Chapter 12: First Thoughts of Adaptation
Outlast was a first-person survival horror game that had scared the shit out of Jin when he had first played it shortly after the lockdowns had started in his last life. Considering that at the time the game's graphics had been more than five years out of date. That was very impressive since it suggested that the horror of the game had come from the elements of it that weren't purely visual. Any studio could create a grotesque high-definition monstrosity, but most couldn't make an atmosphere with just the music, storyline and game mechanics.
Outlast also fulfilled his biggest requirement for the scenario, namely that there would be no combat ingrained into the core elements of the game.
Combat systems were much more intertwined into games than most people thought. If you took any amazing game based on combat and removed the fighting, one would be left with an empty husk. The surrounding designs which had been input to accentuate the combat, or the other way around, simply didn't work anymore. Outlast in this case would require the least reworking to fit the psychological purposes of Jin's project.
Of course, there would be numerous things that would have to be changed, however, that would only require plastic surgery, not a full osteotomic makeover of the core elements. It was always easier to change the surface than the underlying structure.
These were the thoughts that occupied his mind as the two mad monk's disciples gave him a very brief but informative tour of their little asylum.
Even if they didn't call it as such.
They simply referred to it as "The Place of Rest".
The horrified and insane people that Jin got to see, hear, and smell in some instances were resting all right, it just wasn't anything resembling sleep. It was rather an absence of responsibility due to a lack of sanity. He was sure everyone present would have preferred to not be resting if this was the definition.
In the end, however, he had to conclude that the Mad Monks Sect was actually one of the good guy sects. Relatively speaking, of course, in comparison to the mostly non-existent moral standards of Cultivation Land.
Naturally, locking away the people they'd helped drive insane with their flawed cultivation methods into small rooms was hardly nice of them, but it was more than most other sects would have done, which would have simply been to outright kill them.
Shen also confided in him that those divergents who weren't as insane as to be completely dependent, or violent, weren't locked up here but kept at a separate part of the mountain where they could go out, breathe the fresh air, touch some grass, grow some cabbages. That was how the crazy lady that Elder Flower had killed in the bamboo forest had escaped. She'd retained enough of her sanity to be able to pretend that she was not murderously insane. She'd used that higher amount of freedom to escape. She'd stolen a staff and had run away. Simple as that. She must have gotten lucky in some way as other divergents were killed upon making escape attempts. There must have been patrols and such. The only real cruelty the Mad Monks allowed was the fact that none of the divergents could ever leave. They wouldn't be killed, but they would die on the mountain. They knew cultivation secrets that weren't allowed to come to light to other sects or mortals in general. They would die after perhaps a hundred or so years of living in an asylum under strict guard without ever seeing their families again.
Jin would have just preferred to kill himself and wondered if he would have been allowed to do that.
The atmosphere in the fortress was daunting, and neither of his two new friends spoke throughout the tour. They simply walked through the corridors and let him look through the small food doors of the cells. Patient confidentiality, what was that? Personally, Jin had never been so uncomfortable in his entire life. In either one of his lives for that matter. It really was something, even at such an advanced age you could still learn new things and experience new emotions.
There was just something disturbing about looking into the crazed or empty eyes of people who had lost their sanity and reasoning, arguably the thing that most closely defined a human. Empty pitiable husks with no chance of recovery. Once one diverged, that was it, unless a sect was willing to put in the same amount of resources they needed to create an Elder to unfuck you, which would only return you to a baseline human unable to ever cultivate again. Suffice to say, there was no such sect.
Jin only ended up glimpsing into two of the cells, not having the stomach afterwards to continue doing so, despite the reproachful look of his guides. They thought he needed to horrify himself to properly motivate himself to help create less of these people. He didn't have the heart to tell them that projecting their lack of professionalism onto him was a sign of an inferiority complex. He did his best in any job he accepted, this whole thing had just helped him come up with new ideas, it hadn't actually been necessarily to steel his resolve.
He exited the fortress not long after his entry, with the screams and the babbling of the insane following him on the way out like the bad stench of moral decay and neuroses that clung to a high-level business executive as they flew out of Davos after having visited the World Economic Forum.
Jin was shaken, even if he tried not to show it. Inner disciple Shen seemed to respect that, not speaking as he started the long walk back to the visitor's pavilion. Maybe he was just shaken himself, who knew.
The journey dragged on as Jin yearned to either eat or sit down and start creating. They passed the little villages they had traversed on the way to the asylum and Jin saw that all the outer disciples were already going into secluded meditation and that no other sound was to be heard.
At best he could hear a cricket every now and again, or the sound of wind passing through the bamboo forests and the high grass enclosing the small paths they walked.
Jin had seen all that he needed to see, had decided on the template and now he could distract himself by thinking about the practical aspects of the scenario he was developing.
If nothing else he did genuinely think that this scenario would help the Mad Monks Sect better weed out those too mentally fragile to follow their preferred cultivation path.
Being scared for one's life because one had to play a scenario that was completely optional and fake was much better than eventually losing one's mind down the line. If one couldn't handle an illusion, how was one meant to handle reality?
In fact, it was good to know that asylums existed in this world as well. This meant that the concept wouldn't be too foreign to those doomed to experience his version of Outlast. Many things would have to be changed, but the madhouse wasn't one of them.
The main story arc would be simple enough. The main character of Outlast was a freelance investigative journalist. Journalism obviously couldn't really exist in a world of cultivation, but the narrative justification for the experiencer going to investigate the Mount Massive Asylum could easily be fabricated with some changes. The main character simply belonged to some faction which was interested in figuring out the disappearances in the region. After all, even presuming that the Mount Massive Asylum took only those that wouldn't be missed, the insane, the sheer scale of the operation would elicit attention. The experiencer could be led towards the asylum by a whistleblower, and then once they got trapped inside while trying to investigate, they would have to escape. Simple enough, from that point onwards the gameplay could essentially stay the same.
The Murkoff corporation, the pharmaceutical and weapons giants that they were, had created the asylum to experiment on the mentally deranged, and whomever else they could get their hands on, to find a host for a supernatural entity existing outside of human reason, the Walrider. They'd done so through the morphogenic engine program, which tested different patients for their host compatibility. Those who weren't compatible degraded on a physical level and those that survived the process became the variants that made the asylum dangerous to explore. Easy enough. The Murkoff corporation would become the Murkoff demonic sect, who were trying to find alternative ways to cultivate immortality, such as by hosting a supernatural entity in their bodies. Project Zero was simply established to test the feasibility of the theoretical process. Worst case if the host became too mentally unstable, but still had the power of what was essentially a dark god, they could still release it on their enemies.
Considering how comically evil the Murkoff corporation was, changing them into a demonic sect wouldn't really take a lot of work.
The devil, as always, was in the details.
One of the main components of the atmospheric horror of Outlast came from the fact that the electricity was killed throughout the whole building at some point, which forced the main character to see through the night vision lens of the camera they had with them. The fact that this camera ran out of batteries, which one then had to find and replace, increased the urgency of the escape and also the resting heart rate of the player.
If there was even anything resting about the heart rate of the player when they went through the game. Jin remembered taking numerous breaks to avoid what he felt was an oncoming heart attack, but was probably just him about to shit his pants.
The camera could be easily replaced with some sort of enchanted recording lens. Cultivation was magic and magic didn't always have to explain itself. The lens would obviously need to be powered by the occasional spirit stone, and these would be strategically placed around the map in the same places that the batteries had been in an attempt to mimic the camera part of the gameplay and thus raise the urgency of the escape.
Then there would be a thousand other things. Electrical appliances would have to be switched out by more mediaeval methods of achieving the same thing. The room in which the Walrider was being summoned would have to lose its computers and its high-tech pod machines, and become a chamber with a high ceiling decorated with seals and artefacts which invoked suspicions that someone was messing with forces they really shouldn't. Some blood splashes here and there?
Guns would be replaced with crossbows, medical files with scrolls, computers with large ancient tomes and the tactical gear of the security company that had failed to establish a perimeter by leather armour.
All of this was doable but would require him to go through the entire scenario with a fine-tooth comb to eliminate any indications of his nature as a transmigrator before he showed the product to Elder Flower. He wasn't really looking forward to having to relive Outlast the amount of times it would doubtlessly necessitate to get anywhere with the scenario.
But, now that he had decided on the direction he was going in, everything else was simply a matter of time and effort.
And, as a cultivator in a world where hours were treated as minutes and weeks as days and months as weeks and years as months and decades as years, time was something that he had.
Effort, motivation? This was an opportunity to recreate something amazing and share it with the people in Cultivation Land. Additionally, he would be helping potential disciples not go insane, which was always nice, and at the same time, he would be bettering his own position in the Illusion Room Sect by successfully fulfilling a contract and presumably improving their relations with an allied sect. The motivation wouldn't be an issue and thus the effort also wouldn't be.
"Thank you for your guidance inner disciple Shen," Jin said to his silent and oftentimes confusing guide as they arrived back at the pavilion where they had started their journey earlier that day.
The sun had started sinking instead of rising in the meantime and it was soon getting to the point where Jin needed another meal before he secluded himself into his room to work through all the ideas he had and all the things he had to change. He needed some fuel for all that thinking he'd be doing.
Inner disciple Shen slightly bowed his head. "It is an honour to work and to work is an honour. Especially when the task is honourable and aims to change the karmic inversion of the wheel and create a change worth risking heavenly retribution for," he said and promptly turned around and left.
His sandaled feet clicked on the cobbled stone path as he walked away before quickly disappearing out of view and leaving Jin alone standing in the front arched doors of the temple tower seemingly designated for visitors.
"What a fucking weirdo," Jin muttered to himself, shook his head once, turned around and walked inside.
Thankfully he knew how to get to the room with the food on his lonesome by now, since nobody was idling around to ask for directions.
-/-
It was several hours later that Jin was sitting down in a small room with many fully scribbled notebooks in his lap.
Elder Flower was also there.
They were having the obligatory tea necessary to be drunk by all cultivators whenever they were doing anything but training and cultivating. They'd just started discussing the inner disciple's idea and what he had experienced that day.
"So they showed you the Place of Rest?" Elder Flower wondered idly and sipped at her brew. Her long hair seemed more lustrous than usual and to Jin, it seemed like she had spent the day at a spa. It must have been nice being an Elder, the young man grumbled internally. Just sit there pretending to be wise and let the inner and core disciples do all the work. The rewards would just fly in. He wasn't bitter, he wasn't bitter. Going to the Place of Rest had definitely been more rewarding than going to the spa would have been.
His eyebrow twitched.
"Yes. I think they were trying to properly motivate me for the task at hand, by showing me that the goal was worthwhile in a moral sense." Elder Flower raised an eyebrow at him and Jin clarified. "Of course, it was completely unnecessary as I give my all at every task. Nevertheless, I did gain some new ideas. It's a dreary fortress and a horrible place quite frankly. It's something that if it were unleashed on the psyche of a mortal, would have a quite debilitating effect."
"Are you thinking of replicating the Place of Rest?" Elder Flower asked. "You think that scaring them with what they could become if they fail will weed out those who wouldn't manage?"
"Not completely replicate of course. I just think that losing one's sanity and with it one's humanity is one of the scariest fears that one can be confronted with. Trapped within one's own body perhaps, watching as a crazed intelligence takes control of your life and destroys it, confining you to imprisonment until you wither away and die. It is a quite rational fear, why not recreate it? Confront people with it?"
"What would this confrontation look like exactly? I'm curious as you did say that you were aiming at a scenario that had no combat. I agree that it would miss the point of the scenario, but it does mean that my largest area of expertise becomes less useful," she admitted with what seems to be a slight inflexion of humbleness.
It was a bit shit for Elder Flower that her greatest area of expertise became unnecessary, which in a way sort of forced her to rely on Jin more than she otherwise would have had to.
This was on the one hand a good opportunity for Jin, but on the other hand, also an opportunity to make an enemy and lose brownie points if he handled the whole thing badly.
"I was thinking of a larger scenario. The fact that I'm developing for mortals means that I can decompress the data that goes into determining the sensory definition of the experience. It allows for more space and at the same time more characters and a more complex narrative."
"Narratives are relatively unpopular, but that only makes sense when one is aiming for combat experience. When one tries to evoke a feeling, narratives become a very necessary aspect of any scenario," Elder Flower mused.
Jin nodded. "I agree. Although after having read some literature on it, I think that narratives would also be useful in furthering the experiencer's combat potential since it would create a higher emotional investment and immersion."
Elder Flower shrugged. "Of course, but for that to be worth it the narrative would have to be good enough, which is not as easy as it might sound. Anyway, tell me about your idea. I'm curious what you've come up with."
Jin considered how he should start explaining this before deciding that it was best to start at the beginning.
"The premise is relatively simple, similar to many of the fiction novels that scatter the libraries of the young and impressionable. A demonic sect has set up a base in a relatively uninhabited region of the Empire. They are conducting experiments to see if by summoning an outside entity, a dark god and hosting it within the body they can break through the cultivation barriers they have imposed on themselves by splintering away from the traditional way of achieving immortality. Worst case they are planning on using the body that hosts whatever they end up summoning as a bomb against one of their enemies. Simply drop it in the middle of an inhabited place and watch the chaos."
"Technically you wouldn't have to include any details of cultivation in the narrative. It is catered to mortals after all," Flower pointed out.
"Well, I think that making it as realistic as possible, and fitting into the world that the mortals are trying to enter would make it seem more real and thus more scary."
"I understand what you mean," Elder Flower said and waved him to continue.
"Regardless, the demonic sect, the Murkoff demonic sect in this case, has started abducting the people that nobody misses, the insane and the homeless. They have created a process in which they've isolated the dimensional pathway towards a particular outsider, the Walrider and are cycling through the people they've kidnapped to check for compatibility. Upon failing the compatibility tests the inmates of the asylum -it is essentially a prison for insane people- start degrading physically. Their flesh rots and their skin develops sores, whatever mental issues they had before are exacerbated. Those lucky enough to be at least slightly compatible become mutated with some supernatural abilities and bodily changes. They become variants, who haunt the asylum and make it impossible to fight through for a mortal,"
"As is always the case with experimentation like this, eventually the Walrider finds a perfect host, which allows it to exhibit some of its power and come to this world through the body it is attached to. Quite naturally it has no particularly warm feelings for the demonic sect who has been trying to summon it and starts going on a rampage."
"Demon summoning, a classic," Elder Flower muttered with a small smile.
"This conjoining of the perfect host and the Walrider coincides with a mortal investigator sent by a faction I haven't decided on yet, to look where all the people have been disappearing to. Perhaps a demonic cultivator who had a change of heart can lead him to the asylum before running away. Our investigator then enters the enclave but gets trapped inside as a wall behind him collapses. He then has to essentially escape, as investigation becomes a secondary purpose to surviving the ordeal to reveal what he has found.
"As he escapes he is caught and mutilated by different variants who have become even more insane with the appearance of the Walrider and whose powers have been strengthened by the proximity to their source. Solving puzzles and walking through a continuously self-destroying asylum/demonic sect outpost, the experiencer is faced with a variety of enemies which are to be avoided and a variety of what are essentially puzzles which test for intelligence, to open doors and pass security measures that were left by the now dead demonic cultivators. There will be several records which can be read to heighten the sense of immersion and a recording device of some sort will be used to provide enough vision to see after the lights go out, however, the recording device will need to be charged with spirit stones which eventually run out, this should technically increase the urgency of the scenario and also the stress on the experiencer. That's all I have right now. In a week or so I can perhaps have the introductory scene for you to look at."
Elder Flower sipped at her tea while tilting her head to look at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I mostly wanted to check where you are at with the process. It seems you're at least going in the right direction. I would just suggest not including a demonic cultivator with a change of heart. It's not really something that happens," she said.
Jin nodded in understanding. "Perhaps it can be one of the subjects who escaped with most of their sanity intact who can point the investigator towards the asylum," he decided.
Elder Flower continued. "Otherwise, I am mostly curious how you will design a scenario so that the experience doesn't result in combat with these variants as you call them. I would say that you should start designing a sketch of the first part, upon which I will probably be able to give you better feedback."
Jin nodded. "Good, I'm glad that's settled then. Now it's just the easy part. Actually making the thing," he joked.
Elder Flower laughed. "Whatever you say."
Chapter 13: How its going
Jin was sitting inside the room he'd been given, designing the scenario. He had outlined some of the important characters and decided on the ways that different technologies would be represented in a more cultivation-friendly manner.
It had been a week since he'd pitched the original idea to Elder Flower and had gotten the green light. Ever since then, he'd been working uninterruptedly.
The lessons that he'd used to have with Elder Flower back at the Illusion Room Sect had been put on hold. It seemed like she did not want to entertain the possibility of being spied on as she taught him, which left her no choice but to interrupt the practice entirely. They were on another sect's mountain and there was no way to truly know what kind of spells were woven into the place. Well, there was a way, but Elder Flower simply wasn't powerful enough, and if she had been she wouldn't have been sent on such an insignificant mission but would have rather become the sect leader.
She had for the most part taken to just enjoying the hot springs that the monks had at a higher part of their mountain and occasionally chatting with Jin over dinner. The rest of the time she spent meditating in her room.
That was one thing that freed up time for Jin to work like a horse. Another was the fact that as an outsider he obviously did not have access to any sort of library. This meant that his favourite pastime was also gone. There was nothing to read since he hadn't known they would be staying for so long and he hadn't brought anything.
Socialisation was out. He was encouraged to move about as little as possible unless accompanied, and the monks here were not interested in idle chatter.
The only thing that remained was cultivating. However, whatever quick progress he had made immediately after transmigrating and becoming an inner disciple had slowed to a crawl that he understood was actually the norm. He was still in the middle of the foundation establishment phase and it looked like he would remain there for a very long time. The process of cultivating the stage involved a lot of meditation and the cycling of qi inside of one's body through distinct patterns which were individual to every cultivation technique. Through time this would refine the body to become the perfect container for qi, slowly using the ingredients that he ate, or at least the mystical parts of it, to replace those of his cells that were deemed unworthy by the heavens to channel their energy.
In one week, Jin had progressed in the middle of the foundation establishment stage by 1%. This hinted at the fact that he would need a hundred weeks to attain the late stage of foundation establishment. 100 weeks was just short of two years, but the issue was that he noticed, that as every week passed, it became more and more difficult to continue. Not to any truly ridiculous degree, but to a noticeable one.
The only other thing of note that he was doing during all of this time was working on his project.
He'd started constructing the first minutes of the scenario, which was much more complicated than he had assumed initially. The fact that he had only ever developed one Illusion Room, which had consisted of only one actual room and one Dragonslayer Ornstein, had made him underestimate the difficulty of creating a progression of environments. He had started on a long road initially, which the experiencer would have to walk down slowly to get to the menacing Mount Massive Asylum glaring down at them from its perch on the hill.
Just this walk alone had already been taking way too many resources. That's why he shortened it. Now it was just 30 seconds long or so. 30 seconds spent on a dirt road, walking forward with everything that entailed. Thankfully a mortal's senses were weak, which allowed the view of the valley the asylum was hidden inside to not be too sharply refined in terms of visuals. On the way to the asylum, the experiencer met an inmate who'd managed to escape. The man was of course quite insane, but the short conversation one could have with him could be summed up as follows.
'They're doing horrible things. Someone has to stop them. I can't stay. I have to leave, don't talk to me, don't talk to me, don't talk to me, don't talk to me.' Throughout all of this, the inmate's eyes would twitch in different directions as if he was seeing things that weren't there.
Unlike if this had occurred in real life, Jin didn't have to be afraid of the experiencer simply turning around and leaving at this ominous and deranged-sounding conversation from the clearly insane man dressed in bloody rags. The point of the scenario was to clear it and if one didn't one wouldn't receive the appropriate rewards. Namely the position of an outer disciple in the Mad Monks Sect.
The experiencer would then eventually get off the road when they saw the asylum and walk through a forest to get close to it from a stealthy angle rather than going down the main road like the original protagonist had done in their car. After all, they were here on a mission of espionage, not that of reporting. It was a very subtle difference. The night was setting in as they approached, casting the building that they were getting closer to into a pallid gloom. Jin had decided to retain the original architecture while changing the inside of it. He didn't particularly care if people found the look weird. If anything it would increase one's sense of estrangement from reality. Obviously, the main door would be locked, as it had been in the game. The experiencer would walk around the empty grounds trying to find a way in.
Meanwhile, from the windows, moving shadows cast against the glass would move and quickly disappear again. Splatters of liquid would sometimes gush onto the see-through surface.
The experiencer would eventually find a way up to the second floor, which they would immediately use to go inside. They would come into a room that would have perhaps looked like a lounge if it hadn't been completely trashed. Chairs had been thrown against the walls with their broken legs lying on the floor. Shelves full of trinkets had been knocked over, and the walls had been scratched at, leaving behind traces of blood.
The wall didn't collapse behind them yet, as their goal was still to investigate the matter. If they went back out they were free to do so, but going back in the second time would just be harder.
The goal in this case was not to provide a good player experience, but to challenge people even more than the original game had. There was a quest line, yes, and occasionally the experiencer would find themselves holding up notes that their body had inadvertently made to increase the immersion. But, everything else was left up to the person doing the playing.
That was how far Jin had come in terms of the actual scenario and it had taken him a whole week.
It just went to show how much more work he had to do. Although he hadn't only been working on the approach of the asylum. He'd also been working on designing the important characters whenever he felt bored of just dealing with architecture and the roads and trees.
The most important character that he had to nail down for the moment was Chris Walker. A large and grotesque man who led the experiencer on their first few chase scenes. Chris had a rather intense backstory and considering that he provided a large part of the horror in the first half of the game, Jin was putting a decent amount of effort into the design.
He had already created the insane man's outside appearance, which was that of a large hulking fat man with a mutilated face. Most prominent was the scalped forehead which Chris himself claimed gave him a sort of third eye and the missing nose and mouth which the man had inflicted on himself in a bout of extreme anxiety.
Chris's main fixation was on an exaggerated version of military protocol due to his past as a discharged military officer. This was the reason why he was so intent on patrolling the asylum and ended up attacking the experiencer and chasing them for the first half of the game.
The experiencer could find out more about the past of Chris Walker by reading some case files that the demonic cultivators had left behind about the man's past. After all, while they might not have an in-universe reason to study the mental diseases and histories of their inmates as much as Mount Massive Asylum had in the original games, they still were trying to perhaps find what sort of psychology and life story was most compatible with that of the dark god they were trying to summon.
This at least was Jin's excuse for including all of the rolls of parchment and paper which depicted the various phobias, anxieties and fixations of the madmen trapped in the asylum/demonic cultivator fortress.
Jin had already input all of the information he remembered about Chris while creating some more of it to complement the experience. He just hadn't designed the rooms in which these files could be read yet.
Done with the outside appearance of Chris, Jin was just in the process of animating the construct to showcase the appropriate movements for such a large man. Suddenly there was a light tapping at the paper door to the room he'd been given in the large temple outpost meant for visitors.
Even if apparently the Mad Monks didn't get a lot of visitors considering there hadn't been any new arrivals since he and Flower had come.
"Come inside," Jin said to whomever was there. Meanwhile, he quickly saved the progress that he had made in the privacy of his own mind and disentangled the mental threads he had been reinforcing with qi to create the large data structures.
He was becoming more and more like a computer as he walked the path of an Illusion Room cultivator.
The paper door slid open, revealing the dignified visage of Elder Zhang, the Elder responsible for the outer disciple ring on this mountain.
Jin stood up and bowed. "Greetings Elder Zhang. What can this inner disciple do for you?" he asked.
Elder Zhang replied with a nod of his own. "Greetings inner disciple Jin. Rather than being here to inquire as to the progress of your work, I have come with some rather good news," the man announced.
Jin raised an eyebrow but didn't further question. If Elder Zhang had something to tell him, he would himself have no standing to elicit an answer that wasn't forthcoming.
"After looking at your Illusion Room containing the entity known as Dragonslayer Ornstein, we have decided on how to help you further enhance the combat style of said entity. This is a way to repay in advance the purchase of the Illusion Room for use by our outer disciples," Elder Zhang said.
Jin nodded thoughtfully. While he had shown the Mad Monks his lance-wielding Ornstein, and they had liked it, he naturally had had no power to truly negotiate anything in that regard. This had been Elder Flower's job. She has been involved in negotiations, probably about this exact topic for the last week on the occasion that she wasn't bathing or getting massages. This was apparently the result. A very satisfying one all in all. Jin wanted to improve Dragonslayer Ornstein, and the training that the Mad Monks could offer would undoubtedly help with that.
In return, he would simply have to infuse a new Room with the Ornstein scenario and give it to them. In the end, the cost would only amount to one Room considering that Jin's version of the scenario could be put into more Rooms which would later, back at his sect, enter the library after he was satisfied with them.
All in all, it was a good deal and it seemed that either Elder Flower was a good negotiator, or the Mad monks didn't put that much value on teaching someone a few of their tricks. Or maybe they were just trying to further motivate him to work on his horror scenario.
Jin bowed again after he considered the deal. "Thank you for this opportunity, Elder Zhang," he said.
The Elder stroked a frail liver-spotted old hand through his long white beard and slowly nodded with an imperceptible gaze at the younger man. "Follow me then inner disciple Jin," and turned to leave.
Jin's body stuttered for a second, unsure if to follow or not. He had just finished a 7-hour marathon of scenario design, and he hadn't expected that the offer of tutelage would be consummated immediately.
Nevertheless when opportunities came one had to grasp them. Quite frankly he needed something else to start filling his days with, or he was going to go quite insane. Outlast was not an easy game to trawl through in his memories and to bring into this world considering the genre that it so exemplified. He had not slept very well for a week now, haunted by bad dreams of insanity and death.
It was as he followed the Elder out of the outpost, that the sun assaulted his eyes as if it was a thunderbolt thrown at him by a nascent soul-level cultivator. He inadvertently raised a hand to shield his eyes.
How long had he not been outside? he asked himself. Too long for his mental health to bear the deprivation, was the answer. He sighed. He would have to remember to not get so involved in the workflow in the future. Fiddling with the mental threads and creating scenarios and characters in his mind was very fun, which was what allowed him to do it for so many hours every day, but it wasn't a replacement for vitamin D. Most likely, at least, Jin didn't quite know how his new cultivator biology affected these things.
He would have to start involving more outside activities again in the future whenever he has such a job going on, or else he just might turn into a complete shut-in. He followed Elder Zhang as these thoughts flitted through his head. Rather than taking any path that Jin had taken before, mainly the one leading down to the outer ring, they ascended slightly, walking up as the peach and viola trees grew slightly sparser. However, while he was able to make out the start of the inner ring signified by a gigantic gate of wood, not so dissimilar to the one they had back in the Illusion Room Sect, he realised that what they were walking towards was a simple clearing, rather than the inner ring. It was there that a bald-headed inner disciple was waiting for them.
Jin wasn't able to determine their identity because the Mad Monks distinguished themselves from each other with their garb in any way, but simply because he knew this particular inner disciple. It was Disciple Shen.
Elder Zhang and Jin approached the younger androgynous-looking man until they were all standing on the slightly dirt-trodden clearing. Upon arrival however, Elder Zhang simply disappeared into wisps of smoke, which dispersed into the clear sunny sky.
"Talk about a dramatic exit," Jin decisively did not mutter to himself, before turning to inner disciple Shen and bowing. "Inner disciple Jin greets inner disciple Shen. I imagine that you are to be my tutor?" he asked.
Inner disciple Shen looked at Jin with his androgynous face before eventually nodding.
"I was told that you needed guidance in the way of the staff, although I am unsure if I can give it to you considering that what you are using is decisively not a staff. Although perhaps everything is in fact a staff when one considers the simple properties of the weapon?" the man muttered to himself while tapping a finger to his chin.
A tick mark was already threatening to start developing on Jin's forehead but he took a calming breath and continued smiling. Perhaps someone else would have been insulted by the fact that their teacher was to be just another inner disciple. But what one had to consider in this case was that Jin himself was very young for an inner disciple due to his very recent attainment of the role. Inner disciples ranged in age from anything between 18 to 200. It could very well be that Shen's life experience was nine times more than that of Jin. Another important thing was the fact that while Jin was learning a mental cultivation method, Shen had likely been working on his body for more than a century now. Not only on this body but also specifically on the weapon skills associated with such a path. It would be completely irrelevant of Jin to say that the man had nothing to teach him. And even if the boy had a limited amount of things to teach, Jin was very much more likely to finish the Outlast scenario and leave the mountain than to exhaust what he had to learn. After all, he couldn't imagine that he would be here for longer than a year, and his ability to wield a lance would definitely require more than that to reach the point when he would need the personal attention of a core disciple instead.
"Inner disciple Jin is happy to learn," he thus said cheerily.
Shen nodded absentmindedly, a hand going inside of his robe to what must have been a dimensional pouch at his hip, because from inside his robe, he pulled out two things that never would have fit into it otherwise. It was a large wooden construct, which Jin immediately identified as the replica of the weapon that he had given Ornstein.
The wooden lance flew through the air and Jin caught it in his hands, idly twirling it to his side.
Inner disciple Shen meanwhile hefted a quarterstaff which was much less long than what Jin had available to him.
"What has been granted by the heavens cannot be taught and thus the only way forward is to correct the mistakes of those that know nothing," Shen said as an explanation for how their tutelage was going to go.
Having grown slightly adept at analysing the nonsense the man liked spouting, Jin understood that while Shen would not be instructing him in any particular techniques of the sect, which were understandably limited to those actually in the sect, Shen would allow Jin to spar with him and correct any mistakes that the latter made.
"Let's do this."
Chapter 14: How its going
If Jin thought that the seeming mental tranquillity of inner disciple Shen would help make the training of the lance anything but hellish, then the next few months firmly disabused him of that notion.
Every morning he would wake up and the first thing that he would do would be to meditate to prepare himself for the gruelling start of the day ahead. Then he would take the wooden carving of the lance reinforced with some sort of spell resin to hold its shape no matter the abuse it took, to climb the mountain for a bit towards the clearing in which Elder Zhang had led Jin all that time ago.
There he would find inner disciple Shen already waiting for him in a cross-legged position with his quarterstaff balanced perfectly on his two knees.
The inner disciple of the Mad Monks Sect would stand up, they would bow to each other and they would fight.
They hadn't exchanged any words ever since that first initial bout. Speaking was done through their weapons.
Jin would attack, swinging his lance to cut Shen with the blade at the tip. Inner disciple Shen would either parry or block, his quarterstaff would spin on the palm of his hand as if controlled by telekinesis to lightly, but painfully, tap whichever part of Jin's body was overextended.
Jin would take a step forward, pull the lance back, and stab at the seemingly unbalanced staff wielder, only to miss and receive another painful tap on the wrist for his wrong form.
This combination of attacking, getting flawlessly countered and having his posture fixed by painful raps of the staff, continued for hours. Considering that they were moving at speeds beyond that of a normal human, Jin was receiving approximately one tap every second. Each time it happened, his posture improved slightly, and his eyes became more focused. The mental cultivation that he had undergone allowed him to process these corrections at a much faster pace than anyone else could have in his position. Unless of course they would have been guided by pure talent alone, rather than just intelligence.
The increased physicality granted by cultivation however didn't only grant speed, but also stamina. This meant that the spar could uninterruptedly last for an hour, two hours, or three hours and even then they wouldn't stop because they were completely exhausted, but simply because the prolonged practice made Jin sloppy which led to no real results being achievable after the third hour.
That was when they would bow to each other and part ways for the day.
Only to meet again on the next day, and go through the whole thing again.
Three hours a day, for a period of already three months.
It was undoubtedly the most brutal training that Jin had ever undergone.
At a rate of one correction tap per second, Jin accumulated around 10,000 taps a day. 10,000 Taps a day for three months with no break meant that he was rapidly approaching a million. Only 30,000 more to go. Three more days. The taps never reduced in frequency despite his rapid improvement at the beginning of the training, rather the mistakes that they corrected simply became smaller and smaller.
Jin had never thought that there would be such a depth in the wielding of any weapon, but such was apparently the case.
Whereas in the beginning Shen had corrected his footing, and then the positioning of his legs in general, and then the positioning of his upper body, and then the positioning of his arms, now the taps were directed at the way he held his wrists in very specific moments and the way his toes and head faced.
The wielding of a weapon in a land of cultivation where people lived for thousands of years, was as endless as the depths of the unexplored sea.
The impression that Jin got was that he would never ever reach the bottom, especially because his martial prowess would never be his main focus.
All he could do was endure, and crawl back home consisting of more bruises than man every day to spread the healing ointment he'd received from Elder Flower over his body, lay down and immerse himself in either cultivation or the development of his scenario.
He knew that this unusual punishment was technically called training and that he should be happy. However, cultivation fell to the side as he accelerated the completion of the scenario. It was only when he was done that he could leave. He had no illusions that he could learn the lance faster than he could finish his main task. Outlast would take a year at most, and the lance would take a lifetime.
Considering his days consisted solely of this, without any socialisation with anyone except occasionally Flower, one would have expected that he would have gone insane by now. But for some reason his heightened mental faculties allowed him to repress his human need for contact. He was beginning to understand how cultivators could potentially cultivate in seclusion for decades on end. This was likely where their inhumanity started, and they diverged very much from their mortal counterparts. He vowed to himself to never do something like that.
Despite his neglect, his cultivation still chugged along at a decent pace, his body purifying itself a bit to become a perfect conduit for qi.
However, his main focus was undoubtedly the scenario.
He developed the main characters that needed particular attention, like Eddie Gluskin, the perfect host that the Walrider used as a conduit to enter the world. Abused as a boy, Eddie became a serial killer by his adolescence, eventually being taken prisoner by the Murkoff sect who explored his psychology and history which could be found in a variety of notes hidden around the compound. Called 'the groom,' Eddie was obsessed with the idea of getting married, but due to the Asylum being an all-male facility could only turn to his other inmates to facilitate his wish. He would mutilate them in an attempt to alter their appearance towards what he considered to be a perfect woman.
He would get his hands on the experiencer at some point and express his desire to do the same to them. Captured by Eddie, the experiencer would have to consider the possibility of actually undergoing such a crude surgery, before circumstances beyond their control would save them from their fate.
That was likely enough already to destroy the wish of any mortal to go through the scenario. Especially because Jin could make the pain appear very very real, making them develop a fear of how an actual mutilation would feel.
And this was just one of many horrors to be found within the Murkoff compound.
The twins, brutish-looking cannibals chased the experiencer down long corridors and eventually only let him live due to the orders of Father Martin.
Father Martin was a man who had started referring to himself as a priest of the Walrider, thinking it as his calling to spread the gospel of the outsider. He was amongst other horrible things the only ally the experiencer would have in the asylum. However, Father Martin was the one who had in the original series shut down the electricity of the Asylum making escape for the player increasingly more difficult due to this action. In Jin's scenario, the man would similarly be the one who would shut down the sealing formation of the compound, just as the experiencer thought that they had perhaps ended their nightmare, throwing them into an even deeper pit of despair.
There were other encounters with variants throughout the storyline, such as the one with Richard Trager, a former member of Murkoff who had betrayed them and suffered the consequences. Driven into insanity by the experience of trying to host the Walrider, the man would strap the experiencer to a wheelchair, and show them the exit to the compound. Tell the experiencer to leave, but considering that the player was at that point strapped to a wheelchair they obviously couldn't. This was used as an argument that the player didn't want to leave, at which point Trager would take them to his so-called laboratory where he dissected other inmates in an attempt to further his knowledge of biology. He would cut off two of the experiencer's fingers before they finally escaped.
The more time Jin put into developing the story of Outlast and its characters, animating the movements of the variants and inputting the sensory deprivations and pains of the scenario, the more sorry he started feeling for the mortals doomed to experience the horror that he was creating.
As the person who had to go through their memories of the game to adapt it to cultivator aesthetics and historical context, he knew more than anyone how painful and frightening the experience could truly be once one was forced to go through the asylum without the ability to engage in combat, and forced to follow the convoluted path of escape.
However, he assuaged his conscience with the fact that if the mortals could not handle the scenario, then at least they would not become disciples who couldn't handle the mental requirements of being a Mad Monk.
A day of horror was undoubtedly better than a lifetime of actual madness. The scars that people would bear from going through the scenario would be less painful than what they would lose if they didn't.
Thus he continued working, tirelessly, hour after hour, every day. Month after month the scenario started looking more and more complete. Soon he would be able to show it to Flower who would undoubtedly have a few comments on the content which would force a bout of revision.
But afterwards, he would be mercifully done. The Mad Monks Sect was very slowly starting to become his very own personal hell. Painful training every day, followed by immersing himself into the horrible world of Outlast which he had so foolishly chosen only to then go to sleep and repeat it all over again.
Working on Ornstein? Even with his increasing martial capacities he simply didn't have the time or energy. He wanted to finish Outlast as quickly as possible so that he could put the entire thing out of his mind for the rest of his life.
Dragonslayer would come after, doubtlessly improved by his increased capabilities with the lance. But right now he simply couldn't afford the distraction.
Time passed. Three months turned into four, four into five and five into six.
It was on the 6th month that Jin finally concluded the scenario with the escape of the experiencer from the compound which had been torturing them, and him for the last 6 months. In the end, the experiencer would receive a number code which they could tell the invigilator of the exam to prove that they had managed to complete the entire scenario.
Jin sighed, knowing that this wouldn't be the end. Elder Flower would doubtlessly have something to say. Nevertheless, he put a little digital bow on the whole process and sequestered it away into his mental library where he kept these sorts of things.
Tomorrow he would have to go to Elder Flower, and get her opinion on the matter and hear her ideas on how he could revise the scenario to be even more frightening, more effective, and more streamlined.
For now, however, he laid down on the futon that he'd been provided by the Mad Monks Sect and closed his eyes, starting to circulate qi throughout his body instead of just his brain as his cultivation method required.
This was a trick he had figured out to recover his muscles after the brutal workouts that they had to undergo everyday and to relieve the soreness and the bruises covering him like sores covered the asylum inmates of his scenario.
-/-
Elder Flower sat in front of Jin with her hand touching the brightly shining Illusion Room. Not just any Illusion Room, but the Illusion Room containing the Outlast scenario that had been completely overtaking the last half year of Jin's life.
However, rather than being nervous about the fact that Elder Flower was testing one of his works, of which success was fairly necessary if they wanted to improve their diplomatic relations with The Mad Monk Sect, Jin was too busy being enchanted by his senior's beauty.
He hadn't seen her for a few months now, she had gone on a mission in the middle there, meaning that he hadn't actually glimpsed a woman in two months. His stay on this mountain had as always consisted of gruesome training with inner disciple Shen, and then being immersed into the horrible world of Outlast.
He had essentially for weeks now been living the life of an orthodox monk on Mount Athos not glimpsing a woman for almost a quarter of a year.
In other words, unable to even enjoy the beauty of the sex that he was attracted to, he had become incredibly backed up.
It didn't help that Elder Flower was of course as an Elder in the nascent soul cultivation stage one of the most beautiful people he'd ever seen. Immaculate pale skin and red lips created a face of utmost perfection framed by the black straight hair of a professional model.
The only reason he could enjoy such a sight was because she had her eyes closed at the moment due to being immersed in his scenario.
He sighed, wondering if upon returning to the Illusion Room Sect he should find himself a girlfriend.
His body was still biological for now and had certain sexual urges. This meant that if these remained unaddressed for too long it was very likely that even his cultivation would become impacted.
That's at least what he told himself as a rationalisation for the relatively unnecessary waste of time that being in a relationship would cause. After all, at this stage of his life, he needed to concentrate on his cultivation to break into the next level. Otherwise, he would die an inner disciple due to old age.
Flowers' eyes suddenly fluttered causing Jin to look at the ceiling pretending that the wooden beams up there held some utterly fascinating heavenly mysteries in the groove of the wood.
"Interesting," Elder Flower commented as the first thing after coming out of the scenario.
Jin naturally had not assumed that the Elder would come out scared or anything, but still, a simple 'interesting,' wasn't really what he'd been hoping for. He flinched slightly.
"I can see that at least some thought went into the story, and I think that the basics of it are easy enough to accept. A demonic cultivation sect has once again been doing experiments that backfired on them because of the inherent flaws in their approach." She shrugged. "Simple enough," she said. "No need for improvement. As for the aspect of not including combat," she hummed. "I think that worked out quite well."
Jin breathed out a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding in. That sounded good, didn't it?
"As for everything else," Elder Flower started again. "I guess the saving grace of it is that it will only be shown to mortals. That helps somewhat with the low resolution of, well, everything," she commented like a true follower of the peak gamer race scripture.
"Thank you for your kind words, Elder Flower," Jin said with a grateful nod.
The woman sitting opposite him at the tea table waved him off. "That wasn't praise. Praise would be saying that I felt deeply uncomfortable at some parts of the game. Which I did," she said with a resolute nod. "It was doubtlessly the most unpleasant scenario I've ever had to experience," she said.
Jin helplessly tilted his head. "In a good way, or a bad way?" he couldn't help but ask.
"In a good way," Elder Flower responded. "I guess the worst ones would truly be the ones that were so badly made that they made me want to explode my soul and die, but this one was intentionally horrible. Very ugly, very very ugly," she muttered.
Jin wondered if the reason she had such a light response to what was supposed to be an absolutely horrifying experience was because she knew more than anyone else, as an Illusion Room cultivator herself, that she was never in any danger, or if this was how everyone was going to respond.
Was the benchmark of horror just so much higher in a world where everything sucked anyway? He hadn't just wasted 6 months on a product that had given him more nightmares than anything before in his life only for people to say that it was deeply unpleasant and very very ugly.
"I have a lot of suggestions, of course, the movements of a lot of the characters were a bit stilted. You do have to work on the fluidity there. Similarly, while I do appreciate the variety of information and psychological profiles that can be found scattered throughout the compound, I do wonder if they may detract from the pace of the scenario, allowing people to relax a bit."
Jin hadn't thought of that last bit, he'd simply followed the directions of the original game at that point. He personally thought that it heightened immersion, and if anyone wanted a break they could just stand in a room to catch their breath. Not moving forwards wouldn't trigger the next horrors to come which meant they could catch a breather.
"The biggest issue I found in terms of content is with the Eddie character. He is naturally interested in women, which means that he mutilates the men to fit his aesthetic standards. However, some of the mortals trying to qualify to become outer disciples will doubtlessly be women, at which point the whole thing becomes a bit odd?" Elder Flower said while running a finger through her hair.
Jin on the other side of the table barely refrained from facepalming. How could he have forgotten that? Such a basic thing as well. It was always the little things that bit you in the ass. Illusion Room scenarios had no concept of a player character who was immutable in form. Every experiencer brought with them their own body since the whole point was to experience the whole thing with their own skills. In this case, female mortals would bring with them their female bodies. This was naturally problematic as then that part of the story wouldn't necessarily make sense. He had to fix that.
"Other than that I also included some feedback on the general atmosphere and look of the place. I see that you continued with your trend of creating a novel style of architecture, and I will praise it here because it will make people even more disconcerted. However, as someone who has experience of raiding actual demonic sect compounds I do understand how you were able to miss out on some things which are generally present there which can help create a more realistic atmosphere," Elder Flower commented.
She pulled the roll of parchment from the pouch at her hips, put it on the table and touched it with her finger. Black characters suddenly started streaming onto the page, filling it out completely.
"This is all the feedback I have. I don't imagine that you'll need more than just another month," she said consolingly. "In fact, your speed of work is remarkably fast," she praised.
Jin, meanwhile, was crying on the inside. He had started developing a phobia of training with the lance but knew that he couldn't just stop now because he'd never get the opportunity again. Staying here for another month? Working on Outlast? This just meant that his personal hell had been extended once again.
"All right, Elder Flower. I'll get to work immediately," he whimpered.
The woman gave him an odd look at his tone of voice. "I'm sure you'll do fine," she reassured him before standing up.
"Do try to get some sleep. You look incredibly tired," she said before promptly leaving the room.
Jin started crying. He knew he looked horrible. He hadn't slept in days finishing this thing as fast as possible. Even if he actually got to bed on any given day, nightmares wouldn't let him sleep.
Why the fuck had he done this to himself?
Chapter 15: Two sides of a different coin
It was a warm summer day in the city of Wu, one of the more important trade cities in the region. Housing approximately 200,000 people, it served as a home for many wealthy merchants who profited richly from the intersecting rivers that met at the city gates.
However, no matter how powerful a merchant, they were still mere ants at the feet of a cultivator. That was why, whereas a decade ago the city's administration had been equally influenced by the merchant clans of Yung and Bao, now there were only the Bao left. The Yung family had run afoul of a core formation stage cultivator to whom they had sold false goods under the presumption that they were just a beggar who had lucked into some sort of treasure.
The cultivator had not been happy with the slight to his face and had exterminated the main branch of the family thus greatly reducing their influence. The only member of the family left was a young boy by the name of Xiao, who the cultivator recognized as having a modicum of talent in cultivation, already being able to perceive qi at the young age of six. Unwilling to kill someone who might potentially one day become an equal rather than remain an ant, he let the boy live. However, a boy of six could not lead a trade empire.
After that massacre misfortune seemed to continue following the Yung family, what remained of them at least. A great many businesses failed, trade deals went askew, shipments went lost, and warehouses burned.
Everyone of any standing in the city knew that this was likely the Baos using the opportunity to kick an enemy while they were down, consolidating their power and influence. The Yungs found themselves hopelessly suppressed, forced even to engage their prodigious son, their last bargaining chip, with the daughter of the Bao family.
It is always the bigger shark who swallows the smaller in the womb, so the plan was that the boy would marry into the Bao family. The Bao family would then swallow the rest of the assets of the Yung family, and then the boy would be sent off to cultivate after conceiving an heir and become a protector of the Baos by association once he entered the world of immortals.
However, who could have foreseen that the Yung holdings would continue to deteriorate even after the Baos stopped suppressing them, leading to the extinction of the entire trade union? The Yung family members scattered in all directions of the winds, leaving young Xiao behind in the care of the Baos. He was taken care of and praised because he still represented something of value, namely a potential future cultivator tied to the family.
Alas when another cultivator passed by in search of disciples for her sect and more closely analysed the boy's talent, fate took a turn for the worse once again.
A young woman from the Sect of the Illustrious Blaze Fire Reaching the Thousand Heavens of Akash had taken a drop of Xiao's blood and had determined that his bodily constitution was composed of two elements that existed in an unfortunate juxtaposition.
Generally, when a cultivator began their path of immortality, their element alignment determined which method they would use. Those who were predisposed to water would learn something like the Eternal Sea Suppression method, while those with a predisposition to yin, like the little-known Illusion Room Sect, would use their increased mental capacities to cast illusion spells and create artefacts.
It was always better to have one talent so that cultivation would not be muddled, as, when breaking into the foundation establishment stage, one would have to balance all of one's predispositions to begin perfecting one's body for the eventual core formation. While those with two predispositions might still find themselves fortuitous enough to become foundation establishment cultivators, those with three or more were generally discarded as useless.
While Xiao having two predispositions might have in other circumstances led him to become an external member of a sect, it was the arrangement of these two talents which was problematic.
The elements which could be taken by one's heavenly root were divided into two groupings. The five-element grouping of water, fire, earth, metal and wood, and the second was the obscure dualism of yin and yang. Those whose heavenly root was a mixture of elements from the two groups were doomed to failure before they had even walked the path and Xiao was one of those people possessing the talent for wood and yin. These two elements were seen as particularly incompatible by anyone who understood the basics of internal alchemy. Wood, like metal and earth, might have worked with a yang predisposition, whereas yin mixed well with water and fire.
That was why on this warm summer day, a scene occurred in the city of Wu, which finalised once and for all the demise of the Yung family.
A bundle of blue robes was thrown out of a tall and imposing gate painted in gold and red, which served as the main entrance into the compound of the Bao family.
As the robe rolled to a stop on the dirty floor of the street, it was revealed that what had been thrown out was actually a person. A young man with a defiant expression rappled himself up to all fours so he could glare at the large heavyset warrior in leather armour who had just committed the deed of throwing him out to the street.
A young female voice spoke up from next to the warrior. It belonged to an enchanting beautiful girl clad in a dress of red, the traditional colour of the Bao family. Her voice would have been a pleasant sound had it not been so dripping with disgust. "To think that in addition to losing all of your wealth, you also wasted our time with your delusions of ever becoming a cultivator," the girl said hotly with her nose in the air. Her black hair, tied into buns, jumped up and down as she shook from anger.
The girl's face flushed red to match her outfit, as if outraged that someone dared to not be utterly aware of all their invisible spiritual qualities. A hand went to a ring on her finger which she took off and carelessly threw at the young man's feet. It fell to the floor and got covered in dust immediately, rolling to a stop in front of the young man.
"I can't believe I wasted years being betrothed to a waste like you," the young woman said with a scowl before reeling her head back and spitting with pinpoint precision at the ring.
She turned to the hulking warrior by her side. "If he's ever seen in the city again, kill him. There won't be anyone who will complain," she said coldly, huffed and stormed off back into the compound.
The hulking warrior threw a glance at the young man, and then shrugged at him as if saying, 'What can you do?' He then stepped back, put his hands on the ornate gates and swung them shut.
The young man, whose name was Xiao Yung, shakily picked up the ring, and wiped the spit off with his robes, knowing that he would need it.
"This cursed Bao family," he muttered to himself. "Do you think I do not know that it was you who eradicated the business of the branch family left behind after the massacre? Now that even the path of cultivation might be closed to me, do you not think that the cornered dog bites the hardest? What else do I have to live for other than revenge?"
With the diagnosis of his heavenly roots, no matter how little he understood them, he knew that most sects would not accept him as a disciple barring him from whatever personal power he could have attained with that method.
There was no point in staying in Wu considering that he was now essentially banished with the Bao family holding a death grip on the city's economy.
What the Bao family didn't know however is that he had flagged the cultivator that had delivered that fateful diagnosis this morning before she'd left. He'd asked her if there was no other way for him to ascend to the path of a cultivator. Were all paths truly barred to him?
The beautiful red-haired woman had seemed to consider for a second, looking resplendent and dignified in her golden robes. He could not fault her for simply telling the truth but only cursed the ears into which it had been whispered.
'There is one sect in the vicinity which I know does not care as much about the talent of their disciples, but rather their willpower. The Mad Monks cultivate a method which requires inner peace, furthermore, they are a martial sect focusing on the use of a weapon rather than on spells, which suits your chaotic disposition more. Other than that I'm afraid you are beyond help,' she had told him before walking off at a speed that he could not follow even if he ran as hard as he could.
He had kept that information close to his heart, knowing that his days with the Bao family were limited and that if they thought he could recover from their banishment they would kill him on the spot rather than just threaten to do so if he did not leave.
He picked himself up, knowing the general direction of the mountain on which the Mad Monks had built their temples and began his journey with nothing but the clothes on his back and a spit-covered engagement ring he would have to sell off for the gold it was made out of.
"I vow revenge on the name Bao and on you evil cultivator who killed my family," Xiao said to himself as he left the city gates behind him. "One day I will give you not what you want, but what you deserve for your evil deeds," he said coldly as people avoided walking too close to him due to his dirty appearance and dark countenance.
-/-
As Xiao began his journey to the mountains, leaving the debris of his past life behind him, Jin wished that he wasn't currently present in these very mountains.
He was crying tears of blood at his absolutely disgusting schedule. Brutal martial arts training in the mornings, the rest of the day filled with lonesome cultivation and redesigning the horror scenario to the specifications of Elder Flower.
Worker's rights? What were those? He hadn't spoken to another person since his talk with Elder Flower and his nights were fitful and full of nightmares.
He noticed as time progressed that while his body was becoming a better conduit for qi due to his cultivation, the rings under his eyes grew deeper and deeper until they formed into fully designed Gucci bags.
The circumstances were special. He was visiting another sect and didn't necessarily have the right to go beyond his abode and the place where he was supposed to meet inner disciple Shen for training. Elder Flower was mostly gone, and the one time that she had shown up recently she'd simply given him more work.
Looking at it from any sane perspective, what he was experiencing was an extremely perfidious torture consisting of physical pain, sleep deprivation, social circle destruction, and leisure time evaporation.
The most horrible thing about it was that the memories of this original body's owner were informing him that this was considered a relatively light schedule for a cultivator as well.
The stories spoke of cultivators going into secluded cultivation for centuries on end with only their minds and a cultivation technique to keep them company. Maybe some pills or other items if they were lucky.
"What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?" Jin muttered to himself as he worked restlessly on the Outlast scenario knowing that his torture would find at least some respite as soon as he got done with it.
Was cultivation truly the path to follow or should he maybe just excommunicate himself and live the rest of his life as a peasant until he died of natural causes? It seemed to him that if he did so the amount of free time he would have until his death would actually be superior to the amount of free time he would have for the rest of eternity if he remained a cultivator.
A change of phrasing here in a parchment roll in the library, a small remodelling of the movement structure of the twins, and an update of the graphics of the Walrider to make the effect it had on the world more imposing.
The work was as difficult as it was finite, however his mind was descending more and more into madness with every day.
That was at least until one day he was sitting in his room in a lotus position, focused on his mind as he always was, and paused. He looked at the scenario that he had created in his head. He slowly pored over the data shards that it consisted of. Looked at his own cultivation, double-checking that he had used the maximum amount of space he could impart into any project.
A disbelieving sigh of relief escaped his parched mouth. With the crazy workload, he had forgotten to drink for several days on end now, simply seeking to be done with it as soon as possible. He felt dizzy, but the seconds that he'd saved by refraining from food and water had been worth it if it meant finishing this hell schedule even one minute faster.
He needed to talk to someone, he needed to… His thoughts suddenly trailed off, struck by a bout of dizziness now that they weren't performing the high-speed calculations necessary to create scenarios.
"I'm done!" he shouted. "I'm done!"
That was of course only the case if Elder Flower did not find other small things to correct.
He started crying on the floor, he was perfectly aware that the narration describing his current life was becoming just as disjointed as his psyche had become in the past months.
He babbled to himself for several minutes before he pulled himself together, dragged himself to his feet, and started going towards the sliding door on all fours, barely managing to stand up and open it.
He slowly but surely made his way towards the rooms in which Elder Flower tended to reside, knowing that in all likeliness she wouldn't be there. However, by some stroke of luck, after he traversed the wooden floors, he heard something.
The sound of a female voice coming out of Elder Flower's room. He gently knocked on the doors not forgetting his status even as his mind descended into madness.
The voice stopped, but Jin had been able to make out the last words.
-/-
"Would I rather go to the hot springs, or should I ask to get another massage?" Elder Flower had been wondering aloud in a whimsical voice. However, when she heard the knocking she turned more serious. "Come in!"
Jin entered and looked at the radiant beauty who seemed to be becoming more relaxed with every day that passed. He knows that she trained, or something, but did the difference between their minds at the moment really have to be so different?
"It's done," he said, voice raspy from complete misuse.
Elder Flower nodded thoughtfully and bid him to come over to the table at which she was sitting, peeling an apple with a small string of qi extending from her fore-finger.
"Show me," she demanded and handed him the Room that he had put the last illusion into the last time they spoke. They'd wiped it after she'd seen what needed improvement. Now again he put his finger to it and infused the scenario into it. It flowed like water, the horribleness that he'd created escaping his mind like a bomb going off. The loss of a deprivation is more pleasant than any blessing.
He sighed in relief.
Elder Flower nodded when he was finished, put her palm on the warm metal of the illusion Room and delved right in.
A few minutes passed. Doubtlessly she was simply checking what she had commented on the last time instead of going through the whole thing again.
She came out quickly and gave a slow and approving nod. "Not perfect, but any more tweaking would require more time than it's worth, for mortals it will suffice," she determined.
Jin, in an act of sheer joy, passed out. His head hit the table edge as his body crumbled, the more than half a year of hell giving him a head laceration on the way out.