CHAPTER 08 - LILAC’S LANGUISH

Lilac’s point of view

“God I’m shaking…” I could feel my face burn as I stepped up onto the platform, fully aware of all the attention I was receiving. Somehow, it felt even worse now that the evaluation ground was quiet.

“Why couldn’t the evaluation have been in private.” I lamented. Matilda had reassured me that everyone would be too busy worrying about their own evaluation to pay any attention to mine. But now that it was actually happening, it felt like there was a spotlight following me around and an announcer reporting my every movement.

“Thank god.” I nearly sighed in relief when I realized that the person called Xiang would be my examiner.

“Name and age?”

“Lilac, 16.”, “Jinx, 16.” Matilda and I answered immediately. Unable to help myself, I thought about when, in the beginning of class, teachers would call out my name to take attendance.

After Xiang had finished recording our information on one of those rolly scrolls, it was time.

“Put your hand on the artifact.” Xiang’s voice was gentle and kind, unlike his comrade. Somehow, under his encouraging gaze, I found it difficult to think of him as an NPC.

After sneaking a brief glance at Matilda, who was already bravely extending her hand towards her own crystal, I nodded.

As soon as the gentle light appeared I instinctively knew I was fine; suddenly, all my worries melted away, like snow in the sun.

“So this is qi…” I marvelled inwardly. A notification prompt appeared, telling me something about gaining access to a cultivation tab, but I was too dazed to read it properly.

“13-star talent, water affinity.” Xiang announced the results of my exam with a pleased look on his face. “Pass.” He smiled at me.

Registering that singular word, it was like a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I was elated beyond belief.

Yet, the euphoria turned out to be short-lived, as I heard the sociopath sneer to the right of me.

“[...] and harp affinity.” The sociopath shook his head before dismissing my friend impassively. “Fail.”

“No...” My heart sank as I noticed Matilda’s face shift from surprise to fury.

“What?!” Matilda cried out, her eyes shifting to look at me and Percival. I winced as I realized what was about to happen.

“Why do I fail?!” Matilda screamed in shock and anger, but as someone who knew her in the real world, I recognized the tell-tale signs of hurt and sadness. “I have a 12-star talent, don’t I?”

Surprisingly, my examiner was one to answer her.

“You are talented enough to join the White Tiger Sect, that is true. But your affinities are non-combat oriented.” He explained patiently.

“So?” Matilda echoed my thoughts exactly.

Examiner Xiang looked like he was about to elaborate when his aloof comrade rudely interrupted him.

“So, you’re dismissed.”

“But-” Now, even a stranger could tell that Matilda was on the verge of tears. Unfortunately, her pleading fell on deaf ears, as it was wasted on the cultivators.

“Jinx. Enough.” Examiner Xiang furrowed his brows as he glared at my best friend. “If you think you have been unjustly assessed, compete in the inter-sect tournaments and prove you belong in the White Tiger Sect. Until then, you’re dismissed.”

The way Xiang emphasized the word ‘dismissed' seemed to be a warning to not overplay her hand.

Thus, when I saw that my stupid friend was about to ignore it, I pleaded for her to calm down, doing my best to grab her attention with my gaze.

Fortunately, Matilda saw me before it was too late. We’d both seen what happened to players whose actions irritated the cultivators. And neither one of us looked forward to experiencing death, even a virtual one.

“Fine.” My best friend clicked her tongue in poorly veiled annoyance. Subsequently, she turned to look me in the eyes.

“Wait for me Lilac, I’ll join you soon, okay? And Percival,” Matilda looked at the man we’d recently gotten acquainted with. “You better take good fucking care of her, you hear me? I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t!”

With those embarrassing words reverberating through the area for everyone to hear, Matilda removed herself from the platform.

I tried to follow her with my eyes, but her fiery red hair quickly disappeared in the sea of spectators.

“Congrats.” Percival whispered as I joined him on the stage.

“Thanks.” I muttered back, unsure if I had deserved it or not. What I did know was that I would have preferred it if Matilda had passed the evaluation as well.

“Next!”

Unconsciously, my eyes wandered to the next pair of attendees.

As he stepped up the stairs, Percival’s young-looking friend Raven advanced with his head held up high. Although he'd claimed yesterday that he'd tried to make his character look roguish, both Matilda and I agreed that he just looked cute instead.

Yet, with each step, Raven’s confidence faltered. Consequently, his brave smile froze as his face turned paler and paler. When he finally reached Xiang, Raven looked like he'd seen a ghost.

“That's how I must've looked like.” I winced at the fresh memory.

“Look, it's the meditator.” Percival whispered while gesturing at the second attendee. A surprisingly mundane-looking player with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes.

Immediately, I recognized him as the teenager who'd earnestly spent nearly half the night in meditation yesterday.

At first, neither Percival’s group nor Matilda and I had spotted him, hiding as he was on the opposite end of the platform. It wasn't until Raven had started exploring that the player’s existence had been brought to their attention.

Furthermore, apart from the sheathed sword tied to his waist, the player hadn't really stood out that much compared to other players. After all, finding a player pretending to ‘cultivate’ wasn't exactly difficult in CO.

Yet their initial impression had slowly changed when the player hadn't stopped meditating for five straight hours.

Many argued that he must've fallen asleep sitting up. Moreover, if it wasn't for Percival holding some of them back, I was certain that at least one of his friends would’ve tried to nick the sword from the oblivious-looking player.

But as it turned out, he hadn't been asleep.

Furthermore, perhaps even more impressively, when he finally did stop meditating, he actually looked pleased with himself.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Imagine that! Pleased! No one looked pleased after trying and failing to cultivate for five hours.

Either, the group argued, the man had been successful in creating his own original cultivation method, or, he was a miserable masochist.

Both alternatives undoubtedly made him a special player.

Unfortunately for them, the player had run off and disappeared before any of them had been able to ask him about it.

“Bishop, 15.” He said, revealing his name and age. Or at least, his character’s name and age. Unlike the pale-faced Raven, Bishop actually managed to look unperturbed in the face of the two cultivators. His stoicism seemed to indicate that he wasn't actually fifteen.

And as it turned out, it wasn't all bravado.

“14-star talent, water and… sword.” The sociopath announced, actually seeming a bit jealous.

“I knew he wasn't sleeping!” My eyes widened as I gazed unblinkingly at the radiant crystal in front of him.

However, it wouldn’t be until much later that anyone truly understood how rare a 14-star talent actually was.

…

Returning to Bishop's point of view

As it turns out, travelling on my own came with certain benefits. First, I didn’t have to adapt my pace to a slow moving carriage, which was definitely a welcome change since I liked to walk quickly. Second, I could take breaks whenever I wanted. And third, I didn’t have to feed any horses or set up any camps.

Furthermore, now that I could move on my own schedule, I took the time to truly appreciate the sublime virtual world around me.

For example, not even an hour after I had left Durnatel, I spotted a green squirrel with two fluffy tails scurrying up a tree. Heck, even the beetles that I had mostly dismissed as background critters yesterday were scrutinized more closely. And although I was far from an entomologist, I couldn’t think of any insect with horns resembling a crown.

Again and again, my mind continued to be blown away by the incredible feature of engineering that was Cultivation Online. Ignoring the life-like NPCs for a second, even the insects’ AI wasn’t easily predicted. How the creators of Cultivation Online had accomplished this was so beyond my comprehension that it might as well be magic.

Naturally, I wasn’t the only person to traverse the road leading towards the…

“What was it again…” I frowned, trying to remember the name of the dynasty that Zhou Qing had mentioned.

“Omowa? Omoi? Whatever, it was definitely the Omo-something Dynasty.” I tasted the words to myself, unable to think of the right combination of syllables.

Excluding myself, the majority of the travelers I stumbled upon on the road were definitely NPCs. Even without indicators, it was easy to tell them apart since they weren’t wearing dirty grayish-white tunics or brown cloth pants.

They weren’t always teenagers either.

Or, at least, most of the travelers I came across were NPCs. Even out here, well outside the illusory safety that city and town walls provided, players were frolicking around. Always in a hurry or a goal in mind.

Most players, I found, were equipped with crude spears fashioned out of whatever they could forage; but occasionally, I would spot a player carrying a cheap-looking axe or a sword.

So far, I was proud of the fact that I hadn’t come across a single player with a quality sword like mine.

“I really did luck out with that overconfident Huan fellow.” I smiled to myself, caressing the hilt of my beautiful sword.

Objectively, I was pretty sure my sword was perfectly ordinary. Sure, it had a nice heft to it, and it was sharpened effectively, but it wasn’t by any means a masterpiece of swordsmithing. Nevertheless, in my mind’s eye, my sword was so much more than just a cheap piece of metal found in any old blacksmith.

In my mind, my sword represented both strength and freedom. Its heavy weight symbolized the heavy responsibility to dictate my own fate. Thus, my sword was more than just a tool for wanton slaughter, it was an extension of my will and the dispenser of my desires.

As these thoughts manifested and solidified inside of me, a faint tingling sensation suddenly spread through my limbs.

However, when no prompt materialized, I manually had to open my cultivation tab to check for any updates.

[Cultivation]

[Name: Bishop]

[Age: 15]

[Cultivation Aptitude: 14 ★]

[Affinities: Sword, Water]

[Affiliation: White Tiger Sect (Rank 4)]

[Rank: Provisional Outer Disciple]

[Cultivation Stage: Mortal]

[Cultivation Method: N/A]

[Qi: N/A]

[Proficiencies]

[Swordsmanship - Beginner Lv. 5]

[Meditation - Beginner Lv. 1]

At first, when reading through my status, I didn’t find any changes. But then, my second time around, I spotted a minor alteration.

“My affinities have switched places…” Prior to the tingling, I was pretty confident that water had been the first affinity on my affinity list.

“Is it an error?” I wondered before quickly dismissing the idea. A company capable of creating a world like this wouldn’t be so careless. No, this wasn’t an error.

“Then…” My brows furrowed. “Did my affinity increase?” So far, I had encountered no information saying it was possible. But similarly, I hadn’t heard that it was impossible either.

“But how?” I thought about my actions. Apart from walking in a straight line, I hadn’t done anything. Heck, I hadn’t even been touching my sword when the tingling sensation had occurred. “And why?”

Then it hit me.

“My thoughts!” My eyes widened at the implications of my supposition. “The game read my thoughts!”

I tried to explain what had happened from different angles. To adopt other perspectives on why my sword affinity would change all of sudden. But even after several minutes of rumination, no plausible answer emerged.

Suddenly, as I gazed at the beautiful world around me, an insidious shiver traveled down my spine.

“I need a break.” Before my thoughts could betray me more than they already had, I logged out in the middle of the street.

…