Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Paths to Death, Arriving at the Real World

"So you can actually fail to draw a trait?!"

Chen Yi couldn't help but stand up to look at the simulation. This was the first time he'd encountered such a situation.

Fortunately, in a corner of the simulation screen, a small line of text explained the reason.

[Current environment has a time flow inconsistent with the River of Time, so traits cannot be drawn.]

"I get it now..."

This was a mechanism to prevent exploiting glitches.

Everyone knew about God Xiaoyao's Time Chamber.

If you spent a day inside, a year passed outside.

Drawing traits inside the Time Chamber would be a huge loss.

Similarly, if there were an inverse Time Chamber, where a year inside meant a day outside,

you could draw far more traits than normal.

So, whether you drew fewer or more, it wasn't allowed.

"That means the Ascension Path isn't a true realm—it's somewhere in between real and illusion? Come to think of it, it's a bit like that snake path Lao Kong once took. That green trait might come in handy."

Seeing what had already happened wasn't enough; Chen Yi had to think about what might occur in the coming year.

After all, the version of himself in the simulation couldn't actively adjust traits.

Some proper foresight was necessary.

"When I reach the true realm, the situation will be unclear. I'll need to lay low and figure things out. I should keep 'Playing the Fool.' I was a peak-level cultivator in the false realm, so I should be decently strong in the true realm too, right? Can't be too flashy."

Chen Yi was back to his old habit of micromanaging from outside the simulation.

[You chose Yes.]

[You replaced "Mourning from the Martial Circle" with "Running Playlist."]

[You replaced "Civil War Ace" with "Playing the Fool."]

["A whole year! And it's still not over! The scenery ahead and behind hasn't changed at all! If it weren't for the distance I'd covered on foot, I'd think I was running in place!"]

[You got road rage from all the running.]

[Anyone would be frustrated.]

[You'd been running for a year, but looking ahead, the scenery was still exactly the same.]

[A winding Great Wall, beacon towers at intervals.]

[And you noticed that on the sections between each beacon tower, you couldn't stop.]

[If you stopped, a tremendous force would push you back dozens of beacon towers!]

[But if you ran in the opposite direction and stopped in the middle, the force wouldn't appear.]

[This seemed to confirm you were running in the right direction.]

[It looked like these beacon towers were meant as resting spots.]

["I wonder how far the Sword Master and the others have gotten. Are we all stuck running on this path? That would be ridiculous!"]

[After equipping "Running Playlist," you decided to test its effect.]

["This requires me to listen to music. Where am I supposed to find a player? Hey, Old Wan!"]

["Boss! For you, even through fire and water!"]

[Ever since you refined Myriad Soul Banner's vessel into a super immortal artifact, he obeyed your every word.]

["Sing."]

["Boss, I don't know how to sing."]

["It's not like I'm asking you to join 'China's Good Voice.' Can't you even sing something simple?"]

["Well, I'll try, ahem..."]

[["Why is your face turning red like a bubble teapot..."]]

[Myriad Soul Banner started belting out.]

["♪ Daddy and Mommy go to work, I go to kindergarten..."]

["How did you manage to make a children's song sound like a funeral march..."]

[Since Myriad Soul Banner was useless, you had to do it yourself.]

["♪ A long road ahead, I wander with guts full of thunder, searching for lost grace and truth through the wilderness—every step becomes my homeland inside."]

["♪ Then I ride through destiny's flames..."] The third line of the original was lost — We kept only the successfully transcribed fragments]

[This song actually fit the moment quite well.]

[Year four, age twenty-eight.]

[Drawing traits...]

[Failed to draw!]

[Adjust traits?]

[Yes/No]

[You chose No.]

[Staring at the nebulous cloud of traits that wouldn't manifest properly, you cursed in anger.]

["Damn it! How much longer is this path?! This is costing me my trait draws!!"]

[As you ran, you suddenly noticed that at the farthest point your eyes could see, the floating Great Wall split into two!]

["Something's changing—are we nearing the end?"]

[You sang and sprinted forward.]

[Your face showed urgency, anger, and frustration, yet you were singing a cheerful song. It was deeply contradictory.]

[You arrived at a three-way fork.]

[All three paths looked identical, but on the beacon towers to the left and right, each had a stone tablet inscribed with the characters "Life" and "Death."]

["Life path, death path—am I supposed to choose?"]

[You thought it over.]

[You tried leaving a mark on the beacon tower, but found it impossible.]

[The Great Wall looked like it was made of stone, yet with your Soul Martial peak cultivation, you couldn't even scratch it.]

["If I can't do it, others probably can't either. I was hoping Great Demon and the others might have left some signs, so we could take the same road and meet at the top."]

[No reference now; you had to make your own choice.]

["Life, death. Hmph! Reality, illusion; illusion, reality. Who would write the answer on the question itself? Life is death, death is life! I'll take the death path!"]

[Not long after.]

[The same three-way fork appeared again.]

["I'll take the death path again!"]

[After another period of time.]

["Death path it is!"]

["Death path!"]

["Death all the way to the end!!"]

[Year five, age twenty-nine.]

[Drawing traits...]

[Failed to draw!]

[Adjust traits?]

[Yes/No]

[You chose No.]

[This was your nine hundred and ninety-ninth time standing before the fork of life and death.]

[Thanks to your "Photographic Memory," you'd kept an exact count.]

[Just as you were about to choose the "death path" again, Myriad Soul Banner spoke up.]

["Dude, how about we try the 'life' path once? What if choosing life means we pass instantly?"]

["What you say makes sense, but I don't believe it!"]

["Great, the guy has gone completely crazy from running!"]

[As you set one foot on the nine hundred and ninety-ninth beacon tower bearing the "death" tablet,]

[a sudden sensation of weightlessness hit you.]

[Everything around you vanished instantly!]

[At that moment, you lost all sensation, as if you'd fallen asleep without even a single dream.]

[When you "woke up," you found yourself standing on a pile of geometrically shaped stones.]

[Around you was tan soil, forests in the distance, blue skies, white clouds, and a soft breeze.]

["So this is the true realm? Doesn't look much different from the false realm..."]

[You tried to probe the distance with your divine sense.]

["Huh? Where's my divine sense?"]

[The divine sense you'd used countless times in the false realm was now completely gone, as if you'd never possessed the ability.]

["Wait, can I... fly!"]

[You leaped upward, only to land headfirst on the ground.]

["Flight power is gone too!"]

[You looked down and realized that the pile beneath you wasn't stone—it was crystal! Mountains of top-grade crystal, the ones the Wang family had gifted you!]

However, the essence of heaven and earth within the crystal stones had all vanished, leaving only a pile of ordinary rocks.