Chương 37: An old man's experience

As he was strolling through the woods to disperse his bad mood, Jin deeply considered the issues he was facing. Through Hashimi's explanation, he now understood that removing the cannibalism aspect from the scenario was necessary to fit the narrative of The Last of Us into this new world. After all, when in Rome, one had to do as the Romans did.

While he still might have some doubts about how extreme of a taboo cannibalism was, he decided that in this situation it was better to trust her rather than himself considering her native status. In the end, it would be extremely arrogant to presume that he could port in all of his previous world's cultural heritage without any change. Considering the vastly different realities and histories, wouldn't the two being fully compatible be incredibly illogical and unlikely?

The problem was now, of course, that the cannibal part of The Last of Us showed a harrying portrayal of human nature when faced with insurmountable darkness. What people were willing to do when faced with despair, and what happened to their psyche. How some chose to give in and how some chose to continue fighting to keep their moral compass intact despite all events trying to force them into surrendering their principles. Removing the cannibalism was actually not the difficult part.

The difficult part was what to replace it with to not make the whole encounter narratively pointless. Ellie could still get kidnapped because David, the leader of the group, had seen that she was good at hunting. As a change to the previous narrative, however, maybe what Jin could do was make David discover that Ellie was immune.

The somewhat megalomaniac David could show his heinousness in another way by trying to take Ellie as his wife to birth a race of super immune non-cannibal soldiers to spread his influence among his followers by making them think that his bloodline carried the immunity. Something like that, at least. Unfortunately, while this change was still gross and worrying and clearly depicted him as a villain, it wasn't really as insightful and thematic as the original scenario.

It played with the themes of authority and delusion, rather than ones of despair, deprivation and hope that would fit the setting more. Sadly, Jin had never been praised for his creativity in his past life. He had gone into the construction business for a reason after all. He couldn't think of a better theme to replace the cannibalism other than a slightly more complex version of the, 'I steal your princess and take her as bride hur hur, look at me I'm so bad.'

"But if I remove the narrative that makes the story great, then what advantage does it have over the others?" he wondered to himself as he continued pacing. The issue remained that he couldn't compete with the other disciples in reproducing an existing threat's combat ability. They had more practice and more team members. The perfect solution in this case, now that the scenario lost a bit on narrative impact, was to compensate with higher-quality zombies.

Perhaps add a playground mode where the soldiers could decide on how many and what kind of zombies they faced. But, of course, a perfect solution was never possible. He could likely try until his brain was bleeding, and he still wouldn't be able to make zombies good enough to compete with what the other disciples were making. Sure, he still had the advantage of a photographic memory so he could very accurately copy the zombies that he had been watching fight in the cage back in the army encampment.

But in the end, his memory was simply an advantage that others could surmount with the reality that he'd mentioned earlier. The thing was also that it was misleading to say that the Illusion Room cultivators only copied reality. They improved on it and created subtleties that enhanced the experience through realistic additions and changes. Jin didn't have that skill yet.

The only thing letting him cheat his way into looking like someone competent was the vast library of works from modern Earth, which didn't help when his advantage wasn't suited for the challenge ahead. Curse you, Elder Flower!!!

"You look frustrated," a voice suddenly said to Jin's right, causing the distracted inner disciple to look up and find that he'd inadvertently walked all the way around the mountain in the past few hours and had reached the other side of the Inner Disciple Village. How long had he been walking?

"Hello Francis," Jin greeted with a nod of his head.

"You know how it is, I guess..." he trailed off at the old man whom he'd identified months ago as someone likely to die an inner disciple because his cultivation hadn't kept up with his promotion.

"I don't know, actually," the older man joked, tugging at his white beard. Since the conversation had continued, the two of them naturally stopped to talk to each other.

"How is the spirit stone treating you?" Jin asked, referring to the bribe that Francis had taken to not collaborate with Jin back when the challenge had been announced. Of course, the man had never even intended on participating, so the move wasn't particularly malicious in the first place, but just a way to earn some free money by not doing anything.

Most people wouldn't have said no in that case, and those who would have would have been wasting their energy exerting their principles on situations that didn't require them. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Francis gave a brief chuckle at the question.

"I bought a few pills with it. I can't lie. But you seem like you're at the stage where a few pills won't help, so I won't offer to return the favour with them." Jin tilted his head and wondered for a second if there was a point in telling the man of his woes. Francis had been the one to give him the orientation of the inner ring back when he'd been promoted. Considering his seniority, he might have some ideas. An old man in the family was a treasure, right?

Whenever you joined a new environment, it was always good to at least listen to the opinions of those who had been immersed in it for longer.

"I do have an issue, actually. Do you think I could ask you for your opinion?" Jin finally asked. At these words, Francis tilted his head slightly down to give Jin a shaded look almost hidden beneath his white fluffy eyebrows.

"You seem to have something serious on your mind," he concluded, "It might be better to sit down somewhere and talk properly in that case," the old man said, pointing vaguely at their surroundings which did not inspire much confidence in confidentiality considering there were several inner disciples in plain sight.

"That might be a good idea," Jin said, agreeing.

"Do you know a place?" Francis shrugged helplessly.

"How long do you think I've been stuck in this inner ring?" he asked listlessly before turning around and bidding Jin to follow. They returned to the forest from which Jin had come. -/- More than an hour later, with an empathic nod, Francis concluded his listening to Jin's problems. The younger inner disciple, now finally having vented to someone other than himself and Hashimi, released a deep sigh and slumped back in the chair he was sitting on.

Francis had taken the two of them slightly up the mountain and deeper into the bamboo forest encircling some parts of it until they had reached a squalid lake with pink lotuses floating on its surface. Hidden in a corner through a thicket of trees were four old and rickety wooden chairs surrounding a large rotting stump, which Jin imagined had been used as a table in the past. He'd told the old man everything. It wasn't like he had anything to hide.

He told him everything from his creation philosophy, namely narrative novelty and how he thought that Elder Flower was misusing his "talents" by forcing him to compete in this challenge where reality copying and enhancement were more important. He vented about the fact that due to the requirements of this challenge, he was being forced to create something which just had a lower competitive rating in comparison to the pure combat scenarios that his competitors would likely put forward.

Francis at first seemed to contemplate Jin's words before eventually starting to analyse this situation with a gentle tone of voice.

"Well, considering your forced participation, I must say that it is understandable to be frustrated. I would be as well in your situation and have been in the past. But we all have to do things that we don't want to at the end of the day. I can promise you that it never ends," he said reassuringly.

"Even if you ascend, you're likely to just arrive in a place where you will have to take orders from someone again," he said commiseratingly, using the common tactic of 'everyone has to suffer from this so it's not that bad.' Jin couldn't help but nod his head and agree. It was true after all, and it was just that he'd needed someone else to say it so he didn't feel like he was justifying himself.

If he really was the only one suffering from this particular issue, he really would have a reason to cry, but he wasn't, so he didn't.

"Also, of course, the people telling us what to do aren't us, so they don't always know what we're best at or think we're best at. Unfortunately, for the most part, we are simply forced to bow our heads and bear it. The last disciple I saw who wasn't willing to do that wasn't a disciple for long…" Francis trailed off. Jin raised an eyebrow.

"They excommunicated him?" he asked. Francis laughed and shook his head.

"Oh, no, he's dead. Corpses can't be disciples, is all I meant." He waved his hand in the air, dispelling the macabre topic.

"Anyway, this competition has a deadline of only a few months, which means that it's not that bad. Looking at it from the Elders perspective, taking a few months to do something that you're not necessarily suited for is a good way to expand your horizon and work on the skills that are not your strengths without wasting too much time." Jin stubbornly crossed his arms.

"Well, if that was the case, she could have just told me," he said, causing Francis to chuckle.

"If only it were that easy, am I right?" he asked. Then he shook his head.

"As for the fact that you're less suited for the current competition. What can I say?" he wondered aloud.

"I failed at more things in my life than you've likely tried, and I'm still here, aren't I? Still, remember when I had my first success, someone copied what I did, added minor improvements and started collecting the sect points while I got relegated to the library." He paused, realising that he was trailing off.

"What I'm trying to say is, you're going to suffer from both success and failure, so you might as well learn how to enjoy both." Jin, for his part, wasn't listening anymore. He was blankly staring at the surface of the lake as he once again heard the same stupid story about someone's creation getting stolen, slightly edited and used to generate revenue. Wasn't this, like, the fourth time that someone had told him to be careful of this happening?

"You're a genius, Francis," Jin said reverently. The old man perked up at this and seemed quite happy at the compliment.

"Haven't heard that one in a while," he said self-deprecatingly while rubbing the back of his balding head.

"Why work on it if I can just steal it?" Jin asked rhetorically, causing the older man to whiplash his head up to look at the younger one"Wait, what?" he asked quickly. Jin, for his part, also turned back towards Francis and looked into his watery eyes with his own full of vigour and bad intent.

"Francis, I'm going to need your help."