Question
"These terms are acceptable," Zhang Chun Wu responded , "but why would you want knowledge about this wor-"
Suddenly, he was struck by enlightenment. He recalled that the every time he had questioned William's identity, William had resolutely declared that he wasn't a demonic creature.
William's dialect had been strange, and his mannerisms had been stranger, but Zhang Chun Wu had chalked that up to his identity as a demon. He's never seen a demon before, of course, but even he has heard stories of their ferociousness and brutality.
However, even the stupidest demon would have known about cultivation levels after reaching their Form Transcendence stage, how could there be a demonic beast as stupid as William?
"Don't tell me you really are a ghost?" Zhang Chun Wu asked in disbelief. Remembering the moments after he had woken up, Zhang Chun Wu recalled that William had mentioned that he died from a lightning bolt in passing.
"Took you long enough to figure out." William complained. Although the body that he resided in looked quite sensible, he couldn't help but feel that the other soul in there was a tad slow.
"But how? If you were a vengeful spirit, your powers would have decreased dramatically under direct sunlight! You wouldn't have been able to maintain possession in that state!" A vengeful spirit had been among the list of possible creatures that Zhang Chun Wu had originally thought William to be. However, not only did William prove his hypothesis wrong, but within the last few hours, had also disproven most of the other conjectures that Zhang Chun Wu had of his identity.
Firstly, William had willingly stopped possessing his body inside his room at early morning. Creatures and beings in a spiritual state lost a majority of their powers during the day, so they would usually utilize some method to prevent their hosts from escaping their possession before allowing them to walk in direct sunlight.
Zhang Chun Wu, being in the Foundation Building Stage, could clearly sense that William had done nothing of the sort.
Since Zhang Chun Wu had already concluded that William couldn't have been a spirit, he had then assumed that the being in him had used some kind of evil cultivation technique.
The problem with this conjecture was that William had then proceeded to become incredibly furious with the Li family's contempt over a commoner's life.
Being the third grandson of the patriarch of the Zhang Clan, Zhang Chun Wu had naturally seen many kinds of people in his life, and immediately associated his actions with the Righteous Dao Cultivators and the Buddhists of the Enlightenment Gate.
Since Righteous Sect Cultivators practiced morality, they wouldn't possibly utilize a possession-type cultivation technique that the Devilish Dao practitioners used. Buddhists were even less likely to use such cultivation techniques, since their sanscrits emphasized against practicing immoral acts.
Therefore, Zhang Chun Wu had firmly locked into the idea that William had been a demonic beast that had gained sentience and cultivated into a demonic cultivator.
Unfortunately, William had been vehemently denying his identity as a demonic beast, and now seemed to imply that he was in fact, a spirit anyways.
At Zhang Chun Wu's hypothesis, William remained silent. He actually didn't mind telling Zhang Chun Wu that he had been reincarnated from another world, and as the system had implied, he might be exempt from certain heavenly laws.
The problem was that he still didn't know if Zhang Chun Wu's grandfather could drag him out of the body or not, so breaking the secret at the current point seemed to be a risky endeavour. He definitely would not put himself in the situation where others might torture him for information regarding the his home world, so he had to drag Zhang Chun Wu onto his ship first before explaining the whole situation to him.
"Anyways," William said, dodging the question, "why don't I teach you how your artifact works first then eh?" If there was one thing to be excited about, it was probably the prospect of teaching Zhang Chun Wu about the game that William was addicted to.
There was an entire new world out here, and an entire world of people that he could teach the intricacies of the game to. William grew excited just thinking about it.
To his surprise however, Zhang Chun Wu, who was finishing up his meal, rejected him instead.
"Actually, I need to go cultivate right now, we'll have plenty of time to talk about it later." Getting up from the table, Zhang Chun Wu began walking back to his room.
Surprised by the sudden change of pace in the conversation, William stopped for a moment.
"You don't want to learn about your Prime Artifact?" William asked tentatively.
"No, of course I do, just not right now, it's time for me to cultivate". Zhang Chun Wu's response cut away any trace of retort from the hapless William.
"…Your cultivation method requires you to cultivate right after a meal?" Confused, William asked. Weren't people supposed to do their cultivation at night instead of sleeping? What's with this middle of the day meditation?
Hearing the confusion in William's voice, Zhang Chun Wu explained the situation. "It is not that I need to cultivate at this time: since I had previously decided to cultivate now, I shouldn't let other things distract me. Only then can the heart be at peace."
William stared in silence as Zhang Chun Wu entered his room and proceeded to sit down, before remaining in that position.
Even if he hadn't read some of his friend's Wu Xia books, William still had the common sense to not disturb others during training, so instead, he opened back up the mailbox and began to browse through the rules of the Shadow Duel that he has skipped earlier in the morning.
[Welcome to the Shadow Duel Tutorial, Duelist. This tutorial will aid in explaining the rules of the Shadow Duel format.]
A moment later, William saw that the screen had changed into an entirely new interface.
Then, two holographic projections appeared on the screen.
[
[The first rule of a Shadow Duel is that the user must designate an enemy that intends to inflict mental, spiritual, or physical damage to the player or individuals on the player's list of allies. When all designated enemies leave the user's vision, spiritual sense, and a distance of 1 kilometre, or die, the Shadow Duel mode will immediately cease after the user's next turn.]
At this information, William thought of a question. "How does the system designate who is an ally of the user?" He questioned silently, being careful not to startle the meditating Zhang Chun Wu.
[The Allies interface will automatically be unlocked upon the completion of the Shadow Duel Tutorial.]
As William had surmised, the system answered, proving to him that the system could indeed read and answer his thoughts.
[Another Rule of the Shadow Duel Mode is the
[Once an enemy conducts battle with any of the above, the user will automatically begin a turn after a duration of 60 seconds, or if the designated enemy ceases combat.]
[If multiple enemies conduct battle against the user, the user may immediately begin their turn as soon as the second enemy's strike connects with one of the aforementioned targets.]
Reading the system's message, William realized why he had not been allowed to draw again after his first turn in the duel against Li Fei Yuan. Apparently, he hadn't waited enough time before he could begin his new turn.
The system continued.
[Cards that leave the user's sphere of influence will be banished face-down until the end of the Shadow Duel.]
William remembered this one. During the Shadow Duel, Zhang Chun Wu had dropped his cards after regaining control of his body, causing them to disappear. Recalling the event, William realized that he hadn't informed the child about the card's fates yet.
[In Shadow Duel mode, certain Monster, Spell, or Trap cards will have slightly different abilities than what their effects are described as in a Master Duel.]
This sentence immediately caught William's attention. He had been wondering about what the effects of certain cards would be like in a Shadow Duel, since his enemies didn't have access to Yu-Gi-Oh cards like he did.
"Where can I view the Shadow Duel card effects?" William questioned.
Since the Shadow Duel Mode was an actual mode for fighting against non-players, it made sense to William that the system would alter effects of cards that did things like making the opponent draw cards.
[Cards that have their effects altered during the Shadow Duel may only display their altered effects during a Shadow Duel. Please take your time to explore the different card effects, Duelist!]
William almost let out a curse, before realizing Zhang Chun Wu was still cultivating. Still, he was quite annoyed by the system's revelation.
Apparently he was gonna have to test each card to see what it did in a fight.
As he considered his next steps, the system's voice rang out again.
[Thank you for completing the Shadow Duel Tutorial, Duelist. Rewards have been added to the inbox.]
With a golden glow, the last miniature tab beside the mailbox glowed a golden colour, before activating.
Ignoring the allies tab, William went straight to the mailbox to collect his rewards. At the very top of the mailbox, two new unread mail awaited him.
William frowned at the meagre 500 World coins. He had been hoping to receive 2000 like with the beginner tutorial, but it seemed that getting World Coins would not be as easy as he imagined.
He turned to look at the next mail.
William accepted if, and 50 glowing white cards manifested in front of him. He watched as the cards hovered in front of his face, before shooting into the Artifact tab.
"System, what are artifact pieces?" William questioned, interested in the origin of those cards
[Artifact Pieces are used during Artifact Creation. the user may use Artifact Pieces to substitute for cards of the same rarity.]
Enlightened, William thought if he had any more questions to give.
He asked a few more questions that were on his mind, but the System remained silent, so the grumbling William went back to browsing through the Shop Interface.
<~>
At dusk, Zhang Chun Wu awoke from his meditation. He walked out of the sky before jumping in surprise.
"How is it already this dark?" He exclaimed in shock. A bored William was awoken by his scream.
"Oh, you're finally up." He noted. It's been like 7 hours." Seeing the time go by as Zhang Chun Wu cultivated, William was perplexed. How the heck did people still have a life if they had to cultivate for seven hours a day?
"No, I normally only meditate for less than two hours," Zhang Chun Wu corrected William's thoughts. "I have no idea why I have cultivated for this long today."
He was going to continue complaining when he suddenly felt a grumbling sensation in his stomach. Defeated, Zhang Chun Wu went back to the dining area to have his second meal of the day.