145: The era of universal evil cultivation has arrived

Midnight Gao Sou looked at the comments, feeling lost.

He knew that before the VR era, in traditional games, players killing each other was too normal, and slaughtering NPCs was even more commonplace. After all, they were just textures and models, nothing to care about.

But after the VR era began, as modeling became more refined and the five senses became more realistic, various killings became a burden.

At least Midnight Gao Sou felt burdened.

He thought that others were like him, believing that the virtual world was also a world, and every person in it was a vivid life that needed consideration.

But now he found that everyone else only treated the Xuanhuan World as a game, and the people inside were just strings of code.

Getting stronger by killing people, in the real world, is a terrifying thing, anti-human, and something everyone would condemn.

But in the game world, it was too common.

Even if players deep down were indeed conflicted and hesitant about it, they would still act mercilessly if truly prompted, because inner hesitation was meaningless, and concrete actions would yield game numerical rewards.

Would a game reward you for your inner Dao of morality? That's simply impossible.

This was a truth Midnight Gao Sou only now understood.

“It's just a game…”

Midnight Gao Sou gave a bitter smile, “Why do I feel like a clown?”

Just then, the phone rang; it was Old Potato calling:

“Gao Sou, our Great Love Sect is completely famous this time! Holy cow, the number of people signing up is unbelievably high!

“Also, several large companies want to sponsor us, investing a lot of money, but they hope you can come forward and release a video, announcing that you have indeed achieved Immortal Foundation, and are willing to pass on your Cultivation Technique to the Core Disciples of the Great Love Sect. They believe this is the core of our Great Love Sect's competitiveness!

“Right now, among all player factions, only we possess a super-efficient evil Cultivation Technique. This is our big advantage!

“Gao Sou, are you listening?”

Midnight Gao Sou was stunned, a bitter expression on his face, and he asked hesitantly:

“When you kill people in the Xuanhuan World, do you really not feel… troubled?”

He thought for a long time but couldn't find a suitable word. 'Guilt' was too heavy, 'hesitation' too light, so he finally settled on 'troubled'.

“Troubled? It's very troubling when you can't win.”

Old Potato laughed heartily: “Gao Sou, how many years have we been playing games? Isn't killing people in online games commonplace? There are tons of people who block Newbie Village and massacre others.”

Midnight Gao Sou was silent for a moment: “But the Xuanhuan World is different. It’s too real here. Everyone is like a living being, with their own stories, their own lives, their own…”

“Stop, stop, stop.”

Old Potato interrupted directly: “Alright, I acknowledge what you’re saying. When killing NPCs, there might be some trouble, always feeling like you’ve lost a side quest or missed some reward.”

“That's not what I mean…”

“But what if it's killing players? You should know that while player soul transmigration has limitations, and you can't soul transmigrate again after too many times in one area, physical transmigration has no limits; everyone can restart infinitely. Your evil Cultivation Technique requires corpses, right? Then wouldn't players be able to provide an endless supply of corpses? Without any psychological burden.”

Midnight Gao Sou was also suddenly stunned.

As a popular streamer, and now a game UP host, he had played many games, but most were single-player games, many of them story-driven. He rarely played multiplayer online games, especially those competitive games that encouraged player competition and killing.

So he found it hard to understand the thoughts of Old Potato and others, and he fell into a moment of silence.

After thinking for a while, he finally nodded: “I will release a video, but whether to announce it… we’ll see.”

…The players of the Xuanhuan World waited anxiously for the Great Love Sect's response.

Many low-level players, upon hearing about the evil Cultivation Technique, had their eyes light up, as if they had grasped a life-saving straw, eager to switch to evil methods.

Because before this, killing people and seizing treasures in the Xuanhuan World indeed yielded benefits, but the benefits were only reflected in resource acquisition. How to convert resources into concrete cultivation varied from person to person.

If the plunder only yielded Spirit Stones, it looked good, but in reality, one still had to find ways to spend them to exchange for specific Medicinal Pills, and also find suitable Cultivation Techniques, and then figure out how to obtain suitable Immortal Qi.

Sometimes, for a complete Immortal Foundation Method, one had to travel across the four great nations, constantly bartering, to find a wisp of Immortal Qi, and even then, the possibility of achieving Immortal Foundation was pitifully small.

For even more players, let alone Immortal Foundation, Qi Refining was incredibly difficult, often getting stuck in the lowest-level “Spirit Nurturing Stage.”

During the Spirit Nurturing Stage, they simply had no strength to kill Cultivators, much less seize resources from them, thus falling into a vicious cycle where they couldn't Breakthrough even when their Lifespan ran out.

But now, they saw another path: evil Cultivators could level up by killing Cultivators, and also by killing Mortals!

If I can't beat a Cultivator, can't I beat a Mortal?

Didn't Midnight Gao Sou achieve Immortal Foundation by slaughtering a bunch of Mortals?

Amidst everyone's anticipation, Midnight Gao Sou finally released the video.

The video showed the Great Love Sect mountain in the Xuanhuan World, with him sitting upright in a secluded Immortal Cave.

“Regarding the recent matter of the evil Cultivation Technique, I, Midnight Gao Sou, hereby offer an explanation—

“The evil Cultivation Technique is indeed real.”

Although it was a newly released video, the number of bullet comments surged at a visible speed. Almost all players suffering in the Xuanhuan World poured in, looking hopefully at this only possible path to turn their fortunes around.

Midnight Gao Sou hesitated, but under the financial backing of the sponsors, he still spoke:

“Starting today, my Great Love Sect's Core Disciples will receive the Legacy of the Fifth-Grade Cultivation Technique, Righteous Aura Scripture. This is an evil Cultivation Technique that can make one's cultivation advance by leaps and bounds. It can be strengthened by slaughtering Mortals, plundering their blood Qi, and refining their corpses. It is a rare treasure.

“And to best utilize such a Cultivation Technique, you need a stable network environment…”

With that, Midnight Gao Sou read out the sponsor for this video, a small accelerator manufacturer that only sponsored this particular video. More large companies, however, sponsored the entire Great Love Sect, clearly aiming to build a new propaganda base in the Xuanhuan World.

And their sponsorship was valuable, because after today, more and more players joined the Great Love Sect, entering the Immortal Caves filled with advertisements, and then answering questionnaires about the manufacturers to meet the basic requirements for Core Disciples.

Midnight Gao Sou still had some hesitation in his heart, so he set many thresholds for the assessment of Core Disciples, hoping to reduce the number of players.

Unfortunately, when the first player successfully obtained the Righteous Aura Scripture, although it didn't directly spread to the entire player community, it did spread rapidly within the Great Love Sect.

The era of evil Cultivators everywhere was finally coming…