Star City.
09:59:45 AM.
Inside an apartment, a young man lay on his bed with a technological helmet fitted over his face. The helmet resembled a motorcycle helmet, but it had no glass visor; instead, there was a digital screen displaying a countdown, which at that moment stood at fifteen seconds.
Ten seconds...
Five seconds...
One second...
When it reached zero, the countdown disappeared, and a message appeared on the screen:
[Virtual Cultivation Initiated]
The young Wang Jian, who had been seeing nothing but endless darkness beneath the helmet, suddenly saw white lights appear. Gradually, they illuminated the surroundings. In the end, they formed a completely white room.
"Incredible."
As a fantasy fan, visualizing something unreal was extremely exciting for Wang Jian, who rubbed his hands together eagerly, waiting for more incredible events to unfold. And they didn't take long.
Before his eyes, floating golden letters appeared, forming a panel in the air:
[Race: Human]
[Age: 16]
[Cultivation: Mortal (0/10)]
[Bone Structure: Mortal]
[Cultivation Manual: Basic Spiritual Gathering Art (0/10) — Can absorb 0.1 spiritual energy by cultivating continuously for one hour.]
[Techniques: None]
[Do you wish to open the storage space?]
[Yes/No]
After finishing reading, Wang Jian's mood completely soured.
Before entering the game, he had studied the only thing the administrators had posted on the forum: the six grades of bone structure.
Mortal, Spiritual, Stellar, Real, Imperial, and Celestial.
His was literally the worst.
For a few seconds, Wang Jian felt discouraged, but he quickly cheered up again.
He hadn't entered this game to focus seriously on cultivation. His true goal was the sword. Ever since watching donghua, reading cultivation webnovels, and samurai manga, the desire to become a swordsman had always surfaced in his mind.
Before, on Earth, he had learned kendo online. Now that this virtual reality game had arrived, he was determined to learn sword arts seen only in fantasy.
With renewed spirit, Wang Jian opened the storage space and noticed there was an ancient outfit made of animal hide, along with a sword with a leather hilt and a sixty-centimeter metal blade.
As soon as he thought about taking out the sword, it instantly appeared in his right hand.
Wang Jian looked at the sword fondly, gently stroking its blade and, to test its quality, thrust it forward several times.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The blade cut through the air and struck the void, producing soft sounds.
'This sword is sharper than any I've found on Earth.'
Wang Jian was surprised. From what he understood, this was a starting sword. Therefore, it was expected that its quality wouldn't be very high, perhaps equivalent to sharp knives from the real world. But that was far from reality.
This simple blade could cut through a piece of meat with a slight motion.
"The lowest level surpasses all cold weapons on Earth... and the higher levels?"
Wang Jian licked his lips, filled with desire. Then he shook his head. For now, that was far beyond him, as he would certainly have great difficulty leveling up in cultivation.
In this game, there was no experience gained from killing monsters—only meditation, pills, spiritual medicines, and resources formed by heaven and earth.
Letting out a sigh, he stored the sword, picked up the clothes, and put them on, as he had been naked.
"Initiate transport to the Divine Immortal Realm."
After issuing the command, Wang Jian's vision went dark, and his mind went blank. Within a few seconds, he lost consciousness. When he regained it, he felt something hard beneath him.
Opening his eyes, he saw crystal-like stones above him. Curling his body and looking around, he realized he was inside a mine.
'I'm really unlucky! Not only did I get a mortal talent, but I also start in a desolate place, with no one around and unknown dangers.'
Spitting on the ground in frustration, Wang Jian thought of 'Status,' and the panel reappeared—this time with a map at the end.
After analyzing it, he couldn't help but roll his eyes.
He was inside a glass crystal mine, located in the middle of the False Snow Mountain. From what he understood, the place got its name because of the white soil on the ground, which wasn't actually snow.
"Damn! Is this game messing with me?"
Wang Jian wanted to log out and complain on the forum about ending up in the middle of nowhere. But unfortunately, the developers were far too mysterious. Without revealing their identities, they had managed to promote the virtual cultivation game across all networks.
The strangest part was that no authority had made any statement about it.
"Is this world real? Well, whatever! If I can practice my sword, I don't care about anything else."
That was his personality: detached from reality and deeply connected to fantastical power. Whether it was a conspiracy or not didn't matter much. What mattered was that they had fulfilled his dream.
"Are these crystals worth money?"
Setting aside negative thoughts, Wang Jian—who could store fifty slots and currently had forty-nine empty—began to think like an investor.
From the name "glass crystal," it didn't seem like a common item.
"I'll mine forty-nine stones! If they're not worth anything, I'll throw them away later."
Determined, Wang Jian drew his sword and, taking a deep breath, advanced toward the crystal wall, delivering a full-force slash with his forearm.
Tchring! Crack!
The sharp tip collided with the wall and pierced it like butter, shattering it into fragments that fell to the ground, breaking off a piece of crystal.
Stepping back, Wang Jian heard several sounds of glass breaking. But his gaze wasn't there—only on the crystal that, upon hitting the ground, didn't crack; it merely rolled about two meters before stopping.
'It's definitely like I thought. It's worth money.'
With a faint smile, he walked over to the crystal and stored it. Then he continued mining, opening a hole deeper and deeper into the wall.
One hour later.
Sweating heavily, Wang Jian finished filling the empty slots and sat down cross-legged.
He decided to cultivate while resting.
Cultivating would normally take ten hours to go from level 0 to 1. And one hundred hours to surpass the mortal barrier. Converting that, it would take four days of continuous cultivation to become a cultivator.
"This is way too slow..."