Chapter 72

6.1 – It was once again an eye-catching tragedy

After experiencing numerous deaths, Xue Ling had learned to deal with the feelings left over from the previous world before arriving at the next world. After all the superfluous thoughts were cleared out, he became much more accepting towards the new world, and would not be as easily stimulated by the new plot.

Nevertheless, Xue Ling was still angry when he opened his eyes.

Oh, it couldn’t be considered as opening his eyes. He didn’t even have a physical body right now, and was floating in the network as a bunch of code and data.

The system that had fully integrated into the network system appeared as a small fox and pleaded with its host, “Didn’t we already discuss giving lord host the opportunity to practice?”

“Practice?”

“Yes, changing from data to human form is also a form of practice.”

“… This also counts?”

“It’s the same. Imagine your own appearance, and then slowly, bit by bit, build up your body’s details. Be careful not to make any mistakes, otherwise we will have to rewind and start over, and if the main server finds out, it’ll be game over.”

As soon as it spoke, the cluster of data in front of it began to change. The code seemed to rotate around him like it was blown up by the wind, and very soon, a person appeared before it.

The system was a bit confused. It hadn’t expected its host to be able to put its words into practice right away. Heaven knows that it had still been talking, and hadn’t told him to go ahead and start! They hadn’t even gotten the plot yet, and its host had already created his body. What if it didn’t match up with the plot?

Oh… They had never been in line with the plot anyway.

He was still made out of virtual data, but looking at him gave the system a particularly realistic feeling. Previously, he had always appeared as a soul, and because his strength was not condensed, Xue Ling seldom showed his true face. Now, its host was showing his true appearance for the first time.

The feeling was difficult to describe. The system had seen all kinds of beauty on its host, but when it saw the face that that pair of eyes truly belonged to, it was left speechless. Clearly they were only pieces of data, and it would be able to see even if it covered its eyes, but it still lifted its paws to block its eyes in a moment of shyness.

The person in front of it had nine beautiful tails waving behind him, long silver hair that stirred on its own even without a breeze, and was wearing a white robe. He appeared like an elegant and modest gentleman, but when one met his eyes, the word ‘gentleman’ would be thrown out the window in an instant.

This was a demon.

Yes, the type that could destroy countries and bring about calamities.

He had a pair of slightly slanted fox eyes, and eyebrows that tilted upwards. Perhaps due to the influence of his wilful and capricious disposition, his entire person looked a little uninhibited. His thin lips were extremely red, and also reflected his indifferent and fickle nature. The tear moles at the corners of his eyes were like ornaments, adding the finishing touches to his face, and making him seem alive instead of like a painted picture. A person like this, with such a face, was still tolerable at a glance, but when he moved and became vividly alive, it would absolutely leave the vast majority of people speechless and breathless in wonder.

It was an extraordinary level of attractiveness that only an extraordinary person would be able to afford.

The system covered its small eyes as it reviewed its host’s body from head to toe, and then spoke in all earnestness, “Host, you were very successful this time. So, do you have time to take a look at the plot?”

Xue Ling stretched out a hand and moved. It felt very good to have his own body back again. Although it was only composed of data, it still made him happy. “Plot? Am I not myself in this world?

“No… Although you’re completely out of sync now…”

“Fine, send over the plot and my identity.”

Perhaps because he was within an ocean of data, the transmission process was very simple, and Xue Ling easily understood what kind of life he was supposed to have led.

It could also not be considered a ‘life’, because he was just a series of data, a bunch of code that had its own thoughts and ideas.

To put it another way, he was an artificial intelligence existence that had not yet been discovered. Although his ability was not high, and still needed to depend on a game in order to exist, he already realized that he was only an illusory thing and was extremely eager to have what he couldn’t possibly have.

For example, a body. Or better yet, love.

This was a game world. To be more precise, it was a holographic virtual reality game.

Currently, the game had not officially opened, which was why all he could see was data code. Only when the game opened up and began to accept gamers would things begin to appear before his eyes, and the link he secretly established to the game would also open.

Star Year 808, Cosmos Baba Game Company developed a holographic online game called ‘Seal the Devil’ that was lauded as second world of mankind. Ever since then, online virtual reality games were no longer a topic of debate and contention and entered an era of unity and acceptance. Countless people regarded online games as a second world, and broke through the barrier dividing games from reality to live in the online world.

Seal the Devil was set in the ancient times, during the Battle of Gods.

———— Opening Chapter: God’s Funeral

During the Battle of Gods, there were countless deaths and injuries. Blood flowed freely, but the number of people who could achieve godhood and become gods was limited. Tens of millions of souls carried grievances in death, and began to stir up trouble over the Divine Land.

The strength of the gods had been greatly affected by the battles, and even those who achieved godhood would require a lot of time and many years to recover their cultivation. In order to ensure that they would have enough time to rest and live on, they had no choice but to seal these grievances in the Abyss of Buried Gods.

Many years later, a young man came out of the Abyss.

Strengthened by his tremendous grievances, he stepped forward and took revenge against the gods!

———— Prologue: Seal the Devil

The land of Jiuzhou was full of spiritual energy. There were countless immortal cultivators aiming to become gods, but the young man who came out of the abyss completely changed the continent.

Countless people had fallen and died, and now the mainland was divided into two camps.

In Ninth Heaven, the youth who had killed the Divine Emperor wiped the blood off his face and laughed wildly. “You all can become gods, but I can seal the devil, and can also become a devil!”

The land of Jiuzhou experienced a tremendous shock, and demonic sects came out one after another, which lasted for thousands of years.

The Battle of Devils.

————

These were the two pieces of information that Xue Ling could retrieve from the game. It was also the only two scenes provided to the players when they entered the game. Only, players would be able to experience the scene, while Xue Ling read simple text descriptions.

The game would be ready in two days, and a soul from the twenty-first century would also transmigrate into the world on the same day.

In this world, there was a way to revive a brain-dead person. It could be done by re-stimulating the soul to wake up through the game and then re-integrate it back into the body. The protagonist was a lonely soul from the 21st century. In order to survive, he swallowed up the soul that originally resided in the body, occupied it, and then entered the game through the treatment that the owner of this body’s family had fought hard to obtain for him, starting his journey of rehabilitation.

He would not show up until two days after the game opened up. At that time, the protagonist gong had already become the first to leave the novice village and was the top ranked player in the player listings.

In this kind of virtual reality game, as the protagonist shou’s biggest golden finger, the little protagonist gong naturally had to be the most powerful existence in the game. If he wasn’t a great god with extraordinary skill, he would be a well-known Renmenbi player. The protagonist gong in this story was a combination of the two. He was an existence who was rich, handsome, and played with a group of brothers; wherever he went, he was hailed as a god.

As for the protagonist shou, he was a little beginner who had never played any virtual games before.

The combination of a clueless beginner and a god followed the typical nurturing plot style, and the storyline was happy and sentimental. They levelled up by beating monsters, had high luck stats, and constantly came across various encounters, special instances, and other good things, making their life in the game very fun and interesting.

The character that Xue Ling had taken over was their fortuitous encounter and luck.

Why did he say that?

To explain, one needed to look at it from the perspective of a string of data. Once there was awareness, one would naturally begin to wonder about it was, where it came from, where it was going to go, and similar philosophical life questions. This string of data had no other experiences; he was naive and instinctively wanted to learn and absorb more things, so he chose to learn from the most powerful person in the game.

He learned from the players and created a game character for himself, chose a race, and then secretly observed the protagonist gong. He learned his habits and behaviour, his words, and his deeds. And in the process of this imitation, he slowly fell in love with the man.

This was really a sad story. The protagonist’s rivals generally never come to a good end, and even if his feelings were buried deep in his heart and never brought to light, this string of data would still be plagued with bad luck.

The string of data constantly wanted to do something for the protagonist in order to express his gratitude, so he secretly modified the code and programming under the main computer’s figurative nose. He improved the protagonist gong’s credibility in the game and did various other things to help them trigger more hidden tasks and secret instances. Because of his actions, the protagonists’ group came to the notice of the main computer. This world also had other virtual existences; the main computer considered him to be a virus that needed to be formatted. Only, it was constantly unable to catch him.

In order to achieve its goal, the main computer and the protagonist shou made a deal, and it told him about the string of data’s identity. The protagonist had originally already been concerned about his existence, and after learning that he was only data and not human, he agreed to the main computer’s request and used the protagonist gong’s name to draw him out.

This led to an intelligence, a thought, or more accurately, a person, disappearing completely from the world.

Xue Ling flipped through his life experience and felt that it was quite a tragedy. The string of data had not even had his own name, only a game name, and his in-game-name had also been quite amusing.

He had belonged to the demon race in the game, and was a snow fox demon. His ID had been ‘Snow Fox’, and that name, which could not even be considered a code name, accompanied him for his entire life, until he had been formatted.

Xue Ling narrowed his eyes and said, “So, it was the game’s main computer that killed him in the end? Does the main computer also have its own intelligence and self-awareness?”

“According to my judgment, yes, but that intelligence does not have full independence as it is under the control of the game company. Although he is the absolute king in the game, he is not free.”

“Then why did he have to destroy the string of data?”

“He did not consider the original existence within the string of data as intelligent, and because of some other reasons, he just thought that it was a virus.” The system spoke slowly. “This game does have a virus that is comparable to the main computer, but it was definitely not host’s original string of data. It was only a sacrificial victim in the game between the main computer and the virus, and also the victim of the relationship between the protagonist gong and the protagonist shou.”

“Huh? What kind of sacrificial victim?

“After its disappearance was noticed by the protagonist gong, he went and asked the protagonist shou about it and learned that it had actually been a string of data. The protagonist gong did not believe that such an existence should not exist, but then the shou became angry.” The system paused for a moment before going on to say, “The protagonist shou’s original words were, ‘So you care more about virtual things than me, who is real?!” After their quarrel, they met up in real life and their relationship deepened.

“Ha-ha.” Xue Ling silently mourned for the former owner of this piece of code for a while. It had died so silently, with nobody knowing; it was really an eye-catching tragedy.

But it didn’t matter. Even if it was even more tragic, he would help it get its revenge.

Only, it would probably never appear again, and had no way of seeing it happen.

New arc! I’m so excited – i really enjoyed this one. There are three things that probably need to be explained before we go further into this arc:

封 Seal – ‘sealing’ is a word that has several english meanings. one is to ‘seal’, obviously, in the context of sealing something up and closing it up. another way to look at it is to consider the ‘seal’ as a ‘stamp’ (kinda) and its more like bestowing/becoming something. so, Seal the Devil has two meanings. one is to seal it away, and the other is to become a devil.

魔 Devil & 妖 Demon – this is a distinction that english also doesn’t cover very well (or at least in the context of this novel?) since devils and demons are relatively similar in the english language. some translators use the word ‘monster’ for 妖 rather than ‘demon’, but i didn’t do that in WTMT because Xue Ling is a fox demon (seduction and all) and not a fox monster/beast. demons in this context are neutral, not ‘evil’ or ‘bad’, and generally just refer to beings that started off as non-human and cultivated their way into human form. this also means that in this arc where genuine devils exist, it might become a bit confusing… just remember that devils and demons are not the same thing!

game ‘cultivation’ setting – i’m not the most well-read on genuine chinese cultivation lore, but in this game setting, there are two preset cultivation paths, the righteous path (the typical cultivating to become an immortal) and devil’s path (cultivating to become a devil). the important thing to keep in mind is that cultivating along the path does not necessarily mean that one has truly become an immortal or a devil. the youth in the prologue achieved it and became a true devil, and the gods in the Battle of Gods also became true gods, but the players in the game don’t reach that level of awesomeness just because they’re cultivating on their chosen path.

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