Striking it Rich
Two minutes later.
Lin Chang`an's mobile phone vibrated. He then unlocked the screen and saw a message. "Your commercial bank account with the last four numbers, 9527, has received $70,000. Balance: $70,052."
Lin Chang`an felt like he was dreaming.
He attentively counted once.
"$70,000…I'm rich now!"
He really felt like being ruthless and slapping his own face. But when he thought about the strength of his current palm strike, he decided to forget about it.
With a smack, his entire brain might shake.
Lin Chang`an felt like he was in a dream.
He had worked for three years and only had $2,000 as his salary every month.
Hence, such a huge sum of money was something he didn't even dare to dream about.
"This amount of money is sufficient to simulate 70 times!"
At this moment, the balance shown in his system interface became 70,052!
As he thought about this, he impatiently touched the emulator.
With money, he should check his life's direction first.
He opened it.
[New character opening input: Su Xi`er.]
Upon seeing the notification, Lin Chang`an was stunned. A new character?
It seemed that this was regarding stimulating the lives of others.
However, he didn't think too much and immediately activated a simulation.
[You got injured and had to stay in the hospital, so Su Xi`er took care of you.]
[Su Xi`er took care of you…]
[Su Xi`er took care of you…]
[On the 7th of June, the national unified examinations began. You showcased your brilliance, and your martial exam results were ranked #48 in the entire city, but you merely passed your literary examination.]
[Due to the great disparity of your results, you eventually entered a B-Grade Academy.]
[Su Xi`er entered the same academy as you.]
[At age 19, your life as a first-year university student began. You have yet to open your spirit sea.]
[At age 20, your life as a second-year university student began. You have not opened your spirit sea.]
[At age 21, your life as a third-year university student began. You still have not opened your spirit sea.]
[You got expelled.]
[You muddled through life for a period.]
[You eventually returned to the low-level society.]
[From frugality to luxury and vice versa, you felt extremely discomfited.]
[At age 22, your qi and blood value actually hadn't even reached 1,000 points. You would soon be forcefully paired.]
[Su Xi`er hoped to help you, but you rejected her help. Life had not ground your sharp edges dull. You wanted to walk a path of life that belonged to you alone.]
[In order to open your spirit sea, you headed to the E105 dungeon to search for a bizarre creature named Qi Spirit.]
[You encountered the Qi Spirit and died.]
Lin Chang`an pondered for a moment.
"The simulation seems to develop according to my thoughts. I'm not someone who likes being a gigolo unless I'm in special circumstances…"
Unless he was forced to do so, Lin Chang`an didn't want to be like this.
"Naturally, I can try to control my thoughts during simulation…"
"In addition, the world will's rejection makes it so that it's very easy for me to die."
Just by itself, the world will was abnormally dangerous.
Spirit qi was abundant, and wild beasts were raging. Also, many strange dungeons appeared frequently with many evil cultivators exploring them as well.
In this world, the average lifespan of a human was merely 50 years.
Now that he was rejected by the world will, he would have to burn incense to thank the gods if he could just live for five extra years.
At this moment, he glanced at the system interface before him.
[The simulation this time around has ended, please choose one of the rewards.]
[One: Unremitting Perseverance Talent. (B-Grade talent. Your persistence is 1.5x that of ordinary people.)]
[Two: Cultivation realm at the time of your death (Qi and blood value: 981)]
[Three: Combat experience at the time of your death (Fist art at minor completion, movement art at entry level)]
[Four: Cultivation insights you've gained at the time of your death. (No cultivation insights)]
[Five: A partial memory fragment.]
As for combat experience, it referred to his grasp of the spirit technique.
The level of comprehension could be split into elementary, minor completion, major completion, perfection, and conceptualization stages.
"It has been so long, yet my fist art merely reached the minor completion stage. Heh heh."
Lin Chang`an chortled and decided to choose the first option.
Right now, his mental energy wasn't sufficient to withstand another boost to his qi and blood value. Without sufficient mental energy, he also couldn't control his qi and blood should their value be too high.
He would probably die from a body explosion. At the very least, he would become a retard even if he didn't die.
Even right now, he already felt it was somewhat taxing when using his mental energy to control his qi and blood.
And the combat experience at the time of his death seemed far inferior to the talent option.
At the moment when he made his choice, he instantly felt his body becoming 'fuller'.
His qi and blood flowed extensively and the surging turbulence was clearly even more intense!
"Persistence should refer to me being able to persist for a longer time in combat, right?"
He glanced at his lower body and felt that it seemed to become stronger.
He then glanced at the character attribute page and soon had a new discovery.
Name: Lin Chang`an
Cultivation: Zero Realm
Qi and blood value: 862
Mental energy: 327
Due to the treatment from the third-realm expert, his qi and blood value had recovered somewhat.
Moreover, his mental energy actually rose abruptly to 327 from 278. It was an increase of 49 points. This definitely wasn't something a third-realm expert could help him with.
"How did it increase?"
Lin Chang`an pondered as he recalled his previous simulation experience.
"In the simulation this time around, I lived to age 23. Evidently, the sense of disappointment and frustration I felt when the simulation ended became even deeper. Could this be the reason?"
He had only managed to live for half a day in all his other simulations saved for his first.
Hence, it felt like just reading a few sentences of a book. There wasn't any meaning to it.
But this time around, Lin Chang`an clearly felt a strong sense of disappointment and frustration.
It felt like he had really experienced that period.
He then carefully recalled and soon discovered something.
"The increase in my mental energy seems to have a connection with the length of my survival in the simulation. Every month I live for, my mental energy will increase by one point. And if I survive less than a month, the system will also calculate it as a month's worth!"
On the first time, he didn't notice this.
But now when he thought back, it seemed that his mental energy back then had also strengthened.
Lin Chang`an had a face filled with joy after he confirmed the fact.
Now, with the emulator in his hand, his only 'flaw' was his insufficient mental energy when it came to his rapid breakthroughs.
Who would have thought that living the simulations through the emulator could also aid him in increasing his mental energy?!
"It's said that the process of opening a spirit sea is extremely painful and complex. The higher one's mental energy is, the greater the rate of success."
Lin Chang`an rapidly changed his line of thoughts.
"In that case, at my current level, what I have to do is to continue turtling and dragging out an ignoble existence in the simulations!"
As he pondered, he activated the simulation once more.
[You got injured and had to stay in the hospital, so Su Xi`er took care of you.]
[Su Xi`er took care of you…]
[Su Xi`er took care of you…]
[On the 7th of June, the national unified examinations began.]
[You concealed your strength in the unified examinations and performed averagely. You barely passed both the martial and literary examination and eventually got recruited by a C-Grade Academy.]
[Su Xi`er registered for the same school as you.]
[At age 19, you started your life in university.]
[You started living an ignoble life.]
[You continued dragging out an ignoble existence.]
[At age 20, you failed to open up your spirit sea.]
[At age 21, you still failed to open up your spirit sea.]
[The requirements to graduate from this academy weren't high, so you weren't expelled.]
[At age 22, you still failed to open up your spirit sea and got retained, causing waves of mockery to surround you.]
[At age 23, you retained for another year, but your heart remained unmoved by the mocking words no matter how sarcastic and harsh they sounded.]
[At age 24, you retained for yet another year, and your mental state became as stable as an old dog.]
[At age 26, your patience and persistence displayed their effects. You depended on the resources you had accumulated through these years at school and finally opened up your spirit sea, becoming a first-realm cultivator and successfully graduating.]
[You then found a company and had a stable job that paid $30,000 every month. The level of danger was very low, and you were very satisfied.]
[You planned to get married.]
[On the day of your wedding, Su Xi`er came to look for you, and you guys had a long chat through the first half of the night.]
[You felt a little sorrowful.]
[You married someone, but your wife was just an ordinary person.]
[You started living a flat and dull life.]
[You never allowed yourself to be in conflict and would never compete against others.]
[You were so emotionally stable and mature that you were like an 80-year-old grandpa.]
[At age 39, the beast tide attacked. As a first-realm cultivator, you were forcibly sent to the frontline and then died.]
Lin Chang`an regained his senses after the simulation ended.
This time around, that feeling of disappointment and frustration became much more intense compared to before.
It felt like he had experienced a very long life.
"I lived until age 39. This time around, it can be considered as having lived for a pretty long time."
To himself, this was simply encountering great luck.