Isn't This a Game? Why Are You All Cultivating for Real!

[The large-scale, fully immersive virtual reality game, ’Starting with a broken sect,’ is about to begin its first-ever open beta! The first phase is limited to only 50 testers. Registration closes in two days, first come, first served!]

[Recruitment for the ’Starting with a broken sect’ open beta can be found at: www....]

’What kind of garbage game is this? It’s not even 4012 yet and they’re daring to advertise a fully immersive VR game?’

’People who believe this kind of game exists will definitely be the main customers for snake oil when they get old.’

Late at night, an ad for a new game quietly appeared on a major gaming forum. Only a few bored night owls glanced at it before unhesitatingly assuming it was a scam and closing the tab.

***

’Please, God, let someone sign up!’

Song Jiulai pressed her palms together, faced the sky, and muttered a prayer, hoping the beta test she’d posted would fill up.

System: "I never thought you’d be so clever, Host. Given how much the players on your planet love to get involved in things, our Sect won’t have to worry about a shortage of people in the future."

Song Jiulai: "Can you help me pick players with high talent? The kind who can reach Foundation Establishment in ten days, Golden Core in a hundred, Nascent Soul in a year, and achieve Ascension in ten..."

System: "Why don’t I just make your Longevity Sect the number one sect in the Yunzhou Continent right now?"

Song Jiulai: "That works too."

System: "Works my ass! You think I don’t want to?"

"..."

Song Jiulai had transmigrated to the Yunzhou Continent a month ago.

Before that, she was just an ordinary office worker who had died after being hit by a drunk driver while saving a cat.

That’s when something incredible happened—the System appeared.

It claimed she had appeared at the exact moment it was choosing a host, spouted some nonsense about her being kind, declared it was fate, and after a load of hot air, it brought Song Jiulai to this Cultivation World called the Yunzhou Continent and gave her a fake identity.

The next successor of a small, local sect—the Longevity Sect.

Even its name embodied the simple, beautiful wish of the previous Sect Master. Because he was only at the Foundation Establishment Stage and failed to break through to the Golden Core Stage after a hundred years, he ultimately passed away.

A month ago, the System had meddled with the Longevity Sect, leaving behind a prophecy claiming that a Daughter of Destiny would soon arrive to save the sect and become its next master.

’The entire Sect consisted of one deceased Sect Master and a single Medicine Gathering Child. They were so poor they didn’t even have a cafeteria lady. What was the point of a prophecy?!’

’And to top it all off, the goddamn System had her transmigrate in her own body!’

She had no cultivation talent whatsoever. The System had to forcibly create a Spirit Root for her, and she’d had to beg for an entry-level Qi Refinement Realm book from the Artifact Refining Sect next door. Thankfully, the folks in Artifact Refining were a straightforward bunch...

Beyond that, the System’s only demand was for Song Jiulai to turn the Longevity Sect into the greatest sect in all of Yunzhou, as this was its main quest.

First, it stipulated that the Sect’s population had to reach 50 people to unlock the next quest.

And that was it.

That’s right. It couldn’t even provide a single low-grade spirit stone.

Song Jiulai considered her bleak future.

She sincerely suggested to the System, "How about I just jump off a cliff and restart my life?"

’This is a Cultivation Continent!’

’There are Cultivators here!’

’This is a world where the strong genuinely devour the weak!’

’Someone of her level couldn’t even travel around freely. How could the System be so daring?’

’And it wanted her to recruit 50 people.’

’My God, the last Sect Master of the Longevity Sect, a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator, couldn’t recruit anyone besides a Medicine Gathering Child.’

This world was all about talent. People with the Spirit Root needed for cultivation were rare to begin with, and in a small place like this, sects were a dime a dozen. Anyone with a shred of talent would rather do odd jobs at a bigger sect. Who would want to join a sect so poor it couldn’t even pay a salary in Spirit Stones?

Song Jiulai closed her eyes and gave up completely. "Whatever, this is the only life I’ve got. Go ahead and erase me."

"..."

Perhaps Song Jiulai’s attitude of lying flat and giving up shocked the System, because it offered another way.

"I can open a temporary channel to another world, but I need energy provided by you, the host. You don’t have enough energy right now. At most, I can pull over people’s consciousnesses. To open a physical channel, you’ll need to become much stronger. Therefore, you must provide vessels for them, and they must come willingly."

"But you can’t reveal my existence or your mission requirements. This makes it too difficult. Who would willingly hand their consciousness over to the control of your world?"

Little did it know, Song Jiulai’s eyes lit up the moment the System said this.

’Why wouldn’t they be willing?’

’There’s one way that’s 100% guaranteed to work!’

And that was why "Starting with a broken sect" appeared on a Blue Star forum.

The only difficulty was that Song Jiulai needed to figure out how to provide vessels for the players—their ’physical bodies’ in this world.

’Real people were out of the question, but there were puppets!’

The morals and ethics of the Cultivation World were different from other worlds. Some Cultivators created puppets that were identical to real people. Powerful Cultivators could even split off their consciousness and possess these puppets, making it an essential safety Magic Technique for High-level Cultivators.

For low-level Cultivators, the puppets they created were little more than decorations. Of course, one couldn’t rule out them using the puppets for... other things.

The Cultivators of the Artifact Refining Sect knew how to make puppets.

Filled with excitement, Song Jiulai headed over to the neighboring "Feique Sect," which specialized in Artifact Refining.

But when she asked about the price of the puppets, her world came crashing down.

"The lowest-grade puppets are made from First-stage Spiritual Grass Powder. They cost ten low-grade spirit stones each. If you need ones made with better materials, they get more expensive."

The one speaking to Song Jiulai was a senior sister from the Feique Sect, Su Huanli. She asked in confusion, "Puppets aren’t anything that precious. You should be able to make them yourself, and it would be cheaper."

Song Jiulai: "I... uh... don’t have... the time... at the moment..."

’I don’t know how!’

’Senior Sister!!’

’I just transmigrated a month ago! It was a life-or-death struggle just to understand the entry-level cultivation method for the Qi Refinement Realm. How would I know how to do this?!’

Fortunately, Su Huanli didn’t press the issue. "How many do you need?"

Song Jiulai’s lips trembled, her heart feeling as if it were bleeding. "Fifty..."

Su Huanli was stunned. "What are you going to do with so many puppets?"

Song Jiulai: "To run some experiments."

Every Cultivator on the Yunzhou Continent had their own quirks, so Su Huanli didn’t ask any more questions. "Alright. Pay the deposit first, and I can have the fifty puppets ready for you tomorrow."

On the Yunzhou Continent, Spirit Stones were hard currency—they were money.

One hundred low-grade spirit stones were equal to one Mid-grade Spirit Stone, and one hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones were equal to one top-grade spirit stone.

Fifty puppets would cost five Mid-grade Spirit Stones, and the deposit was one Mid-grade Spirit Stone.

The entire inheritance left by the last Sect Master of the Longevity Sect was a mere ten Mid-grade Spirit Stones.

’Ten stones!’

’It was only enough to buy things like this.’

Any other materials that Cultivators actually needed started at tens or even hundreds of Spirit Stones.

Song Jiulai was so poor that if she cried at night, she had to swallow her tears. She was afraid of getting dehydrated and couldn’t afford to replenish the water.

Even back when she was a corporate slave, Song Jiulai had never been this broke. She still had to set aside one Mid-grade Spirit Stone to pay the salary of the Sect’s only Medicine Gathering Child.

The Sect’s only source of income was the Spirit Grass he gathered, but it didn’t sell for much.

Fortunately, after she had placed the order for the puppets, the System gave her some good news.

"Someone has started filling out the application."