"Jiuche, there is nothing more I can teach you."
In the deep mountains of Honshu, in the Far East, an elderly man with silver hair and a face carved by age stood with his back to the young man in the training yard as he spoke slowly.
"You have already mastered every sword form, as well as the breathing technique."
"That means you have officially entered the path."
"According to the traditions of the Demon Slayer Corps, your next step is to take part in the Final Selection… Pass it, and you will become a full-fledged member."
When he noticed the silence behind him, a ripple stirred in the old man's heart.
His name was Kazami Sarayoshi, a retired swordsman and a trainer—one whose sole duty was to raise those who would slay demons.
Behind him stood the student into whom he had poured an entire year of effort:
Jiuche Xiaxi.
The boy's talent was solid.
Hardworking, steady, pure-hearted.
And yet now that the youth had truly learned everything he had to offer and was about to graduate, Kazami found himself gripped by a rare sense of hesitation.
By tradition, Xiaxi's next step was the Final Selection, and the mortality rate there was far from low.
After a year together, he had long since come to regard the young man almost like family. The thought of sending him into danger was hard to bear.
But when Kazami Sarayoshi turned around,
what he saw was still that same calm face as always—
unchanged from the one he had first seen a year ago, when he had taken the boy away from the scene of that family massacre.
His gaze was pure, yet deep.
At last, the old man made up his mind.
The Demon Slayer Corps existed to exterminate demons.
Since the boy had chosen this path, then surely he had already resolved himself to death.
"Jiuche, take this Nichirin Blade with you when you leave."
"It's an old piece, but it's still better than going unarmed."
"You know this already—only blades forged from Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand can truly kill a demon."
"I'll pack your things for you first. Three days from now… you'll set out."
The boy still said nothing.
"Jiuche… do you have something else you wish to say to your teacher?"
Only then did the youth called Jiuche seem to snap out of a dream and look toward Kazami.
"No, Kazami-sensei."
But what the boy was actually thinking was…
Skip.
Skip.
Skip!
Wait, hang on—what did my bargain-bin master just say?
The "animation" racing past in front of his eyes suddenly returned to normal.
Over his teacher's head still hung the subtitle: [Jiuche… do you have something else you wish to say to your teacher?]
Jiuche Xiaxi hurriedly skimmed back through the dialogue log he had just skipped.
A little distracted, he replied, "So, Sensei, if I pass the selection, I become an official demon hunter?"
This kid—still so easy to lose himself in thought.
"That's right. Once you pass, you'll travel across the country slaying demons, just as I once did." The old man corrected him helplessly. "Also, it's the Demon Slayer Corps, not 'demon hunters.'"
Xiaxi looked at the trainer, then at himself.
[Kazami Sarayoshi (Power Level: 187)]
[Jiuche Xiaxi (Power Level: 29)]
With a stat gap this huge, how was he supposed to be like the old man?
Could his current stats really get him through this so-called Final Selection?
But after another thought, Xiaxi figured maybe he was worrying too much.
Based on his past gaming experience, it was completely normal for the tutorial mentor to be absurdly overpowered.
Huge stats were expected.
That was the whole point: high level, high numbers, flashy effects. If the game didn't sell players that dream, who would spend money?
But for the main story, it wasn't necessary to set every challenge according to those big-shot numbers. If they balanced things like that, players would curse the devs' entire family tree the moment they hit a wall.
Thinking that way, the Final Selection was probably just one of those staged danger events—tense on the surface, but not actually that bad.
After a brief pause, the boy nodded and gave a bow.
Then he took the Nichirin Blade and prepared to leave.
But suddenly, as if remembering something, he turned back and said to Kazami, "Kazami-sensei, after I'm gone, take care of yourself. Don't go getting jumped by some old enemy or ambushed by a demon."
Once the plot begins, the teacher dies.
Far too many stories liked to celebrate the protagonist's official debut by sacrificing the master first.
He definitely did not want to leave home only to have Kazami Sarayoshi get killed off by the writers the moment he was out the door.
After all, he had spent a long time with this teacher NPC.
He'd gotten attached.
What he didn't realize was that this offhand warning instantly made Kazami blow up, glaring and bristling.
"You brat! I'll still be living just fine long after you're dead!"
"Take your Nichirin Blade and get lost—stop hovering in front of me!"
Watching the retreating figure disappear under his own shouting, Kazami Sarayoshi's gaze gradually softened.
So the kid could worry about other people after all.
"He's grown…"
Meanwhile, on the other side, after returning to his room, Xiaxi was already fully absorbed in studying the system panel.
On the quest panel, the main quest had updated from [Prologue: Complete Swordsmanship Training] to [Chapter One: Complete the Final Selection to Join the Corps].
On the skill panel, only a single entry hung there all by itself:
[Wind Breathing]
[Lv.1: Just Barely Learned the Basics]
[Progress: 271/500]
As soon as the main quest advanced into Chapter One, the system unlocked a brand-new [Life Skills] feature.
But Xiaxi planned to examine that more closely later.
He had spent nearly a full year inside the training lodge's prologue sequence, which translated to roughly three hours in real time.
It was about time to log out and eat dinner.
Xiaxi was not only Jiuche Xiaxi inside the "game"; outside it, he was also a veteran action gamer from Blue Star.
Naturally, his hobby was diving into every supposedly hardcore, cutting-edge new release he could find.
The game he was currently playing was one such title—a brand-new game from some mysterious developer, not yet open to the public for beta.
Demon Slayer Story: Bloodstorm Chronicles
Its "Arcane Core Engine" and "Onionhead AI Algorithm" had pushed the game's art and physics to an absurd level of realism.
Its freedom of gameplay was leagues ahead of every other developer on the market.
And thanks to the latest seventh-generation neural-link and quantum deep-dive tech, in-game time flowed at a staggering 1:2400 compared to reality.
Spend a hundred days in the game, and only one hour passed outside.
To put that into perspective, most mainstream games on the market had only barely reached a ratio of 1 hour to 720 in-game hours.
Add to that the developer's flawless reputation from previous titles,
and the game had already been hyped across the internet before release.
And Xiaxi, as a well-known action gamer in the year 2099, naturally wasn't about to miss this early access test.
So far, his impression was that the graphics and realism really had reached the level that mysterious company had advertised.
Way ahead of the competition.
Not just a little ahead—completely, overwhelmingly ahead.
It wasn't just the five senses either.
His bargain-bin teacher, along with the occasional visitors who came by, all spoke and behaved almost exactly like real humans.
Though, admittedly, there were places where the realism was a little too excessive.
Like the foul stench of the pit toilet.
Or the thunderous snoring of Master Kazami.
Why are you polishing these details so hard?! Put that dev power into the gameplay instead!
Complaining inwardly, Xiaxi rummaged through the system panel and prepared to log out.
One life. Four hours. Five thousand Federation Credits.
That was the price of the test slot he had managed to snag.
Not exactly cheap.
Four hours translated to just a little over a year in-game.
Eat dinner, come back, finish the class-change quest, and his trial period would probably be over.
"Confirm Logout."
[Attempting logout… Attempting logout… Retrying (1/10)…]
He wondered absentmindedly whether there were already other players online who had progressed faster than him.
He even started thinking about whether he should just settle for instant noodles tonight to save time.
[Protocol failure detected… Retrying (5/10)…]
As a test player, naturally he wasn't just supposed to play the game. He also had to write up gameplay impressions and bug reports.
While waiting, he was already drafting the structure of the report in his head.
[Logout failed.]
[Warning: Unknown spacetime protocol interference detected… System conflict…]
[Emergency response initiated: Deep Immersion Mode activated. Timeflow recalibrated to 1:8760.]
[Reconnected. Repair attempt in progress… Estimated remaining time: approximately 4–8 hours.]
[DR cognitive buffer increased.]
[LZ dive depth increased.]
"…Huh?"
Coming back to himself, Xiaxi stared at the grayed-out logout button and the dense error messages covering the panel, his eyes widening.
System malfunction. Unable to log out?
It was already the year '99—how could there still be a basic lockout bug like this?
Was this new tech really that unreliable?
And 1:8760… didn't that mean…
One real hour was about one in-game year.
Four to eight hours meant four to eight years?
Wasn't that going to make him miss dinner?
But after the first wave of shock and irritation faded, another thought quietly emerged.
Wait.
From another angle… wasn't this actually a huge win?
He had only paid for a four-hour test ticket.
And now his playtime had effectively been multiplied.
As for spending several years inside the game?
Cognitive buffering was already a highly mature technology. A few years of adventure in-game would, under its effects, feel like nothing more than a particularly long lucid dream.
It wasn't as if he had never pulled all-night gaming sessions before.
Not to mention the countless gaming maniacs online who would binge for dozens of hours straight just to experience entire decades' worth of in-game content.
If that was the case, why not make the most of it and enjoy the bonus time?
Let's grind.
Before he logged out, he was going to clear this single-player game in one life.
Xiaxi opened the skill panel.
[Wind Breathing Lv.1], huh?
Then while he was still in the starter village, he might as well grind it to Level 2 within the next two days!
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My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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