Walking out of the school hospital gate, looking at the azure sky overhead and the noisy streets in the distance, Lin Feng felt for the first time that the honking of cars and the cursing of passersby were actually so pleasing to the ear.
Having stayed in that dead silent white space for a whole month, his desire for "color" and "sound" had already reached the peak.
Walking on the road back to the dormitory, classic tropes from those Xiuxian web novels he had read in his previous life involuntarily emerged in Lin Feng's mind.
[A certain sect's Supreme Elder: This Seat has occasionally had a realization, and is only half a step away from that Nascent Soul stage. Child, seal the cave estate, This Seat wants to enter death seclusion! Until a hundred years have passed, I will absolutely not leave the mountain!]
[Child: Respectfully sending off the Old Ancestor! The Old Ancestor's magic power is boundless!]
Then inside the novel, it is usually just one line of text: Spring goes and autumn comes, cold and heat alternate, and in the blink of an eye, a hundred years have passed.
Waiting until the Old Ancestor's divine skill achieves great success and he breaks out of seclusion, he discovers the sect has already been destroyed by the protagonist until only the stone lions at the gate remain.
Previously looking at this kind of plot, Lin Feng only felt that was the cultivator's romance, was the persistence towards the Great Dao.
Now?
Lin Feng shivered ferociously, shaking his head like a rattle-drum.
"Screw his uncle's romance."
Only people who have personally experienced it know, that kind of "secluded cultivation" is fundamentally not something a human does.
He only stayed in that space where there was nothing except whiteness for one month (one day in reality), and was already on the edge of a mental breakdown, relying entirely on talking to himself and giving names to the progress bar to barely maintain sanity.
One hundred years?
Don't joke. That is fundamentally not going to cultivate, that is going to sit in prison, and it is solitary confinement.
If there really is someone who can stay in that kind of environment for a hundred years without going crazy, then it can only explain one thing—he was already crazy before entering.
"The so-called 'heart like still water', is actually the energy-saving protection mode opened by the brain under extreme boredom, which is just becoming stupid."
Lin Feng called the system with lingering fear in his heart.
"System, what I used this time is the [Hyperbolic Time Chamber (Bronze)], the time flow speed is 30:1, right?"
[Yes, Host.] The system's mechanical voice was still without any waves.
"Then... if there are higher rank tickets, what is the flow speed?" Lin Feng swallowed a mouthful of saliva, having a faint bad premonition in his heart.
[Silver Rank Hyperbolic Time Chamber, time flow speed ratio is 50:1.] [Gold Rank Hyperbolic Time Chamber, time flow speed ratio is 100:1.]
Hearing this number, Lin Feng stumbled under his feet, almost tripping his right foot with his left foot and falling to his death on the curb.
100 to 1?!
That is to say, if one day passes in the real world, over three months must pass inside?
If one takes a slight nap in reality, it is a whole season inside? If a winter break passes in reality, one can directly grow from a baby to retirement inside?
"How is this a cheat, this is clearly a torture tool!"
Lin Feng's face turned pale; he secretly swore in his heart that if he draws a Gold Rank Hyperbolic Time Chamber Admission Ticket in the lucky draw later, he would absolutely throw it into the trash can without hesitation, or give it to an enemy.
Even if he is made to go street busking or go to a construction site to move bricks, he absolutely did not want to be locked into that cage of only white void again.
That kind of loneliness that stretches the soul, crushes it, and pieces it back together, is fundamentally not a weight humans can bear.
"Is this the price of becoming strong..."
Lin Feng sighed, raising his hand to block the piercing sunlight.
Although he roasted happily in his heart, he could clearly feel that his own vocal cords, diaphragm, and even oral cavity muscles were all in an unprecedented "perfect standby state."
As long as he wanted, he could now emit any timbre he desired.
That kind of sense of absolute control over sound indeed made people intoxicated. But if he were allowed to choose again...
"Forget it, it is still relatively happier to be a piece of trash who only knows how to lip-sync."
When passing downstairs of the dormitory building, Lin Feng did not rush in to make up for sleep as usual.
On the contrary, looking at those narrow windows and the cramped balcony, a burst of physiological repulsion actually rose in his heart. This was the sequelae of closed-door cultivation—although the divine skill was accomplished, he somewhat contracted a bit of claustrophobia.
Even if it was a spacious four-person room, in his eyes at this moment, it was no different from that white cage.
"In the future, even if beaten to death, I won't enter this kind of ghost place..." Lin Feng muttered to himself, filled with resistance toward that so-called Silver-rank and Gold-rank Time Chamber.
Just at this moment, the System's emotionless electronic sound suddenly rang in his mind, carrying a trace of helplessness as if having been misunderstood.
[Host, please do not generate unnecessary misunderstandings.]
[Silver Rank and Gold Rank Hyperbolic Time Chambers, although the time flow speed is extremely fast, they possess a "Save Function" that the Bronze-rank does not possess.]
[Bronze Rank belongs to "disposable consumables"; once entered, one must either stay for the full time or exit early and void it. But Silver Rank and Gold Rank support the Host to "pause" and exit the space at any time, return to the real world to rest, and subsequently "load save" at any time to continue the remaining cultivation time.]
Lin Feng froze on the spot.
"What? Can pause? Can save and load?"
In that instant, Lin Feng's tears of emotion almost fell down. So this is the treatment of a high-level VIP! This is the legendary "humanized service"!
No wonder the Bronze Rank was so cheap; it turns out that was just a cheap Green Skin Train hard seat with no ticket refund service and no getting off halfway; while Silver and Gold Ranks, those are luxury cruise liner package tickets where one can get off to sightsee at any time and go back to the hotel to sleep!
"Good fellow," Lin Feng touched his chin, the fear in his heart dissipating by more than half, replaced by a kind of indignation of being teased, "System, did you do it on purpose? Deliberately giving me this Bronze ticket which is just like a 'trial sample,' scaring me so I wouldn't draw from the high-level prize pool, just to make me recognize my own status?"
The more Lin Feng thought, the more he felt this unscrupulous System could do this kind of thing. First using low-level props to torture the Host to death and back, then throwing out the sweetness of high-level props; this is typical PUA!
[System: Unscrupulous?]
[Host, please do not become arrogant just because you obtained a little insignificant achievement, thereby committing what is called "forgetting one's ancestors".]
[Please Host, remember at all times, before binding this System, you were just a music layman who couldn't even recognize all guitar frets and sang out of tune. Without this System, you would currently still be that "Passerby A" who could only hand water to real artists off-stage.]
Lin Feng: "..."
This wave of retort, the damage was not high, but the insult was extremely strong, and it was irrefutable.
Lin Feng was choked up speechless for a long time.
Yeah, he really was a bit arrogant just now.
After grasping the fur of "Guitar Dao" and "Vocal Dao," in his subconscious, he actually felt he was a leading actor, and even started nitpicking the cheat's user experience.
If not for this "unscrupulous System," he would currently still be worrying about how not to be fired by the band; where would he have the qualification to be here disliking "cultivation is too boring"?
This is just like a beggar winning the lottery, turning his head and starting to dislike that the attitude of the person delivering the money isn't respectful enough.
"Received instruction, received instruction."
Lin Feng took a deep breath, rapidly adjusting his mentality.
As a human being, the most important thing is to have a sense of one's own B-number. Admitting oneself as a cheater who relies on the System to rise in rank is not shameful.
"Don't want to go back to the dorm, too stuffy."
Lin Feng looked at the small path beside him, which was the direction leading to the school's central square.
"Go wander around the square, inhale two mouthfuls of turbid but free air, and incidentally look at living people, to wash these eyes that have looked at white walls for a month."