Time sometimes passed quickly, and sometimes slowly.
When you focused all your attention on finding something that could stir your desires and let you successfully rub one out, time flew by. Before you knew it, two hours had passed.
But after you had finished and become a sage, time suddenly seemed to slow down, with every second passing through your awareness exceptionally clearly.
A month passed just like that. Lucia had never felt so fulfilled before, and for the first time, she felt the meaning of life!
Dressed in plain but clean clothes, she walked through the upper-class city of the Virtual World. She watched the bustling streets and drank the sweet water spurting from a roadside drinking machine. Everything here was so beautiful!
But it was not entirely beautiful. At the very least, demons were not beautiful, nor were the capitalists—especially those Cosmic Mega-Enterprises.
Sometimes she even wondered whether those Cosmic Mega-Enterprises were also a kind of demon.
Although they did not devour living beings the way demons that could transform into monsters in boxes or dark places did, they were still "eating people." They simply used a different method.
She had seen it with her own eyes. Some people clearly looked as if they were still alive, but through her Mind's Eye, she could sense that they were actually already dead.
All that remained was an empty shell.
After walking around outside, she returned to the dojo. Only here could she feel peace in her heart.
Even though the bamboo made of neon tubes looked somewhat comical, everything here still made her feel a sense of familiarity.
When she reached the center of the dojo, the Dojo Master was sitting there unusually upright and formal. "Lucia."
"Yes!" She immediately knelt on the floor, lowering her head slightly to