Chapter 21: Solo Cultivation

Zach rushed to the church and saw Kayden and Shay were waiting for him.

“I was about to send you a message to ask what’s taking you so long,” Kayden informed Zach and closed his menu. He then pointed his gaze at the female NPC healer standing below a statue inside the church and said, “Go get yourself healed.”

‘I am already healed. But I guess I will pretend to get healed.’ Zach thought and entered the church.

“They charge ten coins for 1 HP, by the way!” Kayden shouted, knowing how corny Zach was when it was something related to money.

Zach stood in front of the NPC and said, “Can you pretend to heal me?”

The NPC looked into Zach’s eyes and uttered, “What brings you here, my lord?”

Confused, Zach raised his brows and asked, “What?”

“You are not one of the gods?” she asked with a curious yet calm look on her face.

“Um, do I look like one?”

The NPC inspected Zach from head to toe with her eyes and placed her hand on her chin. “Now that I look closely, you don’t seem like one.”

“You do have a physique of one, but you are not a true god,” she added.

“Thanks for the chit-chat. I will leave now.” Zach left the church and went to the inn with Shay and Kayden.

“It’s good that we booked our rooms before we left for the dungeon. Otherwise, we would have to sleep in the garden, forest, or streets like more than half of the players,” Kayden remarked.

“Although the room charge is 500 coins per night, it’s still better than sleeping like a homeless person,” Shay added.

“Uhh… Kayden, Shay. I have something to talk to you guys,” Zach uttered.

“What is it?” Kayden wondered with a curious look on his face.

“What are we doing tomorrow?”

Kayden was about to reply, but Shay quipped: “Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“We are stuck in this game for only seven days. So we will wait for the six days to pass and log out,” Shay shrugged.

Zach and Kayden glanced at each other with troubled expressions on their faces after realizing Shay was still ignorant about the fact that they were truly trapped in a game.

“Shay…” Kayden placed his hand on Shay’s shoulder and said, “Don’t you think everything the black slime said was true?”

“Hah! Since when did you start believing in all that bullshit about gods and stuff? They don’t exist! And if the developer of this game truly has a god complex, then he will get arrested sooner or later. Don’t worry about it. Let’s all just enjoy the remaining six days and have fun.”

Zach walked past Shay and Kayden and said, “I have something to do tomorrow. See you guys later.”

Zach entered his room and sat on the bed. He sighed and uttered, “I guess I will be playing alone then.”

Zach opened his menu and saw his stats.

“Hmm. My MP has automatically refilled to 10.” He opened the information tab and read more about MP regeneration.

The standard MP refill was 1 MP every ten minutes, so 6 MP per hour. However, the MP refill was faster when the player was sleeping or resting; that was 1 MP every three minutes, so 20 MP per hour.

“The default MP of all the players is 100, so five hours of sleep would refill their MP to the max,” Zach muttered and read more.

“The MP usage is calculated nicely. And the refill time is based on the player’s level. The limited MP and refill time would stop the players from grinding all day and night.”

That was the reason why this game had an option for a secondary class. If the player had only one class, they would be doomed if they ran out of MP in the middle of a battle. However, the players were allowed to use their HP as MP in an emergency.

“Why would gods consider about mortals? Don’t they want us all to die?” Zach wondered. “Or are they giving us a second chance to survive and beat this game?”

Zach then read about the realms systems and the requirement to ascend to the higher realms. The players had to meet two conditions to ascend to the respective higher realms. One was their physique, and another was their level. After evolving to a certain physique and meeting the level requirement, the player could ascend to the higher realm.

“I don’t have to worry about my physique as it is already maxed. So now, I only need to focus on leveling up.”

Zach closed his eyes and sat in a lotus position to start cultivating. He cultivated for about 10 minutes and stopped to check the increase in his MP.

“It’s 70. So I cultivated 60 MP in 10 minutes. If I cultivate for three hours daily, I can have over 1000MP, excluding the rest of the MP I might get from resting.”

After pondering for a while, he muttered, “That’s enough to deal more than 100,000 HP DMG to the monsters. If I work on my techniques and get better equipment, I can ace this game in no time.”

What a way to raise an unwanted flag.

Zach wanted to cultivate for three hours, but he fell asleep after cultivating for one hour. He was exhausted as he hadn’t taken a rest after clearing ten floors and fighting with the crazy girl Aria. So it was astonishing that he was able to cultivate even for one hour.

Seven hours later, Zach woke up with a severe headache. He opened his eyes and sat up.

“Why didn’t Zoe come to wake me up?” He glanced around and remembered what had happened yesterday.

“Right…” He groaned and muttered, “I should get used to waking up alone.”

[Congratulations! You have unlocked a new cultivation technique!]

Zach opened his menu to learn more about the technique.

«Heavenly Rank Technique- Sleep Cultivation.»

«Benefits- You can cultivate 1 MP per minute while sleeping.»

“That’s an extra 60 MP per hour. I am getting triple MP compared to other players, and with my infinite MP points… I can become limitless.”

“Was this technique active while I was sleeping? Or I got it after waking up?” Zach wondered and opened his stat to check the increase in MP.

“It’s 570. So I guess it wasn’t active before….” Zach had no idea his current MP was the highest among all the players.

He opened his friend list and messaged Aurora: [Meet me at the gazebo after 30 minutes.]

****

Total players in the game 52254.

6754 new players logged in.

972 players died.

=====

[Weekly target.]

«150 power stones- 1 chapter.» (not Reached)

«200 power stones – 2 chapters.» (not Reached)

====

Author’s Note- If anyone is reading this book, leave a review.