Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 1 – Dugu Zhuo

On the outskirts of a small town near the Canglan[1] mountain range was a crude tea shack. A handful of people sat within. They hadn’t brought any baggage and didn’t have the windblown and dusty look of one who had journeyed long, but they also didn’t look like locals. It was a rather strange sight.

The tea house’s owner didn’t think it was strange, however. He saw these kinds of people all the time.

The Canglan mountains were at the edge of the human realm. There once was a peak here high enough to pierce though the clouds, and legends would tell that if a capable person could climb all the way to the top, they would reach the palace of gods, shed their mortal flesh, and become a divinity of the upper realms. Thus this mountain peak was named the Pillar of Heaven.

Because the Pillar of Heaven connected the human realm with the divine, it was a forbidden land in the human world. Ordinary creatures could not survive near it, so the entire Canglan mountain range was devoid of even plant life. Aside from grotesque rock formations made from the bones of strange beasts from ancient eras, it was nothing but a range of utterly inhospitable snow-covered mountains.

No one knew what was beyond the Canglan mountain range, and no one knew what was at the edge of the human realm.

This continued until ten years ago, when two sword auras, one pure and one impure, tore through the skies. The Pillar of Heaven crumbled, rocks fell and the mountains cracked open, and lava shot high into the sky, reaching the Heavenly Palace. A rain of fire lasted for three months around the mountain range. The Pillar of Heaven was gone, and the ice and snow that had lasted for millions of years melted, becoming mist that shrouded a thousand miles.

One year later, a patch of green appeared below the mountains, as the first stalk of grass unfurled its tender new growth in this previously barren land.

Three years later, people gradually arrived to develop the land. They discovered that the soil was especially suited for crops, so a small town slowly grew there.

Even later, a tea shack was built at the edge of the town, serving expensive teas to the sightseers of the Canglan mountains.

The tea shack was built at the end of a road, and further ahead was unknown land.

Most travelers would stay in the town, go to the tea shack to drink a cup of coarse tea[2], gaze at the ruins of the Pillar of Heaven in the distance, and have some strange discussions.

In their words, they incessantly brought up someone called “Dugu Zhuo”[3].

“It’s all the fault of Dugu Zhuo. If it weren’t for him, the nine heavens wouldn’t have…” Serving tea to a guest, the owner heard another conversation he was thoroughly familiar with.

The owner walked away from the table, picking his ear in annoyance.

He had been hearing the story of Dugu Zhuo for years now. Everyone only spoke hearsay, as there were very few people who had actually met Dugu Zhuo. They always discussed the same few things as well.

Dugu Zhuo was a disciple of Qingtian[4] Sword Sect. Once a pillar favored by the sect, his later deeds brought him widespread reproach.

Coveting the divine blades that the Qingtian Sect had guarded for generations, the Xuansu[5] Twin Swords, he was depraved enough to murder the previous holder of the Xuan Sword, his own father!

After committing patricide, Dugu Zhuo slaughtered his entire sect, gravely injured the holder of the Su Sword, Ye Zhou[6], and kidnapped him.

No one knew what became of Ye Zhou, and the next time Dugu Zhuo appeared, he had already taken ownership of both divine swords. Ye Zhou was probably already dead and his body destroyed.

With two divine swords of creation in hand, Dugu Zhuo climbed up the Pillar of Heaven, and, even as a sinner, tried to become a god. Inciting the rage of the gods of heaven, he was cast back to the mortal realm. In shame and fury, he raised the twin swords and sliced through the Pillar of Heaven, and with the nine heavens losing their support and collapsing to the human realm, the divine realm was no more.

Mortal cultivators no longer had any hope of becoming gods, and so chaos spread across the cultivation world and countless cultivators cursed the name of this insane devil, Dugu Zhuo.

But they only dared to insult him in private. If someone really met Dugu Zhuo, who would dare to preach to him?

The tea shack was small and the two guests in Daoist robes showed no restraint, so their incessant insults kept traveling to the owner’s ears. He was so annoyed that he couldn’t help but knit his brows.

He was just a common person, and had no knowledge of the grudges of cultivators. In the tea shack owner’s eyes, if the Pillar of Heaven hadn’t fallen, the capital wouldn’t have sent a group of slaves to develop this land, so they could escape bondage by working the farms, and he wouldn’t have become a somewhat wealthy owner of a few dozen fields.

The owner couldn’t refute anything the guests said, so he could only pretend to not hear, keeping his eyes on the ground below his feet.

When spring came, wild grasses grew between cracks in the rocks below, their vibrant green pleasing to the eyes.

The tea shack’s guests were pretty much all here to see the Pillar’s ruins. They would watch it, drink tea, lament the past, curse out Dugu Zhuo, and then when they got tired of that, they would pay and leave with a sigh. The tea shack emptied out before noon.

An eastward wind began to blow, and even though spring had come, the wind still carried a piercing wintry chill. Seeing that the guests had all left, the owner cleared everything and prepared to go home.

Just then, a man wearing a bamboo hat and black robes and carrying a bundle on his back walked into the tea shack, sitting at a table in a corner.

“One bowl of hot tea.” The man set his bundle on the table, where it made a slight clanking sound. It probably contained a weapon.

The owner didn’t dare to offend this guest and hurried over with a large, steaming bowl of tea.

After setting it down, he glanced over the man’s face and was stopped in his tracks for a moment.

Heavens, this person was just too good-looking, better looking than the prettiest girl in town. He put to shame the white flowers that bloomed in the mountains in spring, and the snowscape outside one’s window in winter.

He was also colder than a snowscape.

The owner was too scared to look directly at him. As he took the tea back, he peeked at the black-robed man through a crack in the shack’s walls.

Extending a hand, that man lifted the tea bowl. His fingers were defined, thin and long like bamboo, and the backs of his hands and fingers were covered with scars from blades and swords. They were like shattered jade that had been glued together, and gave people who saw them an alarmed sense of pain.

The black-robed man leisurely finished the tea, every motion pleasing to the eye, obviously well brought up and cultured.

He put down the empty bowl and, instead of calling the owner to refill it, took out from his robes a piece of warm green jade and gazed quietly at it.

His scarred palm looked quite at odds with the piece of high-quality jade within it.

The black-robed man frowned slightly, seemingly in a troubled mood. His other hand rested on the bundle. The sound of clinking metal came from within, and the tea shack owner shrank back.

A spring wind bearing a hint of frost blew past, and an early apricot flower fell onto the jade in the black-robed man’s palm. The light pink of its petals made the jade appear more vivid, a shade of green filled with life.

Looking at it, the man smiled slightly. The shape of his face underneath the bamboo hat softened, and his forbidding presence faded somewhat with that smile.

The owner suddenly felt reassured and, working up his courage, poked his head out from the kitchen and asked, “Sir, would you like more tea?”

“No need.” The black-robed man put down a silver piece and, slinging up his bundle, left the tea shack.

Seeing that he was heading in the direction of the Canglan mountain range where no one dared tread, the owner couldn’t help running after him, shouting, “Sir, that’s a forbidden ground which none have returned from! They say the demon king who laid waste to the world, Dugu Zhuo, is cultivating secluded in those mountains. You mustn’t go!”

The black-robed man intended to pay no attention to him, but after hearing these words, stopped and turned slightly. He lifted his bamboo hat, revealing half his face.

His body appeared to melt into the misty peaks of the Canglan mountains. With a gaze that saw through the chaos of the mortal world, he looked at the owner and spoke with an emotionless voice. “This one is Dugu Zhuo.”

He lowered his hat again, turned away, and continued walking towards the Canglan mountains. Before too long, he had vanished into the fog.

Quite a while after he had vanished, the owner finally plopped down onto the ground. “He was Dugu Zhuo?” he said to himself in a trembling voice.

The scoundrel who betrayed his master, slew his elders, killed his father, and massacred the gods, Dugu Zhuo?

“How could it be?” the owner mumbled.

He got to his feet and started to clear the tables and chairs. He found, next to Dugu Zhuo’s tea bowl, a light pink apricot blossom, the petals perfect and undamaged.

“There’s no way,” the owner said again.

The mystery the owner couldn’t solve, Dugu Zhuo, was now already in the Canglan mountains. As if it had sensed that the ruins of the Pillar of Heaven were below his feet, the bundle on his back let out the clanking sounds of a sword.

“Quiet,” Dugu Zhuo ordered in a low voice.

Whatever was in the bundle bounced up and down a few times in dissatisfaction. Dugu Zhuo opened it, revealing two broken swords inside.

The ancient swords of creation were now four pieces of rust-spotted metal, and Dugu Zhuo, who had once severed the Pillar of Heaven and battled all the gods of the nine heavens, had now had his dantian[7] destroyed and was running out of time.

Picking up the Su Sword, he hung that piece of warm jade at the hilt of the broken sword and waited serenely for a moment, but neither the sword nor the jade reacted.

Not here, either.

In heaven or the underworld, that person was nowhere to be found.[8]

For the last ten years, Dugu Zhuo had wandered every corner of the human realm, but he had not found the pieces of Ye Zhou’s soul.

There was no longer any hope of them reuniting in this life. Dugu Zhuo hoped only to meet him in a next life, but there would be no next life for Ye Zhou.

Putting away the broken sword, clutching the warm jade, he walked resolutely into the depths of the fog.

No one knew what lay on the other side of the Canglan mountain range. When the Pillar of Heaven stood, no one could make it past.

Even though the Pillar was now gone, the fog would still lead people to lose their way. They would either die within it, or find themselves back at the foot of the mountains.

Dugu Zhuo’s current cultivation was about equal to that of a novice just joining a sect. If he continued forward, he would lose his life.

But he had no plans to turn back. Behind him lay a past tormented by fate, a life he could no longer bear, a world without Ye Zhou.

Dugu Zhuo steadily forged forward. He felt powerful resistance with every step, until it seemed he would no longer be able to advance.

But even if he could only step forward an inch, he would advance an inch.

Step by step, he struggled forward. Fog obstructed his vision, and the cold air of the mountain peaks froze his body. Dugu Zhuo was covered in frost. If the jade in his palm weren’t unceasingly sending a current of warmth into his body, he would’ve already frozen solid.

With his consciousness growing hazy, memories of his painful past involuntarily surfaced in his mind, as if he was reliving his life in the moment before his death.

All of a sudden, he seemed to see a young Ye Zhou, leaping through a forest, battling with a few magical beasts.

Dugu Zhuo smiled slightly. Ye Zhou was one generation older than him. Back when they had met, Ye Zhou was already an elder[9] of the Qingtian Sect, standing before him in a pure white Daoist robe. He had looked him over indifferently and said in a cold voice, “Follow me.”

At their first meeting, he saw Ye Zhou as lofty and cold. Why would he be a youngster?

This wasn’t a bad hallucination to have before one’s death, though. At the very least, he could see Ye Zhou without a care in the world.

As Dugu Zhuo thought, the fog before him gradually dissipated, and the young Ye Zhou’s image became more and more clear.

Ye Zhou wore all white, showing no fear despite being surrounded by several beasts. With an ordinary steel sword, he battled the beasts with all his strength.

Just one man couldn’t fend off so many opponents, and the beasts constantly left wounds on young Ye Zhou’s body. He grew more and more pale, his strength flagging.

Even in an illusion, Dugu Zhuo couldn’t stand by and watch Ye Zhou be injured. He retrieved the black broken sword from his bundle, the Xuan Sword which he could only obtain with his father’s death. He had desired it for his whole life, yet after getting it, he had abandoned and spurned it.

While Dugu Zhuo brought out his sword, Ye Zhou nimbly distanced himself from the beasts. He took out a potion and drank it, while muttering to himself, “With my current health, it won’t be too easy to deal with these elite monsters. Good thing I brought a lot of healing potions.”

As Ye Zhou chugged potions, he saw a man in black robes rush into the group of monsters. With a battered sword, he took out all the monsters Ye Zhou had worked so hard to bring to a sliver of HP.

Ye Zhou: …

Dugu Zhuo’s meridians[10] were broken, and he could only make one strike by forcefully controlling the Xuan Sword.

Fortunately, the beasts weren’t strong, and a single stroke felled them all.

After the beasts toppled around him, Dugu Zhuo also couldn’t stay on his feet. Falling to one knee, he clutched the Xuan Blade’s hilt as he struggled to suppress the roiling blood and qi within his chest.

Even in an illusion, Dugu Zhuo didn’t want to spit blood before Ye Zhou.

After finally managing to settle his body, Dugu Zhuo was about to lift his head to look at Ye Zhou when a strange sound rang by his ears.

“Ding! For slaying a monster, you’ve received 3 low-grade spirit stones.”

“Ding! For slaying a monster, you’ve received a secret manual, the Reverse Sword Form.“

“Ding! For slaying a monster, you’ve received a rare healing item, the Spirit Replenishing Herb.”

“Ding! For slaying a monster, you’ve received 100 EXP x6. Use EXP to level up? Confirm/Decline”

What was this? Dugu Zhuo was befuddled.

A gust blew past his ear then. Ye Zhou, who had recovered from his injuries at some point, rode the wind as he charged at him with sword in hand, his brows filled with fury. “Who dares steal my monsters?” he yelled.

Under the assault of his sword aura, Dugu Zhuo’s bamboo hat was split apart. He paid no attention to his surroundings, thinking that Ye Zhou before him seemed so real.

Staring at Ye Zhou’s face, Dugu Zhuo said quietly, “Am I already in the afterlife?”

The moment Ye Zhou saw Dugu Zhuo’s face, the tip of his sword veered away, forcibly changing its trajectory. The blade which should’ve impaled the space between Dugu Zhuo’s brows hung over one of his shoulders, not meeting its target.