Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex didn't log back into the game that day.

He woke up, ate some breakfast, studied a bit, helped prepare lunch, ate it and went to school. Once more it was with Sarah and Emily. These 4 were now very close friends.

"Urghh… I can't wait for saturday. Oh god, it must be so fun in the capsule," Sarah said.

"I'm highly anticipating it as well," Hannah said.

Alex didn't listen to any of their talk. He was so out of it today that he didn't even remember half the thing that happened today.

Emily seemed to be curious as well as to why he was so distant today, but she couldn't bring herself to ask anything. In the end, they went to their respective classes and didn't get to say anything.

On the way home, Sarah seemed to not have classes on thursdays, so she took them both back home.

Alex ate some snacks and went back to his room. He wanted to go back into the game, but just couldn't motivate himself to touch the helmet on the bed.

So instead, he took out his laptop and went online. He went to a video sharing site to watch something, anything, but there was nothing of interest there.

He then came upon a video and was shocked at the sheer number of clicks on it. The video of his cousin speaking about the body she got in Eternal Cultivation, and it had gotten nearly 200 million views.

For a world with less than a billion people, 200 million views were more than good enough. That was enough to show the true reach of Eternal Cultivation in the real world.

However, he was surprised that the video wasn't popular because of the content, but rather the unfairness behind it. There were people who wanted to hate on his cousin and Eternal Cultivation all because his sister got lucky.

He clicked on these people's profiles and saw that they had left some beautiful messages on other videos for other peoples. These people knew nothing about the other people, yet they showed their hate and love just as openly.

Once again, Alex saw the two sides of people. People were quick to hate on something completely unrelated to them. Even when new information was being given out, people focused on what they personally did not get.

However, there were also people who were good. Whether there was a reason or not, they were all sending out positivity towards the ones they didn't even know.

'It seems it is the same inside and outside of the game, huh,' he thought. 'Good or bad, you can't tell something about a person without getting to know them.'

He felt a little better about himself. The guilt of killing someone was very low for Alex since he knew there were others that were helped due to what he did and were in fell support of him.

He didn't know if they hated him inside or not, but that didn't matter. What mattered is that he now knew not to after a single interaction.

He looked through more of the videos and ate his dinner. Only then at dinner did he finally returned back to his room. He really wanted to play by now.

So, he put on the helmet and got into the game.

"AH, goddammit, why does it prick so much?" Alex thought as pulled whatever was behind him on the floor. It was his normal sword. He had been in a hurry to leave, so he had slept on top of it.

He sighed and put the sword aside to think of something to do. He looked in two direction, one was the direction to the south of him, towards the top of the cliff.

He could go and tell the elders about the happenings here and they could probably take the disciples back and give them another punishment fitting their crime.

The other direction was to the north of him. It was the desert he had heard so much about and wanted to visit so much. He was really interested in going there, but that would mean he needed to let the people suffer for a little longer.

'Sigh, what should I do?" he thought. He thought for a few seconds as to what exactly he wanted and  needed more. In the end, he just shook his head.

"Humans really do all have the same duality. Wanting to help to do good, and wanting to leave for the desert and leave people to starve. There is an obvious answer that anyone not selfish could choose in a heartbeat. And… hehehe… sigh,I am a human after all," he said as he ridiculed himself with laughter and got up.

He then started walking straight towards the river to go to the desert. He was being a human and taking the selfish choice.

He stood up and walked towards the river in this pale moonlight. With a sword in his hands, he didn't worry about any monster in the area.

The river was about 20 meters wide, and monsters easily hid there. This was a dangerous place. "Can I jump across 20 meters?" he wondered.

He had checked his strength with his physical body but never did any other forms of tests with it. 'Maybe it can work?' he thought. He wouldn't know until he jumped across.

He walked back to create some runway to launch himself off of one bank of the river to the other. With a deep breath, he held his sword on this right hand and ran.

He could clearly feel himself slower than when his Qi was working, but those were unfair to be compared. He ran in the fastest speed he possibly could.

At the end of the bank, he launched himself up and leaped. The speed was amazing enough that he didn't fall into the river and would easily cross the river.

However, on the other side of the river, a centipede appeared. And it was ready to attack him any chance it got.