Qiu Yunru trained like this every day--being hounded by a cruel game system, and slowly crawling his way up the points scale. The days stretched into weeks, and the weeks into months.
The system seemed to want to make his life harder in every single way as time passed--after that first day, the rewards for "REQUIRED LEVELS" decreased to 5 points, then to 3, then to 2. Qiu Yunru actually went partway down the mountain and screamed into the trees for a while because of this. He was afraid that soon enough the system would stop granting him points at all for his suffering, and only threaten him with these ridiculous numbers--(-100 Martial Talent! -200 Cultivation ! Quest Failure Imminent), but the system seemed to have reached its Max Cruelty Limit and stayed at 2 points per quest success after that.
Being a person who hated exercising, Qiu Yunru really wasn't sure how he'd survived to this point without getting into the negative hundreds and thousands of points. Somehow, every time, he barely managed to pull through. Every time he managed to stay at the front of the running group, every time he managed to skip break at sword practice, it became somehow a little easier. If you've done something before, doesn't it become easier to know you can do it again?
Still, it was painful. Qiu Yunru couldn't help but feel he was being controlled by a trickster god who was making him dance for entertainment. If this was the true nature of the Spring Blossoms, Autumn Fruits AI when it was unleashed from the regular coding constraints, this AI was truly...What could he even call it?
He wanted to find its physical form and beat it over the head with a chair until it begged him for mercy!
One thing that helped him get through the pain, besides the fact that his body and mind were growing strong, was the hot and cold springs. Every day after training, he would melt into one or the other and lie there until his muscles deknotted. Pan Fa, like a puppy, would follow him there and do the same, yapping his ear off all the way. Still, Qiu Yunru could never bring himself to snap at Pan Fa to shut up. Every time he opened his mouth to beg for quiet, Pan Fa's shining puppy eyes would gaze at him with admiration, and he would shut his mouth and sink deeper into the spring.
In this way, training daily and recovering in the springs, Qiu Yunru became quite strong.
One day, he checked his stats menu, and his chest swelled with satisfaction: 375 Cultivation, 489 Martial Talent, and 186 Reputation. This was quite a good build ratio. Of course, his Reputation increase had evened out once he became a regular at the sect.
He had also become incredibly agile. It had been a strange feeling at first. Having lived in a body that couldn't move well without pain in his past life, being able to run fast and jump high felt odd and scary. But it had been over half a year; he'd grown used to it. Even jumping up onto a low roof with some effort was normal to him! He couldn't help but feel self-satisfied. Wasn't it cool to be able to do such a thing?
In all this time, however, one thing kept bothering him from time to time: that damn inventory menu!
Though it happened less often, every once in a while, he would be drifting off into sleep...only to be rudely awakened by the glitching blue blink of the cruel menu, insisting he stare at the Entry Pass to Jin He City's Li Mansion. He had tried everything--clicking on it, deleting it, messing with the menu...But there was nothing he could do. He even thought about going back to Jin He City just to check for extra quests, but that wasn't really something he could do. It was customary for new disciples to spend at least a full year in training on the mountain before going back down the mountain again for any reason.
Another custom of the Jade Clouds Sect was that, after reaching Foundation Building, each disciple would be given an opportunity to cultivate in seclusion at the Lan Bing Caves--caves carved into the top of Li Hua Mountain that were rich with spiritual energy, making them a prime location for boosting one's cultivation into the Core Formation stage.
Having recently reached Foundation Building, Qiu Yunru was scheduled to go into the caves soon, along with Lei Ruolan. She had reached Foundation Building a month before him, but their Shizun had apologetically informed her that disciples were only sent to the caves in minimum groups of three--that way, if anyone experienced a qi deviation, there would be someone to go and get help. This had, of course, only worsened an already frosty relationship between Qiu Yunru and Lei Ruolan. One day, she cornered him behind the herb storage, grabbing his collar. Qiu Yunru knew by now that this was her signature move--grab the collar, stand tall, and make the other person cower and beg for forgiveness just from a glare!
"You," She snarled, shaking him a little. Qiu Yunru felt like a leaf, being manhandled like this! Even now, she still managed to be stronger than him. "You'd better hurry up."
"Hurry up...?" Qiu Yunru said weakly. Hurry up and leave the sect? Hurry up and die? Some clarification, please!"
She glared. "Hurry up and establish a foundation, you idiot! Foundation Establishment. You're almost there, aren't you? Hurry up and get there, or I'll beat your ass."
In reality, Lei Ruolan had never beat his ass outside of martial training, but this threat still made Qiu Yunru sweat.
He swallowed dryly, understanding her words. It was true. At the time, he had been close to a breakthrough from Qi Condensation. Lei Ruolan had just broken through, along with another NPC disciple. It was rumored that she'd thrown a fit after being denied immediate access to the Lan Bing Caves--going down the mountain to hunt beasts, beating training dummies into dilapidation, throwing knives into her dorm wall and terrifying her neighbors. Thus, it was clear what she wanted. "Ah...Yes. This shidi will...surely get to Foundation Establishment soon so Lei-shijie can get to the caves."
"By next month!" She shook him again menacingly. "Or I'll beat your ass!"
Qiu Yunru wiped sweat off his brow. "Yes, shijie." Then she'd stormed off and left him there, sweating puddles and wondering if she would really follow through on her threat this time if he failed.
Thankfully, he didn't.
Just a few weeks later, during cultivation training, Qiu Yunru's spiritual energy flooded into a fluid-like form, marking his achievement of Foundation Establishment.
Congratulations! Foundation Establishment Achieved! Sword Riding and Basic Cultivation Techniques Unlocked. 150 Years Added to Lifespan!
Qiu Yunru had internally high-fived himself. This was the first true step towards a peaceful immortal life--beginning to become immortal! Once he achieved a Golden Core, he would truly be on the path to peaceful immortality.