CHAPTER 121: CHAPTER 121 ADDITIONAL PATCH

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

A whole day had passed, and "Devouring the Spirit of the World" remained in a special state that couldn’t be fast-forwarded.

Moreover, just when Ren Suo had fallen asleep, a plot event happened, resulting in him only seeing it after he got up the next day. Therefore, although 24 hours had passed, less than 13 hours had elapsed in the game—real time was actually moving faster than game time.

The Nine-Tailed Fox had returned to the Embassy once. Old Zhao notified her that they were engaged in emergency consultations with the Flourishing Sakura Country. However, other nations were also interfering. Given that Flourishing Sakura was a multi-party state where even the Prime Minister was influenced by various consortia, progress was delayed.

However, the Flourishing Sakura National Treasure was already in urgent transit, expected to arrive in Tokyo within a day. Old Zhao also assured that, at most, in another day, all the national treasures Little Blue Cat needed would arrive.

A day’s time—not too long, yet not too short. Previously, Ren Suo could have fast-forwarded, but now that he couldn’t, he could only let the Mini-World Game Console run and let time pass naturally.

But Ren Suo wasn’t doing nothing. Although the Nine-Tailed Fox had already revealed her appearance, using "Illusion" to give herself a temporary skin wasn’t a problem. He controlled the Nine-Tailed Fox to go to Tokyo Tower and stay close to the great pillar of light, reasoning that staying there for 18 hours might grant another opportunity to Evolve.

Soon after, Ren Suo started to feel bored.

Unconsciously, Ren Suo realized that the Mini-World Game Console had taken up a significant portion of his life, to the extent that when he wasn’t playing, he actually had nothing else to do.

This won’t do, Ren Suo thought. So, he took out his Hell 4 Pro that had been gathering dust for months—the original game console he had wanted to buy—plugged it into the TV, and unwrapped his copy of "Heroic Unrivaled 8" to play.

Finally, the Hell 4 Game Controller returned to the embrace of its original master, freed from the overbearing dominance of the Mini-World Game Console, and resumed its true function: playing games on the Hell 4 Console.

However, after playing for a while, Ren Suo started to find it a bit tedious.

"Heroic Unrivaled 8," being Ren Suo’s first choice of game, naturally wasn’t of poor quality. Even though it was criticized for ’characters being too revealing’ and ’mindlessly easy enemy clearing,’ players indeed found it exhilarating and visually enjoyable.

Watching each beautiful girl wield cool and dazzling Weapons to slaughter foes in the game, the vibrating controller seemed to let players feel the pulse of their skin; this joy undoubtedly made "Heroic Unrivaled 8" a great game.

But it was just that and nothing more.

At this moment, a saying from Ren Suo’s former homeroom teacher came to mind—

"What’s the use of playing games?"

Back then, I just thought it would be great if playing games was actually useful, Ren Suo recalled.

Now, playing games *was* useful. But once ’entertainment’ turned into ’work,’ it was devoured by one’s own desires and anxieties, losing its original innocent appeal and turning one into an adult driven only by profit.

Just like professional esports players, who spend a dozen hours each day training for their dreams.

Now that Ren Suo owned a game console that could change his future, he couldn’t afford to slack off anymore—his rationality wouldn’t allow it.

Ren Suo took out the game disc, put it away properly, turned off the game console, and carefully placed the entire console back into its box. It looked as pristine as an unopened new product. He stored it like a treasure in the TV cabinet.

"When I tear through this half-mile of heaven and earth at dawn and dusk, the three-foot green light will cycle through and wash away the smoke and dust~"

The phone rang again. Ren Suo checked the number; not recognizing it, he answered. An older woman’s voice came through, "Oh, Ren Suo! It’s your Third Aunt..."

After she rambled on for over ten minutes, Ren Suo finally managed to hang up. If he hadn’t been worried about his mother losing face among relatives, he would have told her, "You’ve dialed the wrong number," much earlier.

Ever since neighbors and relatives learned about Ren Suo joining the Heavenly Lotus Academy, his mom had been on cloud nine. She constantly showed off the "Heavenly Lotus Academy Admission Notice," asked everyone where their graduated children were working, and then casually dropped lines like, "Oh dear, my boy is no good. He can’t make much money, so he just went to Heavenly Lotus Academy to be some sort of..." and so on.

In his father’s words, it was, ’Your mom lately comes home looking as satisfied as if she’d successfully caught a cheater in the act.’

While it made his mom happy, it made life tough for Ren Suo. These days, former elementary, middle, and high schoolmates all called to inquire, "How much does it cost for cultivation?" These calls were easy enough to dismiss—he just hung up. What could they do? At worst, he’d simply avoid class reunions.

However, dealing with relatives was a bit more troublesome; he couldn’t just hang up on them. He had to declare over and over that he was "really just sweeping streets at the Heavenly Lotus Academy" before he could refuse their requests to get their children into the academy.

After he hung up the phone, a few college classmates he hadn’t spoken to much before sent him private messages on WeChat.

It truly is a case of ’poor in the bustling city, no one asks; once you start cultivation, the whole world knows,’ he thought.

The reason for this sudden surge in attention over the past few days was because the government had stopped beating around the bush two days prior. They officially announced the establishment of the Practitioners’ Academy and had official channels in the Mysterious Country and Japan echo the statement, confirming that "scientists have recently discovered a new type of energy, and certain individuals with the Talent can harness this energy to produce various effects."

Although it’s said the public has sharp eyes, most people tend to follow the crowd. They were very curious about cultivation and transcendent matters, but as long as they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes and there was no official confirmation, they would only consider it fodder for after-dinner conversation.

After all, televisions had entered thousands of households, and everyone had received compulsory education, developing a relatively systematic scientific worldview.

Some might believe in gods and Buddhas and might be afraid to use the bathroom at night for fear of Ghosts... but if you told them that their relatives, classmates, or colleagues might start cultivation at any time, that would seem far-fetched.

Because gods, Buddhas, and Ghosts cannot be disproven, but mortal cultivation could be.

However, now the government had spoken. People might criticize the government for its shortcomings and lament declining public trust, but they also had brains. They knew the government wouldn’t announce something so frivolous, something like a fictional setting that could overturn their entire worldview.

Therefore, except for a very small number of stubborn individuals, most people believed the official statement. They were convinced that the future would definitely be an era of Transcendents. After all, if only a few people could gain abilities, the government would likely keep it hidden. Only an irresistible trend would compel the government to make such a public announcement.

Ren Suo clicked into WeChat and saw that someone had forwarded a piece of news. The gist of it was that the Pacific Federation had also announced the existence of "Mysterious Energy."

The next few days are probably going to be an explosion of major news around the world...

Mysterious Country and the Pacific Federation both declared the existence of Spiritual Energy. This was clearly because they were ready to usher in the era of Spiritual Energy. Furthermore, the related cultivation facilities within their countries had become too large to continue hiding and had to be revealed.

Other smaller countries might not be ready yet, but with the two big nations taking a stand, they naturally had to follow suit and establish institutions for nurturing Transcendents.

The world had started to move forward.

Ren Suo also had to continue to work hard.

Using the Hell 4 Game Controller, Ren Suo prepared to continue playing "Devouring the Spirit of the World," letting the Nine-Tailed Fox search for powerful Spiritual Objects hidden in Tokyo.

However, when the main interface appeared, Ren Suo heard a DING DONG, and a notification in the upper left corner indicated he had received a new message.

"’Jedi Priest version 1.10 has finished updating.’"

At that moment, the ’download’ icon that had been flickering for "Jedi Priest" had finally disappeared.

"Huh?"

Ren Suo was stunned for a moment and subconsciously selected "Jedi Priest" to play.

Just then, a system prompt popped up—

"’Dear player, we regret to inform you that due to the addition of reward-based mini-quests, the game ’Jedi Priest’ ver1.10 now has a minimum player restriction: Level 3 Players. You cannot play this game. Please increase your Level before attempting to play.’"

That was infuriating. Ren Suo was completely bewildered by this prompt.

What kind of crappy game is this? It automatically updates, fine. But after updating, it tells me my player Level isn’t high enough to play it!? Can this game actually look down on its players!?