Chương 53: Copy this Bitch

Jin proudly looked down on the three softly glowing Illusion Rooms in front of him. Dragonslayer Ornstein, Outlast, The Last of Us. Thus, the trio was complete, even if one of the three was not like the others… Over the last several days, he had been going over the rooms with Hashimi and Fracis, applying whatever last fixes and minor touch-ups he could.

Now, it was finally time to submit the scenarios to the library so that they could start generating sect contribution points from viewings of visiting cultivators and from internal reviews by other disciples and members of the sect.

"With this one simple method, generate a fuckton of passive income without lifting a finger!" Jin said happily. You just had to… uh. Bust your ass off for more than a year and generate high quality widely appreciated products which stood for themselves and attracted a wide customer base.

"There's nothing simple about this method, actually," he realised with a sigh as he crossed his arms. He thought back on the way that each of these scenarios had taken shape. Ornstein had become necessary as he'd been dumped into Jin's body a mere two or so weeks before the boy's final exams. Outlast had been necessarily commissioned by the Mad Monks Sect, and The Last of Us had been an unfortunate necessity created by a looming invasion. Now? Well.

Inner disciples didn't actually have any quotas to meet when it came to providing the library or other factions with scenarios. They simply, after their first year in the inner ring, had to pay a certain amount of sect points per year to cover things such as food, rent, clothing and cultivation resources. How did one get those sect points? Well, that was actually quite irrelevant.

If Jin took a bounty-hunting mission, as he'd inadvertently done with that crazy Mad Monks girl back then, he could exchange the spirit stones earned for sect contribution points. A certain amount of sect contribution points privileged an inner disciple to being able to take the exam to see if they could get promoted to core disciple.

Although calling it an exam was a bit reductive as one essentially only needed backing, a good cultivation standard, a mastery of some techniques integral to the Illusion Room Sect and some successful scenarios. So while it didn't matter how one got the points if one only wanted to remain in the inner ring, advancing to the core ring required locking in the core identity path of the sect, which was the creation of Illusion Rooms. Regardless, what Jin was getting at was…

He pulled out a series of jade slips from one of his pockets and marvelled at the way they reflected light. Each one of the slips had 10k sect contribution points, and he had dozens of them. Basically, he had half the necessary amount to start trying for the core disciple position, at which point being a lazy good for nothing Elder was only one step away. And that was without whatever points he'd win when people started looking at his scenarios in the library.

"Talking about lazy good for nothing Elders," Jin muttered and thought back to the conversation he'd had with Elder Flower before she'd gone to take her vacation on the front lines. -/-"Sometimes I wish you weren't that innovative, but at least you're good at it," Elder Flower praised as they lightly sparred in the clearing where they usually meet. Jin jumped back to avoid the swing of her sword before retaliating with his lance.

"My skill set wasn't suited for the competition. It rewarded mimicry creation rather than innovation," he replied through ragged breaths. Elder Flower frowned and completed a parry while stepping into his guard. An elbow in the solar plexus sent him flying back and ended the match.

"Just because you have good ideas doesn't mean you don't have to work on your more foundational skills," she chastised.

"With the time I spent on the zombie scenario, I could have also practiced on something else," Jin said with a sigh as he slowly got up.

"Not that I'm complaining. I still got a lot of sect contribution points, but still, I'm more suited for other tasks."

"Creating things that don't exist, you mean," Elder Flower responded with a sigh and flipped her black hair out of her face before sheathing her sword.

"Exactly," Jin replied.

"Well, I'll be on the frontlines, perhaps during this time you can start developing something that takes advantage of your talents more properly," the woman said sarcastically.

"Don't forget to train for the tournament either," she warned him.

"Of course, train for the tournament, create another scenario and cultivate to reach the requisite level for core disciples," Jin replied self-assuredly.

"All in a day's work." Sarcasm didn't sound so well when one wasn't allowed to inject the sentence with the appropriate tone of voice, he lamented.

"I'm glad you think so," Elder Flower replied with a smirk. She then pulled out a scroll from one of her pockets and threw it at him. Stolen story; please report. Jin caught the papyrus roll and looked at it curiously.

"A technique for the tournament," Elder Flower explained.

"Had it not been delayed, you wouldn't have had the time, so count yourself lucky. It will increase your chances of not embarrassing yourself if you learn it."

"Wow, thanks," Jin replied and tucked it away. The gesture caused Elder Flower to scowl at him.

"You've been desperate enough for techniques that you've created one of your own, just count yourself lucky it's beneath me to replicate," she said angrily, referring probably to Jin's usage of the thousand years of death technique on Hashimi. Jin straightened up and saluted.

"I will learn it before your return, Elder Flower!" he promised solemnly. Elder Flower bid him to continue on.

"And I will cultivate." Another hand gesture.

"And create a new scenario," he said with gritted teeth.

"Good, a disciple of your work ethic won't be a disciple for long," Elder Flower praised before turning around and disappearing with one last, "Be well." -/- Jin gritted his teeth thinking back on the interaction. It didn't matter where sect contribution points came from, so while he did have to practice for the tournament and cultivate, he'd thought to take a vacation with his savings from at least game design. Unfortunately, twas not to be.

He'd have to practice fighting, the technique Elder Flower had given him, and also cultivate to try and break into the higher stages of foundation establishment.

"My vacation," he whispered, a tear falling from his eye.

"Killed in the crib before it could see the light of day." He frowned.

"Wait, if it's in the crib, it already saw the light of day. He gave an obnoxious laugh.

"Ha, idiot," before sighing again. He looked at the three Illusion Rooms and the scroll spread out next to it. Templating was one of the most important techniques of the sect. Assuming a similar enough body, it allowed a cultivator to puppet their own body according to the principles of movement developed for another character, as long as these movements were logically consistent with reality, of course.

If Jin learned the technique, then he'd not only practice fighting with the lance like Ornstein, he'd be training his body to reduce logical inconsistencies so that he could become Ornstein. The technique was more powerful than simply copying an existing character, however, because once it was reduced to its essence, templating was a body-puppeteering technique that made everything that one could think to do with a body, and which was logically consistent with the rules of reality, possible.

In Jin's opinion, most everyone could think of a better way to fight than they could actually do. That was what training was for, and it was this training that templating could gloss over. If he mastered the technique, then whatever he wanted to do with his body, if it was thinkable and logical, it was doable. At higher levels, the technique became even more abstract, allowing for the copying of more ephemeral techniques that had little to do with the body, but that was still far off.

For the moment, just templating Ornstein would improve his combat efficiency by about 40%, which was a very steep increase. The higher his cultivation levels, the longer he could run the technique, the more logical inconsistencies he could cover up by brute forcing qi and experience, and the more qi he could put into attacks.

As long as he continued his practice on the Illusion Rooms of the sect, learned templating, and maybe broke another bottle-neck, perhaps into late-stage foundation establishment, he'd have a chance against the outer disciples of the combat-oriented sects. Talking about the library… He sighed, scooped up his three Illusion Rooms and left the apartment.

The inner ring was decimated, everyone having withdrawn inside to recover from the efforts of the competition, or to catch up on the cultivation they'd been skimping out on. For the people who hadn't won anything during the competition, the time investment had not paid off, and they probably had to do a rush of a few tasks to get the necessary sect contribution points. The sect was thus empty.

Even the library, usually a bustling place of activity from disciples coming in from other sects and internal ones trying out different scenarios and learning new techniques, was deserted. The only person present, just as Jin had feared, was Lung Junior. The other boy, for once, didn't approach him when he saw Jin, simply watching on hawkishly while slowly shaking his head left and right. His eyes were focused on the Illusion Rooms in Jin's hands. This was exactly what Jin had been worried about.

He'd warned so many times about how Lung Junior and his gang would take the Illusion Rooms of those that they saw as beneath them, add a minor improvement, and then put it into the library, thus bumping the scenario they had "improved" down into the archives.

"I'm handing in these three," Jin said to the Elder on duty behind the main counter. The stubbled middle-aged looking man curiously picked up the Room of The Last of Us and inspected it.

"Was waiting for these to arrive," he said absent-mindedly.

"You probably know who the first user is going to be, right?" he asked, glancing idly at Lung Junior. Jin clenched his fists. He'd been warned too much of this exact scenario, which was why he'd naturally devised a few countermeasures against his rooms simply being copied.

The first point in his favour was that he himself was just copying the rooms, and others couldn't simply copy paste the source code or something as asinine as that, they would have to replay his scenarios hundreds of times to personally see and experience every nook and cranny. In a way, it would take him less time to make a new scenario than for someone else to copy it. However, he needed more than that to feel safe, so he'd included a few more safeguards. Oddly enough, the inspiration had come from easter eggs.

While Lung Junior and perhaps even inner disciples had to play through the whole thing and note down every part of it, the Elders, deciding which Room went where in the library, could naturally see the thing in its entirety.

So, if there was any difficult to find bonus content in a game, such as for example a hidden room in Outlast where one could pray to the Outsider to gain cryptic visions of outer space, and these weren't copied by the inner disciples attempting to do so, the Elder would have to kick their copy into the archives, because whatever minor improvements it might have had did not make up for missing a hidden level.

This, of course depended on the Elder being non-corrupted, but Elder Flower had assured him that when choosing which Rooms stayed and which didn't, conflicts of interests were avoided. Also, all of the people administrating the libraries were sick and tired of copiers since it increased their workload for not much benefit. There had supposedly been lobbying to more strictly regulate the practice, but certain factions were opposing the change.

And then, as one last safeguard, Jin had added a RNG mechanic to parts of the scenarios, which randomised what version of the enemy and what sounds one would encounter in which stages of the game. This meant that, in a way, due to the variables introduced every playthrough was unique, which technically made it harder to copy.

"I've had some thoughts about that," Jin said slowly, causing the Elder's eyes to glimmer before he looked down at the Illusion Room in his hand. His face slackened, as if he'd entered it, before he came out a few seconds later with a chuckle.

"The contribution points can be redeemed whenever you wish at the administration hall," the man said in way of a dismissal. Jin simply nodded and left. He hoped that Lung Junior would waste so much time trying to copy what was uncopyable that he would finally get some reprieve to work on his things. Elder Flower had thrown down the gauntlet in a way; she'd told him that if he thought that his random creations could generate more overall value if he was unleashed to do whatever he wanted, then he should prove that.

Something which he fully intended to do. It was time to unleash a true classic—a world with a different power system, gods, cultures, races, stars, and challenges. A world that, if a cultivator immersed themselves in it for long enough, they could emerge as a changed person. An epic quest of such monumental proportions that it would fundamentally change whoever underwent it, no matter how much of it was fake and how much of it was real. It was time to bring in the big guns. It was time for Skyrim.