The Forsaken-Grade Cultivator
Chapter 46: Death Penalty (1)

Chapter 46: Death Penalty (1)

"Interesting..."

A calm, baritone, voice filled the massive watch room as a very sophisticated-looking man took a sip of his wine. His sharp, verdant eyes seemingly glued on the several dozen holographic panels which displayed all sorts of scenes before his face...

...Or so it would seem.

In reality, he was actually only focused on one panel, which buzzed to life with images of a single looping occurrence.

He watched again and again as the majestic spear of a white washed being blew a certain player into indiscernible bits. Then...

"Miss Rita," he called, fondling his wine glass, then glancing behind him he continued.

"I need you to draft me a detailed background report on a certain individual. Black hair, black eyes, panel 9. Also, though I believe I needn’t tell you this, but please exercise the utmost discretion. I can’t have the other server masters start suspecting things that aren’t there, after all."

He took another sip of his drink, just in time for Rita – who had been standing motionlessly in the background – to respond.

"Understood. Anything else, Mr. Brown?" Rita asked out of experience.

"Oh, indeed. Another pour of this fine liquor would be truly delightful." Brown responded, twirling his tumbler. To this request, Rita flinched nervously. But being the expert that she was, she neatly hid her apprehension.

She said:

"Ah, that might be a bit of an issue sir. You see, we ran out on that particular drink just this morning. But if sir is patient, I could order a fresh batch from the company right now."

"Hmm, run out already? Did I really indulge THAT much?" Brown thought aloud with a raised brow, looking strangely at the empty bottle beside him. "Well, no matter, I’ll be patient. Now go." He waved his hand.

After which, Rita nodded subserviently, then excused herself.

When she was gone, Brown’s gaze turned back to the spread of hovering screens, his eyes hiding a deep seated ominous glint. His expressions had changed, turning to a strange mix of apprehension, excitement, and... hate?

His lips parted.

"Once upon a time, I lost a great opportunity, due to my own fears – my own hesitations...." He clenched his fists, and grit his teeth. "But now, I’ve learned. Life is like a fair game of cards, with fate being the dealer, and ones assets, connections and experiences being the cards themselves."

"The secret to success is the willingness to gamble, but the key to a successful gambit is Luck. Understanding of this universal truth is what separates decent partakers, from true masters of the art." Brown paused, then leaning on his left arm he chuckled.

"...Show me something interesting, player Ying."

---

[You have died!]

[The Death Penalty has been issued!]

Vincent recalled the system’s monotonous tone as it said those words. In a fit, he had logged out before even acknowledging the death penalty message.

All he knew was that he had been killed, and it was all the work of that damned bastard, as well as the accursed Fairy...

"Ugh, so damn frustrating!"

Vincent was pissed. Who wouldn’t be?

After all that hardship, all that toil, all that suffering against the schemes of the Xian family... He eventually conquered, only to die a meaningless death at the hands of creature whose name he didn’t even know!

It wasn’t even as though he had come looking for trouble. If he had been the initiator of the conflict, then it’d have been an entirely different story.

But no, he had been quite literally been lead to his own demise by yet another creature, whose name he also didn’t fvcking know!

And for what?

You’d think the bastard had a good reason, sacrificing his own life alongside his host’s... Why would he do something as bizarre as that if he wasn’t driven by SOME cause?!

Tell you what, the bastard had a cause, actually, but was it a good enough reason to sacrifice not one, but two lives...? Spoiler alert, it wasn’t. Not in the slightest. At least, that was what Vincent believed.

Honestly, you’d have to be a saint to NOT crash out... and Vincent was by no standards a saint!

"Deep breaths, deep breaths..."

He could still hear that blood curdling laughter, all though distant, it’s deep, and condescending ring went on forever in Vincent’s head. Never stopping, imprinting itself into his memory.

"It’s just another trauma to add to the book, nothing much. At the very least, I have enough lore for the grandkids now... Sigh" Vincent let out a self-deprecating breath.

He performed breathing exercises to calm himself down. Of course, there were other means to do so, but he wasn’t about to use up his life savings buying a new VR headset or game chip.

The model he was using had already faded out of the market, thus any new buyers would have to purchase the newest version, and that was not something he could afford right now.

On the bright side, at least he could thank Poverty for taming his temper, his annoyance dissolved much quicker.

"Sigh. I didn’t get to see what penalty I received for dying, dammit, I should log in and find out. It might be something important." Vincent decided, then after confirming the time, he loaded up the game.

Soon, he found himself once again surrounded by the familiar, serene darkness of the inter phase world, and not long after a red panel appeared before his face.

[You have died!]

[As a result of your death, you have been banned from the game for <167:54:28>]

"What, a hundred and sixty hours?! That’s seven whole days!!" Vincent cried in distraught.

He was already considerably behind, even though he started off alongside the rest of the world. Of course, it was just a week in game days, then perhaps he could have just slept it off... but there was a time dilation between the two worlds.

To make the gaming experience more wholesome and meaningful, there was usually a time dilation between the game world and the real world. It wasn’t usually too much; averagely, 2:1 was the ratio...

...But similar to literally every other aspect of VR gaming, Cultivation Climax begged to differ.

Despite him having spent more than fourteen hours inside the game, just a little over two of those hours had passed in real life. Which meant that the in-game to real world time ration was roughly 6:1; that is, a single hour in real life reflected six, SIX WHOLE HOURS in game.

Following that logic, a week easily amounted to forty-two days in game! After realizing this, Vincent was quite literally on the verge of tears, audibly sobbing in the virtual realm.

"Ugh, pull yourself together Vincent Carter; whining about it isn’t going to do me any good... Also, the game doesn’t record what happens in here, does it?" Ying asked, a bit embarrassed. But there was no one to answer his question.

With nothing more to do in the space, Ying logged out.

He sat up on his bed and looked over to where his roommates slept; they were all still playing the game.

"I never thought I’d say this but... Oh, how I envy the lot of you. It’s honestly quite depressing; you dumbasses lasted longer in game than me... Now that I say that out loud, makes it even harder to believe."

"Ugh no, I just need to get my head out of the game for a while." Ying shook his head, and then pulled out his laptop. Starting it up, he opened social media.

Unsurprisingly, practically everything on there was related to the launch of Cultivation Climax, with the top six topics being:

#CultivationClimaxtheSensation

#TrevorLavender

#TrevorLavenderthetrueSigma

#CultivationClimaxNPCs

#PlayerWhite

#ArsonOnDunnStreet

"Looks like I wasn’t the only one who got inspired by that speech, it’s a worldwide sensation now. They’re even putting it on billboards for the game’s marketing! Honestly... Just how awesome do you have to be to be the marketing strategy of your own product, it is surreal!"

"Ahh focus! I’m supposed to be doing anything besides this right now." He pulled himself together and surfed the internet.

But no matter how much he looked, his feed, every nook and cranny of it, was absolutely covered in Cultivation Climax news. If it wasn’t that, then it was something related to brain rot, which was honestly not worth it.

In the end, he gave up and signed in to the game’s forum.

He wanted to see if there was anything that might be of use to him. If he couldn’t play the game now, then he might as well do some much needed reconnaissance.

Much to his surprise, the hottest titles were:

[Cultivation Climax – The game of the century]

[Who is Player White?]

[Cultivation Climax’s bizarre NPCs]

[What’s next for the Legendary Ten?]

Those were the trendiest articles related to the game for now, and no matter how much he searched, he simply didn’t find anything related to him or his Celestial grade milestone! Flustered, he opened the second article.

The words [Who is Player White?] were boldly highlighted in a centre alignment, alongside some pictures of mysterious enigmas and question marks.

[It has only been mere hours since the launch of the greatest VR sensation the world has ever seen, and Players from all over the world have been logging in and stealing First blood achievements nonstop! But despite the massive influx of gamers, a few, truly exceptional names still manage to stand out.

Of course, amongst these names are the first through fifth, as well as 7th and 9th seats of the illustrious Legendary Ten, but the remainder of the top positions are filled with mostly new comers. One of which is the Player White....]

[....He has been making waves, reportedly already at what is termed the Eight Realm of the Body Tempering stage...]

"Eight realm? Already? What kind of freaky shit is that dude getting up to, is he on some virtual steroids or something, because that’s... that’s just insane!"

[....And aside from his skills, his reportedly possesses, alongside a fellow newcomer player named ’Ying’ a Celestial grade Title, the highest of anyone in the game so far!]

At that point, Vincent stopped reading, staring at the words with nothing but pure disdain.

But in the end, he resigned himself to reality.

"Sigh, to think he’d take that spotlight away from me too.... Honestly, I expected to be much more annoyed at this, but it seems I’m already running low on fucks to give. "

"Seriously though, what a monster. I wonder what fighting him would be like...Huh, what am I even saying?! That game can’t seriously have turned me into a fighting addict... could it? Pfft, no way."

He dismissed his worries as mere irrelevancies and kept surfing through the forum.

He read about the dilemma of the player White and what his existence would mean for The Legendary Ten – The glorified ilk of players that, backed by their agencies, had been dominating the world of VR since the very beginning!

They were the most popular gamers on the scene, easily matching the popularity of the upper class of A-list celebrities. Anyhow there were a lot of speculations, but nothing was set in stone just yet.

He read about the other player’s experiences with NPCs, and truth be told, quite a few of them gave some very wild account of things that may or may not be true.

Some random guy even claimed that he had come across an actual human-dragon hybrid in the southern woods!

Vincent deliberated sharing his own experiences with the forum, but decided against it as it would ruin his already dwindled advantage.

"You don’t see the big names mouthing off about everything they see or do, why should you?" He told himself.

After about two hours more of surfing the internet, he finally put away his laptop and decided to go for a walk, to clear his mind.

’Hmm, oh yeah, I said I’d get some flowers for her today...’

He exited his dorm room and climbed down to flight of stairs to its front entrance, there he saw a group of students – Male, obviously – chatting with one another. Ignoring them and their talks, he made his way past the entrance, and off the school’s grounds.