Chương 89: Target audience established

Kong Ching, inner disciple of the Stars Bursting Sect, knew a secret that nobody else did. In the Illusion Room Sect library, there was a series of three scenarios that were special. The first time he'd been included in the group that sometimes visited their somewhat neighbouring sect he'd questioned why they paid so much to access their library of works.

Sure, he knew the concept, and the illusory experience of facing the Light-swallowing Sword Monster had definitely helped him when he'd been sent out to kill the real thing as a part of his cultivation. But still, the price was somewhat steep for what was essentially a more immersive and interactive version of watching a memory of the heavenly beast trapped in a jade slip.

He'd affably continued taking part in the library exhibitions as was part of his privilege as the strongest inner disciple of the sect and let the Elders cover the bill. If they didn't, he'd likely not come with. And then he would have missed out. He was only twenty years old last year when he found the first of the three.

One of the youngest in the entire sect, he'd been identified to have the rare light particle spiritual root at a young age and cultivated since then as a potential candidate to take over the leadership. Life had always been easy for him.

Other disciples fell like chaff in internal competitions, external tournaments offered no real challenge, and Illusion Rooms were mere curiosities that required one or two runs before he perfected whatever strategy he needed His master had always told him that he also needed to work on his mental qualities, experience hardship and grow as a person. He hadn't understood what the man had meant until he'd found Outlast.

At first, he'd simply picked up the glowing artefact out of curiosity while the others ambled around and experienced the conventional scenarios. Those that were useful for their sect, offering a battle against Light Flicker Bugs, Sun Snakes and Mirror Demons, but not useful enough that their sect would buy copies to store in their own library. Kong had finished those many months ago; he wanted something new.

"You'll regret it, you know," a voice had said from behind him back then as he curiously examined the Room.

"How come?" he'd asked the well-dressed Illusion Room disciple with spirit stones interwoven in his long hair. A haunted look had hushed over the man's wretched face as he stared right through Kong.

"Nobody who enters that hell returns unchanged. Will you gamble on being one of the few who'll change for the better, or preserve your sanity instead?" he'd whispered, before turning to leave. Suffice to say that had simply stoked Kong's curiosity. He'd promptly run the scenario, finding himself surprised that he was locked into a mortal body incapable of combat for the experience.

That alone would have made most cultivators he knew uninterested in continuing, but the warning the Illusion Room disciple had given him kept him going. He'd snuck into the asylum, guided his enfeebled body through its challenges and died. Oh, how many times he'd died. How many horrors he'd faced. Men with no faces, entities that shouldn't exist and situations which he wished to run away from. For the first time since becoming a light elemental, he faced absolute darkness, absolute depravity, absolute horror.

Every second became a rebirth, every pool of blood that he slowly suffocated in a baptism, every breath, a miracle. When he finally emerged on the other end, he was a different man. A changed man. He no longer felt twenty years old; he felt like an old man watching the world in slow motion. He understood the limitations imposed on him by his sect. Their focus on imbibing heavenly beasts of the light attribute left out the inherent duality that should have been present in their cultivation practice.

It was impossible to know light if one remained unacquainted with darkness. It was after he'd finished immersing himself in that hell that he'd gained the ability to turn his entire body into light, even if only for the briefest of moments. He'd looked at the Illusion Room pulsing gently in his hand, then as the enlightenment submerged his soul in warmth and left his dao purified.

Darkness had become a familiar friend that day, a friend that allowed him to find its like in his own self and expunge it, leaving behind only purity. Kong immediately understood that this scenario was special. Not a mere imitation of a beastly encounter, but a confrontation with an experience that could either make a man, or break him utterly. Through Outlast, he purified his spirit. He knew he needed more, but the only clue left behind was the logo at the end of the experience.

An Illusion Room disciple kneeling down, tongue to earth, as if offering to lick someone's shoes. An odd choice, sure, but the name was weirder still. Ligma studios.

"Ligma what?" Kong had asked into the void of the finished scenario.

"Ligma balls, lmao," the scenario had answered before kicking him out. The librarian of the Illusion Room sect was consulted for the first time, and told Kong that there were two other scenarios created by the same group. Unfortunately, his time at the library ran out at that moment, and he had to leave. It would be months before he was to return. During those months, Kong took on more combat missions from the sect, which was out of character for him. His master had asked him for the reason.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Kong's reply had been simple.

"Because there is a world out there. It is simply begging to be experienced. Do you not hear the call?" Eventually, Kong returned to the Illusion Room library. Older, wiser, stronger. He smiled patiently at his brothers and sisters, who were senior in age but junior in character and cultivation as they went to methodically complete the Illusion Rooms, they always did. He did not suggest Outlast to them. He was aware of their ability and dared not risk their mind.

"Nobody who enters that hell remains unchanged," he whispered to himself as he sought out the next scenario he'd been told about. Titled simply, Dragonslayer Ornstein, Kong was initially disappointed to find the scenario consisting of only a single large space. But, with combat enabled, he soon began finding an entire world inside that small cathedral, in that one fight. Dragonslayer Ornstein was a silent foe cast in silver and wielding a weapon Kong had never seen before.

It was on the crescendo of the otherworldly music that Kong found himself losing the first fight, innards spilling onto the slabs of stone beneath as the lion-headed helmet looked down at him expressionlessly. Not used to failing, Kong promptly restarted the fight, only to lose again. It was then that he identified the fundamental issue which would keep him up for many nights. Dragonslayer Ornstein was clad in a full-body armour made of mineral composites, which had a certain reflective quality.

That was rather unfortunate for Kong, as his skillset revolved around the usage of light. The fights, together as they blurred while the orchestra boomed, always followed the same pattern. In the beginning, when Kong still had qi to draw upon, he could dodge all of Ornstein's attacks by using his lightning-fast reflexes and short bursts of elementilisation. Ornstein, meanwhile, took damage rather slowly due to the superior defence granted by his armour.

Inevitably, of course, Kong would run out of qi, at which point he'd find himself skewered. As the first excursion to the Illusion Room Sect library ended in failure, Kong attempted to remedy his weakness by becoming more efficient at creating, channelling and becoming light. He focused on his strengths and strengthened them further. He travelled, he fought, he lived. Then he returned and was brutally defeated once again. His light-based skillset was simply not suitable against the dragonslayer.

However, one thing Kong was sure of. There was no immovable object and no undefeatable enemy. While the creator of the Illusion Room was most definitely peculiar, there had been method to their madness in Outlast. They would not make an unbeatable challenge. Kong returned to his sect, studied different techniques, methods, and strategies. He broadened his knowledge like never before, trained like a man possessed and eventually learned a new skill. He'd always thought that light only had to be afraid of darkness.

But Ornstein had bested him with the use of what were essentially mirrors. In other words, light itself. How does a wielder of light defeat light? Kong's answer consisted of not using light. He repurposed a transportation technique and made it into an attacking vector. Once again in that cathedral, he flashed forward while holding out the palm of his hand like a sword. He materialised himself back into flesh a moment before the edge of his hand was to meet Ornstein's neck.

The Stars Bursting sect was a sect that focused on ranged combat. All of their techniques consisted of ways to defend the body, to escape the enemy, to become lighter, faster, quicker. Dragonslayer Ornstein taught Kong that sometimes it was necessary to become the opposite: heavy, involved, aggressive. His arm broke, but so did his foe. It seemed so obvious in hindsight, but a cultivator that fought only with ranged attacks would eventually find themselves facing an enemy that simply did not care.

Once you ran out of qi, you'd be run down; it was as simple as that. The common doctrine in those moments was to retreat and fight another day, but some battles you couldn't retreat from. If Outlast had taught Kong a sort of spiritual purity, then Dragonslayer Ornstein had taught him to be adaptable. To break an arm if it meant saving one's life. To fearlessly use one's body when spells failed to fulfil their purpose. In other words. Kong had gone from simply knowing how to fight to becoming a fighter.

It was a testament to the skill of Ornstein's creator that Kong had learned this lesson from a scenario with essentially no stakes and not from the very real battles he'd been involved in during his short life.

"It is not enough to do," Kong determined as he finished the scenario after a few more battles.

"You must be…" After he returned to his sect, Kong did something nobody had ever done before. He went up. To the ring, which the core disciples called their home. He challenged them to a battle. One by one. He defeated one. He defeated two. He defeated three. He'd become an expert in conserving his qi, in strategising. He defeated four. He defeated five. He defeated six. His body was as much of a weapon as his cultivation. He defeated seven. He defeated eight. He defeated nine.

The greatest weapon, however, was his identity. The core disciples lost because they were cultivators first and warriors second. Kong won because he was a warrior first and a cultivator second… It was with his head held high, having recognised the truth of the world, that cultivation was the means to an end and that his end was to be the strongest, that he received the greatest humbling of his life. The last scenario. Fittingly named, The Last of Us. It put him back into the body of a mortal. Kong relished it.

Everything he achieved in that body was due to his skill alone. No cultivation, no talent, just sheer ability and willpower. However, it was as he traversed the cities and the wilds, Ellie by his side he began to understand that to be a warrior was pointless when one had nothing to fight for. He looked at the child slumbering in his lap, sleeping fitfully, night terrors dancing beneath the lids of her eyes. He felt her frail heart rise and fall through the heartbeats vibrating into his body.

The hope of humanity, concentrated into one incredibly fragile childish body. Was this thing hope? So small? So weak? So easily extinguished? Over the next hours, Kong slowly but surely lost his grip on reality in a way that had never happened to him before. He had endured Outlast, adapted against Ornstein, but it was here, in this odd world with no cultivators, that he lost himself.

As he watched Ellie point and laugh at the giraffe, listened to Bill's tragic story, and watched Henry kill his infected baby brother. He began to question. What did it mean to be human? What did it mean to have hope? What did it mean to suffer? For that last question… He found the answer soon enough. It was in the last stages of the scenario, after he'd reacted too slowly, as he watched Ellie's cranium be opened with a surgical saw, that something inside Kong broke.

Or rather, something inside Kong was finally released. The zombie horde outside stood no chance as he moved not in sync with the enemy and himself as he'd learned with Ornstein, but in sync with the universe. He had fully entered a transparent world, in which his perception was not boosted by qi, but was nevertheless expanded to include everything around him and the countless iterations of realities that his actions could or could not cause.

After he'd successfully fended off the zombies, Kong briefly considered going back. Starting anew. Saving Ellie. But he didn't. He knew then that one day, back in the real world, he would be too weak, too slow, or too foolish to act. He would lose everything. But despite that, he would continue living. Outlast had purified his spirit. Dragonslayer Ornstein had purified his identity. The Last of Us? The Last of Us had purified his purpose.

He'd taken many missions in the last year, had earned much and spent it on nothing.

"I'll take a copy of all three scenarios," Kong told the Illusion Room Elder on standby in the octagonal reception, in which all parts of the library split up.

"That group, Jin and his group of misfits, released a new scenario recently. Fourth one for him," the Elder muttered back distractedly. Kong's heart rate quickened.

"A fourth one?" he asked with parched lips.

"Well, a demo, they said," the Elder replied, before snorting.

"Although calling it a demo… Things as big as the Room can hold. Ten times bigger than the zombie. How are they going to make the full one?"

"If it's that big, how long will it take to complete it?" Kong asked. The answer struck him like a blow to the face.

"Thirty or so days, insane little bastards, heaven knows who'll want to try such a slog…"

"I'll buy it!" Kong snapped. The Illusion Room Elder raised an eyebrow.

"You sure? It's pricey. Costs more than the other three combined."

"Thirty days. It will take me years of intermittent visits," Kong answered, pulling out his money pouch. He left the Illusion Room Sect a destitute man that day, speaking to no one and centring himself on the task to come. It ended up being worth it. Spirit, Identity, purpose. It was good that he'd steeled himself, sharpened himself on the other scenarios. Because in Skyrim? In Skyrim, he found God.