Later in the day, after Jin had finally been kicked out of the meeting he wasn't qualified to attend, he was laying on the futon that he'd been given, in the room that he would inhabit, thinking about the task that he'd been tasked with.

He knew exactly what type of game he needed to make to fulfil the requirements that the sect they were visiting had.

A horror game, a game designed to make people as scared as fucking possible. If you could handle a complete and perfectly immersive illusion of being a horror game protagonist, then you probably had your shit together right?

Well, no, not really, it could also just mean you were mentally deranged.

The idea of using such a process as a selection tool for disciples was perhaps a bit weird to consider from the standpoint of the sensibilities of his life on earth.

After all, if anyone had asked him in his last life what kind of process the Mad Monks Sect would need to pick the mentally stable disciples they needed, he would have told them hire a bunch of psychologists. But obviously, even if psychologists existed here, a martial sect was one of the factions least likely to use them. In a mediaeval society where people were already incredibly emotionally repressed, cultivators went, as always, beyond the norm. They mostly talked about transactions and cultivation and killing demons and heavenly beasts or something, trying to get them to open up about feelings and thus respect the profession of which the goal was to make that happen, was likely more difficult than ascending to immortality.

A horror game was a nice compromise and quite frankly exactly what the people there had wanted to hear. Cultivation was often about surpassing the frailty of one's form and psyche. So even if Jin would admit that there were likely better methods, currently as someone who made Illusion Rooms, and someone of relatively low standing, creating a horror scenario was the best one he had available to him.

It was simply the solution the mad monks would most likely understand

The only question that remained was which horror game he should use as a template for the scenario?

He had been tasked with making the scenario because Elder Flower was more of a consultant than a designer and she trusted his artistic vision somewhat, as odd as that sounded considering she'd only ever played one of his scenarios. Unbeknownst to him, however, ascending into the role of an inner disciple meant that he had become a potentially valuable skilled professional in his field. Sure, he was a little inexperienced but everyone was at the start. The Mad Monk Sect was a relatively small client which didn't merit sending Elder Flower back to get a core disciple or an elder either. A perfect storm.

In terms of how Jin understood it, he was that one intern who had given an idea at a meeting and had thus been tasked with fulfilling the idea. If he succeeded he would jump beyond his current status because the task he had succeeded in was much higher profile than his position, but if he failed he would suffer smaller consequences as no one had really expected him to succeed anyway.

Cultivators counted time differently than mortals, if Jin's approach failed the Mad Monks Sect could simply try something else. Maybe they would start getting stressed once their plans continued failing for a thousand years. They certainly wouldn't give up on everything and lose their minds only because their first had fallen through. Or even their second, or their third, or the fourth.

Perhaps it was even good that it was the mad monks commissioning this, considering all their higher-ranked members were a bit more mentally stable than the average cultivator from what Jin understood.

The meeting had actually been nice considering the strict power dynamics and hierarchy present imbibed into Cultivation Land culture. He even really wanted to do his best, since he'd gotten a good impression of their allies.

The issue was, he noted, as he went through his mental catalogue of horror games. Was that all the horror games that he'd played had been set in modern times. He would have to revise a lot. Remove guns and put in bows, stuff like that. Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Alien: Isolation, took place on either modern or futuristic Earth.

Dragonslayer Ornstein had worked because the Dark Souls setting didn't have anything that people here didn't understand. But he couldn't really input Dark Souls because firstly, Dark Souls would only have someone's perseverance, not really their mental status. Secondly, he had specifically wanted to create a scenario where the user was not tested on their combat potential, because, once again, firstly, this wasn't the point of the test and secondly, his skill at making viable combat characters was not that good yet. This was why he was here, after all, to improve Dragonslayer Ornstein.

In that sense, he would just have to suck it up. He would have to take a horror game with a modern setting and he would have to medievalize it. The opposite of digitization. Putting things back into the Dark Age, so to say.

Ideas swirled in his mind as he got ready for bed, before this he'd just been laying down fully dressed. He took off his robes, washed his face in the provided water bowl and finally laid down once again, this time with the intent of properly falling asleep.

Tomorrow he would get a guided tour of the sect, he needed to stay fresh and make a good impression.

He didn't have to have an answer on how exactly the scenario would look like yet, and wouldn't have it tomorrow either. He didn't even know which exact game he would use as a template. It was good that he had started the thinking process though. He'd always worked well under a certain cycle. He would start thinking about a problem and then sleep.

During sleep his unconscious mind reordered his ideas and when he woke up, it was usually with more clarity that he'd gone to bed with.

At the moment there were just too many horror game titles swirling around in his head. Decisions were hard to make. Should he try to make Silent Hill 2 but as a non-combat-focused game, or should he do something else that had more elements of a modern setting and thus give himself more work. Which would be more difficult?

These were all things that this subconsciousness would likely process throughout the night. Tomorrow he would start working on it again actively. Write down some ideas, talk with some people and perhaps start creating different illusion frames in his mind to check them out, see how they really felt.

But in a way it had really been an exhausting two days. Yesterday he'd been running around in the forest forced to fight for his life against one of the escaped divergent disciples of the very sect he was now sleeping at, and today he had actually ended up involved against his expectations in a very high stakes meeting between very very powerful people.

He was tired

He deserved a good rest.

He closed his eyes and the night took him before he could even notice that he was falling into it.

-/-

The next morning Jin woke up not feeling particularly amazing. He didn't know what sort of dreams he'd had, but he decided upon waking up that whatever they were they had made him extremely nervous and stressed. In fact, he was finding the simple act of waking up and getting out of bed to be more relaxing than the sleep had been.

Quite obviously it had not been a particularly good idea to go to bed with thoughts of different horror games swirling through his mind, especially considering that he had a photographic memory and could remember those in great, great, excruciating detail.

He shook his head like a dog trying to get rid of water clinging to his fur and exited his room by sliding open the door out of rice paper that blocked it off from the corridor.

There was already someone there waiting for him so he didn't have to go through the confusion of finding the dining room. The servant, or disciple, or whatever led him to a large hall in which one of the walls was made out of glass and allowed the habitants to look out at the view offered by being on a mountain.

Jin couldn't help but wonder if the room was repurposed in times of conflict to be the war room out of which the decision-makers could see approaching enemies and plan accordingly.

Elder Flower was already present at a large round table with the same characters from yesterday, minus the female core disciple.

As the three Elders nodded at Jin's approach, the newly promoted disciple bowed deeply before kneeling down on one of the cushions.

After being bid to eat by the monks, he put some porridge into his wooden bowl and accompanied the brown sludge with some fruits and nuts.

It seemed that the monks here followed similar dietary restrictions as the monks Jin had known of in his last life. There was no meat or fish on the table, and the most protein-heavy thing that he saw was tofu and egg.

"This evening you will present to me a clearer idea for the scenario you were describing yesterday," Elder Flower told him from his right as he was almost finished eating. She had clearly already concluded that act a long time ago and was now only sipping tea and looking introspectively into the distance.

Jin nodded in silent acquiescence at her order as his mind started churning.

"One of ours will give you a tour of the outer and middle ring, inner disciple Jin," Elder Zhao piped up. "But you best hurry, the most interesting activities happen in the morning. At noon everyone goes into secluded meditation and the only thing to admire is the tranquillity of nature."

Respecting the Elder's words Jin quickly shoved the rest of the food into his mouth and stood up. If he had been told to jump he would have simply asked how high. This was his current state of mind and actual status

Exiting the dining room Jin was met by what must have been his designated guide.

Clean-shaven and androgynous in all features, presumably at the rank of inner disciple, Shen was an individual of few words. All they had to say to him was to follow, and to observe,

Apparently, all that was truth could be glimpsed directly from the context, and one's own interpretation will always be more truthful than a truth spoken by others. That was the motto of the tour.

Jin was actually grateful for that, after having been inflicted a similar tour back at the Illusion Room Sect upon his promotion by the very talkative Francis. There was just something nice about being led around by someone who didn't try to talk and who simply decided their direction with their sandal-clad feet.

Whoever said that words were silver? Silence was obviously gold.

Taking large strides to keep up with his quick-footed guide, Jin started properly observing the Mad Monks Sect.

The architectural style of the building that he'd first seen retained a sense of continuity through other examples. Most of the buildings were built similarly to those of the Buddhist tradition in East Asia in his previous life. He didn't know that much about it to be honest but he could recognize some of the symbols and some of the colours. To him, it looked more Japanese than Korean but that was the point where he was likely not qualified enough to speak of it anymore.

This brought up the interesting question if perhaps another person from Earth had transmigrated here and had founded this sect. Perhaps a Buddhist monk of some sort. Weren't they always going on about reincarnation?

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Or in a more funny thought experiment it had happened the other way around, perhaps a member of the Mad Monks Sect had ascended to immortality and had been transported to Earth where he had founded the Buddhist religion.

There truly was no way to know, he decided with a shake of his head as his guide started descending a long series of stone steps which took them through several wooden temple gates. Shouts full of effort were heard in the distance as Jin got an idea.

There was actually a way to know, perhaps.

"Do you happen to know where the architectural style of your sect comes from? I haven't seen buildings like this before?" Jin asked.

Inner disciple Shen nodded seriously at the question and put his hands together in a praying pose as he closed his eyes. He continued walking despite this, apparently knowing the path by heart. "Things emerge as they must always have been to be what they were meant to be, to question the emergence of beauty is to diminish its value." Was the response that Jin got.

The young man from the Illusion Room Sect nodded very slowly and filed that information away for whenever he needed it next.

The energetic shouts were getting closer as he tried to untangle what had been told to him before he decided that he'd essentially been told to stop asking questions.

The reluctance to answer made a certain amount of sense considering that he was just an outsider, but he truly did wonder if he shouldn't know a bit more about the sect that he was being tasked with creating a scenario for.

The shouting got louder and slowly, but surely, as they descended the steps which seemed as endless as Shen's wisdom, they came into view of a humongous stone platform covered entirely by burnt orange dots and shining bald heads.

"The outer ring, they are training harder today in hopes of being accepted for the tournament," inner disciple Shen was kind enough to explain.

"There is no ring that is out and no ring that is in when all exists in a balance preordained by the heavens," Jin answered as he beheld the scene of the outer disciples practising their staff work.

All in perfect synchronicity it was as if he was watching a movie. A dance, or a performance.

"Inner disciple Jin is wise in the ways of the world," the guide said softly. "What is outer, other than something that has to become inner and what is inner than something that has been out in the past. The core of the issue is that if one wishes to ascend further beyond, one is required to have done so in the past already."

Jin nodded wearily as they continued approaching the stone platform. As he got closer he was able to distinguish some of the moves that the outer disciples were learning and distinguish between which ones were following the kata well and which ones were failing to live up to expectations.

They were a ragtag bunch and he imagined that it was after they became inner disciples that the fighting skills and ability became more uniform and fluid.

There was an older woman at the front who was performing the katas and leading the flow of the practice.

He wondered if he was being let here because he too would gain training in the way of the staff. However, just as they got close enough to the tumultuous morning exercise to make out the words that were being shouted by the disciples upon every move, inner disciple Shen struck a rather sudden right to walk through a bamboo forest that had been accompanying them on both sides of the descent.

Not having had particularly good experiences with bamboo forests, Jin hesitated for a second before sighing and following his guide.

It seemed like he would be shown the entirety of the outer ring, not just the place where the combat practice occurred. He wasn't complaining. He was curious in a way, after all, it must have been rather rare to get such access to another sect's inner sanctum. Although the outer ring certainly wasn't an inner sanctum of any sort, which was likely why it was being shown.

It had outer in the name.

They traversed the bamboo forest through an already beaten path hardly large enough to fit two people next to each other. There were many little statues of praying monks and of frolicking animals in the forest and it was actually a bit like walking into a museum.

They emerged on the other side after a dozen minutes or so to behold a small disciple village.

It was very different from the Illusion Room Sect, where the outer disciples were kept apart so they could focus on the projects and the requirements they had to fulfil to get promoted.

Here it seemed like there was more of a culture of togetherness, little huts with straw roofs and vegetable gardens clustered together and groups of perhaps 50, before a longer distance was put until it came to another village. Through all of this, an intentionally shoddily cobblestone path ran like a winding snake.

Jin was surprised that all the disciples that he had seen back there on the platform fit in this row of villages he saw before him, but he imagined that this wasn't everything. It must have been rather unfortunate to be a disciple who lived on the wrong side of the mountain. Didn't that mean they would have to walk the furthest to get the combat practice and back?

Maybe it was a matter of seniority, when one joined one was on the wrong side of the mountain and as other people graduated or dropped out, one got closer and closer.

There was a system, for sure. There just wasn't really a point in asking about it considering inner disciple Shen's preferred way of speaking.

"It's quaint," Jin commented as they moved through the village, "but I imagine it's completely empty because everyone is at morning practice right now."

"The disciples will come back after the practice to meditate and to cultivate in silence," Shen said, for once not putting on airs. "It will not become any more lively if that is what you are asking. Their life and our life is a life of silence and contemplation. Anything else threatens destabilisation and ruin."

Jin was impressed by the amount of sensible words the guide had expressed and was just about to comment on it when he looked over to see that Shen's face was cast in a rigid mask of stone. He looked incredibly concentrated as if he was trying to hold back some sort of emotion.

Jin refrained from opening his mouth and let the inner disciple continue leading him. He didn't know where they were going, but they simply passed the time by strolling along the cobblestone path, past clean little settlements which together built a string of anal beads around the mountain.

The walk must have surely taken them an hour or two and it was only after they reached what must have been the complete other side that they stopped once again. They had left the grass and the trees behind, reaching an area which was more stony than anything else.

Jin wasn't able to determine if it was by design or not. A building emerged and for once it did not at all resemble Buddhist architecture at all. Rather it reminded him of those European castles hewn into the sides of the mountain. Simplistic, blocky and not at all gothic, this fortress built into the side of the mountain which was steeper than he had previously seen, resembled more a defensible structure than a place of prayer.

Had it been ornamented then it would have certainly counted as gothic and merited a few bats flying out of the windows when it came into view. But, as it was, it simply looked like a blank stretch of walls forming and fusing together to create a structure that looked barely semi-inhabitable.

Jin and Shen were looking at the place from a slightly elevated position as the pleasant path through the meadows and the occasional bamboo forest turned into a steep mountain trail which even the bravest goat would have hesitated in trying to conquer.

Shen, however, unlike a goat, had no fear and his sandaled feet carried him onto the trail after a minute or so of contemplatively looking at the grey structure. Jin naturally followed doing his best to not fall and gripping at the jutting rocks and weeds emerging from the walls as he crawled forward.

Shen had been more forthcoming in his last few pieces of dialogue so Jin decided to ask a question. "So where exactly are we going? This place looks very different from the rest of the sect."

Instead of giving a lucid, or weird answer, Shen remained silent and they traversed the rocky outcropping without further words. They occasionally kicked free a pebble which loudly rolled downhill to create the only sound accompanying them.

"Is it the fault of those who failed for their failure or was their failure always meant to be? Do the responsible take care of the forgotten or should all traces of ignorance be erased from human history?" inner disciple Shen decided to say at some point, not turning his head to do so.

Jin remained silent as they continued approaching the fortress, trying to decipher the words. Was he going to be shown the failure of the sect? he wondered. That didn't necessarily sound like something one showed outsiders.

They eventually reached a small stone bridge which connected their path to the entry gate to the fortress. It wasn't barred as one would have expected from the implication.

Another disciple was standing at the entrance looking at them as they approached, crossing the stone bridge which was only as wide as one man, but not making any move to approach or to speak.

Eventually, Shen and Jin, who felt stifled by the atmosphere came to stand in front of the waiting robed monk. They were all so different, but so similar. This one was also bald, but older. Of course in Cultivation Land that didn't really mean anything. A young outer disciple looked older than an old inner disciple due to their different cultivation levels.

"They are rather agitated today, I would not recommend a visit," the man who had waited for them told Shen, ignoring Jin's presence completely.

The Illusion Room cultivator tried to glimpse behind the man but all he saw was a long corridor leading into a courtyard with what appeared to be a small patch of grass and some trees. There were a lot of doors. Locked doors. Doors with bars of iron and magical seals on them.

"I introduce inner disciple Jin from the Illusion Room Sect," Shen said. "He is here to attempt a solution to our disciple selection process. Perhaps he should see what he is fighting against," Shen said bluntly.

The older monk looked Jin up and down critically but didn't respond. He nodded, just as a howl pierced the stifled atmosphere.

Not an animal one but the voice of a human clearly exerting their mental anguish into physical reality with their vocal cords. This was the hoarse voice of someone who had been screaming for too long, for too hard, without any respite.

Jin suddenly realised where he was and with this realisation came another. The scenario he created would be best confined to as little space as possible. He was still at the beginning of his cultivation and didn't have as much memory space available for scenarios. Even if he was designing for mortals this time, and could make everything lower definition, a smaller space would allow him to maximise realism.

Small space and the fact that he was in the cultivation land equivalent of an asylum for the mentally deranged?

There could only be one game for him to use as a template. If his efforts could prevent this from happening in the future he would have to bring out his most horrific memories.

And those most certainly belong to the game…

Outlast