of human nature when faced with insurmountable darkness. What people were willing to do when faced with despair, and what happened to their psyche. How some chose to give in and how some chose to continue fighting to keep their moral compass intact despite all events trying to force them into surrendering their principles.


    Removing the cannibalism was actually not the difficult part. The difficult part was what to replace it with to not make the whole encounter narratively pointless. Ellie could still get kidnapped because David, the leader of the group, had seen that she was good at hunting. As a change to the previous narrative, however, maybe what Jin could do was make David discover that Ellie was immune. The somewhat megalomaniac David could show his heinousness in another way by trying to take Ellie as his wife to birth a race of super immune non-cannibal soldiers to spread his influence among his followers by making them think that his bloodline carried the immunity. Something like that, at least.


    Unfortunately, while this change was still gross and worrying and clearly depicted him as a villain, it wasn''t really as insightful and thematic as the original scenario. It played with the themes of authority and delusion, rather than ones of despair, deprivation and hope that would fit the setting more.


    Sadly, Jin had never been praised for his creativity in his past life. He had gone into the construction business for a reason after all. He couldn''t think of a better theme to replace the cannibalism other than a slightly more complex version of the, ¡®I steal your princess and take her as bride hur hur, look at me I¡¯m so bad.¡¯


    ¡°But if I remove the narrative that makes the story great, then what advantage does it have over the others?¡± he wondered to himself as he continued pacing.  The issue remained that he couldn''t compete with the other disciples in reproducing an existing threat''s combat ability. They had more practice and more team members.


    The perfect solution in this case, now that the scenario lost a bit on narrative impact, was to compensate with higher-quality zombies. Perhaps add a playground mode where the soldiers could decide on how many and what kind of zombies they faced. But, of course, a perfect solution was never possible. He could likely try until his brain was bleeding, and he still wouldn¡¯t be able to make zombies good enough to compete with what the other disciples were making.


    Sure, he still had the advantage of a photographic memory so he could very accurately copy the zombies that he had been watching fight in the cage back in the army encampment. But in the end, his memory was simply an advantage that others could surmount with the reality that he''d mentioned earlier. The thing was also that it was misleading to say that the Illusion Room cultivators only copied reality. They improved on it and created subtleties that enhanced the experience through realistic additions and changes. Jin didn¡¯t have that skill yet. The only thing letting him cheat his way into looking like someone was competent was the vast library of works from modern Earth, which didn¡¯t help when his advantage wasn¡¯t suited for the challenge ahead. Curse you, Elder Flower!!!


    ¡°You look frustrated,¡± a voice suddenly said to Jin''s right, causing the distracted inner disciple to look up and find that he¡¯d inadvertently walked all the way around the mountain in the past few hours and had reached the other side of the Inner Disciple Village. How long had he been walking?


    ¡°Hello Francis,¡± Jin greeted with a nod of his head. ¡°You know how it is, I guess...¡± he trailed off at the old man whom he¡¯d identified months ago as someone likely to die an inner disciple because his cultivation hadn¡¯t kept up with his promotion.


    ¡°I don''t know, actually,¡± the older man joked, tugging at his white beard.


    Since the conversation had continued, the two of them naturally stopped to talk to each other.


    ¡°How is the spirit stone treating you?¡± Jin asked, referring to the bribe that Francis had taken to not collaborate with Jin back when the challenge had been announced. Of course, the man had never even intended on participating, so the move wasn''t particularly malicious in the first place, but just a way to earn some free money by not doing anything. Most people wouldn¡¯t have said no in that case, and those who would have would have been wasting their energy exerting their principles on situations that didn¡¯t require them.


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    Francis gave a brief chuckle at the question. ¡°I bought a few pills with it. I can''t lie. But you seem like you¡¯re at the stage where a few pills won''t help, so I won''t offer to return the favour with them.¡±


    Jin tilted his head and wondered for a second if there was a point in telling the man of his woes. Francis had been the one to give him the orientation of the inner ring back when he''d been promoted. Considering his seniority, he might have some ideas. An old man in the family was a treasure, right?


    Whenever you joined a new environment, it was always good to at least listen to the opinions of those who had been immersed in it for longer.


    ¡°I do have an issue, actually. Do you think I could ask you for your opinion?¡± Jin finally asked.


    At these words, Francis tilted his head slightly down to give Jin a shaded look almost hidden beneath his white fluffy eyebrows.


    ¡°You seem to have something serious on your mind,¡± he concluded, ¡°It might be better to sit down somewhere and talk properly in that case,¡± the old man said, pointing vaguely at their surroundings which did not inspire much confidence in confidentiality considering there were several inner disciples in plain sight.


    ¡°That might be a good idea,¡± Jin said, agreeing. ¡°Do you know a place?¡±


    Francis shrugged helplessly. ¡°How long do you think I''ve been stuck in this inner ring?¡± he asked listlessly before turning around and bidding Jin to follow. They returned to the forest from which Jin had come.


    -/-


    More than an hour later, with an empathic nod, Francis concluded his listening to Jin¡¯s problems.


    The younger inner disciple, now finally having vented to someone other than himself and Hashimi, released a deep sigh and slumped back in the chair he was sitting on.


    Francis had taken the two of them slightly up the mountain and deeper into the bamboo forest encircling some parts of it until they had reached a squalid lake with pink lotuses floating on its surface. Hidden in a corner through a thicket of trees were four old and rickety wooden chairs surrounding a large rotting stump, which Jin imagined had been used as a table in the past.


    He¡¯d told the old man everything. It wasn''t like he had anything to hide. He told him everything from his creation philosophy, namely narrative novelty and how he thought that Elder Flower was misusing his ¡°talents¡± by forcing him to compete in this challenge where reality copying and enhancement were more important.


    He vented about the fact that due to the requirements of this challenge, he was being forced to create something which just had a lower competitive rating in comparison to the pure combat scenarios that his competitors would likely put forward.


    Francis at first seemed to contemplate Jin''s words before eventually starting to analyse this situation with a gentle tone of voice.


    ¡°Well, considering your forced participation, I must say that it is understandable to be frustrated. I would be as well in your situation and have been in the past. But we all have to do things that we don''t want to at the end of the day. I can promise you that it never ends,¡± he said reassuringly. ¡°Even if you ascend, you''re likely to just arrive in a place where you will have to take orders from someone again,¡± he said commiseratingly, using the common tactic of ¡®everyone has to suffer from this so it''s not that bad.¡¯


    Jin couldn''t help but nod his head and agree. It was true after all, and it was just that he¡¯d needed someone else to say it so he didn¡¯t feel like he was justifying himself. If he really was the only one suffering from this particular issue, he really would have a reason to cry, but he wasn¡¯t, so he didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Also, of course, the people telling us what to do aren''t us, so they don''t always know what we¡¯re best at or think we¡¯re best at. Unfortunately, for the most part, we are simply forced to bow our heads and bear it. The last disciple I saw who wasn¡¯t willing to do that wasn¡¯t a disciple for long¡­¡± Francis trailed off.


    Jin raised an eyebrow. ¡°They excommunicated him?¡± he asked.


    Francis laughed and shook his head. ¡°Oh, no, he¡¯s dead. Corpses can¡¯t be disciples, is all I meant.¡± He waved his hand in the air, dispelling the macabre topic. ¡°Anyway, this competition has a deadline of only a few months, which means that it''s not that bad. Looking at it from the Elders perspective, taking a few months to do something that you''re not necessarily suited for is a good way to expand your horizon and work on the skills that are not your strengths without wasting too much time.¡±


    Jin stubbornly crossed his arms. ¡°Well, if that was the case, she could have just told me,¡± he said, causing Francis the chuckle.


    ¡°If only it were that easy, am I right?¡± he asked. Then he shook his head. ¡°As for the fact that you''re less suited for the current competition. What can I say?¡± he wondered aloud. ¡°I failed at more things in my life than you¡¯ve likely tried, and I¡¯m still here, aren''t I? Still, remember when I had my first success, someone copied what I did, added minor improvements and started collecting the sect points while I got relegated to the library.¡± He paused, realising that he was trailing off. ¡°What I''m trying to say is, you''re going to suffer from both success and failure, so you might as well learn how to enjoy both.¡±


    Jin, for his part, wasn''t listening anymore. He was blankly staring at the surface of the lake as he once again heard the same stupid story about someone''s creation getting stolen, slightly edited and used to generate revenue. Wasn¡¯t this, like, the fourth time that someone had told him to be careful of this happening?


    ¡°You''re a genius, Francis,¡± Jin said reverently.


    The old man perked up at this and seemed quite happy at the compliment. ¡°Haven''t heard that one in a while,¡± he said self-deprecatingly while rubbing the back of his balding head.


    ¡°Why work on it if I can just steal it?¡± Jin asked rhetorically, causing the older man to whiplash his head up to look at the younger one


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± he asked quickly.


    Jin, for his part, also turned back towards Francis and looked into his watery eyes with his own full of vigour and bad intent.


    ¡°Francis, I''m going to need your help.¡±

 Chapter 38: Taking Pearls from the Swine

    There were many ways to explain the narrative of a heist. Most started at the beginning. The charming and roguish protagonist travelled the country to gather his highly diverse, competitive and skilled team before introducing the plan and then cutting to black. The point, of course, was that a plan could not be introduced all at once, or else there would be no suspense as to its execution.


    All the best heist movies in Jin¡¯s previous life had the same feature, in that they kept some important strategies in reserve until it was time to unveil them. This drove the tension by not showing everything at once, which could also shock the person experiencing the story.


    Now that it was him considering the act of theft, however, he would, of course, not follow such narrative necessities but simply get down to business. Of course, he first still needed a team regardless.


    -/-


    ¡°Thatsss,¡± Hashimi started, drawing out her answer to what Jin had just proposed.


    The man awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, hoping that he hadn¡¯t crossed some sort of cultural barrier again. He didn¡¯t need another moral lecture, especially one based on facts. He could only come up with so many plans that got disrupted by outside factors before he gave up.


    ¡°Awesome!¡± Hashimi exclaimed, jumping up in Jin¡¯s room and throwing her hands in the air, almost touching the ceiling. She then did a twirl and gave him a double thumbs up.


    ¡°You¡¯re devious,¡± she complimented.


    Person 1 was on board.


    -/-


    ¡°You made me take time out of my day to ask for something this simple?¡± Elder Flower asked with some annoyance in her voice. She was standing in front of Jin in the clearing where they usually met, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.


    For his part, Jin didn¡¯t know what she was so fussed about. She probably hadn¡¯t been doing anything important or strenuous anyway. ¡°Yes, I would need an Elder in this case, and you¡¯re the only one I could think of asking.¡±


    ¡°Asking me to interfere in the inner ring,¡± Elder Flower muttered, then huffed.


    Jin gathered his bravery. ¡°You are the one who told me to participate in this competition,¡± he elaborated while leaving the actual pressure he was exerting with the unsaid part of the sentence hanging in the air.


    Elder Flower simply crossed her arms over her black top and glared at him.


    ¡°Also, imagine the look on his face if it works,¡± Jin hastily added.


    It was this final appeal that finally found success.


    Elder Flower cracked a rare smile, at which point Jin knew she was in.


    Person 2 was on board.


    -/-


    ¡°I¡¯ll want something in return for this, you know?¡± Francis asked as he met Jin next to the lake two days after their first conversation there.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Jin said and nodded. ¡°That was never in question. I can offer spirit stones if you¡¯re interested. Or if it works, you can also put your name on it.¡±


    The old man shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s only one thing I want at this point,¡± he started before hesitating. ¡°I want enough sect points to merit getting a servant. These bones are starting to have issues keeping up with everything.¡±


    Jin nodded seriously. Getting a servant in the inner ring was considered to be the last step to getting promoted to core disciple. It implied that the sect valued your output enough that they put someone at your disposal 24/7 so that you could concentrate completely on work. Most of the disciples whom Lung Junior had bribed to not collaborate with him had servants.


    ¡°If I ever get one, then I¡¯ll simply tell them to work with you instead,¡± he thus offered. He could still handle these simple things himself. Even after becoming rich back on modern Earth, he¡¯d still done his own cleaning and cooking. He didn¡¯t need someone to do it for him, and he was a big boy. If he won this competition, in addition to his upcoming donations of Ornstein and Outlast to the library, he had a reasonable belief that he could advance far enough to get one assigned to him.


    Francis looked at him doubtfully, obviously not knowing of those potential upcoming achievements.


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    ¡°I¡¯d rather we collaborate on a big project after this. I¡¯m almost there, but if I work alone, it will take too long, similar to if I wait for you to get one,¡± he proposed alternatively.


    Jin meanwhile was thinking of how helpful it would be to have someone with a significant amount of experience help him put the finishing edits on Ornstein and Outlast, maybe even The Last of Us, before it joined the library after having hopefully also been selected by the army. The finishing touches could be exchanged for a small percentage of revenue for each. Additionally, if after this competition, Jin had the freedom to pick his own project for once, he could invite Francis to work on¡­


    Well, suffice it to say, he had something in mind.


    ¡°It¡¯s a deal,¡± Jin said with a nod.


    The two men, one young and one old, locked eyes and shook hands.


    The last person had joined the team.


    ¡°So what¡¯s the plan then?¡± Francis asked curiously.


    At this, Jin leaned back on his wooden chair and steepled his fingers together. ¡°It¡¯s quite simple. It¡¯s going to start with a simple necessity and then continue with the following scene.¡±


    -/-


    How to lie properly was a very interesting subject that most people didn''t pay enough attention to.


    A teenager would tell their parents that they hadn''t been out drinking with their friends while their breath smelled like alcohol and their legs wobbled as they walked up the stairs to their room. This was called smothering your mouth while spewing shit.


    Students with a bad academic record were utterly surprised when, upon cheating to achieve a higher grade, they were faced with suspicion from the teachers. This was called, ''a lack of preparation insures shit performance.''


    The issue in the latter case was that the student had not set a precedent for them to suddenly shift their fate. If they had simply made the effort of being caught pretending to study by a teacher before the exam, the figure of authority would have more likely concluded that the student had finally started putting in the requisite effort.


    It was according to this principle, that every successful operation involving more than just one party had to start before the actual main event to control the perceptions of those involved.


    Seeds needed to be planted, Hashimi needed to be overheard saying in a public space how she had seen Jin work on an Illusion Room with which he wanted to compete in the upcoming challenge. The fact that he¡¯d told her that everyone else didn¡¯t stand a chance after was just the cherry on top.


    -/-


    After the information had been planted, it was time to look at how many scams started with a sort of provocation.


    ¡®I bet you can''t find the ball under these cups after I shuffle them around,¡¯ the well-dressed gentleman would tell you while you were trying to cross the bridge.


    ¡®No way you can find the right card out of these three,¡¯ the aristocrat of the modern age would challenge as you stood in a tourist spot minding your own business.


    ¡®I do have a job at the moment; however, are you up for it? Show me proof of your creativity first,¡¯ the shitflinging HR monkey disguised as a human would say as they harvested the ideas of what would have otherwise been highly paid professionals only to never give them a reply as to the position that they had been applying for.


    Different countries and different classes had different sorts of provocations that led to the aggressed party needing to respond due to their innate pride.


    What Jin had to do to evoke the pride and anger of those that he had singled out as targets in this case was comparably quite simple. He just had to sit in a place, minding his own business and exist with the Illusion Room that he was currently working on in his hands.


    It was because of this that two days after he had gathered his team, he went to the food hall, the artefact holding his currently unfinished scenario in his hand, got a bowl of food and sat down to eat.


    There wasn''t anything particularly special about an inner disciple of the Illusion Room Sect carrying around an Illusion Room. Sure, most people didn''t do it when there was a currently ongoing competition, and they most certainly didn''t bring it to the dining hall.


    But, considering how tightly interwoven the artefact was with the life of the sect, no one thought twice about it.


    The only ones who did were, of course, those whose arrogance had reached the level at which other people simply existing in their proximity became an insult.


    Thankfully enough, the cultivation world had many such prolifically obtuse and useful idiots.


    That was why, only a minute after Jin had sat down in the food hall with a bowl of noodles... An old man who had previously been bribed by Lung Junior helpfully scurried to the young master to tell him that the person he was seeking to sabotage had been so brazen, so disrespectful, as to bring the project that he was currently working on into a public space.


    Lung Junior''s face, upon hearing this, naturally ran red as it had been his inherent dominion and authority, which had been challenged in such a courageous way by someone whom he considered to be lower than trash. This, in addition to the fact that he had recently overheard gossip about how the disciple in question had been bragging about how he was going to win the competition, naturally made him want to intervene and assert himself.


    He and his group stood up from their seats in perfect synchronisation, more than used to such manoeuvres. Lung Junior and his posse quickly made their way through the food hall towards the table that they had just been told about. Other disciples dodged out of their way with knowing looks, at most giving perhaps a perfunctory sigh of relief that it was not them who were going to be the victims of unpleasantness.


    It was as such, due to the previously described combination of events, that Jin, slurping on his bowl of noodles, Illusion Room glowing a faint blue by his side, found himself accosted once again by the rather irritating combination of Lung Junior and his 3-5 indistinguishable followers whose faces seemed to change every time that he saw them as they blended perfectly into the background to remain nothing more but characters that didn''t even deserve two adjectives.


    ¡°Young master,¡± Jin exclaimed, putting down his chopsticks and trying and failing to protectively put his hand on his Illusion Room as he made a face of deep regret at having brought it out in the first place. ¡°How is the competition faring?¡± he asked as if to distract from the potentially awkward position that he''d been caught in.


    Lung junior, for his part, simply swayed his long ponytail encrusted with spirit stones and shook his head. ¡°My day would have been going much better were it not for wastes like you occupying public space as if they deserved to even exist,¡± he said harshly before slapping down a hand on the top of the Illusion Room that Jin had been steadily tugging back to his side of the table.


    Jin cringed back as if struck before promptly, standing up and trying, not very hard, to rip the Illusion Room from underneath the grip of the would-be bully. ¡°Well, then, don''t mind if I just get out of your hair,¡± he said quickly.


    ¡°Not so fast!¡± Lung Junior growled, locking eyes with a few disciples who had gathered around as an audience to seek affirmation for his actions. Most people simply avoided his gaze, which, from his perspective, probably counted as a silent approval. ¡°I heard you''ve been telling other people how you¡¯re going to easily beat me in the competition and how you can''t wait to see my face when I end up as a runner-up,¡± he said threateningly.


    Jin shifted his eyes and unconvincingly rejected the notion that he would have never ever done such a thing. ¡°Of course, I would not. I mean, why would I even do it?¡± he stammered.


    ¡°Let''s see if your confidence is founded on anything other than delusion then,¡± Lung Junior quickly interrupted before flexing the hand that was clasped on top of the cubic Illusion Room and entering it without permission.


    Jin stepped forward to push the boy away from his creation, but now that Lung Junior had blanked out, his 3-5 followers stepped up to push Jin away before he could interrupt the scenario interaction.


    It was like this that Jin found himself being shoved around in a circle and belittled by men probably four times as old as him, while their leader interacted with a scenario from which he would gain no benefit.


    It was just as he was starting to grow annoyed that the voice that he had planned before the beginning of this entire charade suddenly entered the scene. The disciples, who had been excitedly watching his humiliation, suddenly froze.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Elder Flower asked with a tone of voice that could have curled up the erection of even the most avid viagra taking teenager.


    The cavalry had arrived.

 Chapter 39: Monkey See Monkey Steal

    Justice in the cultivation world was an interesting concept in the sense that not only did it have no discernible standards, but that it wasn''t even meant to have them in the first place.


    On modern Earth, there had been written laws and institutions. Even if, in the end, you could usually buy your way out with enough money.


    Here, however, laws didn''t even exist in the way that Jin had known them in his past life.


    Since there were no laws, every issue simply became a debate of interests. If you had no one in your corner to support your interests, you would get no justice.


    Sure sects did have a basic sense of morality and dissuaded their disciples away from committing crimes just because they could. However, that was simply the perception that affected the reality.


    When the crimes were actually committed, you would find yourself in a room with the relevant authorities, who were essentially trying to determine who had the better backing.


    If both sides were equally at fault, and the backing was equally powerful, then the punishment would be a fair 50/50. If both sides were at fault but had unequal support, the punishment would be an unfair 25/75. If both parties were at fault and one of them had zero backing, it would be an unfair 1/99.


    If one party was at fault and both had equal backing, that was when you could get to a 10/90.


    Had Jin attempted what he''d done with Lung Junior with no backing, the result would have been no trial, let alone a punishment.


    However, he had backing, witnesses and irrefutable evidence. In this case, where the situation was unfair, he hoped to get a 10/90 sentencing in his favour.


    Of course, simply because he had evidence and backing didn''t mean he was assured he''d get exactly what he wanted. For that, he would still have to go through the process.


    What sort of process existed in a world without justice, you might ask?


    Were there courtrooms, presiding arbitrators, and a legal system where someone who didn''t have representation could be granted one from a public office?


    The answer was, of course, none of the above.


    The person presiding over the case was the one responsible for the inner ring because they had the most authority here.


    A fat old Elder, whom Jin had never seen before, which was possibly indicative of his attitude towards his position. Back when he had been in the outer ring, he''d had several interactions with Elder Qin, whom he''d found to be dutiful. If anything, the man had even been a bit kind. In other words, by the standards of this world, a complete softie.


    In contrast, the first expression that hushed over Elder Pangzi''s face when Jin, Lung Junior and Elder Flower entered his rather ostentatious office was annoyance. It disappeared quickly, but it was obvious that the man would have rather preferred they not come.


    But, if he didn''t want to be responsible for the inner ring then he should step forward to let go of the job if it was a privilege that he had worked hard to attain, or he should have manoeuvred better to not be laboured with it if it was something that he wished to avoid.


    Unfortunately, regardless of whatever wishes Elder Pangzi might have had, they could not start the discussion until whoever was responsible for Lung Junior showed up. As for the question of who that would be¡­


    "What exactly is going on here?" Elder Lung asked as he stormed through the bright red door and into the office of the inner ring overseer.


    Jin at least appreciated that Elder Pangzi showed the same brief flash of annoyance at Elder Lung as he had at him and Elder Flower when they''d come in dragging a petulant Lung Junior with them.


    It seemed that the Elder was at least consistent.


    "I would like to know that as well," Pangzi asked impatiently, turning to Elder Flower. "Was there a need to involve me in this matter? Couldn''t you resolve it yourself?" he flat-out complained.


    For her part, Elder Flower remained unfazed and stood there in her usual position with arms crossed and a distant look on her face, indicating that she didn''t care too much about what was happening.


    In fact, in the plan that they had laid out before committing to the heist, Jin had designated Elder Flower as more of an influence bot with a few chat options. She only had to argue his case for about an hour or two before she could leave. Essentially, she was just here so he didn''t get ganked, metaphorically and literally speaking in this case.


    "I, too, would like to know why exactly you felt the need to drag one of my descendants here," Elder Lung questioned acidically. At the same time, Lung Junior shamelessly took his place slightly behind the man using him in a way as a cover between him and the stupid shit that he''d done this time.


    Jin seriously wondered what was wrong with that guy, considering that from what he had found out, he was closer to a 100 than 20.


    Was this what happened when kids never grew up? They become whiny baby adults even when they were well into their seventies?


    "Explain," Elder Flower briefly said to Jin, who, instead of pretending to pretend he was crying or something, simply recounted the events without much emotional inflection. He wasn''t an outstanding actor, and trying to hype it up inaccurately wouldn''t have been suitable for the results they were trying to achieve.


    "This competition for the army commission has been very stressful," he began. "There hasn''t been much time, so I''ve been taking my Illusion Room with me occasionally to add to it whenever I get a flash of inspiration. Today," he pointed his chin towards Lung Junior, "he and his friends separated me from my Room. They looked at it before me until Elder Flower came to stop them."


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    "Do you have any proof?" Elder Lung snorted with distaste, at which Jin could only shrug.


    "They did it in the food hall in front of all the other disciples."


    "Also in front of me," Elder Flower finally piped up.


    It was then that a look usually reserved for those who had just stepped in dogshit flashed over Elder Lung''s face. If the elder didn''t have better control of his emotions, his eyes would have likely rolled into the back of his head, and he would have vomited blood.


    It looked like it wasn''t the man''s first time cleaning up after his junior.


    Which begged the question of why he was doing it exactly. What was so important about Lung Junior that had to be protected? Was it just principle, or was there something special about the boy?


    "So what if I did!" Lung Junior suddenly piped up angrily, apparently having had his patience tested enough and now feeling braver from the presence of an Elder in his camp. "I took a look; not like I got anything out of it. His Illusion Room is so stupid. It''s just about some girl dying. Then you run after some smuggler!" he exclaimed angrily. "There''s basically no zombies!"


    Jin barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at this incriminating moment. For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly felt some pity for Elder Lung. With descendants like that, you didn''t need enemies.


    "The point, of course, isn''t," Elder Flower spoke, "if you gained anything from the deed, but rather that it was committed in the first place. It is for this reason that we seek arbitration, rather than for whatever benefit was gained from it. Additionally, of course, the inner disciple is not a judge of the competition and is therefore not qualified to determine the value of what he has managed to see."


    "What do you suggest then, Elder Flower?" Elder Pangzi sighed.


    "Nothing much, I imagine. It''s just boys fooling around," Elder Lung interjected.


    "That''s hardly the case," Elder Flower rebuked. "The moment an act such as this involves scenarios currently being developed, it becomes an act of espionage or sabotage. Considering the current competition, these can be judged even more harshly."


    "The standard rule for Illusion Room scenario theft is a year in solitary confinement," Elder Pangzi spoke up in a bored tone of voice, playing right into Jin and Elder Flower''s hands.


    When there was no book of laws to determine such punishments between two parties of equal influence, precedent became important.


    Considering that Illusion Rooms were at the centre of life in the sect, it made sense that they were some of the most protected entities, right behind the actual lives of the disciples.


    Sure, there were copyright infringement cases in the libraries, which were considered to be alright because everything in the library was public domain. It thus simply became distasteful. Breaching someone else''s privacy by looking at a Room they were currently working on was a somewhat more serious offence. In the past, it had been punished by two years of solitary confinement. Offering only one year was thus already giving face to Elder Lung.


    "Well, it is exactly because of the current competition that such a punishment is inappropriate," Elder Lung argued while nervously touching his moustache. "After all, if my inner disciple disappears for any amount of time, he will be unable to hand in his project with his group."


    "Perhaps he should have thought of that before he did what he did?" Elder Flower said almost teasingly, causing Lung Junior to run red in the face.


    It was pretty stupid of him, Jin thought to himself.


    "But we have to keep the interest of the sect in mind," Elder Lung argued. "His group, in particular, has the highest chances of winning the competition, and it is exactly in times like these, where borders are being threatened, that we do not have the luxury of disrupting the defence efforts with internal conflicts. Additionally, to me, it sounds like it wasn''t the entirety of the scenario that was viewed, which means that if anything, any punishment should be a fraction of a year."


    At this point, Jin lightly shook his head, knowing they''d finally gotten somewhere. Now, Elder Lung was arguing for a reduction of the punishment rather than a suspension thereof.


    "How much of the scenario was viewed?" Elder Pangzi asked, turning towards Jin.


    Jin didn''t have a reason to lie. "He saw 10% of it," he said.


    "Well then," the fat Elder started. "The boy saw a tenth, and therefore, he gets only a tenth of the sentence, which in this case is one month," he rounded down.


    "Already one month is crucial, Elder Pangzi; you must be joking," Elder Lung interjected. "I''m sure we could perhaps at least postpone to the end of the competition."


    "Perhaps the issue we should first resolve is the unfair advantage gained by viewing a competitor''s scenario. If the advantage is not cancelled out, the punishment becomes moot in its effect," Elder Flower spoke.


    "But you must agree, Elder Flower, that Elder Lung makes a good point. It doesn''t make sense to exclude one of our disciples from competing at a critical time such as now."


    Elder Flower seemed to think about the suggestion for a moment. "Regarding the restoration of the equilibrium, then, wouldn''t it be fair to have inner disciple Jin view the work of inner disciple¡­" she trailed off, staring blankly at Lung Junior.


    Lung Junior gasped angrily, "Our work is hardly equal!"


    "A suspension of the solitary confinement and a viewing of 10% of the material," Elder Lung said after mulling over it for a bit.


    "Rather than focusing on viewing 10% of the material, which is somewhat hard to determine," Elder Flower started calmly, "perhaps it would be better to simply look at the amount of time that the Illusion Room was in use for and double it. The first half is to restore the equilibrium, and the second is to pay back the damages."


    Elderly Lung seemed to consider it for a bit. "And how do we know that the Illusion Room viewed in the food hall was actually the one that will be submitted for the competition?" he asked suspiciously.


    "And how will we know that the Illusion Room you will allow inner disciple Jin to view will be the one that will be used for the competition?" Elder Flower replied with a quirked eyebrow.


    Elder Pangzi sighed after they both turned to him. "Let me look at the damn things," he grumbled. "I''ll certify that these will be the Illusion Rooms appearing."


    "It is decided then," Elder Flower said, turning to Jin. "Present your Illusion Room. We can read the amount of time for which it was breached by the metadata."


    Jin extended his arms with the artefact he had been carrying. Elder Flower glanced briefly at something beyond the material before handing it to Elder Pangyi.


    "27 minutes," they both confirmed.


    Elder Lung reluctantly looked as well before nodding. "54 minutes then," he said. "No more, no less."


    Jin, for his part, was rubbing his hands together.


    Everything was coming together.


    Sure, Lung Junior had glimpsed a part of his project, but now Jin would have more than a glimpse. He was sure that Lung Junior hadn''t brought any techniques to scrape information from other Illusion Rooms when doing his little deed because he hadn''t planned it. It had been a crime of passion.


    Jin, however, had time to prepare and had something that Lung Junior most likely didn''t.


    A photographic memory from before he''d even started cultivating.