A young man walked out of a train in Oakleaf City. 'Woah!' he looked at the surrounding train station and was surprised at how glossy and expensive looking it was. His black hair, fair skin, and childlike face made him look so very naive and simple-minded.
He followed some signs to get out of the train station and finally saw Oakleaf City in its full glory. He stopped in his tracks amazed at how big the buildings were, how many vehicles there were on the road, and just how well-dressed everyone looked.
"So, which way is the Oakleaf University?" he wondered as he took out his cheap-looking phone and started looking up the map.
After learning the directions, he started walking. He had a suitcase with him that he dragged along the city. Throughout the city he would see giant billboards and posters promoting a single thing, making him wonder just what was Eternal Cultivation?
"Hmm… is that a new movie? Looks good. Maybe I will get to see what a big city's cinema looks like." His countryside village also had cinemas, but the screen was small, so he usually preferred watching the movies on his family computer.
He finally reached the university and asked a few people to find his way to dormitory A. He walked up to a register table and got his key to his room.
His room was numbered 205, so he walked into an elevator and got up. As he came out of the elevator, he got a phone call. He looked at the caller and realized his mom was calling him. He accepted the call.
"Alex? Where are you? Did you reach the university?" a worried voice came from the other side of the phone.
"Yes, mother. I am currently in the dormitory, look for my new room." Alex replied.
"Oh good, good. Here, your father wants to talk to you."
"Hey son, how are you doing? Was the train ride okay? You didn't find it discomforting, right?" His father asked him in a worried voice.
"No, Father. It was fine. In fact, it was amazing. I never knew trains went that fast." Alex said.
"Haha," his father laughed from the other side of the phone, "That's what you get when you live your entire life on a farm. We shouldn't have home-schooled you. Fortunately, you will be getting new experiences now."
"It's okay Father. The school was in the town. It would've been hard for you to take me there regularly on a 2-hour ride." Alex said.
"Alright. Remember what I told you okay? Don't be friends with bad people. There are a lot of different people in the big cities. Learn to figure out which people are good and which are not. You should be old enough to know what to do and what not to do. Oh yeah, and just because you are 18 and you can, don't go to those stupid clubs, I hear they are just a waste of money."
Alex smiled a little and replied, "I understand, Father. My dorm room is coming up, so I will call you later."
"Alright, I will end the call then. Oh, right! Call Hannah and let her know you have arrived." "Bye," his father and mother said at the same time and ended the call.
Alex walked up to Room 205 and opened the door using his key. When he opened the room, he was surprised.
He didn't expect his room to already have people staying in it. Inside were 3 young men. 2 of them were up and talking, while one was seemingly sleeping. The room has 2 bunk beds and 4 closets. Aside from that, Alex couldn't see anything there.
"Hello, are you guys staying in this room as well?" he asked as he walked in.
"Yes, Are you our new roommate?" one of the people asked.
"Ah, yes," Alex said as he showed the key numbered 205. "Hello, my name is Alex Benton." He said as he walked in.
"Oh, Hi. My name is Eric and this is Matt" Eric said introducing himself and the other person.
"Hi," Matt greeted as well.
"You just arrived right? So, I assume you haven't eaten anything yet. It's nearly 3 pm. Why don't you freshen up and we can go get some afternoon lunch in the cafeteria."
Alex nodded and changed into a normal shirt and pants. He went to the bathroom attached to the room and cleaned himself. By the time he got out, the third man was already up.
"I'm sure you can do it next time. Just buy a pill if you can't."
"I know, but those cost money. And I'm not really playing to make money."
"Then you just gotta hope you breakthrough next time."
The man finally saw Alex. "Hey, you the new guy? Hi, I am Logan. What's up?"
"Hello, my name is Alex," he replied too. Afterward, all of them walked to the cafeteria to get some food. The 3 started talking about the same thing they were talking about in the room and it made Alex confused. He didn't know the context.
"What are you guys talking about exactly?" he asked.
"Eternal Cultivation," Matt replied.
"Oh, the new movie? I saw posters of it on the streets." Alex said with a face of understanding.
Matt, Eric, and Logan looked at him with a look of confusion. Logan then said, "It's not a movie. It's the best VR game in existence. Don't you know about it?" he asked.
"A VR game? I didn't know about that. I only heard about the game today." Alex said.
"It's already been out for a month and is the most played game of all time. How come you've never heard of it?" Matt was surprised.
"Oh, that's cause they don't have any billboards and posters near the farm. And I don't really get to be on the internet since I have to help my father with the work." Alex said.
"Well, you can play now. You really must experience it." Eric said.
"Oh, but I don't have a VR helmet or money to buy one," Alex said.
"Don't worry about that, Eric here had got an old one, you can use that," Matt said.
"Okay, then."
Alex and the 3 walked back to the room and Eric handed him his old helmet that he was keeping in the closet. Now that he looked at it, 3 of the 4 beds all had VR helmets in them.
"They must've been playing before I came," Alex mumbled a little.
"Just plug it in the socket there and you can start playing. Be sure to log out before 7 or you will miss dinner." Saying that Matt and the rest got into their beds and put on their helmets. After that, they went to asleep.
'They are playing now, huh?' Alex thought. He went to the only available bed, the lower bed of the right bunk bed, and put on his helmet. He plugged a wire into the socket and lay down on his bed.
Soon a light started shining from inside the helmet and he finally heard something.
...
Alex was shocked. This was the first time he had been in virtual reality, and no description of it could ever possibly explain how real this felt.
He looked down to his own body. He was currently naked with no clothes on. He looked in front of him where he could see a lot of customization options. There were so many options that he got overwhelmed with it.
He saw a randomize option to the side and pressed it. The randomize option gave him a tall and lean body with well-built muscles. He now had blue eyes, compared to his real-life brown eyes. He had long hair and no facial hair.
'This doesn't look bad.' Alex thought to himself, and clicked 'Create'. He heard something speak into his mind.
"Hmm… username? Should I just keep it as Alex? Probably not. Uhh…" he couldn't come up with a name, so he decided to randomize the username as well.
He saw a notification pop up in front of him. 'Hmm... Yu Ming? Doesn't sound like a bad name.' He thought as he pressed OK.
Suddenly everything turned white.
Alex found himself in the middle of the jungle. He looked around and saw nothing but tall, densely packed trees all around him.
'Am I still in the game?' he thought. There was no health bar or anything to imply that this was the game. This was just way too surreal.
Alex got worried. He remembered he was naked and looked down. Thankfully, he had clothes on now.
He was wearing a simple blue robe with blue pants on. He noticed something weird at his side. There was a small bulge on his left waist.
He tried to touch it to see what it was when suddenly, a transparent blue screen appeared in front of him. The screen had the name 'Bag of Cosmos' on top and inside the screen were a bunch of squares neatly ordered.
He looked at the squares and realized there were 2 icons in the small squares. One looked like a book and another looked like a treasure chest.
Curious, he tapped the book and suddenly another blue screen appeared in front of him.
[Tutorial]
[This game mostly works through voice commands. Say 'Settings' or 'Status' to open up settings or your info. Your first job is to make time and HP bar visible for your HUD from the settings. Say 'Settings' ]
"Settings"
A new screen appeared once more that had a bunch of little settings in it. He didn't know what most of them did as they were turned Off, but he quickly found 2 settings related to HP Bar and TIME. He turned both of them ON.
Suddenly on the top left of his vision, a green bar appeared representing his current HP amount. On the top right, a bunch of numbers appeared representing the current time.
It seemed the time in the game matched the real lifetime.
[Tutorial]
[Congratulations on using the settings. You can later change the different settings as you see fit. Now, to check your info say 'Status']
"Status"
Another blue screen appeared in front of him. This time it had a bunch of information about him.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Mortal (1 Qi: 100%)
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: None
Qi: 0
]
"Oh, is this my info?" Alex looked at the status with curiosity in his eyes. He didn't understand what most it meant though.
The tutorial screen popped up again.
[Tutorial]
[Congratulations on opening your status. Here is an explanation of what each of these info means.
Cultivation: is your current cultivation realm and level. It shows you how much Qi you have to invest to increase cultivation, and what your chances of breaking through are.
Body: is your potential in cultivation. It determines how far you can cultivate. Special bodies also give other benefits.
Talent: is your talent in cultivation. It determines how fast you can cultivate.
Spiritual Roots: Spiritual Roots represent your spiritual affinity towards the element. You can learn and use elements you have an affinity to more freely than the rest.
Cultivation Method: this is the technique you use to cultivate. It teaches you how to gather Qi and use the Qi to increase your cultivation.
Qi: this is your source of energy. The more Qi you have, the stronger you can become. The speed at which you gather Qi can depend on your location, your cultivation method, and your talent.]
Alex was truly overwhelmed now. He couldn't understand half of what was happening right now. He had decided to play this game because his new friends had told him it was the best out right now. So, why were there this many explanations?
Once he read it all, he clicked on 'next'. A new set of texts popped up from the tutorial panel.
[Tutorial]
[you can use the following commands.
Logout: to logout
Cultivation methods: to see all the cultivation methods you have learned.
Weapons: to see the list of weapons you have.
Pills: to see the list of pills you have.
Techniques: check the different techniques you have.
Inventory: to see your inventory. (shows items from all of your different spatial bags or rings)
Finally, congratulations on completing the tutorial. You can now open the chest in your inventory to obtain a random technique, weapon, pill, and cultivation method.]
He closed the Tutorial by clicking the 'X' on the top. He tried saying all the commands, except logout, to see if they worked. As expected, all the commands worked.
Every single panel those commands brought up was empty, except for the inventory.
"Alright then, let's see what the chest gives me. Hopefully, it's something good." Alex clicked on the chest and a notification popped up.
He clicked 'Open'.
"Weapons" he decided to check weapons first.
The weapons panel now had a new addition to it. From the icon, it looked like a sword. Alex clicked on it and the option to equip or description popped up. He chose description.
[Iron Sword
Grade: Mortal
]
There were no more descriptions than that.
"What's the mortal grade? Is that good or bad? Also, is there no attack bonus or anything? How is this game if the item has no stats on it?" Nothing of what Alex had learned from the little video games he played on his home computer helped him at all right now.
He then checked the pill.
[Qi providing pill
Grade: Mortal
Gives you 10 Qi]
"This is not bad. Didn't my status say I need 1 Qi to level up or something like that?" Alex was quite happy to find this pill.
"How do I use the pill though? Is there a button to use it?" Alex looked into the options that popped up but didn't understand what to do.
"Since this is a pill, like a medicine. Do I just eat it?" he wondered.
"Whatever, here it goes."
POP
He put the pill into his mouth. As soon as it entered his mouth, as if the pill melted, it slid down his throat before he even noticed.
"Oh. I was right". He quickly opened his status page to check the change now.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Mortal (1 Qi: 100%) [Breakthrough]
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: None
Qi: 10
]
Now that he had enough Qi, he had a [Breakthrough] option in his Cultivation.
"Ah, there it is. So I can become a cultivator now? Is that what it is?" Alex wondered as he pressed the [Breakthrough] button.
"Oh! I need a Cultivation Method huh? Let's check my Cultivation method then." Alex opened his Cultivation method page and saw the book icon in the panel.
The Cultivation method had a separation of the panel that divided the panel into 2 sections. 'Learned' and 'Ready to Learn'. The book was in the 'Ready to Learn' section.
He clicked it and two options popped up. 'Learn' and 'Description'. He clicked on the description.
[Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method:
Grade: Heaven
Absorb 20 Qi every minute. The amount doubles during the night]
"Woah. 20 Qi every minute? That's crazy," Alex thought. "Wait? Does that mean the pill I ate wasn't actually good.?"
"Do I learn It now?" he thought. He quickly went back to the same panel and clicked learn.
"Nice. Now I can breakthrough right?" Alex quickly set the new method as his cultivation method. After that, he clicked [Breakthrough]
...
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Skin Tempering 1st Realm (500 Qi: 100%)
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method
Qi: 9
]
"Huh, I need 500 Qi now? That's …" Alex quickly did some calculations in his head, "25 minutes. That's a lot."
"Do I have to use that technique for 25 minutes just to level up once? Isn't that a really bad system? What about later on? Will the time increase again?" he wondered.
"Hmm… I should find some pills to give me more Qi. However, at this rate, I will need 50 of those previous pills just to level up once. That should be harder than just using the ability for 25 minutes.
"Whatever, I will just look around for now. This looks so darn realistic. Maybe I should get rid of the health bar for now to let me see more."
Alex walked around the jungle looking at the greenery. He quickly found a small path and took it. Coincidentally, within 5 minutes, he was out of the jungle, looking at a big perimeter of wall, blocking off an entire city in front of him.
He looked to the side of the wall to see a gate with people and carriages lined up near it. There were guards waiting near the gates taking something from the newcomers before letting them in.
'Do I need money?' he wondered. Just then, someone else walked out from the forest. It was a man wearing a yellow robe with green linings.
He saw Alex looking around blankly and especially, noticed his plain robes. So he asked, "Hello brother, are you new around here?"
Alex looked around with a confused face. 'NPC or player?' he wondered.
"Yes, I just arrived here today, and don't know what to do to get inside," Alex replied.
The man heard that and softly asked, "Are you a player?"
"Yes," Alex said excitedly. 'So he was a player all along huh.'
"Well, just cultivate for an hour or 2. After that, once you break through, you can go hunt some weak monsters in the jungle, and sell their bodies to one of the merchants that always run through here."
"That should get you about 5 or so silver coins, enough to enter the city." The man said.
"Cultivate? What's that?" Alex questioned.
The man looked at him weirdly. "You learned your cultivation method right?" Alex nodded.
"Then, just sit around and meditate. Your cultivation method will kick in on its own," said the man. After that, he bid farewell and left the place.
"Hmm… since I already broke through, I should just go and kill some animal." He walked back to the forest he had just come from. However, it didn't take long for him to find an animal.
The creature he met had a name floating on top of it.
"Woah, it's a level higher than me. Can I even fight it?" the fox was definitely stronger than him. Alex was worried and wondered if he should change his targets.
"I'm only level 1, so there should be a protection mechanic in the game that doesn't let me die, right?" Alex decided to fight the fox.
He quickly opened his weapons panel and equipped his sword. The sword was about 2 meters long in length and was very precious looking.
He tried to go forward, undetected by the fox, but that was all a dream. There were way too many things in the jungle that made noises when one walked.
The fox immediately lunged at him the moment it saw him. Alex tried to swing his sword at the fox and ended up hitting it right in the face.
The fox whimpered and backed off. An angry look appeared on its face as it started growling. It once more jumped at him.
This time instead of using the sword as a sword, Alex swung it down hard like he was back home chopping wood with an Axe.
"Core? What is that?" he wondered. He took it out from his inventory and looked at it. It was a small reddish-brown sphere that felt a little coarse to the touch.
"Is this like that pill I ate earlier?" he wondered. It looked like it, so he assumed it was. So, without any hesitation, he put the core in his mouth and swallowed it.
"Oh wow, so it was a pill. Maybe I should go find some more of those foxes."
He was already near the city, so he decided not to. Instead, he decided to break through.
He opened his status and as expected, a [Breakthrough] button had appeared in his cultivation line.
He clicked the button.
He was now a level higher. He looked at his status again and realized the [Breakthrough] button was still there. So, he pressed it once more.
He opened his status page once more.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Skin Tempering 3rd Realm (1500 Qi: 100%)
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method
Qi: 509
]
Alex picked up the fox's corpse and walked out of the forest. Along the way, he realized he could put the corpse inside his inventory. And so he did.
He found his way to one of the merchants waiting in line. He read the name, 'Victorious Snow Merchant Group'.
The merchant there traded his corpse for 10 silvers. Alex took it and went to the gate. The gatekeeper asked him for identification or 2 silvers to enter the city.
Alex didn't have anything that could identify him, so he simply paid the fee and entered.
He tried to log out after entering the city, but the game told him that he wasn't in a very safe place to log out.
Only after renting a room in a tavern did the game tell him that it was safe to log out.
...
Alex opened his eyes and slowly felt the helmet as he pulled it off. He had logged out a little early because he didn't know what to do in the game any longer and decided to leave.
He tried to stand up quickly and hit his head. "Ow," he looked at what he had just hit and said in realization, "Oh, that's right. I'm not in my room." This made him feel a little sad and started to miss home.
Seeing that the others were still in the game as it was still quite a bit away from the 7 pm they said they would log out at, he decided to call his parents and tell them he had settled.
"Did you message your cousin?" his father asked from the other side.
"Oh, I forgot. I will message her right now," said Alex. After ending the call with his parents, he sent his cousin a simple message.
Soon, his three roommates logged out as well, and they went to the cafeteria to have dinner.
"So, how did you like the game?" Matt asked from the side curiously.
"It was good. I mean, I didn't like that you have to meditate around forever just to level up, but the realistic senses make up for it more than enough."
"Oh, that? You will get used to it," Logan said from the side. "Everyone complains about the slow leveling at first. But you will soon find why that is at an appropriate speed."
Eric chimed in from the side saying, "Deva Corp did earn over 2 billion dollars just in the first month of release of Eternal Cultivation. That should tell you how good that game is."
Matt said, "You will soon get used to it. Although I think it's better if you drop your ideas of this being a game. This is another world that Deva Corp has made for us to live in. They do say, You don't play Eternal Cultivation, you live it."
That statement struck Alex in a way he hadn't expected it to. 'So I should just stop caring leveling up and just enjoy the world, huh? Guess I can do that.'
Together they went back to their room. Alex was about to go to the bathroom when he saw every one of them putting their helmets back on.
"You guys are going to play again?" he asked.
Matt laughed and said, "We play every moment of waking and sleeping hour. It's just that fun."
"Sleeping hours? Do you guys play instead of sleeping? Isn't that bad for your health?"
Logan said from his bed, " No, we sleep. But the VR helmet makes it so that we can play even when asleep. You should try it today."
Eric added, "You should play it too. Maybe you can earn enough money to buy your own headset."
"Earn money? How?" Alex questioned. 'They must be joking with me right?' he thought.
"Oh, you can earn money by converting in-game currencies to dollars. We make some good bucks, enough for our monthly pocket change" said Logan. "Alright, we are logging in, you should go too, Alex." All 3 of them logged in afterward.
"Me? Earn money with the game?" that concept was quite funny to him. A kid who barely played any video games could never earn money from it.
He quickly freshened up and went back to his bed. He saw that his phone had a notification and checked it.
His cousin, Hannah, had replied. He put down his phone and put on the helmet. Before he knew it, he was back in the game.
He opened his eyes in the room in the tavern. As soon as he did, he heard the rumbling of his stomach.
"I can get hungry as well?"
Thankfully, he was already at a tavern, so he walked down to the ground floor and ordered himself a bowl of stew. It cost him about silver, but he didn't care for the money right now.
He listened to the conversations of different people in the tavern and came to a piece of information that interested him. Hong Wu sect was holding an entrance exam tomorrow.
During dinner, the 3 guys told him that he should find a sect as fast as possible. 'If they are really taking a test, then I should try it as well.' He thought.
He walked to the people who were talking about this and asked, "Hello, can you tell me where this examination is taking place exactly?"
"I would suggest you don't bother, brother. Hong Wu Sect is an alchemy sect, so they are very hard to get into. But, if you still want to know, it will take place at around 8 am in the Hong Wu Sect."
'Alchemy?' he was confused as he had never heard that term before. 'I should check what it is tomorrow morning.'
He went back to his room after eating the food and thought, "It's already so late at night. So, I probably shouldn't go out, right? Why don't I take this chance to cultivate instead."
He sat cross-legged in the bed and started to meditate. Slowly, he started getting drowsy, and before he knew it, he had lost consciousness and entered a trance-like state.
.
.
.
Alex suddenly woke up. He didn't realize when he had fallen asleep in the game, but by the time he was awake, it was already 6 AM in the morning.
"Where am I?" he got confused for a second before he realized that he was still in the game. "But, I fell asleep, how am I still in the game?" he was confused. After he stopped thinking about it, he logged out.
...
Alex came out of the game and realized his body was not tired at all. In fact, he felt very well-rested. 'So sleeping in the game does in fact work.' He was very surprised.
He washed up and waited for the guys to log out. During that time, he decided to check up on what exactly alchemy was. According to the Internet, Alchemy in Eternal Cultivation was the process of making pills.
"Hmm… Along with artifacts, Pills are one of the most expensive items in the game, Eternal Cultivation." He read what the information outlet was telling him. He closed his phone as his roommates started waking up and went to have some breakfast.
After breakfast, he wanted to go back into the game, so he did. He looked at the time and realized he only had 45 minutes to make it to the Hong Wu Sect.
He hurriedly went down to the tavern and asked the keeper for directions. The keeper's directions were simple. Hong Wu sect to the North and Tiger Sect to the south of Scarlet City. When Alex asked him what the Tiger sect was, he found out that it was a place where normal cultivators went to join.
"So there are 2 sects in this Scarlet City, huh? I still like the idea of joining the Alchemy sect, rather than the other normal one." He said to himself.
Quickly he made his way north, asking for directions to the Hong Wu sect along the way. When he finally reached the Hong Wu sect, he was surprised.
Alex was now outside of a gate. Beyond the gate, he could see a tall mountain with many houses on it. The mountain was the sect ground of the Hong Wu sect.
Time was running out, so he quickly registered himself at the gate and was directed to a large tent inside the gate. Alex looked at the piece of paper that was the registration slip. It simply had the number 174, along with his name Yu Ming and age 18.
He had almost reflexively said Alex, but caught himself in the last second. He walked into the large tent and sat in an open spot on the ground, among the many other people who were all sitting in a symmetrical fashion.
Very soon, an important-looking man, in his late 20s walked inside the tent. He was wearing a green robe with silver linings. Soon after he entered, a few dozen younger-looking men and women walked in.
"Everyone listen up," the man said as he stood up on a podium of sorts. " I am your examiner, and I will be taking your test here. " The man gestured to the side.
The group of men and women who had entered walked around the place and handed each of them a storage bag and a slip of paper.
"You have one hour to name all the 100 ingredients inside. If you can name more than 50, you pass. Makes sure the talisman you answer in also has your registration number and name." Saying that the man left the tent. The other people, however, stood there, watching the different examinees taking their exams.
Alex tried to take out each of the ingredients to see what it was called, but each time to took it out, it only said [?????????]. The game wasn't helping at all.
For the next half an hour, he fooled around trying to find the ingredient's name. Checking if he could at least name one, but he couldn't.
"They did say the exam was hard," he sighed as he stopped thinking about the exam and instead started looking at his settings through the different things. He wasted another 15 minutes on that.
Suddenly, he remembered something. 'Isn't my inventory supposed to show everything I have? What if I look at the ingredients using the inventory and not from the outside?'
"Inventory," he said in a low voice. A blue panel popped up in front of him that indeed had over a hundred items. He randomly picked one to see if it was named, but it was still called ??????.
'Sigh,' he was about to close the inventory when he noticed something. In the very first box of the inventory, there was an icon for a book.
"A cultivation method?" he wondered. He tried to click on the description, but accidentally clicked on learn.
"Huh, Alchemy?" he was stunned.
"Cultivation Method," he said and the list of cultivation methods popped up. There was only one. 'But it was a book?' he was confused.
'Ah right, didn't the treasure give me a technique as well? I completely forgot about that. Is this a technique?'
He opened the techniques panel, and there in the learned section, he could see a book icon. He clicked on it and opened the description.
[Alchemy God's Manual: Level 1
Grade: Mortal (Growth)
Unlocked: You have knowledge of all alchemy material.
Unlocked: Can learn any alchemy recipe instantly.
Unlocked: +50% chance to produce an extra pill during alchemy.
Level 2 required to unlock more
]
" Growth? What is that supposed to mean? This technique can level up?" he wondered, but he didn't care about that for the moment. The thing that attracted his attention was the first thing that was unlocked,
' Unlocked: You have knowledge of all alchemy material.'
"Does that mean…?" he started to have a sliver of hope and anticipation brew up deep within him. He took out an inventory and saw its name.
[Bluethorn Leaf]
"Yes," he shouted softly.
[Horn Root Grass]
[Aquatic Berry]
It was working. He picked up the paper to start writing down the names. There was no pen, but he realized he could write in it what he wanted just by thinking about it.
As he started writing down the name, a weird-looking pattern started to appear on the piece of paper. It took him a few minutes to name all the materials in the bag.
At 9 o'clock exactly, the man returned to the tent and shouted, "Time Over, Everyone put your answers in the bag and pass them to your seniors."
After handing the bag, Alex walked out. He heard that they could come by tomorrow at 8 to see their results.
Alex took his time walking back to the tavern and logged out when he reached his room. It had taken him an hour to return, so by the time he logged out, it was nearly 10 am.
Just as he got up from his bed, he heard Logan shouting, "Yes. I did it. I broke through to the True realm."
"Did you use any pills?" Eric asked.
"Nah. Those costs too much. The alchemist takes 50 dollars for even the lowest ones. I'm not wasting my money on that unless it's extremely necessary.
Alex didn't get in on the celebration. Instead, he looked at his phone which had a new notification on it. It was a message from his cousin.
