The can of energy drink slipped from Alex Chen's hand and clattered on the hardwood floor. However his eyes remained glued to the glowing monitor in front of him. He gripped the mouse tightly with both hands as his character, Heavenly Sword God, level 89, faced down the Crimson Demon Emperor in the Burning Sky Realm.
"Come on, come on," he muttered, clicking furiously. His studio apartment was completely dark except for the blue-white glow of his three monitors and the red LED strips behind his desk. The clock in the corner read 3:47 AM. "I just need to dodge the…."
His character was suddenly killed.
"Shit!" Alex slammed his fist on the desk angrily. His keyboard jumped and his half-eaten container of cold lo mein nearly toppled over. "That's the fifth time tonight."
He leaned back in his chair and sighed.
Dual Cultivation Online had consumed the last three years of his life.
He'd played other games before: WoW, Final Fantasy XIV, Path of Exile, but this game was more realistic than any of them.
Alex rubbed his dry eyes, ignoring the burning sensation, he knew he should go to bed, just like he knew he should eat something healthy and he definitely should call his mom back.
Instead, he cracked his knuckles and clicked respawn.
The screen loaded and his character materialized back at the Whispering Pine Sect's resurrection shrine. He looked around and saw other players going about their business.
Alex moved his character toward the sect's training grounds. He'd grind some cultivation points, maybe try to find a group for…
The lights in his apartment suddenly began to flicker.
Alex glanced up immediately. His ceiling fan—which he hadn't used in a while because it made an awful grinding noise—started spinning. It spun slowly at first, but then it started moving faster.
"What the hell?"
The monitors started flickering and his character froze mid-step on screen. The entire apartment seemed to be huming a low vibration he could feel in his teeth.
Alex stood up even though his legs were stiff from sitting, he took a step toward the light switch but before he could reach it, the ceiling fan tore loose from its mounting.
He had only one second to see it falling, and then—
—
—
—
Pain.
Alex gasped and his eyes shot open. His lungs burned like he'd been drowning, his chest heaved and cold air filled his mouth and nose.
To his astonishment, it was not the stale recycled air of his apartment's AC, this air was sharp and clean and it carried the scent of pine and wet earth.
He tried to sit up but his ribs ached, his shoulders throbbed and his head pounded. However, he managed to prop himself on one elbow and looked around.
He was lying on a stone courtyard.
The ground beneath him was rough grey flagstone, and was still wet from recent rain. Around the courtyard stood wooden buildings with curved tile roofs, their eaves decorated with painted carvings of clouds and cranes. Pine trees grew between the buildings, with thick and gnarled trunkd, their needles were dark green and beaded with moisture.
Alex realized with surprise that this was a sect, he was in a cultivation sect just like…
"Get up, Chen Wei."
Alex's head snapped toward the voice. A young man in grey robes stood a few feet away, his arms were crossed and his face was twisted in disgust.
He was maybe eighteen or nineteen and he was handsome in a sharp-featured way. his black hair tied back in a topknot with a white cord, his robes were clean, well-made and embroidered with silver thread at the collar and cuffs.
Behind him stood three others—two young men and a woman, all in similar grey robes, they all watched Alex with expressions ranging from contempt to boredom.
"I said get up." The first young man took a step forward. "Or are you too weak even for that? Perhaps we should tell Elder Ming that you're not suited for even the outer sect anymore."
Alex's mouth opened but no words came out. His mind scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing, this wasn't possible, he had been in his apartment just now and his fan had been misbehaving and then…
Oh god. He'd died. The ceiling fan had killed him, that was how he died.
Alex almost chuckled. What a way to go, killed by a cheap ceiling fan at 3:47 AM while playing a video game in his underwear.
And now he was… here?
He forced himself to his feet and his legs shook. His body felt wrong, lighter and smaller. Alex looked down at himself and froze.
He was wearing grey robes, they were simple, rough-spun fabric, stained with dirt and what looked like blood. His hands were smaller, and the fingers were more slender. On his right palm was a cut, it was still bleeding and the blood dripped onto the stone beneath his feet.
"Finally." The young man in front of him smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten your place entirely, Chen Wei. Though I suppose after Zhang Feng beat some sense into you yesterday, you should be more aware of where you stand."
Chen Wei. That name sparked something in Alex's mind—a flood of memories that weren't his own but somehow were. He staggered, clutching his head as images and knowledge poured through him.
He was Chen Wei, eighteen years old, an outer disciple of the Jinseng Cloud Sect. His parents had died when he was eight, and the sect took him in at thirteen. He had been in the sect for five years, five years of brutal training and cultivation with almost nothing to show for it. Chen Wei had the spiritual roots in the outer sect, therefore he'd been stuck at the first level of Qi Condensation for three years.
He couldn't afford the Meridian Cleansing Pills that might help him break through, no elder would take him as a personal disciple, and no inner disciple would sponsor him.
The sect itself was named the Jinseng Cloud Sect.
Alex didn't recognize the name specifically. He'd played ~Dual Cultivation Online~ for three years, but it was a massive game with hundreds of sects and locations. The Jinseng Cloud Sect might have been a quest hub he'd visited once, or an NPC faction he'd never interacted with, or something added in a patch after he'd moved to a different region.
What he did remember was the loading screen lore. ~The War of Six Sects ravaged the Northern Cloud Region, beginning in the third year of the Celestial Dragon Emperor's reign, reshaping the power structure and leaving countless smaller sects destroyed.~
The current year was the first year of the Celestial Dragon Emperor's reign.
Therefore, the war was two years away.
And if the Jinseng Cloud Sect was in the Northern Cloud Region—which the pine trees and the mountain terrain and the cold air suggested it was—then this place was going to be caught in it.
Alex—no, Chen Wei—he was Chen Wei now—stared at the young man in front of him. This was Feng Kai, another outer disciple whose father owned three merchant caravans in the provincial capital.
Feng Kai had been making Chen Wei's life hell for months, taking his meal tokens, tripping him during training and convincing other disciples to exclude him from group cultivation sessions. Yesterday, Feng Kai's friend Zhang Feng had beaten Chen Wei behind the spirit beast stables, cracking two of his ribs, all because Chen Wei had accidentally bumped into Feng Kai during the morning assembly.
"Nothing to say?" Feng Kai's smile widened. "Then perhaps you should thank us. We've taken time out of our cultivation to teach you an important lesson. The sect provides for those with talent and ambition. For those without…" He shrugged. "Well, there's always manual labor, I hear the spirit beast stables need cleaning."
The woman behind Feng Kai laughed. It was a crystalline yet cruel sound. "He doesn't even have the strength to clean stables. Look at him, he can barely stand."
Chen Wei's hands clenched into fists. The cut on his right palm burned and blood dripped between his fingers.
He'd died. He'd been reincarnated into a cultivation world, into a sect that was probably doomed, in a body with terrible cultivation potential. He was at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy and he was about to be humiliated by disciples who could kill him with one hand if they wanted to.
This was insane.
This was also, a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered, exactly what he'd always wanted.
How many hours had he spent playing ~DCO~? Twelve thousand, according to his Steam profile. How many times had he wished the game was real? That he could actually cultivate, master dual cultivation techniques and alchemy and formation arrays? He'd dreamed about it constantly—flying on a sword, comprehending the dao, living for thousands of years, becoming powerful enough that no one could look down on him.
Now he had his chance.
Sure, he was starting from the absolute bottom. Sure, in two years this place might be a smoking crater.
But he knew how cultivation worked. Not the specifics of this world, maybe, but the fundamentals. He'd spent three years mastering the game's systems, learning optimal cultivation paths and understanding how qi circulation and meridian cleansing and breakthrough bottlenecks worked. Even if the details were different, the core concepts had to be similar.
And more importantly—he had nothing to lose. The old Chen Wei had been beaten down, hopeless and ready to give up.
But Alex? Alex had spent his entire adult life grinding through difficult games, finding exploits and hidden mechanics. He knew how to start from nothing and become strong.
A slow smile spread across Chen Wei's face.
Feng Kai's expression faltered. "What are you smiling at?"
"Nothing." Chen Wei's voice came out hoarsely and his throat felt dry. He wiped the blood from his hand onto his robes. "Thank you for the lesson, Senior Brother Feng. I'll remember it."
"You'll—what?" Feng Kai's eyes narrowed. "Are you mocking me?"
"Not at all." Chen Wei bowed, keeping his face straight despite how much his ribs hurt. "I was confused and disoriented, you've helped me regain clarity and I'm grateful."
The confusion on Feng Kai's face was almost comical. He'd expected Chen Wei to grovel or lash out so he'd have an excuse to beat him again, this polite acceptance threw him off balance.
"I… well. Good." Feng Kai said and straightened his robes. "See that you remember your place in the future."
"I will, Senior Brother."
Feng Kai stared at him for another moment, then he turned to leave. His three companions followed, all looking back at Chen Wei with different expressions that ranged from confusion to suspicion.