Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Opening Spiritual Root
The players, hearts pounding with excitement, hurried back to their spawn points.
Every game has a main quest, and theirs was to protect the Sect Master, a woman named Song Jiulai.
Since they were supposed to treat the Sect Master as the most important woman in their lives...
...who else could that be but their mother?
The players shuffled in tentatively and saw Song Jiulai standing in front of the central building, a gentle smile on her face.
Song Jiulai’s appearance was her own. After all, even in a new world, one’s own face was the most comfortable to look at.
Her natural face was exquisitely beautiful in a way that was very pleasing to the eye.
She looked completely harmless.
Dressed in a pale blue, ancient-style long dress, her radiant smile exuded the charm of a historical beauty.
A face like that wasn’t suited for forcing a cold, aloof, otherworldly master persona, so Song Jiulai decided not to make things difficult for herself.
Besides, the game’s premise clearly stated this was a Broken Sect. What was the point in trying to act all high and mighty?
System: "Lift the corners of your mouth a bit more. You need to achieve the perfect 45-degree arc."
Song Jiulai: "..."
With the system’s prior warning and the divine power A Wu had displayed, the players looked at the Sect Master before them. While not overly excited, they were whispering amongst themselves.
"Holy shit, she looks younger than me! So cute. Less like a mom, more like a daughter."
"You’ve got some nerve. I’m calling her Mom, but you’re calling her daughter? Are you trying to one-up me?"
"...I could make her my wife."
"Eat shit! You can’t make her your wife! She’s everyone’s Sect Master!!"
"She looks young, but she could be a hundred years old for all we know."
...
Seeing the crowd’s barely concealed excitement, Song Jiulai realized if she didn’t speak now, her carefully constructed image would crumble.
Once almost everyone had arrived, she got straight to the point. "Welcome, everyone, to the Longevity Sect of the Yunzhou Continent. I am your Sect Master, Song Jiulai. From this day forward, I will lead you in making the Longevity Sect prosper, and you will all be Inner Sect Disciples of my Longevity Sect."
Her opening was a standard NPC speech. The players immediately quieted down, afraid of missing a single word.
Besides, Inner Sect Disciple—that sounded awesome!
Song Jiulai cut straight to the chase: "As a welcome benefit for new disciples, I will give each of you a Spirit Root Inner Core. You will use it for Opening Spiritual Root, officially beginning your journey of Cultivation."
"After consuming the inner core, each person’s reaction time will vary, and the talent of the Spirit Root you awaken will also differ. This is all a matter of personal fate, so do not harbor any resentment. To walk the path of Cultivation is to cultivate not just the body, but also the Cultivating Heart."
"As the Sect Master of the Longevity Sect, I only hope that each and every disciple can go as far as possible on their Cultivation path."
With this speech, Song Jiulai had made it clear that everyone’s reaction after Opening Spiritual Root would be different.
Some would have good talent, and some would be average.
"Got it. So it’s like a gacha pull. Some people will be RNG gods, others will be cursed."
"Hah, I’m used to it. I’m not expecting a good Spirit Root anyway."
"It seems some things never change. Even in a game like this, you can’t escape the gacha."
"It’s fine. Isn’t that how all Cultivation stories go? Bad talent doesn’t mean you can’t go far. The underdog comeback story is super popular right now!"
"The ’trash-to-treasure’ trope is like, eight hundred years old. It’s outdated. What’s popular now is getting rewards without working for them. Bad talent doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ll stumble upon a hidden quest and find a powerful Magic Treasure?"
Fortunately, modern games were full of gacha mechanics.
The players had been successfully conditioned by them, so they readily accepted the fact that everyone’s talent would be different.
Besides, they had all read plenty of Cultivation novels. Generally speaking, those with exceptional talent early on were likely to end up as villainous cannon fodder.
Everyone was very experienced in this matter.
Song Jiulai smiled with satisfaction. With a wave of her hand, fifty thumb-sized Elixir Pills, glowing with a soft, lustrous light, appeared before them.
To call them medicine was an understatement; they looked as if they were carved from jade.
Hovering in mid-air, they watched as Song Jiulai gave another gentle lift of her hand, and the Elixir Pills flew to a spot right in front of each person.
This move truly stunned the players.
After all, there was a huge difference between a normal online game and a true full-dive VR game. Even watching TV shows didn’t come close to the intense thrill of seeing it all happen right before their eyes.
’Thank you, Su Huanli!’
’If not for the Jiezidai she gave me, I’m not sure I could have pulled off such a perfect performance.’
’So much for having an immortal aura. I’d have ended up pathetically handing out the pills one by one—just like a pharmacist.’
"Consume this Elixir Pill, then sit down and enter a meditative state. The process of changing your Spirit Root will begin."
"The process will take anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours, all depending on your talent."
"Once all of you have successfully opened your Spirit Roots, I will tell you what you need to do next."
After speaking, Song Jiulai turned and walked inside.
The Elixir Pills began to drift down. The players curiously caught the pills in their palms.
It was warm and smooth to the touch, like jade. It looked pretty big. ’Swallow it whole?’
Since it was a game, they had no psychological hangups. Gripping the pill, they swallowed it without a second thought.
The moment it entered their mouths, the jade-like Elixir Pill dissolved into a stream of liquid that flowed directly into their bodies.
Before the players could even register a taste, their vision suddenly went black.
[Opening Spiritual Root. This process will last for 1 hour and 45 minutes...]
The Yunzhou Continent was gone. All that remained was this line of text.
’Got it. It’s basically like a game update,’ they thought.
The text that popped up for Han Tian read "2 hours and 35 minutes." He froze for a second. He remembered the Sect Master said the longer the better, but he wasn’t sure if this talent was good or not.
The time that appeared for Zhou Xiao was "2 hours and 20 minutes."
Wu Dahu’s was "1 hour and 30 minutes."
This meant they couldn’t play the game for now. It wasn’t until they were logged out that the pressure of the VR headset on their noses suddenly felt heavy, and the players were jolted back to the reality that they were, in fact, playing a game.
Zhou Xiao was ecstatic and immediately opened the main game chat group.
Just as they expected, the main game chat group had gone insane.
But it wasn’t because of the players inside the game; it was because of those who couldn’t get in.
Ever since the reviewers had been called back to log in, those of them who were online had, for all intents and purposes, never logged back out.
The in-game time flow was 2:1. Factoring that in, plus the restricted login time, they had chopped some wood and eaten dinner in the game, and two hours had already passed in the real world.
For two hours, those playing the game hadn’t sent a single reply.
After all, when you were fully immersed in a virtual world, who had time to check messages?
[ThisOldDaoistHasAscended: Holy shit, you’ve been playing for so long, at least make a peep and tell us if it’s good or bad! Why is no one replying to messages?]
[Charity: It’s just some crappy VR game. Are you really so into it you don’t even have time to reply? Don’t tell me the company is colluding with players to pull some kind of marketing stunt, right?]
[TheSunShinesOnYourDarkHeart: No way. The great Jing Bao Tian logged off earlier just to tell people who weren’t on to log in ASAP. It’s rare to see him that excited. How much would this game have to pay to get him to do that?]
[IOnceQiaoShanZhenHu: HAHAHAHA, bros, I’m not gonna say much. From now on, you and I are not on the same starting line anymore! @Little Woman Power @Jing Bao Tian @StreakingAgainstTheWind @JumpsHighPeesFar How long were your timers? I got an hour and a half.]
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