You were a cultivator of the lowly Qi Refining Stage. You had accidentally stumbled into a secret Demon Path stronghold and were now being hunted by a beast raised by the Demon Path.
Bad news: the Demonic Beast hunting you was powerful. If it caught you, you were dead.
Good news: you seemed to run just a tiny bit faster than it.
In this Illusion Realm, you must follow these rules:
1. All Cultivation Methods except the Cloud Shattering Art are ineffective.
2. You can only move forward by using the Cloud Shattering Art.
3. Demon Cult Barriers line both sides of the road. Touch one and you die.
4. The escape route is riddled with traps. Touch one and you die.
5. A terrifying Demonic Monster is behind you. Touch it and you die.
The escape began!
The words vanished. Zhang Ming rubbed his eyes, dumbstruck.
He knew every word he had just read, so why did they stop making sense when put together?
What Demon Path? What hunt? What did "touch it and you die" mean??
Hadn't he come into the Illusion Realm to practice the Cloud Shattering Art?
Where on earth had they sent him??
Zhang Ming was still baffled when a furious roar erupted behind him.
He turned and saw a blood-drenched, pitch-black monster charging toward him with its cavernous maw wide open.
Its enormous body, the stench of blood rolling off it, the steps that shook the surrounding woods, that hideous face...
The monster Lu Ze had made with his own hands was overwhelming, and he had cranked every effect to the limit.
Zhang Ming had never seen anything so terrifying. Only one thought remained in his mind:
Run!
But when he turned to flee, his legs felt as though they had been filled with lead. No matter how hard he tried, he could not move an inch.
"What's going on...?"
Zhang Ming froze in confusion.
The monster behind him drew closer and closer.
At the brink of life and death, he suddenly remembered one of the rules he had just read—
"You can only move forward by using the Cloud Shattering Art."
The Cloud Shattering Art was a basic movement technique of the Spirit Cloud Sect, and the focus of this Trial.
Zhang Ming had no time to think. He hurriedly activated the Cloud Shattering Art.
The instant he did, his legs could move!
Wind rose beneath Zhang Ming's feet as he ran for his life.
The monster stayed right on his heels!
He had barely taken a few steps when a bend appeared ahead. Zhang Ming nearly failed to brake in time and slammed into it.
"Holy shit... What... what kind of Trial is this?!"
Zhang Ming was both thrilled and panicked.
The monster behind him frightened him, but this feeling he had never experienced before...
It was incredible!
"What's this? Spirit Stones? What good is picking them up?"
Spirit Stones floated in the air along his escape route.
Whenever he ran into one, it made a crisp ding-dong, filling him with a strange little burst of delight.
Each shattered Spirit Stone turned into a streak of light and entered his body.
Two numbers appeared in the upper-right corner of his vision.
One was his score; the other was his distance.
Picking up Spirit Stones raises my score, and running raises my distance?
This time, Zhang Ming caught on quickly.
"ROAR!!"
A howl from behind made him jump.
He had failed to coordinate his footwork with his technique around the bend and lost half a beat. Now the monster had nearly caught up.
Danger clung to him like a shadow. Zhang Ming hurriedly pushed the Cloud Shattering Art to its limit.
"Holy shit! Why are there Firestarter Talismans?!"
Zhang Ming had only just gotten the hang of moving when two Firestarter Talismans on either side caught him off guard.
A huge pillar of fire suddenly barred his path.
His first instinct was to jump over it.
In reality, something that height would take only a light leap to clear.
But this was not reality.
The flames instantly burned him to a crisp.
Trial over! Score: 68 Escape distance: 21 steps Current rank: 18th
Zhang Ming looked at the panel floating before him and gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Damn it! Why am I only eighteenth?!"
"If I'd ducked under it, I could've gone farther! Again!!"
His damned competitive streak had flared up.
Zhang Ming could not wait to start another round.
Illusion Training Hall, Control Room.
Lu Ze sat in a chair, a faint smile curling his lips.
He was in the Main Space of Demonic Path Escape, happily watching the players' screens.
When choosing a game, Lu Ze had hesitated for a long time. In the end, he had passed over Daily Cool Run, which had been more popular in his previous life, and chosen Temple Escape.
The main reason was that Temple Escape's premise lent itself perfectly to a Cultivation World adaptation.
Its level design was easy to adapt to the setting, too.
Most importantly, Temple Escape worked better in first person.
Much of Daily Cool Run's appeal depended on the original visuals.
From a first-person perspective, it could not come close to the immersion of Temple Escape.
Of course, Lu Ze had borrowed a few useful things from Daily Cool Run as well.
The sound effect for collecting coins, the animations for using Skills...
Combining those elements with his experience making other works in his previous life, Lu Ze was full of confidence in this adapted Demonic Path Escape.
And things were going exactly as he had expected.
Almost every disciple was hooked. Even after failing again and again, they eagerly started another round.
"Looks like a success..."
Lu Ze pondered to himself.
Even if word never spread among the Inner Disciples, the Outer Disciples alone were so numerous that, once they were hooked...
Completing his task would be a piece of cake.
As he savored that thought, a system notification suddenly sounded in his ear.
Demonic Value +0.01
Lu Ze's eyes widened.
He hurriedly opened the system panel.
The increase of 0.01 was tiny, but it had undeniably been added.
"Wasn't killing Righteous cultivators the only way to gain Demonic Value? Could it be..."
Lu Ze was overjoyed.
"Righteous cultivators dying in my game counts as me killing them???"
The moment the idea struck him, Lu Ze could not contain his excitement.
You're forcing me to go out and torment people through games, huh?
Now you've got my attention.
Several game titles sprang to mind, and Lu Ze suddenly felt like a true member of the Demon Path.
"Forget it. I'd better calm down. There's plenty of time for that."
Lu Ze shook his head, driving the wicked ideas from his mind.
He studied the players' screens carefully.
He found that a player's death did not always generate Demonic Value.
"0.01 is so little, and it takes a player dying many times to earn even that... It's probably because the Outer Disciples' cultivation is too low."
"But even so, the Demonic Value shouldn't be this low."
"I'm afraid gaining Demonic Value through a game yields far less than actually killing a cultivator."
Lu Ze analyzed the situation in silence.
To test his first theory, he needed a group of disciples with higher cultivation to play Demonic Path Escape.
As for his second theory...
As long as he could gain Demonic Value, what more could he ask for?
Even if playing the game yielded only one percent as much, he just had to make them die more than a hundred times.
And in plenty of games, a hundred deaths was only the beginning.
That would yield far more than actually killing a Righteous cultivator!
Most importantly...
The higher the cultivation level, the fewer cultivators there were.
Kill one, and there was one fewer.
But in a game, they could die over and over again!
All at once,
Lu Ze felt that making games was the proper way to use this system.
After all, sustainability mattered most.
Just then, a system notification arrived:
The host has won the admiration of Righteous cultivator Zhang Ming through a display of skill. One of his abilities will be obtained at random. Reward obtained: Cloud Shattering Art (Mastery)
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