Jin Hao stepped back into his room and shut the door behind him.
Same cracked floor. Same smell of books, dust, and a dozen half-dried instant noodle cups. The street noise outside was distant now, muffled by the old spirit-inscribed walls. Just another evening in a place that barely qualified as a home.
He tossed his jacket on the chair and pulled out his comm tab.
The screen lit up.
The sect interface was still open, and still running.
He tapped into the courtyard cam.
Wang Jie was still there. Still sitting in the middle of the Five Elements Formation. Same posture. Same breathing. His skin looked a little sharper. More toned. His aura pulsed slightly faster than before.
Still Body Refining.
Jin Hao stared for a moment.
Then rubbed his eyes.
"Okay. You're not doing this in real time," he muttered. "We're speeding this up."
He opened the [Time Flow Control] tab and slid the bar to the max.
[100x Time Acceleration Activated]
The courtyard shimmered.
Everything blurred slightly. The clouds moved faster. The qi swirling around the formation picked up speed. Wang Jie's hair fluttered slightly even though there was no wind.
Jin Hao leaned back against the wall and set the comm tab on his lap.
He watched for a while.
One hour passed.
Then two.
Then four.
It wasn't until the seventh real-world hour — nearly thirty full days in the game — that the system finally pinged.
A small alert blinked in the corner of the screen.
[Sect Master Wang Jie has advanced to Qi Tempering Realm]
Jin Hao blinked.
Then sat up.
"…Huh. You actually did it."
The interface updated. Wang Jie's status changed:
[Name: Wang Jie]
[Rank: Qi Tempering – 1st Layer]
In his modern-day cultivation world, the cultivation stages were as follows:
[Body Refining] , [Qi Tempering] , [Foundation Establishment] , [Golden Core] , [Nascent Soul] , and [Divine Transformation].
Each stage had sub-layers and realms of course, but this was the main path most cultivators followed.
But Jin Hao was not sure if the stages of cultivation in the game was the same as the present.
He tapped on the Rank of Wang Jie, and it showed the cultivation stages that Wang Jie has been, including Body Refining Stage.
[The first step in cultivation. A stage meant to harden the physical body, awaken the meridians, and prepare the vessel to endure qi circulation. Most cultivators who fail at this stage die when attempting to absorb qi for the first time.]
Jin Hao raised an eyebrow. "Yup. That tracks."
He tapped Qi Tempering next.
[The process of refining raw qi. Molding it into a form compatible with one's spiritual root. The body serves the root. The root connects to the heavens.]
Then a second line appeared under Wang Jie's cultivation stages.
[Spiritual Root: Mortal Grade]
Jin Hao squinted.
"...Wait. What?"
He tapped Wang Jie's profile.
A new tag had appeared.
[Spiritual Root: Mortal – Fire Attribute – Low Affinity]
For a second, Jin Hao just stared.
Then leaned forward slowly, tapping the screen again like it would change if he clicked harder.
"No... no no no. You've got to be kidding me."
He looked at the chart again.
Mortal Root was the lowest grade. Weaker than Earth Root. Far below Heaven Root. Not even in the same league as Chaos Root or Void Affinity.
Mortal Root meant slow qi absorption. Shaky breakthroughs. A short lifespan in the cultivation world unless miracles happen.
Jin Hao sat back.
"…So you broke through."
He looked at Wang Jie, still calmly cultivating on the screen.
"But you're doing it with the worst possible spiritual root."
Wang Jie hadn't moved.
Even after stepping into Qi Tempering, his posture didn't change. His expression was calm. His breath was steady. Like he already knew.
Like he expected it.
Jin Hao leaned forward and narrowed his eyes.
"You already knew your root was trash, didn't you?"
There was no reaction nor a reply, of course.
Just a quiet, flickering glow from the formation around him. The gentle hum of qi being absorbed. The red lines on his body had faded now, replaced with a smoother, cleaner shine to his skin. But nothing about him looked frustrated. Or angry. Or even surprised.
"He really doesn't care," Jin Hao muttered. "Even now…"
He sat back against the wall.
The screen dimmed a little.
Even though it took only a month or Wang Jie to complete the Body Refining Stage, far faster than any of his peers, Jin Hao knew that it was just because of the pills and technique that he gave him.
The other miscellaneous things that Jin Hao bought like Spirit Beast Jerky also played a role as it had a great nutritional boost to a Body Refining Stage like Wang Jie.
You could say that what Jin Hao gave him was not any inferior to the Five Pillars's criteria for cultivating a Holy Son, or even better.
Mortal root.
It was basically a death sentence for any serious cultivation path. You could climb, sure. But slower. Harder. Every step was twice the work, for half the reward. Most trash sects didn't even accept people with mortal roots unless they were charity cases or servant-tier disciples.
And yet here was Wang Jie.
Still cultivating like it didn't matter.
Jin Hao rubbed his face.
"Maybe I should've picked someone else…"
His words trailed off.
Then his eyes opened wide.
"Wait."
He scrambled forward and grabbed his comm-tab.
"If he broke through, then that means—"
He tapped open the [Sect Management] tab.
A soft chime played.
Then a new line appeared right under the usual options.
[Sect Shop – Qi Tempering Stage]
Jin Hao blinked.
Then tapped it.
The screen shifted.
The layout looked the same, but the top bar had changed.
[Current Tier: Qi Tempering Shop]
Rows of new items were already loading. Manuals. Pills. Gear. Things for internal cultivation now. Qi Tempering methods. Dantian stabilizers. Core-seeding materials. Spiritual root enhancement plans?
His eyes widened.
But then he froze.
He looked at the top-right corner again.
There was no dropdown.
No back button.
Just the new tier.
His stomach twisted.
"…Don't tell me it replaced the old shop."
He tapped the corner of the screen. Nothing.
He tapped again. Swiped.
Still nothing.
Panic started to rise in his throat.
"Wait wait wait—did I lose all access to the Body Refining stuff? There's still so much in there I didn't buy—"
Then a quiet flicker pulsed at the bottom of the screen.
A small golden icon appeared, tucked neatly into the corner.
[Previous Stage: Body Refining Shop – Click to Access]
Jin Hao froze.
Then tapped it.
The old shop appeared instantly.
Same layout.
Same items.
Same cooldowns.
Everything is still there.
He stared for a second, shoulders slowly relaxing.
Then let out a long sigh.
"Okay. Okay. It's fine. You didn't screw me."
He slumped back into his chair.
Heart still beating faster than it should.
"…Could've put a label on that earlier, though."
He looked at the tab again.
Now there were two.
Body Refining.
Qi Tempering.
Two full shops. Two worlds of tools.
The courtyard had gone quiet again.
Wang Jie still sat in the center, surrounded by faint qi lines from the formation. But his eyes were open now. Calm. Focused.
He looked up slightly, toward the sky. Toward the camera. Or maybe just toward the empty space he believed his ancestor watched from.
And then he spoke.
"Ancestor. I wish to request permission to leave the sect grounds… temporarily."
Jin Hao blinked.
"Leave?"
Wang Jie placed both hands on his knees and bowed his head slightly. His voice was steady. "There is a village a few days' walk to the south. It once served the Jade Immortal Sect. Their elders remained loyal even after the collapse."
Jin Hao leaned forward.
The map hadn't shown much outside the sect before. It was still mostly greyed out, unexplored. But the edges near the base had started to flicker faintly. Probably because the system knew something was about to change.
"I believe they still remember the name Jade Immortal," Wang Jie continued. "If they are willing, I would like to recruit one of their youth. Someone with potential. Someone we can train."
Jin Hao tapped his fingers against the side of the screen.
He didn't say anything for a while.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
"That's our second disciple, huh…"
He opened the Sect Shop again. The Qi Tempering items were still sitting there, glowing and untouched. Pills, gear, cultivation scrolls. Plenty of resources to make someone's life a thousand times easier.
But he didn't click anything.
Not yet.
"Yeah, no," he muttered. "We don't just give things away anymore."
He looked at Wang Jie.
"You want to bring in a disciple? You do the work. You walk there. You convince them. You make it real."
Wang Jie's voice came through again.
"I also plan to begin rebuilding the outer halls. The library. The training court. The defensive gate. The formation still works, but the walls do not. If I can convince some of the villagers to help with repairs, we may restore the sect to its former shape."
Jin Hao raised his eyebrows.
"Recruiting disciples and getting construction labor in one trip?"
He smirked.
"You're learning how to be a real Sect Master."
He tapped a button on the screen.
A simple [Permission Granted] message flashed in the golden script that Jin Hao randomly bought from the store floated down into the courtyard interface.
Wang Jie bowed deeply when he saw it.
"Thank you, Ancestor."
Jin Hao watched him for another second.
Then leaned back in his chair.
"Alright. Let's see if anyone out there still remembers the name Jade Immortal."