Alex walked out of the palace hall and walked along the white corridor with the new information running through his mind.

The sword that he was unable to use for the longest time belonged to the royal family of the Eastern Continent, the royal family being antagonistic towards Pearl and his mother for some reason, and the fact that he had a teleportation talisman that could help him leave so long as it was active again.

These were all information that he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. At least, they were information about stuff that was way out of his reach for him right now.

“Sigh, I should just go back and wait for the alchemy room to be made. There really is nothing to do around here, isn’t it? I can’t even visit the library,” Alex thought.

“Well, since it’s still afternoon, I should just go and— Huh?” Alex was surprised when he noticed something.

“It happened again?” he said with a face full of shock. He looked at the time on the right and had noticed that it was now 4 in the afternoon.

“But it was barely noon when I entered that room. How did the time— oh right, the Palace Hall did have time dilation formation in it,” Alex thought as he remembered. “Damn, is it always like this? I should be careful where I go then.”

Alex was still in shock at the time changing, so he quickly went back to the room that was assigned to him, and logged out.

He went out of the capsule and checked the time. As expected, it was indeed 4 pm. “Wow, how did the change in time in the game affect me in the real world as well?” he wondered.

He wasn’t hungry or needed to use the bathroom, so he quickly went back into the capsule and logged in.

While the change in time had surprised him once more, he decided to do something else to take his mind off of them.

He brought out a monster core, one belonging to that of a Mind Tempering 4th realm beast, and consumed it.

After reaching Mind Tempering, the beasts seemed to always have a soul in the cores regardless of which ones he had.

Still, Alex’s own spiritual sea was far stronger than what the Mind Tempering beasts could really be, so he had no difficulty in killing it.

The spiritual sea beneath him was so vast and dense, that he could keep on using techniques after techniques and it wouldn’t deplete in the slightest.

After killing the beast in his spiritual sea, the yellow fog once more consumed both him and the beast, and he got the Qi from the beast.

“I finally have enough to break through to the next realm huh?” he thought. “Although, it wasn’t very long ago that I did breakthrough, so I probably should wait a little longer.”

Alex decided to keep the breakthrough aside for now, and checked his storage bags. There was 1 more 4th Mind Tempering realm beast’s core, and another one belonging to a 5th Mind Tempering realm beast.

Since he had gone to the forest for hunting when he only had Mind Tempering 1st realm cultivation base, he couldn’t kill anything stronger than those at the time. Thus, these were the highest cores he had for now.

“Sigh, these should help me get to the 5th Mind Tempering realm, but after that, I will be in trouble,” Alex thought. “Collecting Qi through normal cultivation will take me months. Even with using pills to assist in it. Sigh, no wonder the everyday cultivators cultivate so slow.”

The normal cultivators could do the exact same thing the players did. That was to sell what they can gather through trade or hunting, and buy themselves pills that increased their Qi.

Alex couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t do that. There must be a reason why only players could increase their cultivation base so fast, despite the normal cultivators having a headstart.

“Is using pills to get stronger considered wrong? It couldn’t be that they just never thought about it, right?” Alex thought. “I should have asked the master what would happen if people only consumed pills to breakthrough.”

“Now that I think about it, I might have to do the same thing, won’t I?” he thought. However, he immediately thought otherwise. “No, as a Mind Tempering realm cultivator, pills won’t help me as monster cores will. I will still have to stick to the cores, I guess.”

With nothing else to do, Alex called out Pearl and got onto his bed. He let Pearl start cultivating, and slowly, he too started doing it.

Before he knew it, he had fallen into a trance and fell unconscious.

Slowly, his consciousness returned back to him as he woke up from sleep. He looked up at the time and realized that it was 6 am in morning.

His True Qi had returned to him at 50% once more and he could feel himself getting just a little bit stronger.

“I should go train a bit so that I can breakthrough again,” he thought.

“Ah right, if someone comes, open the door and tell them I am cultivating, okay? If the person who came is any of the 4 from yesterday, then you can leave with them,” Alex said to Pearl.

He didn’t take Pearl back into the beast space since no one was possibly going to harm him in this place. Then, sat in his cultivating position and logged out.

He got out of the capsule and freshened up before going out to the kitchen. Emily was already up, preparing breakfast for them all.

“You know you don’t have to wake up this early to make us breakfast right? We can just have cereals,” Alex said.

“Nonsense! Cereals are bad for you. It’s better to have bread and eggs,” she said.

“Yeah, but you could play the game for a little longer. No need to leave, what is it, 6 in the morning. You need more sleep,” Alex said.

Emily stopped after putting the bread in the toaster and sighed. “I have nothing to do in the game, unfortunately,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She turned around and said, “well, since I have a really bad body and talent and almost unusable spiritual root, I can’t really cultivate at all. Despite it being months, I’m still in the Bone Tempering realm.”

“Wow, that is really slow. Is your cultivation method not very good?” he asked. As far as he knew, even with bad talents, one could cultivate fast if they landed a very good cultivation method.

“Uh, it’s not bad I guess,” Emily said. “It’s heaven grade, so I really can’t call it anything but good. However, due to me not having any talent, most of the Qi I collect gets wasted during my breakthroughs.”

“Like the last time I went from Bone Tempering 3rd realm to Bone Tempering 4th realm, it took me 3 different tries. I only had a 65% success rate. From 4th to 5th, I have around 62% success rate, so it will take me another long while.”

“Sigh, don’t do what I did, and never die in-game. It just ruins everything. I might actually end up not playing the game anymore,” she said. “But… the holidays are coming and I have nothing else to do for now. I think I will stop playing the game when the classes come back a month later.”

“If they do come, right?” Alex asked. “Wasn’t there that rumor of the university going to close for 2 to 3 months due to the game? I wonder if that is true.”

“I hope not. Otherwise, I would have nothing else to do for the entirety of the winter vacation,” she said.

“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that. Given where I am, I might actually end up not playing the game a whole lot in the future either,” Alex said.

“Oh, what happened?” she asked.

“Well, I’m in this jungle with beasts that say they will keep me there for 10 years, so I think this is it for me too. Unless I manage to find a way back or convince them to let me go back,” Alex said.

“That’s awful. You were doing so well in the game too,” Emily said. “Well, I guess you will now have time to focus on your studies, instead of the game.”

“Uhh… about that,” Alex said. “I am going to drop out of University.”

“Drop out? Why?” Emily asked.

Alex shrugged. “You know why. I don’t really need the classes,” he said.

“Huh? What did I just hear?” Sarah said as she walked into the kitchen. “You’re going to drop out? You must be earning a lot of money then.”

Alex got a little embarrassed to talk about his money, but still said, “something like that.”

“Woah,” Sarah said. “I was kind of joking. Are you really earning a lot? How much do you earn?”

“Sarah, that’s not something you should be asking so openly,” Emily said from the side.

“What? You’re siding with him now? Does our years-long friendship mean nothing to you now?” Sarah exaggerated.

“Haha, it’s not bad. Let’s just say that,” Alex asked.

“Oh, must be in the high hundred thousand then. How much do you end up returning though?” Sarah asked.

“Returning?” Alex questioned.

“You know, putting back into the game. Returning the money,” she said.

“Umm, why would I give money back to the game?” Alex asked.

“Uh, you know. To buy stuff, get spirit stones for cultivation. Wait, have you not put the money back into the game yet?” she asked.

“Of course not. I’m self-sufficient in-game,” Alex said.

“Tsk, no wonder you make so much. I always end up giving back half of what I make because I always need it,” Sarah said.

“You should be like me, Sarah. Get yourself a husband in-game who can give you stuff for free,” Hannah entered and jokingly said.

“Damn, why is your timing so right? Also, your brother is dropping out of college. Say something to him,” Sarah said.

“Oh, you’re dropping out? You lasted quite a while longer than I imagined,” Hannah said.

“Huh? You expected me to drop out earlier?” Alex asked.

“Yeah. I only stayed cause it was my final semester. You had barely just started, so I thought you would simply leave. Especially given that you have no money involved in it,” Hannah said.

“Hm, I guess that’s fair,” Sarah said from the side.

“Alright, let’s stop the discussion here. I might have something to do in the game soon, so I should return quickly for now,” Alex said and started eating faster.

The rest of them did the same thing and left the kitchen to go back to their room.