One Trait Draw Per Year Even Simulations Count

“It can actually fail to extract??”

Outside the simulation, Chen Yi couldn’t help but stand up to watch. This was the first time he’d encountered this situation.

Fortunately, in a corner of the simulation screen, a small line of text explained the reason.

[The current environment has a time flow inconsistent with the River of Time, making trait extraction impossible.]

“I see…”

This was a mechanism to prevent exploiting glitches.

Everyone knew about the Free and Unfettered God’s Time Room.

If he stayed inside for one day, a year would pass outside.

Extracting traits in the Time Room would be a huge loss.

Similarly, if there were an anti-Time Room where staying inside for a year equaled one day outside.

Then you could extract far more traits than normal.

So, neither drawing more nor fewer traits was allowed.

“That means the Path to Immortality isn’t in the Real Realm. Is it located Between Real and Void? Speaking of which, it’s a bit like that Snake Trail with Lao Kong. That green trait tag I had before could come in handy.”

Just seeing what had already happened wasn’t enough. Chen Yi needed to think about what might occur over the next year.

After all, his simulation self couldn’t actively adjust his traits.

Some proper pre-judgment was necessary.

“When I get to the Real Realm, the situation will be unclear. I’ll have to lie low and figure things out first. I’ll need to keep ‘Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger’ with me. My peak cultivation in the Void Realm should still be decent in the Real Realm, right? Can’t be too flashy.”

Chen Yi was back to the days of fine-tuning things outside the simulation.

[You chose Yes.]

[You replaced “Bad News Spreads in Martial Circles” with “Running Playlist”.]

[You replaced “Civil War God” with “Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger”.]

[“A year! And it’s still not over! The scenery in front and behind hasn’t changed at all! If it weren’t for the distance I’ve covered with my own feet, I’d think I was just standing in place!”]

[Your road rage is flaring up.]

[Anyone would be frustrated.]

[Running for a year, and at a glance, the scene ahead and behind was exactly the same.]

[A winding Great Wall, with beacon towers spaced at intervals.]

[And you discovered that on each section of road between two beacon towers, you couldn’t stop.]

[The moment you did, a massive force would push you forward, sending you more than a dozen beacon towers ahead in one go!]

[If you ran in the opposite direction, stopping in the middle didn’t trigger that force.]

[This seemed to confirm indirectly that you were running the right way.]

[These beacon towers seemed designed for people to rest.]

[“I wonder how far the Sword Lord and the others have gotten. Are we all running on this same road? How ridiculous would that be!”]

[After switching to “Running Playlist”, you decided to test its effect.]

[“This needs music, but where the hell do I get a player? Old Wan!”]

[“Boss! Through fire and water!”]

[Ever since you forged the Super Immortal Artifact body for the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, he’d been hanging on your every word.]

[“Sing.”]

[“Boss, I can’t sing.”]

[“It’s not like I’m asking you to compete in the Human World Voice. Can’t you just sing anything?”]

[“Well… I’ll try, ahem…”]

[“Why are you blushing like a teapot full of bubbles…”]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner launched into a powerful vocal.]

[“♪ Daddy and Mommy go to work, I go to kindergarten…”]

[“How did you manage to turn a children’s song into a funeral dirge…”]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner was unreliable, so you had to do it yourself.]

[You sang as you ran.]

[“♪ On the long road, I brave the wild, bringing courage and a warm heart~”]

[“♪ Seeking myself, searching for true love, pausing to call this place home~”]

[“♪ Plunging into fate’s myriad calamities, how do you measure gain and loss…”]

[This song, in this time and place, actually fit the mood quite well.]

[Fourth year. Twenty-eight years old.]

[Extracting traits…]

[Extraction failed!]

[Adjust traits?]

[Yes/No]

[You chose No.]

[Staring at the trait nebula that couldn’t manifest properly, you cursed in frustration.]

[“Damn it! How long is this damn road! It’s screwing up my trait extraction!!”]

[As you ran, you suddenly noticed that far ahead, as far as the eye could see, the suspended Great Wall split into two!]

[“Something’s changed. Am I nearing the end?”]

[You sprinted toward it, still singing.]

[Your face showed urgency, irritation, and annoyance, yet you were singing a cheerful tune. The contradiction was glaring.]

[You arrived at a three-way fork.]

[All three paths looked identical, but on the left and right beacon towers, each had a stone tablet erected, inscribed with the characters "Life" and "Death" respectively.]

[“Life path, death path. It’s asking me to choose?”]

[You considered it.]

[You tried to leave some marks on the beacon tower but found it completely impossible.]

[The Great Wall looked like it was made of stone, yet with your Martial God cultivation, you couldn’t even scratch it.]

[“If I can’t do it, no one else should be able to either. I was hoping the Great Demon and the others might have left some sign, so we could all take the same path and meet at the top.”]

[Now there was no reference to rely on. You had to decide on your own.]

[“Life, death. Hmph! Void and reality, reality and void. Why would the answer be written on the question? Life is death, death is life! I choose the death path!”]

[Soon after.]

[The same three-way fork appeared.]

[“I choose the death path again!”]

[Some time later.]

[“Then I’ll take the death path!”]

[“Death path!”]

[“All the way to the death end!!”]

[Fifth year. Twenty-nine years old.]

[Extracting traits…]

[Extraction failed!]

[Adjust traits?]

[Yes/No]

[You chose No.]

[This was your nine hundred and ninety-ninth time standing before the life-and-death paths.]

[Thanks to “Photographic Memory”, you remembered the count perfectly.]

[Just as you were about to choose “death path” again, the Ten Thousand Souls Banner spoke up.]

[“Bro, how about we pick ‘life’ just once? What if picking ‘life’ clears the stage instantly?”]

[“You have a point, but I refuse to believe in superstition!”]

[“Damn, bro has gone completely mad from running!”]

[As your foot stepped onto the nine hundred and ninety-ninth beacon tower bearing the "Death" stone tablet.]

[A sudden feeling of weightlessness hit you from below.]

[Everything around you vanished in an instant!]

[In that moment, you felt nothing, knew nothing, as if you’d fallen asleep without even a single dream.]

[When you “woke up”, you found yourself standing on a pile of uniformly shaped stones.]

[Surrounding you was brownish-yellow earth. In the distance were forests, blue skies with white clouds, and a gentle breeze blowing.]

[“Is this the Real Realm? It doesn’t look any different from the Void Realm…”]

[You prepared to probe the distance with your Divine Sense.]

[“Huh? Where’s my Divine Sense?”]

[The Divine Sense you’d used countless times in the Void Realm had vanished without a trace, as if you’d never possessed such an ability.]

[“Wait, I… fly!”]

[You leaped into the air, only to fall headfirst into a nosedive.]

[“The Ability to Fly Through the Air is gone too!”]

[You looked down and realized that the pile beneath your feet wasn’t stones at all—they were Spirit Crystals! The massive hoard of top-grade Spirit Crystals the Wang family had given you!]

[But the Essence of Heaven and Earth inside them had all vanished, leaving only ordinary stones.]