Chapter 2 – Before the Game Ended (Part 2)
There was no time to rest.
I dragged the guards into the corner of the cell and stripped them of their robes. The fabric was coarse, reeking of mold and sweat, but it would do. I used the rest of the chain to bind one of the unconscious men and jammed the door with a shattered torch bracket. It wouldn't hold for long, but I only needed minutes.
I had to think. Fast.
This body—Zerel Kai's—wasn't a fresh level one. In lore, he was already a cultivator when captured. A rising prodigy whose spirit weapon had awakened early.
But what was his cultivation stage now?
I closed my eyes, focusing inward. In "Celestial Dominion," cultivation wasn't just about numbers. It was about flow, sensation, resonance. You had to feel the energy moving through your meridians. You had to breathe it.
It was faint.
But there.
A dull pressure in my dantian—center of the body's spirit energy. Sluggish, cracked, unstable. Like a lantern flickering in a storm. The remnants of a broken foundation.
I inhaled slowly, trying to draw in spiritual energy from the air.
Nothing responded.
I opened my eyes.
"Sealed," I muttered. "Of course it's sealed."
The game didn't just throw me into a dead man's shoes—it gave me his crippled start, too.
In this world, cultivation followed strict ranks, each split into multiple sub-stages. I'd memorized them from dozens of in-game tooltips, forums, and lorebooks. They were as follows:
Spirit Root Awakening – The foundation. This is when a person's Spirit Root activates—often triggered by their Spirit Weapon awakening at age six. Most people never get past this. Qi Initiation Realm – Where true cultivation begins. Absorbing ambient Qi, refining it into the body. Sub-stages: Early, Mid, Late, Peak. Meridian Forging Realm – Strengthens the internal pathways. Allows greater flow and accumulation. Common bottleneck for sect disciples. Core Vein Realm – Where the cultivator forms their Core Veins, solidifying control over Qi. Required to wield powerful techniques or spirit arts. Golden Core Realm – A massive leap. Cultivators here are considered elites. They can fly short distances, destroy armies, shatter mountains.
Beyond that came Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, and the mythical Ascendant Realms... but even touching Qi Initiation was considered miraculous by most commoners.
Zerel Kai, according to lore, had reached Meridian Forging before his capture. But his core was destabilized. He had been tortured, sealed, and chained.
If I didn't fix it soon, I would never cultivate again.
And in this world... a man without cultivation was already dead.
The guards wouldn't stay down forever.
I moved to the far corner of the cell, where moss coated the stones. There, hidden behind crumbling bricks, was a glowing glyph etched into the wall—barely visible. I remembered it from the dungeon's debug file.
Debug Seal Node – Internal Use Only.
I pressed my hand to it. The glyph shimmered, recognizing me not as a player, but as a host.
Words filled my vision:
[Warning: Seal Detected – Core Stabilization Failure]
[Initiate Spiritual Thread Alignment? Y/N]
I didn't hesitate.
Y
Pain lanced through my abdomen. I screamed, crumpling to the floor. It felt like someone was carving into my soul with burning glass.
But beneath the agony was something else—movement.
Qi.
Faint, dirty, fractured—but moving.
When the light faded, I lay gasping. The notification blinked again:
[Core Reboot: 9% – Stabilization In Progress...]
I had time.
Not much. But enough to escape.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Steel on stone. Not guards. Heavier. Slower.
A figure stepped into the hall outside my cell—tall, clad in ceremonial red, face hidden behind a polished obsidian mask. I knew that armor.
Elder Kyros.
In every route, he was the one who gave the final order.
"Burn him. Break him. Bury the shame of House Kai."
The real game had just begun.
Elder Kyros didn't speak immediately.
He simply stood there, the torchlight licking at the edges of his crimson robes, casting shadows against the obsidian mask that hid every trace of humanity. He looked like a judge from the deepest pits of hell, and for a moment, neither of us moved.
My breath was shallow. My legs shook.
I was still recovering from the core reboot. I had maybe ten percent Qi circulating in my system—barely enough to enhance a strike, not nearly enough to win a battle. But if he wanted me dead, why hadn't he struck yet?
He took one step forward.
"You are not him," he said finally, voice smooth, almost gentle.
My blood ran cold. "What?"
Kyros tilted his head. "Your eyes. Zerel Kai never had such restraint in his gaze. He was wrath and thunder. You... you look like you're calculating."
I kept my silence. Let him keep talking.
He paced slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "It's amusing. A boy born cursed, raised in privilege, then thrown to rot the moment his weapon awakened. The other Elders believed you were mad. Touched by the weapon. But I always suspected there was more."
He stopped beside the broken guards. Looked down at them.
"You disabled two trained sect sentinels without any cultivation," he murmured. "And now, suddenly, you're attempting to escape during a time when your Qi should be sealed."
He turned to face me.
"So I ask again... who are you really?"
I met his gaze. Or what I imagined it was behind that mask.
And smiled.
"Zerel Kai. Son of House Kai. Cursed, betrayed, and condemned. But still breathing."
A pause.
Then Kyros laughed. It was dry, humorless, echoing in the cold stone hall.
"Very well. Let's see if your tongue is as sharp as your will."
He moved faster than I could follow.
One moment he was standing. The next, a palm slammed into my chest, sending me crashing into the far wall. Pain exploded through my ribs. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't even scream.
I collapsed onto one knee, coughing violently.
"You have no foundation," Kyros said, walking toward me. "You shouldn't even be alive."
I reached for the broken torch bracket, using it as a crutch to pull myself up.
"And yet... here I am," I gasped.
I charged. It wasn't smart. It wasn't graceful.
But it was desperate.
I twisted the chain around my arm and swung, aiming for his head. He caught it with two fingers.
Two.
And yanked me forward.
He kneed me in the stomach, then drove an elbow into my back. I hit the floor again, coughing blood.
"I could end you with a breath," Kyros said calmly. "But I want to understand you first."
Good, I thought. Keep talking.
"Your will is unnatural. Your technique is untrained, but your instincts? They scream of someone who has studied death. Who knows it."
He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to look at him.
"You've seen the future, haven't you?"
Bingo.
I let my expression falter. Just slightly. Enough to make him feel like he had found something.
"What if I have?" I rasped.
He paused. The grip on my hair tightened.
"Then perhaps... you're not a threat. Not yet. Perhaps you're something far more valuable."
I knew I couldn't win this fight.
But I could survive it.
And surviving was enough—for now.