Cultivation Mechanics

Alex logged out of the game and went to eat his lunch at 10 am with his other 3 friends. After lunch, all of them started to get dressed for the Orientation. 

Today was the unofficial first day of University where they would be welcomed, and get to choose their subjects and class schedule.

After getting ready, all 4 of them went to the University. Since they lived in the dorm, it was a 5-minute walk at best. They just had to leave the dorm and walk a few minutes away to the main building. 

They were quickly shown their way to the main hall where the orientation was going to take place. 

They sat around and waited, as the main program started to take place. 

The dean of the university got on to the stage and started giving a speech about how important university studies are, how good Oakleaf University is, and how they have a legacy to uphold. 

Alex wanted to focus on the speech but quickly lost focus. A few more people came onto the stage to speak about some more things. 

2 hours went by before Alex even noticed it. A clean-shaven man in his late 20s got onto the stage and said, 

"The Orientation program is now over. An email has been sent to your address with your username and password, for the university website."

"You can either use the website to select your courses and schedule, or you can go to the reception to do it. Good luck, I look forward to teaching you all."

The man walked out. Alex opened his phone and checked his email. There really was a new mail from the university. He quickly used the given credentials to log in to the school website. 

He chose 3 business and economics courses, and 2 technology-related courses, one of them being a VR-focused course. He was looking forward to them. 

He managed to get an easy schedule. From Monday to Thursday, he had classes from 11 am to 3 pm. There would be 3 classes every day, each an hour long, with a 20 minutes break between each class. 

There was one problem he quickly realized, however. Given that he had taken 2 technology courses, he would sooner or later need a computer. 

He might also require a VR Helmet, but he had one for now so he didn't care about it. 

"Do I need to ask my parents for money?" he started to regret taking the technology classes. His parents had sent him to university only because they were free. But they hadn't thought about the extra needs he might have had. 

'Oh! What about making money from the game? If making pills really is the best way to make money in the game, then I should learn more about it.' He thought.

"Hey Alex, you did?" Matt asked from the side. 

"Huh, oh yeah, I'm done. Are we leaving?" he asked. 

"Yeah. Let's go to the cafeteria. By the way, what classes did you choose?"  Matt asked. 

Alex opened his phone and showed him the schedule. 

"Woah, you got lucky. I think I might have to cut down on my games from now on. The schedules are so erratic for me." Matt sighed

"Me too. I have classes at 7 on Fridays. University is going to somehow make me hate Fridays, isn't it?" Logan said from the side. 

"Well, sucks to be you guys, 'cause mine is pretty good," Eric said from the side. His schedule seemed somewhat similar to Alex's.

They went to the cafeteria to have their afternoon lunch and quickly returned to their room. 

As if doing anything else would be sacrilegious, the 3 friends jumped onto their beds the moment they got to their room, and started playing their games. 

Alex changed his clothes to something more free and sat on his bed. He wanted to immediately go into the game as well. But, he couldn't.

Previously, he was just fascinated by the game and wanted to play it casually. Afterward, when he learned about pills earning a lot of money he wanted to play the game because he wanted the money. 

But now, things were different. He could no longer 'want' the money. He needed it. So, he could no longer stay ignorant about the games. 

The game and the game developers made almost no effort to teach the players about the game except for the bare-bones stuff so that the players could experience things on their own. 

However, the players weren't as considerate and openly posted stuff about what they learned or found. In fact, there was an entire forum about it. 

There were a few pinned forum posts, but the very first one caught Alex's eye. It simply had 2 words in the title, 'Don't Die'. 

Curious he opened the post and learned shocking stuff, if you died in the game, your character would be deleted, and you would have to start all over again. Some comments said this might have been to give the players a 'reincarnation' feeling.

The next thing he learned was about the cultivation. The cultivation was the level equivalent of these games. From what the players had learned, the cultivation realms were divided into 3 parts.

The self-tempering realm, also commonly knows as the common Qi realm. The second was the True Qi realm, where one common Qi elevated to become True Qi. The third one, being mostly hearsay, was the saint realm.

The common Qi realm was separated into 6 realms each with 9 levels. They were Skin Tempering, Muscle Tempering, Bone Tempering, Organ Tempering, Meridian Tempering, and Mind tempering. 

The true Qi realm had 5 realms each with 9 levels as well. They were True Initial, True Foundation, True Core, True Soul, and True Dao.

The players had no knowledge about the saint realm as of yet. The highest known cultivation among the players was True Foundation 5th realm.