Author: Against-the-Heavens Meng
Volume One
What Does It Mean to Romance a Cultivation Method?
Wenjian Sect, Huiyuan Gate.
Deep in the disciples' quarters, a quiet, elegant little courtyard held a very different scene.
Several stalks of emerald bamboo grew in the courtyard. When the wind passed, their leaves rustled like Broken Jade gently clinking together.
A man sat upright before a bronze mirror. His sword-shaped brows swept up toward his temples, his eyes shone like bright stars, his nose was straight and high, and his lips were sharply defined. He was extraordinarily handsome. His ink-black hair was tied up with a Wood Hairpin in the standard Daoist topknot.
This was a hairstyle men could wear only after turning twenty and completing their capping ceremony. It was a sign that they had come of age.
Yet at that moment, the grown man's face showed none of the spirited confidence one might expect. It was shrouded in gloom.
He raised a hand to his forehead and let out a sigh.
As his sigh faded, a panel appeared before him.
[Name: Gu Chengming] [Sect: Wenjian Sect · Huiyuan Gate] [Realm: First Realm Level Three] [Cultivation Methods: Huiyuan Sword Technique (Beginner), Clear Heart Art (Beginner)] [Attributes: Strength 8, Agility 7, Constitution 2, Spirit 12, Charisma 25] [Status: Ruined Root Bone (negative BUFFs continue to stack) Essence Blood Depletion (maximum health permanently reduced by 30%, and continues to decline daily, estimated remaining lifespan: 87 days)]
Gu Chengming stared at the bright red text under [Status], especially the horrifying countdown at the very end. His head spun.
After a brief moment of utter bewilderment, Gu Chengming finally accepted the truth.
He had transmigrated into the game.
The game Xianmen was hailed as a miracle of the virtual world. It offered almost limitless freedom. Every NPC—even a servant sweeping the roadside—had a backstory hundreds of thousands of words long and an independent set of behavioral logic.
Players could explore this vast, boundless cultivation world however they liked. They could join a sect and cultivate in seclusion until they became immortals, wander the world and settle scores as they pleased, or even form deep bonds with any character in the game, becoming sworn brothers or Dao Companions.
There were also elemental reactions and an incredibly deep combat system.
But those weren't the reasons Gu Chengming played the game...
No, he was a GALGAME fanatic.
As a GALGAME enthusiast, could he really resist trying the game after hearing that every character could be romanced and that each NPC had hundreds of thousands of words of backstory?
On the day the game came out, Gu Chengming bought it immediately.
Not only that, he put his programming skills to work and spent the night making a series of helper MODs: "Visible Favorability," "Key Dialogue Option Hints," and "Special CG Gallery Unlock."
Only after gearing himself up to the fullest did he finally enter the game, satisfied.
Then came the classic character creation and sect selection. As soon as he finished the tutorial, he immediately set his sights on a character whose portrait really hit the spot and started romancing her.
And then... there was no "and then."
While staying up late to romance her, he suddenly blacked out. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on this old wooden bed—and had become Gu Chengming himself.
"Ugh..."
With a sigh, Gu Chengming looked at the [Status: Essence Blood Depletion] line on the panel. His teeth ached.
How had he gotten this life-threatening status?
The reason was simple. When assigning attribute points during character creation, he had shifted almost all of his Constitution points into Charisma to maximize his efficiency at romancing characters.
After all, high Charisma meant Favorability rose faster when romancing characters. That was an ironclad rule of GALGAMEs.
In the game, this had been perfectly fine.
With his attributes lowered to the bare minimum, the worst that could happen was that he'd be unable to cultivate certain high-level methods.
Gu Chengming had even planned out his route. Once he romanced a particular character later on, he would switch to a Cultivation Method from the Joyful Union Sect.
Once he started practicing the Joyful Union Sect's techniques, Constitution would be almost useless, so having a low value early on didn't matter at all.
The game's logic was simple and straightforward.
But when the game became reality and the world followed its own underlying rules, everything had become "reasonable."
The flaw of having "too little Constitution" had been corrected by the world's rules and manifested as a deadly negative status called "Essence Blood Depletion."
His maximum health was dropping every day, and he even had a death countdown. Who could put up with that?
Worse still, since he'd never planned to level up properly, he had barely touched the options related to "cultivation talent" during character creation. That was why the so-called Ruined Root Bone status had appeared.
Could he rely on his own cultivation to raise his realm and break through the shackles of this status?
Gu Chengming reckoned he might not even manage to draw in spiritual energy a few times before he keeled over for good.
The road ahead was pitch-black, with not a glimmer of hope.
Just as Gu Chengming was plunged into despair, his gaze happened to pass over the system panel, and a thought flashed through his mind like lightning.
Wait a minute!
If the game system had transmigrated with him, did that mean the MODs he'd installed had come along too?
His heart gave a sudden thump.
To maximize the GALGAME experience, he had even written a core MOD. Its function was simple and straightforward: whenever he successfully romanced a character and their Favorability reached a new stage, the system would reward him with a large number of free attribute points and special items.
After all, many aloof characters in the game were at such a high realm that he wouldn't even qualify to meet them.
Gu Chengming couldn't be bothered to spend time leveling up, so he'd simply used this shortcut, planning to build up his resources by romancing low-level characters before taking on higher-level targets.
Wasn't this his chance to turn things around?
As if to confirm his thoughts, the blue panel before his eyes flickered. A new panel appeared, its style completely different. It was pink, with lace frills around the edges, and in the very center, a line of large text was written in an extraordinarily ornate font.
[Cultivation LOVELOVE System]
"Holy shit!"
Gu Chengming nearly jumped out of his chair.
"So it really did come with me?!"
Leaving aside Gu Chengming's taste in naming MODs...
The unexpected twist of hope before his eyes filled him with joy.
He immediately focused on the panel. The text began racing by like a scrolling marquee, changing rapidly.
Here it came! Following the game's usual progression, the next screen should show a list of "Available Targets of Affection in Current Area."
Gu Chengming straightened up, his spirits rising.
The faces of dozens of female disciples from within Wenjian Sect flashed through his mind: from the lively, adorable Junior Sisters, to the cool and aloof Senior Sisters, and even the Stewards, still full of charm...
With my decade-plus of experience dominating the GALGAME scene and a Charisma attribute of 25, won't winning them over be a piece of cake?
As long as I successfully romance one or two of them and get enough attribute points to raise my Constitution, this dead end will come back to life!
He had even started planning which easiest target to go after first.
As he pictured the beautiful future ahead, the text on the panel finally slowed and stopped, settling into sharp focus.
[Current Target of Affection: Huiyuan Sword Technique] [Current Target of Affection: Clear Heart Art]
Gu Chengming's smile froze on his face.
He blinked, thinking he must have read it wrong.
He reached out and poked the pink panel. It didn't react, but the words on it remained perfectly clear.
"?"
A huge question mark rose in Gu Chengming's mind, almost as if it could take physical form and fill the entire room.
Then another line of small text appeared below the panel.
[Please select your Target of Affection.] [Tip: When Favorability reaches a new stage, the system will reward free attribute points and may unlock special effects.]
"??"
What he was supposed to romance... was a Cultivation Method?
Gu Chengming's brain short-circuited for a full three seconds. He stared blankly at the two lonely options on the panel.
Huiyuan Sword Art was Huiyuan Gate's Basic Sword Art. Its moves were broad and forceful, but its swordplay was cool and aloof, making it an exceptionally difficult technique to deal with.
Clear Heart Art was a support technique that helped Cultivators clear their minds of distracting thoughts and keep their spiritual platforms clear.
What was this supposed to be... a cultivation-world Monster Girl Collection?
But shouldn't a cultivation-world Monster Girl Collection have fox demons or sword spirits or something? What the hell was a Cultivation Method?
Gu Chengming took a deep breath and calmed himself down.
Whatever it was, this was his only way to stay alive for now.
The death countdown from Essence Blood Depletion wasn't going to joke around with him.
Fine, he'd romance them. Wasn't that just raising Favorability?
As a veteran master who had dominated the Gala Game scene for over a decade and cleared at least a hundred games, what kind of situation hadn't he seen?
He'd romanced aliens, robots, ghosts, and monster girls.
Now the target had merely changed into a Cultivation Method.
That shouldn't... be too much of a problem, right?
His finger hovered in the air, hesitating for a moment between [Huiyuan Sword Technique] and [Clear Heart Art].
In the end, he gritted his teeth and made his choice. His fingertip hovered over the first option.
[Target of Affection selected: Huiyuan Sword Art]
The panel flickered and switched to a new screen.
[Huiyuan Sword Art] [Favorability: 10/Stranger]
OK, the GALGAME interface I knew best.
Seeing that classic UI, Gu Chengming felt a strange rush of familiarity.
But hold on.
Where was the character portrait? The most important thing was the character portrait! Without a concrete character image, I can't get immersed while romancing them!
Who was going to make up for the lack of a portrait?
Setting the portrait aside, once he was back in this familiar interface, Gu Chengming quickly got into the swing of things.
A new question arose.
Why was the initial Favorability so low? Usually, a character's initial Favorability should be somewhere between 30 and 50, shouldn't it?
A value of 10 was basically the level of a roadside NPC, and could turn negative at any moment if you bumped into him while walking.
As if it had heard his thoughts, a new line of small gray text slowly appeared beneath the name [Huiyuan Sword Art], carrying a hint of resentment.
[Huiyuan Sword Art believes you are no different from the other disciples of Huiyuan Gate. You can't even manage the simplest things, and you've never truly persevered with it.]
Huh?
The feeling between the lines... Why did it sound so much like a Resentful Woman?
Before Gu Chengming could think it through, more new lines of gray text appeared one after another.
Before you continue