House with a Courtyard

Alex got up from his bed. He was feeling terrible right now. All the pain he had to suffer today was so real, that he started to wonder if he was even playing a game.

He went and took a cold bath, washing away all the fatigue he felt until now. The near-death experience had traumatized him to some extent, yet somehow he didn't think of it as a bad thing.

He went to have lunch with his roommates and went to his classes.

*******

In Deva corporation, a bald man in his late 40s was sitting in a meeting room apparently waiting for someone. He seemed to be both nervous and excited about who he was about to meet.

He suddenly stood up as a door opened and a young lady in her early 20s walked in. He immediately scattered towards the door to welcome her.

"Welcome Miss Hao, I hope you are doing well." He said with a smile that was incapable of hiding his excitement. The girl felt disgusted but didn't say anything as she walked ahead and sat down at the table.

"Is it ready?" she asked.

The man practically ran towards her to bring her a stack of papers in a neat binding. "Here are the records from the Eternal Cultivation miss. We have prepared them just as you asked."

The young lady briefly looked through the papers and nodded to herself. "Good, I'm leaving." She stood up and started walking away.

"Miss Hao," the man immediately called her, stopping her in her tracks. "Is it possible for us to meet the genius that made this game?" he asked.

The lady simply turned around and said, "You aren't worthy to meet him. Just sit back and hope something new comes along your way. That is all you deserve." She then walked away.

The company had made billions from the game the lady Hao had given to the Deva Corporation, and he as the president would get most of the profits. So, he happily took the woman's insults without any annoyance.

He was now starting to hope the lady would bring along something else from the game's creator. He could only hope that much.

********

Alex returned from his classes. He didn't learn much today as he was mostly distracted by the thoughts of what had happened this morning.

He returned to his room after having his afternoon lunch. As soon as he was done changing his clothes, he jumped back into the game.

He opened his eyes inside the random room he had walked into when he logged out this morning. He walked around the house to check it out. The house had about 5 rooms in it, with 4 of them being normal rooms, and the last one being an alchemy room with a fire pit in the middle.

Behind the house was a small courtyard with an artificial-looking, small pond in it. He walked up to the pond and took a look at it.

What he saw was an unrecognizable man with long black hair and blue eyes. The man was wearing a light green robe with red all over it.

'Is that… me?' he thought. He had only seen his in-game appearance once when he first made the character. That was a 5-second glance that he checked no further after that. Looking at it now after nearly 2 weeks. He was surprised at how different he looked from real life.

He decided to take a bath right here with the water in the pond. He took off his clothes and looked at his well-built body. 'I wouldn't mind having this body for real.' He thought.

He used Qi manipulation to carry some water from the pond and poured it over himself. He started washing away the hardened blood in his hair and skin.

The water running down his body turned red as it washed away all the blood. As he was rubbing away more blood, he noticed something.

On his left arm, where the wolf had first hit him, there was a red scar. The scar was in the shape of a monster's paw.

'Did the wolf hit me so hard that it left a paw mark even after healing the wound?' he thought. He slowly touched the tattoo-like scar, wondering if it would ever heal.

"Hmm…" he thought he felt something from the scar. Something like a vibration from a sound. He touched it once more, but nothing happened. So, he went back to cleaning himself.

After he was done bathing, he took out his remaining clean robe and wore it. After that was done, It was time to go down to the sect valley for the multitude of things he had to do.

He walked down the sect leader's mountain and quickly reached the bottom. As he was walking out, an elder he had never seen before, came up to him and asked, "Are you, Yu Ming?"

"Yes," he said skeptically, not knowing what the elder wanted.

"Give me your nameplate," he asked. Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to this elder. The elder took out a medallion and held it as he placed Alex's nameplate on his forehead.

Soon after, he handed back the nameplate and said, "With this, you have the freedom to go to the alchemy garden, and can take out anything you want from there without charge. But make sure not to go overboard with what you take. While you may have the right to take the ingredients from there, you do not have the right to waste those ingredients for your own selfish reasons, understand."

The elder seemed a little too stern. Alex agreed without question. Besides, he didn't intend to use that many resources from the gardens anyway. He would only use them when he couldn't find the items elsewhere.

After the elder let him go, he started walking straight to the Disciple Hall. He had taken a 3-day leave and needed to tell them that he was back.