Transcendent Taoist

Hiro opened his eyes, only to be greeted by a vast, open stone hall. 

He was kneeling on one knee in the center of the hall, his right fist cupped into his left palm at chest level, and his head was lowered so that his vision was met with a flowing white dress and two pretty bare feet. 

He could feel an immortal aura pressing down on him from above, but it was also permeating the entire stone hall. 

"Hear my decree, Daoist Hiro; you will join my Lunar Serenity faction, but you will start as an in-name disciple. Don't be rude to your seniors in the sect, and cultivate diligently to reach the Golden Core realm—only then will you be accepted as an official disciple of the Lunar Shift Sect and receive our core teachings!" 

Countless notifications filled Hiro's vision, but he could guess the gist of it since this wasn't his first time playing this game. After all, the {Simulation Space} derived from Hiro's personal gaming experience and the 10,000 fantasies to come up with these modified games. 

The plot progress of most games shared a common skeleton to reference, allowing avid and seasoned gamers to quickly grasp the gameplay rhythm. 

Hiro bowed his head and expressed his gratitude to the Peak Master of the Lunar Serenity faction, and slowly retreated from the hall without lifting his head to peek a look. 

These cultivators and their stupid god complex, Hiro thought to himself. I can almost imagine someone shouting "Courting Death!" at me if I dared to raise my head and look. But seriously, her voice sounded so sweet and divine, that I almost couldn't hold myself back from looking. 

Hiro was escorted to his private cave dwelling by a fellow disciple. Then, the moment he sat down on the spirit formation, a pop-up window displayed his current in-game stats and progress. 

[Daoist: Hiro.] 

[Sect: Lunar Shift.]

[Realm: Foundation Establishment 1/10.] 

[Cultivation Base: 100/10,024] 

[Spirit Array: +2 per second] 

... 

Hiro calculated silently and murmured, "This spirit array is quite good." 

He touched his chin and searched for the notifications that explained the cultivation process, and once he did, his excitement died down a bit. 

As expected, things weren't so simple. 

The cultivation base bar would reset with each breakthrough; it didn't matter if the breakthrough was minor or major. While AFK, the cultivation base would accumulate on standby and wait for Hiro to enter the game, because some advancements required the use of pills or undergoing tribulation, and such activities had to be initiated by the player. 

Soon, a minor breakthrough would require 100,000 spirit units, then 200,000, and it would only increase. By then, +2 units per second would amount to nothing! However, if he wanted to upgrade the spirit array, he needed to pay the sect for these upgrades, and this required him to become an official disciple first. 

Should I embrace the darkness and enter the pay-to-win hell? If Hiro spent some gems, he could easily upgrade his spirit array. 

After thinking about it, Hiro gritted his teeth and said, "Rewards are meant to be used! Also, the cheapest lottery ticket cost 5 gems, so I can use 5 gems here first!" 

After he made up his mind, he used the 5 gems to upgrade the spirit array five times in succession, each upgrade increasing the value of units per second by 2 points. 

Hiro then checked his spirit array; +12 per second—much better! 

This means that my first breakthrough will arrive in 15 minutes! 

But Hiro didn't want to wait here and do nothing for the coming 15 minutes, so he decided to mark 19:00 O'clock to be his daily log-in window and cash in the accumulated spirit energy on a daily basis. 

With that in mind, Hiro left the {Simlation Space}, immediately feeling the lack of spirit energy and the immortal vibe in the air. He sighed, already feeling tempted to get back into the game just for the sake of that relaxing atmosphere. 

Before leaving, Hiro spent the remaining achievement points on basic lifestyle skills such as {Immersive Reading Skills} and {Professional Caligraphy Skills}. 

After the purchase, Hiro was left with 10 AP to his name, which he decided to keep as a backup just in case he was forced to use the {Synchrnization} function of the system for some stupid reason. 

You can never be too careful, Hiro told himself. What if I'm not the only guy with protagonist cheats in this world? Most transmigration cliches happened in mystical worlds after all. 

After absorbing a load of stimulations to his brain and neurons to assimilate the skills, together with the load from mastering the {Profesional Combat Skills}, Hiro's mind was already at a tipping point. 

The moment he left the system space, he fell asleep in record time.

... 

After a fruitful night of deep sleep, Hiro slowly woke up to the sound of his roommate's morning alarm.

Hiro slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking around in confusion.

His expression clearly said, What's this noise?

"Ah, I'm sorry…" Hiro's roommate quickly woke up and shut off his alarm. "I forgot to switch off my alarm, I got used to sleeping alone in the room."

He smiled apologetically and rubbed the back of his head.

"It's fine," Hiro waved it off with a smile and checked the time. It was 06:30 O'clock, quite early in the morning.

He remembered that the clothing store opens at 9 in the morning, but employees would arrive around 8, one hour in advance.

Seeing that he had plenty of free time, Hiro was bored.

"Why did you wake up so early?" Hiro asked curiously. "Oh—I'm Hiro by the way, and you don't need to tell me if you're not feeling like it."

Hiro climbed down his bed and reached for a handshake with a faint smile.

"Oh… Marcus, nice to meet you…"

Not expecting his new and handsome roommate to be so agreeable, Marcus was caught off guard for a moment before quickly relaxing.

"The library," he answered. "It opens in about half an hour, and with the entrance exams coming up in five days, everyone is in a hurry to study the four major subjects."

"Oh," Hiro remembered that the four major subjects were Math, Religion, Physics, and Chemistry.

He understood math, physics, and chemistry being among the top four, but Hiro was confused about the religon.

That was until he learned that religion was unified across all countries under the banner of the Holy Church, where the different Gods and Deities of the various cultures were recognized as members of the Pantheon of the Gods.

Any religion with a set number of followers, basically a minimum of 1.2 billion followers, would be recognized by the Holy Church.

Hiro's first thought about this when he learned of the religious system was, What in the name of…?

But he quickly realized that this way, the church was capable of contending with the worldly superpowers, major countries, and the famous World Council.

In a way, this was just another setting for the hidden conflict between the Church and the State to enter yet another stalemate.

Judging by the existence of religious institutions and teachings in the student curriculum, the church must have gotten the upper hand.

Wait, why am I wasting my time on that nonsense?! Hiro snapped back to his senses and straightened up, energized.

"I'll tag along with you," he said to Marcus, already stretching his body. "I also need to study for the exam, so I'll take this opportunity to check things out… Will you be my guide?"

Marcus blinked. "Well, of course… why wouldn't I?"

He smiled.