A scene appeared before Su Yang's eyes.
Inside an ancient, elegantly furnished room.
A hard-featured middle-aged man lay on the bed, covered in blood. His eyes were shut tight, his face devoid of color, pale as paper. His entire body hung limp, as though he could not muster even a shred of strength.
The only proof that he was still alive was the faint rise and fall of his chest.
Several immortality-boned elders and two young men stood beside the bed.
Judging by his appearance, one of the young men was Su Yang.
"So this is the Purple Cloud Mountain Master. How miserable! I wonder how he was injured so badly."
Su Yang sighed and shook his head.
He was no stranger to scenes appearing during simulations. One had appeared during his very first simulation.
From what he understood, whenever there was a major change in a simulated character's life, the system might display the scene.
Su Yang continued watching.
In the scene, the Purple Cloud Mountain Master struggled to open his eyes and whispered something.
Everyone was utterly shocked. The other young man's shock was mixed with resentment, and even Simulated Su Yang's face was full of astonishment.
The scene vanished there.
[You arrived at the Purple Cloud Mountain Master's room.] [At death's door, he announced that you were Purple Cloud Mountain's next Mountain Master.] [Everyone was incomparably stunned. Zhao Fanyu, the Mountain Master's personal disciple, was especially resentful. He had always believed that he was the Purple Cloud Mountain Master's sole heir, and he still believed so even after you appeared.]
"It was actually passed to me?"
Su Yang, outside the simulation, was also greatly startled when he saw this.
After all, during the previous simulation, the Purple Cloud Mountain Master had fed him a whole string of nonsense, saying he would pass the position to him once he reached the tenth level of Qi Refinement. But later, Su Yang had learned that there was no tenth level of Qi Refinement.
Wasn't that clearly an excuse not to pass it on?
Why had he suddenly changed his mind now?
Was this the simulator's absurdly powerful feature?
His identity introduction had clearly called him the Purple Cloud Mountain Heir.
If he could not inherit it, why call him an heir?
[Although you did not understand, you still accepted this heavy burden and became Purple Cloud Mountain's new Mountain Master.] [After the news spread, many Purple Cloud Mountain disciples refused to accept it. Led by Zhao Fanyu, they began protesting, but the elders' council ruthlessly suppressed them.] [Zhao Fanyu was even sent away and could only guard the mines.]
"Awesome! Looks like Purple Cloud Mountain's upper ranks are quite united. Simulated me shouldn't have too hard a time, then!"
Su Yang continued reading.
[The matter of the Mountain Master's succession quickly passed, and you began handling the affairs belonging to the Purple Cloud Mountain Master.] [You discovered that there were very few matters belonging to the Mountain Master. Minor matters were handled by the chief stewards of internal and external affairs, while major matters were decided by the elders' council.] [The Mountain Master's most important duty was cultivation, ensuring Purple Cloud Mountain possessed top-tier combat strength.] [This suited your wishes perfectly.] [You continued cultivating diligently.] [Because you became the Mountain Master, the resources you could obtain increased greatly. Every meal was spirit food, low-grade spirit stones were freely available, and pills occasionally assisted your cultivation. Your cultivation speed increased dramatically.] [At age twenty-three, you broke through to the fifth level of Qi Refinement.] [At age twenty-seven, you broke through to the sixth level of Qi Refinement.] [At age thirty-three, you broke through to the seventh level of Qi Refinement, becoming one of Purple Cloud Mountain's high-end combat forces.] [Many elders were overjoyed, believing the previous Mountain Master had truly passed the position to the right person. At your current cultivation speed, you had hope of attempting Foundation Establishment before your qi and blood declined at sixty.]
"Holy shit, my breakthrough speed in this simulation was actually this insane?" Even Su Yang himself was shocked.
"Is this what talent combined with resources can do?"
Su Yang understood that his rapid cultivation this time was not only because his talent was better than before, but also because abundant resources had played their part. The two had lifted him shoulder to shoulder.
But this also fully showed the importance of having a good identity.
So if he had the chance, he definitely had to get himself an even more impressive identity.
[You were full of high spirits, and your enthusiasm for cultivation grew even greater.] [At this time, the Grand Elder came to find you and poured a basin of cold water over your head.] [He said that if you continued cultivating like this, Foundation Establishment would remain forever beyond your reach.] [You asked him why.] [He told you that Purple Cloud Mountain was too weak and too poor. If you wanted to achieve Foundation Establishment, you could only rely on yourself.] [Seeing your confusion, he continued explaining. At the ninth level of Qi Refinement, the chance of achieving Foundation Establishment on your own was less than one in a hundred. Failure meant death. Using a Foundation Establishment Pill gave roughly a thirty percent chance, and even failure would preserve your life.] [Purple Cloud Mountain was so poor that even gathering the strength of the entire sect would not be enough to buy a Foundation Establishment Pill.] [Purple Cloud Mountain was also so weak that even if it smashed its pots and sold its iron to scrape together enough money for a Foundation Establishment Pill, it would not be able to keep it.] [Therefore, for your Foundation Establishment, you could only rely on yourself.] [Grief arose in your heart, and you felt that your immortal path had no hope. But on second thought, the Grand Elder surely had not come merely to discourage you. Perhaps he had a solution.] [You asked him for a solution.] [He told you there was only one method: keep breaking through.] [Reaching the tenth level of Qi Refinement gave a thirty percent chance of Foundation Establishment. The eleventh level gave a seventy percent chance. As for the twelfth level, success was guaranteed, and the quality of the spiritual power after breaking through would far surpass those of the same realm.] [You were surprised. You had not expected the tenth level of Qi Refinement to truly exist, nor even the eleventh and twelfth levels. Then the previous Purple Cloud Mountain Master had not been deceiving you after all; he had simply placed great hopes on you.] [Combined with the bits and pieces you had heard around Purple Cloud Mountain over the years, you knew how deep the bond between the previous Mountain Master and your nominal master had been.] [Perhaps once the Purple Cloud Mountain Master confirmed your identity, he had already decided to pass the position of next Mountain Master to you.] [The agreement of the tenth level of Qi Refinement had merely been meant to spur you onward.] [Your heart was filled with emotion, but you still did not forget to continue asking the Grand Elder for guidance on how to break through.] [The Grand Elder told you that only by refining a Spell Seed within your body could you break through to the tenth level of Qi Refinement. Three Spell Seeds could break through to the eleventh level, while nine Spell Seeds could break through to the twelfth.] [A Spell Seed could only be born after a formal spell had been cultivated beyond perfection.] [You understood and began diligently practicing spells. You chose the sword art known as the Blazing Sword Technique.] [As spells divided your attention, your breakthrough speed visibly slowed, but your progress in the spell was exceptionally gratifying.] [Two months later, your Blazing Sword Technique successfully reached the beginner stage.] [At age thirty-four, your Blazing Sword Technique reached minor accomplishment.] [At age thirty-nine, your Blazing Sword Technique reached major accomplishment.] [At age forty-one, you broke through to the eighth level of Qi Refinement.] [At age fifty, your Blazing Sword Technique reached perfection. You were only one step away from breaking past the limit and condensing a Spell Seed, but this was also the most difficult step.] [At age fifty-two, you broke through to the ninth level of Qi Refinement.] [That same year, a terrifying earthquake struck Fengyuan Prefecture. Purple Cloud Mountain also suffered grave losses, and you actively organized the disciples for disaster relief.] [At age fifty-eight, your ninth-level Qi Refinement spiritual power had accumulated to perfection. You could already attempt Foundation Establishment, but you did not dare.] [You decided to wait another two years and make your decision at sixty.] [At age sixty, your choice was...] [1. Throw caution to the wind and force a breakthrough regardless of all else. There was a very high chance that you would die and vanish from the world.] [2. Continue honing your swordsmanship and wait until you condensed a Spell Seed before breaking through. However, as time passed, the possibility of Foundation Establishment would rapidly decline. After age seventy, without qi-and-blood spirit medicine or pills of at least the second tier, there would no longer be any hope of breakthrough.] [3. Sell off all the sect's assets and seek a Foundation Establishment Pill.]
"The second one."
Without even thinking, Su Yang chose the second option.
Risking a breakthrough was not his style. Steadiness was the kingly path.
Besides, after reaching the tenth level of Qi Refinement, the chance of dying from a failed breakthrough would be very low.
``` [You continued bitterly cultivating your sword art.]
[At age sixty-eight, you finally condensed the Spell Seed of the Blazing Sword Technique.]
[You decided to enter seclusion and break through to the tenth level of Qi Refinement and the Foundation Establishment realm.]
[That same year, you broke through to the tenth level of Qi Refinement and immediately began Foundation Establishment.]
[You succeeded, and you failed.]
[You successfully condensed the Foundation Establishment spiritual power possessed only by Foundation Establishment cultivators. But when you mobilized all the qi and blood in your body and tried to forge your foundation, the earth shook and the mountains trembled, and your foundation scattered.]
[In other words, you possessed the strength of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but your lifespan was only equivalent to that of an ordinary mortal. Worse still, once you exhausted the spiritual power within your body, you would die.]
[You emerged from seclusion and learned the cause of the tremors. Zhao Fanyu, who had been sent to guard the mines years ago, had somehow obtained a counterfeit second-tier Earthquake Talisman. At the critical moment, he activated the earth veins, causing the earthquake.]
[Zhao Fanyu had already been captured, but he refused to reveal who had funded his Earthquake Talisman or who had leaked news of your breakthrough.]
[Zhao Fanyu was subjected to the harshest punishment.]
[Everyone asked whether you had broken through. You merely nodded.]
[You passed down the position of Mountain Master and appointed yourself the sect's Supreme Elder.]
[Half a year later, you found clues pointing to the two factions that had funded Zhao Fanyu. Both were hostile factions competing with Purple Cloud Mountain for resources.]
[That day, you made your move. Sword light howled through the two sects.]
[Afterward, people went to inspect the scene. There were only severed limbs, broken remains, and corpses covering the ground. Not a single living person remained.]
[Your reputation spread throughout all of Fengyuan Prefecture!]
[But aside from the new Mountain Master, no one knew that after making his move, you had already quietly died.]
[Simulation ended.]
[Generating evaluation.]
[Calculating Simulation Points.]
[Evaluation: Most of your life passed in obscurity. Only in your final moments could you be called glorious, your reputation spreading throughout all of Fengyuan Prefecture.
Even in death, you brought Purple Cloud Mountain a century of strength.
But if you had placed greater importance on Purple Cloud Mountain's internal management and ideological and cultural development, perhaps you would have achieved even greater accomplishments.]
Before you continue