I woke to my mother's voice—Liu Mei—calling from downstairs.
"Chen! Chen, wake up!"
Her voice wasn't frightened. But... excited?
I opened my eyes slowly—my body still heavy from yesterday's long gaming session.
Two straight hours of intense combat.
Even with a 31.5% strength increase, my ordinary body was exhausted.
I got up—slowly—and descended the stairs, rubbing my eyes.
"What happened, Mother?"
I reached the gaming hall—
And stopped.
There was a line.
A long line of people—more than thirty people—waiting outside the front door.
I stared through the window.
"All of them... all these people?"
My mother—who was standing by the door—turned toward me, a wide smile on her face.
"Yes! They've been coming since dawn!" Her voice was full of pride. "Chen, yesterday... after you defeated the Boss..."
"Word spread."
I opened the door—just a crack—and looked.
More than thirty people.
Some I recognized:
Kyle at the front, waving enthusiastically
Derek standing with dignity
Elena cold as usual
Marcus carrying a notebook
Thomas the blacksmith
But the majority?
Completely new faces.
Young people. Elderly folks. Merchants. Craftsmen. Even an old woman supporting herself with a cane!
And at the end of the line—
I saw her.
Victoria.
Wearing black silk robes today, embroidered with golden threads. Her hair tied in an elegant braid.
And beside her?
Derek—but also... three other young men, wearing the same clan insignia on their chests.
Did she... did she bring members of her clan?
Kyle—who noticed my gaze—shouted:
"Master Liu! Open quickly! We've been waiting for an hour!"
"An hour?!" I looked at the sky—the sun had barely risen.
"It's only six-thirty!"
"We know!" Another voice shouted from the line—a young man I'd never seen before. "But we heard there are new challenges! And legendary rewards!"
"I want the armor!" another shouted.
"I want the sword!" a third yelled.
The entire line began shouting—overlapping voices, excited, almost chaotic.
I looked at my mother—who was smiling nervously.
"Chen... what do we do?"
I took a deep breath.
Alright. This is... what I wanted, isn't it?
Customers. Fame. Success.
But I didn't expect... this fast.
"Alright." I said finally. "We'll open. But..."
I looked at the long line.
"We need... a system."
I took out a small wooden board and quickly wrote on it:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 Booking System - Day Seven
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚠️ Available Devices: 3
⏰ Sessions: One hour per customer
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🎯 Priority:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. Pre-paid customers
2. Regular customers
3. New customers (by order of arrival)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💰 Prices:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Cultivators: 1 silver/hour
• Ordinary humans: 5 copper/hour
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏆 Special Challenges:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Complete without taking damage → Legendary Knight Armor
• Complete using only knife → Folded Steel Sword
• Discover the secret challenges!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I hung the board on the door—where everyone could see it.
Then—I opened the door.
The line surged forward.
"Calm! Calm!" I shouted, raising my hands. "One at a time!"
Everyone stopped—looking at me.
"First, who pre-paid?"
Victoria raised her hand—calm, elegant.
"I have twenty hours pre-paid."
Then—Elena.
"Ten hours."
Derek.
"Five hours remaining."
Kyle.
"Nineteen hours!" He said it proudly.
I looked at the long list.
Alright. These four have priority.
"Good. Victoria, Elena, Derek—you can play now."
"All three together?" Derek asked, surprised.
"Yes. Three devices."
I looked at Kyle—who looked excited—
"Kyle, you're next. After one hour."
"Yes!"
Then—I looked at the rest of the line.
"Everyone else—register your names here."
I pulled out an empty notebook.
"Order of arrival. No payment, no reservation."
First Session - The Trio
Device 1: Victoria
Device 2: Elena
Device 3: Derek
I placed the headsets on their heads—and started all three devices.
On the three screens—their characters appeared in different locations of the game:
Victoria: In the dark basement—searching for the third key (Skull Key)
Elena: In the library—solving the book puzzle
Derek: Fighting hellhounds—dying... again
I watched them—all three—playing.
And I realized something interesting:
Each of them had a completely different style.
Victoria - Cold Strategy
She moved through the dark basement—slowly, carefully.
She only fired when she was certain.
She never rushed toward enemies.
She never wasted a single bullet.
Methodical. Precise. Calculated.
She fights like... a general.
Elena - Absolute Efficiency
In the library, she solved the puzzle in two minutes.
No hesitation. No guessing.
She read the file once—and immediately understood the pattern.
She arranged the books—in perfect order—and the secret door opened.
Sharp intelligence. No emotions. No mistakes.
She fights like... a machine.
Derek - Brute Force
He faced three hellhounds at the same time.
Instead of retreating—he attacked.
He fired rapidly—hit two, missed one.
The third dog bit him—
[You Died!]
Derek shouted—his voice audible even through the headset—
"No! Again!"
He fights like... a reckless warrior.
But the most interesting thing?
The audience.
The thirty people—waiting for their turn—weren't silent.
They were watching.
Watching the three screens—and commenting:
"Look! Victoria found a secret room!"
"Elena is so fast!"
"Derek... died again." (laughter)
"How many times has he died today?"
"Seven times."
"Now eight."
Even Derek—in the real world—probably heard them, because his ears turned red.
After an hour—all three removed their headsets.
Victoria stood—her face calm as usual, but her eyes... focused.
"I found the third key." She said simply.
"Excellent." I said. "Now you have all three keys. The laboratory is next."
She nodded—then looked at the clock.
"I'll return later."
And she left—with the same calm she had entered with.
Elena stood—wiped her forehead (even though she wasn't really sweating).
"The game... deeper than I expected." She said in her usual cold voice. "The puzzles are complex. The enemies are smart."
"I'll need... more time."
She looked at me—directly in my eyes.
"Master Liu, can I book five additional hours?"
She pulled out a pouch—five silver coins.
"Of course."
I took the money—and recorded the booking.
Elena—total 15 hours remaining.
Derek removed the headset—his face red, slightly embarrassed.
"I... I died a lot today."
Kyle laughed—loudly.
"Eight times! A new record!"
"Shut up, Kyle!" Derek said, but he was smiling.
Then—he looked at me.
"Master Liu, I... need advice."
He paused—as if trying to choose his words carefully.
"How... how do I fight like you?"
Silence in the room.
Everyone—even those waiting—turned toward us.
I looked at Derek—this reckless young man, strong, who kept dying because he rushed without thinking.
I smiled—a small smile.
"Derek, you're strong. Fast. Brave."
"But there's something you're missing."
"What is it?"
"Patience."
I paused—letting the word settle.
"You rush into every battle like you're invincible. But in the game—you're not a cultivator. You're an ordinary human."
"An ordinary human dies if he makes a mistake."
"So... what should I do?"
"Stop. Watch. Think."
I looked at the screen—where his character was still in the hellhound room.
"When you see three enemies, don't attack them all."
"Lure one—kill it—then the second—then the third."
"One at a time."
Long silence.
Then—Derek nodded slowly.
"One at a time." He repeated. "Alright. I'll try."
He smiled—a genuine smile.
"Thank you, Master Liu."
The rest of the day was... organized chaos.
Session Two:
Kyle—died five times, but improved his timing
Marcus—found new secret files, recorded everything
Thomas—returned to the workshop, crafted an iron helmet
Session Three:
Three new customers—two died in the first five minutes, the third loved the game
Session Four:
New customers—a middle-aged woman, scared but enjoyed it
Young merchant—played very cautiously, didn't die once
Session Five:
The old woman (!)—everyone was skeptical, but she surprised them
She played calmly, wisely, and killed ten zombies without dying once
"In my youth, I was a hunter." She said simply
By evening—eight PM—
I was exhausted.
Thirty customers.
Ten sessions (three people per session).
Thirty total hours!
I sat on the chair—my head spinning—and pulled out the account book:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💰 Day Seven Income
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Regular Customers:
• Victoria: 1 hour (pre-paid)
• Elena: 1 hour (pre-paid) + 5 new silver
• Derek: 1 hour (pre-paid)
• Kyle: 1 hour (pre-paid)
• Marcus: 1 hour (pre-paid)
• Thomas: 1 hour (5 copper)
New Customers (24 people):
• 8 cultivators × 1 silver = 8 silver
• 16 ordinary humans × 5 copper = 0.8 silver
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Today's Total: 13.85 silver
Grand Total (7 days): 3693.85 silver
= 3.69 gold
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I looked at the number.
Three gold coins in one week.
In a world where my family—silk merchants—earned ten gold coins per year.
I laughed—a quiet, tired, happy laugh.
"This... isn't real."
System Notification
[Ding!]
The notification appeared—golden, shining.
[Day Seven Statistics:]
Today's gameplay hours: 30 hours
Total hours: 76 + 30 = 106 hours
New customers: 24
Total customers: 32 + 24 = 56 customers
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Goal Update:]
Goal: 7 people complete the game
Current Progress: 1/7 (Liu Chen)
Closest to completion:
Victoria—95% (has all three keys, laboratory next)
Elena—78% (fast progress, methodical)
Mother (Liu Mei)—45% (got the virus, progressing slowly)
Derek—35% (dies a lot, but persistent)
Kyle—30% (enthusiastic but reckless)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Estimated time: 3-5 days until second player completes!]
I looked at the list.
Victoria.
Of course she's the closest.
I smiled.
Tomorrow, maybe... she'll finish the game.
and get the gift
In her luxurious mansion—in the noble district of the city—
Victoria sat in her private chamber.
Before her—a low table, with hot tea steaming.
But she didn't drink.
She was... thinking.
Liu Chen.
A simple name. An ordinary person. Without spiritual roots.
Yet he built something... extraordinary.
She remembered how he fought yesterday.
The calm. Not even cultivators in her clan fought with this level of self-control.
The precision. Every movement calculated. Every decision deliberate.
The intelligence. Not relying on brute force. But on strategy.
Rare qualities.
Then—she remembered something else.
His advice to Derek.
"Stop. Watch. Think."
Simple words.
But they were... profound.
How many times have I also rushed into battles?
Relying on my strength?
Without thinking?
She set down the tea cup—carefully—on the table.
Then—she stood, and walked to the window.
She looked at the city—the lights twinkling in the darkness.
And somewhere out there—
The Gaming Hall.
The place where—for the first time in years—
She felt something.
Not as a powerful cultivator.
Not as a wealthy noble.
But as... a student.
Someone learning.
Someone... challenged.
Tomorrow. She thought, a small smile—rare—appearing on her lips.
I'll complete the game.
And I'll prove to myself... and to Master Liu...
That I'm not just power.
But... skill.