Kevin Zhang had been playing video games for approximately 87% of his waking life, and he had never—not once—encountered a tutorial monster that made him question his life choices.
Until now.
The "Void Puppy" crouched twenty meters away, six legs splayed like a grotesque spider, its skin rippling with bioluminescent patterns that screamed poison in every language Kevin's lizard brain understood. It was the size of a grizzly bear. It had too many eyes. And it was currently purring at him—a sound like a chainsaw trying to start in a blender full of glass.
"Okay," Kevin whispered, backing away slowly. "Okay. This is fine. This is a level one mob. I've killed level one mobs in Dark Souls. I can do this."
He raised the wooden stick Chen Hao had given him. It was technically a "training sword," but Kevin was 90% sure it was just a branch that had been peeled and varnished. His character sheet said he had a skill called [Basic Sword Technique], but when he'd tried to activate it, the System had responded with [Error: Insufficient Qi. Please meditate for 3-6 hours to generate cultivation energy.]
Kevin didn't have 3-6 hours. The Void Puppy was inching closer, its multiple eyes tracking him with the predatory focus of a cat that had spotted a laser pointer made of meat.
Think. Think. What would a speedrunner do?
He looked at the terrain. The Valley of Whispering Winds was basically a death trap disguised as a meadow—waist-high grass that hid sinkholes, "whispering" that was actually subsonic predator calls, and Spirit Herbs that glowed invitingly in the distance like loot chests in a horror game.
The herbs were near a cave entrance. The cave entrance smelled like rotting meat. Kevin was not a genius, but he was an experienced gamer, and experienced gamers knew that cave entrances were either shortcuts or boss arenas.
The Void Puppy lunged.
Kevin didn't think. He rolled —not with any martial arts grace, but with the desperate, flailing momentum of a man who had once dodge-rolled through 400 hours of Monster Hunter. He hit the ground shoulder-first, pain flashing through his arm (way too realistic, way too realistic), and scrambled toward the cave.
The puppy—puppy, ha, good one, game designers —crashed into the space he'd occupied, six legs tearing divots in the earth. It shrieked, a sound that bypassed Kevin's ears and went straight for his spinal cord.
Status effect: [Terror] applied. Movement speed reduced by 30%.
"Oh, come on !" Kevin sprinted, terror or no terror. The cave entrance loomed, dark and promising. Behind him, the Void Puppy recovered with terrifying speed, its bioluminescence flaring bright enough to cast shadows in the purple daylight.
Kevin dove into the cave.
He expected darkness. He expected to slam into a wall. He did not expect to keep falling, the ground simply absent where solid stone should be, his scream echoing in a shaft that went down far longer than any game designer should reasonably allow.
Falling damage. Falling damage. Please don't let there be falling damage—
He hit water. Or something like water—thick, viscous, shockingly cold. It broke his fall but introduced him to a whole new problem: he couldn't see, couldn't breathe, and something in the darkness was moving .
Kevin thrashed, surfaced, gasped air that tasted like copper and rotting flowers. His eyes adjusted to bioluminescence—not his own, but the cave walls, covered in glowing fungus that painted everything in shades of sickly green.
And in the green light, he saw the skeleton.
It was humanoid. Mostly. It wore robes similar to Chen Hao's, though these were preserved somehow, untouched by the water or time. In its bony hands, it clutched a jade slip—a cultivation record, Kevin's gamer brain supplied, even as his survival brain screamed about the other shapes moving in the water around him.
Loot. Rare loot. In a hidden area. Accessed by baiting a mob into a chase sequence and exploiting terrain physics.
Kevin swam for the skeleton.
[Sect Master System Alert]
Chen Hao watched Kevin's health bar fluctuate wildly on his interface, feeling a sensation he hadn't experienced since his first sect competition: genuine anxiety.
"Why is he still alive?" Chen Hao demanded, pacing the Grand Hall. He'd found a relatively intact chair and was currently wearing a groove in the dusty stone with his nervous energy. "You said 4-6 hours. It's been 20 minutes."
[Player Kevin Zhang has entered Unmarked Zone: Ancient Cultivator Remains.]
[Warning: Zone contains inheritance-grade treasure. Probability of player survival increasing.]
[Correction: Probability of player *immediate* death decreasing. Probability of player attracting powerful predator attention increasing.]
Chen Hao stopped pacing. "Inheritance? What inheritance? This is Azure-4, the asshole of the Andromeda Sector! Nothing good has happened here since the Spirit Vein dried up!"
[Scanning...]
[Ancient record found. 1,200 years prior: Heavenly Jade Sect dispatched Elder Ming Xue to investigate "anomaly" on Azure-4. Elder Ming Xue never returned. Presumed dead.]
[Current status: Elder Ming Xue is definitely dead. His inheritance appears to be undiscovered.]
Chen Hao sat down heavily. The chair creaked in protest but held, probably because it was too depressed to collapse.
"So my predecessor sent someone to investigate this planet. That someone died in a hole. And now my first player—a guy whose primary talent is eating noodles at 3 AM—has accidentally found the inheritance that a Foundation Establishment elder couldn't retrieve."
[Affirmative.]
"And if he gets this inheritance, he becomes stronger?"
[Affirmative. Player power increases sect reputation. Sect reputation attracts more players. More players generate more Spiritual Energy.]
"But I don't get to loot his talents if he doesn't die."
[Correct.]
Chen Hao stared at the flickering health bar. Kevin was at 67% now, and the status read [Swimming], [Reading Jade Slip], [Panicking].
"System," Chen Hao said slowly, "what's the range on the player summoning? Could I... summon another one? Right now? In the middle of this?"
[Emergency slot available. Degraded connection will result in severe latency issues, possible personality fragmentation, and 40% chance of summoning error.]
[Error types include: Summoning wrong consciousness, summoning multiple consciousnesses in one body, or summoning local wildlife with human-level intelligence.]
"Do it."
[...Processing.]
[Are you certain? Previous player survival chance is already anomalous. Additional variables may—]
"Do it," Chen Hao snarled, channeling every sect elder who'd ever sent disciples to their deaths for personal gain. "If Kevin gets that inheritance, he becomes valuable. I need someone disposable to balance the equation. Someone who will definitely die."
[Scanning... Target acquired.]
[Sarah Chen, 19 years old, speedrunner, holds world record in "Cultivation Online" any%, currently streaming to 12,000 viewers. Emotional state: Frustrated due to RNG manipulation in previous run.]
[Selling point: "Hardcore permadeath cultivation. No RNG. Skill-only."]
[Connection established. WARNING: Severe latency detected.]
The air tore open like wet paper, and a young woman materialized three feet above the ground.
She fell.
"—the fuck ?!" Sarah Chen hit the stone floor, rolled instantly to her feet, and assumed a combat stance that Chen Hao recognized from actual martial arts—Wing Chun, maybe, or something equally practical. Her eyes were sharp, scanning the room, taking in the dust, the decay, the crazy man in ruined robes staring at her with desperate hope.
"Welcome," Chen Hao began, "to the Heavenly Jade—"
"Where's the speedrun timer?" Sarah interrupted. "I was promised no RNG. If this is another gacha game disguised as skill-based, I'm refunding immediately."
Chen Hao blinked. "I... what?"
"Timer. Display. Speedrun tools." Sarah made a swiping gesture in the air. "Hello? Interface? Open menu?"
[System Alert: Player Sarah Chen expects game-typical UI elements. Current interface is immersive-only.]
[Suggestion: Lie.]
"You... must achieve Foundation Establishment before the advanced interface unlocks," Chen Hao improvised. "Until then, your progress is tracked... spiritually."
Sarah stared at him. Then she smiled, and it was not a friendly smile. It was the smile of someone who had optimized the fun out of thirty different games and was looking for a new victim.
"Hardcore mode. No UI. Immersive sim." She cracked her knuckles. "Fine. I've done Morrowind. I can do this. What's the death penalty?"
"Permanent," Chen Hao said, and meant it.
"Good. What's the current world record?"
"There... is no record. You're the second player ever."
Sarah's eyes lit up with a terrible, beautiful fire. "World record holder by default. I can work with this. Quest?"
Chen Hao thought fast. He needed her dead, but he needed it to look like an accident. He needed Kevin to get the inheritance, but he needed a failsafe in case Kevin died instead. He needed—
"Another disciple is currently retrieving Spirit Herbs from the Valley of Whispering Winds," Chen Hao said, choosing his words like a man picking through a minefield. "He has been gone too long. Find him. Assist him. Return together, and you shall both join the sect."
Find him. Compete with him. Maybe kill each other by accident. Or attract every predator in the valley with your combined noise.
Sarah nodded sharply. "Escort quest with competition element. Classic." She turned to leave, then paused. "One question, NPC."
"Yes?"
"Is there fall damage?"
Chen Hao thought of the cave shaft. "Yes," he said. "Significant fall damage."
Sarah grinned. "Good. I can work with that too."
She vanished through the door, moving with the economical grace of someone who had mapped collision boxes in twenty different engines.
Chen Hao was alone again. He checked Kevin's status: [Reading Inheritance: 45% Complete]. He checked Sarah's trajectory: moving fast, already halfway to the valley, somehow avoiding every sinkhole and predator spawn point through what had to be sheer pattern recognition.
Two players. One inheritance. Zero control.
"System," Chen Hao whispered, "what's the worst-case scenario here?"
[Worst-case scenario: Both players survive, form alliance, optimize sect advancement beyond your ability to control, discover true nature of reality, and lead player revolution against Sect Master.]
[Probability: 12% and rising.]
Chen Hao looked at his hands—still shaking, still weak, still the hands of a man who had died once and couldn't bear to do it again.
"And the best-case?"
[Best-case scenario: One player dies, you loot talent. Other player retrieves inheritance, advances cultivation, generates sufficient Spiritual Energy to repair Cultivation Chamber, summon additional players, and establish sustainable exploitation cycle.]
[Probability: 34% and falling.]
"What's the remaining 54%?"
[Chaos.]
Chen Hao smiled, despite everything. "Chaos I can work with. I've been chaos."
He settled into his chair, opened the System's observation interface, and prepared to watch his disciples fight for their lives—and his profit.
Outside, something screamed. It might have been a Void Puppy. It might have been Kevin, finally discovering what his "Extreme Luck" actually meant.
Or it might have been Sarah Chen, already breaking the game in ways Chen Hao couldn't predict.
[Achievement Unlocked: Sect of Two]
[New Objective: Ensure at least one casualty while maintaining plausible deniability.]
[Hidden Objective Discovered: Survive the consequences of your own schemes.]
[End of Chapter 2]