Sex and Videogames Lvl. 01 Ch. 06

'What the hell? What rubbish is this crazy old man talking?' Because none of his words were making sense to him.

But before he could say anything, the crazy geezer spoke again, "Oh, and before I forget, here it is."

With that, the old man pulled out a small wooden box from his robes and presented it before James.

"What is it?"

"A gift that the Master had left for his one-hundredth disciple; he had asked me to also give you this with the Golden Scroll."

With that, he moved forward and took hold of James's hand and placed the scroll and the wooden box in it. James failed to understand whatever gibberish this crazy old man was speaking; he knew the old man had misunderstood him, and he was about to say so, but the old man was nowhere to be seen!

'What the hell? Where did he go? And why am I meeting weird old men? Is it some kind of trend that I am not aware of? And what should I do with it? I mean could it be that there are some kind of explosives or some illegal thing in the wooden box or maybe both this wooden box and Golden Scroll are stolen from someone?' That thought scared him.

His first thought was to dump this thing here and rush back home, but then he stopped. What if the old man came back, or worse, what if the authorities approached him? If he said that he didn't know the old man, he could at least give this thing to them to justify his story.

While he wouldn't accept it, a scroll and a small wooden box were enough to spark curiosity for the gamer within him. He knew magic didn't exist in real life, and getting treasure from wooden boxes was something limited to video games, but then again, he was a living video-game character right now!

'No, that's not right. I should report it to the cops. I mean, it could be life threatening or it could be stolen from others...'

While his mind was going along that line of thought, at the same time, the Golden Scroll shone with a bright light, which immediately changed his line of thought.

'...No, I must open this scroll; yes, that's right. Who knows what might be in it! There could be something useful.' All of the concerns and thoughts had just disappeared from his mind, and with this single thought, he rushed back home.

He even ignored the fact that just a few seconds ago, he wasn't even able to move and here he was running toward his house at full speed.

He reached his home, rushed to his room. Without wasting any time, he opened the scroll, only to find there were some weird symbols engraved on it, which he could not read. He was about to close the scroll, but at the same time, he felt a cold sensation on his fingers.

'What the hell?!'

A weird, creepy, cold sensation numbed his fingers, and slowly, it started to move upward. He quickly let go of the scroll, but the cold sensation wasn't going anywhere.

'So, damn cold!'

Slowly, the coldness crept spreading, and it wasn't long before both his hands were numbed by it, and yet, it didn't stop and kept covering his body.

It felt like his entire body was being frozen. Never before had he felt such a coldness. With a loud thud, he fell on his bedroom floor, while his body kept getting colder and colder!

He could barely breathe and the exhale that came out of his body was in the form of a cold wind, instead of normal air. It became hard to breathe since the air that entered his nostrils would quickly freeze and get stuck; it felt like he would die from all of this coldness, or due to the lack of oxygen.

His body was not moving at all, his breathing had stopped, and his eyes had become crystalline cold, his eyelashes also froze and stopped fluttering. His spine turned cold, his heartbeat kept decreasing, while he felt his lungs also being gripped by this creepy, cold sensation.

There wasn't any struggle, he wanted to fight this, fight whatever this sensation was, and win— but his body wasn't listening. The only thing that was working was his brain, which slowly slipped into unending darkness.

The last thing he felt was a small spark of warmth deep within his heart!

---

An old man, who appeared to be in his late eighties, was standing before a broken ancient ruin. The ruin had been greatly affected by the climate and overgrown vegetation. What once used to be the great Han family residence, had been reduced to a massive ruin with broken houses, temples, passages, etc.

'Destiny' was the meaning of the word that was barely readable on the broken gate of the estate, instead of the whole sentence, 'Between the Heaven and Earth, the Destiny of the Brave!'

The sight before him triggered memories of a life that he had lived eons ago. Han Wu was the eldest of two siblings in the Han family; once a powerful clan that didn't even exist in the history of the Martial World.

The Martial World is divided into Eleven Continents all of which are in different sizes and shapes. Out of these eleven continents, the biggest one is known as Qian Continent, named after Qian Wu, the first Cultivator who broke through the barrier and ascended to Immortality, hence opening a path of Immortality for humanity of this world.

On this Qian Continent, there is a huge mountain range with more than nine thousand mountains. In ancient times, this used to be a single huge mountain, but when Qian Wu ascended to Immortality, he faced the Heavenly Calamity on this tall mountain; as per the myth, it is believed that the heavenly lightning strike collided with the sword of Qian Wu.

This powerful collision was the reason for the creation of the Nine Thousand Mountains.

These Nine Thousand Mountains were home to hundreds of types of spiritual herbs, so it was natural that many other families and clans wanted to get a hold of these treasure mountains, but none of them would dare to act on their desire since the mountains were under the Han family's control, and head of the family, his father, was a talented Cultivator who had formed his Golden Core centuries ago!

He was a force to be reckoned with, his name was enough to strike fear in the hearts of their enemy.

But one day, he encountered a powerful monster during his journey across the sea, and he was gravely wounded; all the vultures decided to take advantage of such a great opportunity, which they may not get another in the next hundreds of years. On one fateful night, all those enemies combined their forces and attacked the Han family.

While his father was a genius, except for him, all of the other members were average and most of them were in Qi-Refinement Realm, while few were in Qi-Condensing Realm; after his father fell in the battle, it wasn't a battle anymore, but more of a maiming of the Han family!

At the age of forty, Han Wu was still stuck in Body-Refinement Realm and couldn't do anything, but watch his entire family be wiped out, right before his eyes.

He, along with his younger brother Han Bao, was able to escape during the chaos, but both of them were immediately chased by their attackers.

They came to the northern end of the Nine Thousand Mountains, right before the entrance of the Cursed Forest. This was the forest where no one would dare to enter, not even his father, due to the belief that whoever entered this forest, would be cursed by it!

In the past, whoever dared to enter the forest would suffer a great tragedy! It didn't matter how talented or powerful a person was, if he entered the forest, he was bound to be cursed by it.

The Han Duo came to a halt in their escape; on one side was the Cursed Forest, while on the other side, there was death that was closing in on them with each passing moment; while it was a tough choice it wasn't an impossible one!

They entered the Cursed Forest!

Being cursed wasn't the only threat in the forest, there was also the risk of encountering powerful beasts, and being Body-Refinement level cultivators, it wasn't long before both of them were tired, so they entered a cave to hide for the night.

There was an eerie feeling both of them experienced when they entered the cave; at first, they both stopped. There was a clear sense of doubt, but at the same time, the whole forest was creeping them out.

With no other option left, with heavy hearts, both of them moved deeper into the cave.

In the start, it was extremely dark, but the more they walked, the lighter the path became; it was like there was light coming from deep within the cave.

It wasn't long before they noticed that it was the walls of the cave that were shining with weird light, every part of the cave was shining with Azure-hued light!

Both of them failed to understand the reason why the cave walls were shining with such weird light, but at the same time, there was nothing in the cave that could answer their question; well, except a weird-looking tree.

The tree was standing on a single root that was coming out from the ground, four trunks emerged from the single tree root and merged at the top, forming a tree top. From that top, a single branch was sprouting, and on the top of that branch, there was a pair of fruit.

Both fruits were similar to a peach, but instead of having normal peach-like coloring, they had bright Azure coloring to it with golden shades.

Never before in his forty years of life had Han Wu ever seen a tree like this! Neither had he seen fruits like the ones he was seeing right then. Even more surprising, he was failing to sense any kind of spiritual energy in the tree or the fruits, which meant only two things; either the tree was a normal tree with no spiritual energy in it, or it was an extremely powerful tree with so much spiritual energy that he failed to sense it!

So, of course, he was being wary of the tree and the pair of fruits, but then one request from his younger brother was enough to break him out of his reverie. "Brother, I am hungry."

Once a Cultivator formed their Golden Core, he could live without any food or water, but any other low-level Cultivator had to feed and drink; while he could bear the hunger and thirst for a bit longer, compared to normal humans, it was still there, so he was also feeling parched and hungry.

So, without wasting any time, he climbed the tree, plucked the pair of peach-like fruits, and gave it to his younger brother. His brother quickly took the fruits, but then gave one back to him.

"Big brother, I know you are also hungry..."

Han Wu, who was holding back his tears for the sake of his younger brother, couldn't bear it any longer. Just a few hours ago, their family was ruling the Nine Thousand Mountains and had everything that one could ever hope for. And then, here they were, hiding in the Cursed Forest with the hope of escaping from their enemies; which if miraculously they did, they still would never be able to have the life that they were living before that night.

There was no servant for them, there were no worldly luxuries for them, forget about that they didn't even have a place called home or family!

"I am... sorry... little Bao, only... if only I was strong enough, and if I had reached the higher realm of cultivation, I wouldn't need to feed and hence force you to share; not only that, if I had been strong, I would have been able to help the elders against the enemies, instead of running like a coward!"

Tears started to run down his face while he fell to his knees.

"Don't worry, brother, you are a brave man and everything will be fine!"

His younger brother started to pat his back while consoling him. This was a very peculiar situation for Han Wu; his young brother, whom he had hated from his very birth, was the only family he had and who was taking the entire situation bravely.

His father had always preferred Bao over him. In the beginning, he hated this partiality, but as time passed, Han Wu started to understand the difference. Although he was below average, his brother was exceptionally good, and was considered a genius!

Bao took the first bite of the Azure fruit he had in his hand, while Wu took a bite from the fruit that he had in his hand.

The taste of the fruit was weird and stale, yet the hunger was too much for him to think much about it. Just this morning, both of them had eaten spiritually rich peach fruit, and here they were, eating this strange fruit while hiding in the cave like beggars!

Again, he released a sigh while not thinking about the images that he had seen of their family members being killed and maimed by their attackers.

While Han Wu stopped himself from crying again, within his heart, he was extremely broken. He was thinking if he had stayed at their home, he might have died as well, instead of suffering this pain; he would have been saved from going through this misery!

Since these kind of gloomy thoughts were dominating his mind, he didn't notice it at first, but after it became too much, he realized it. His stomach was burning; it felt like there was a literal fire within his stomach.

'What the hell is going on? Is this the curse of the forest? Or maybe there was something wrong with the fruit!'

He looked toward where the tree was, but that tree was nowhere to be seen!

'Where did it go? What the hell is going on?'

Of course, there was no answer to his question, but at the same time, the burning sensation kept intensifying and started to spread across his body; his chest and his waist also felt like they were burning. The sensation of being burned from within his body kept spreading, and it wasn't long before he felt like his entire body was burning. He looked at his hands, which were bright red and started to release dark smoke.

"Brother..."

He looked at Bao, his body was as pale as snow, his eyes had become crystalline, and his surroundings had frozen, with each exhale the air around him would also turn cold.

"Cold..."

Even though he was suffering, Han Wu wasn't sure what to do, so he rushed to Bao and hugged him. Of course, being in the Body Refinement Realm, he wasn't capable of using spiritual healing to help his brother, but he hugged him with the intention of comforting.

After a long battle with this intense pain, he noticed the snow around Bao started to melt, and at the same time, his body started to cool down as well, before passing out due to exhaustion.

During the night, Han Wu had multiple dreams. In one dream, he was being sucked into what appeared to be molten lava; in another dream, his body was burning with fire; in another dream, he was standing on the scorching surface of the sun. He didn't understand the meaning of all these dreams, but he knew those were not random dreams.

When, in the morning, Bao told him of how he had dreamed of walking on Snowy Mountain and standing on the surface of the moon, his belief was solidified.

Both of them had gone through similar experiences, but it was like with different forces of nature; it was like both of them had gained some kind of deep understanding of Yin and Yang.

This was also evident in their physical appearance. Han Wu's skin tone had changed, and was supporting a bright golden hue, an indication of Yang's Body type. At the same time, Bao's skin had turned into a snowy-white color, a clear indication of having a Yin Body

'But why and how? He had only two answers to this mysterious miracle, either they were cursed by the cursed forest, or the fruit they ate was some kind of powerful spiritual fruit which helped them with their cultivation.' He had a firm belief that it was the latter since the boost in their cultivation and both of them gaining such a rare body type was nothing but a blessing.

He could believe it was due to the fruits that they had eaten because their bodies had gone through significant changes; for one, all the wounds on his body had healed and his body's skin, flesh, and bone felt like they had a lot of strength, and even more surprising, was the level of his cultivation.

For more than two decades, he was stuck at the ninth layer of the Body Refinement Realm, but now, suddenly, he had broken through and was at the first layer of Qi- Refinement Realm.

The path of Cultivation had nine stages, and each stage had nine layers in it. So, the first stage of Cultivation which was known as the 'Body-Refinement Realm' had nine layers or sub-stages.

After cultivating a proper technique with perseverance, with proper guidance from Master and help of spiritual herbs, one could rise to the ninth layer of the Body-Refinement Realm. Then they would need to achieve a breakthrough for their body to start refining the spiritual energy and enter the second stage of Cultivation, which was known as the Qi-Refinement Realm.

Again, the Cultivator would be at the first layer of the said Qi-Refinement Realm and only after reaching the ninth layer, would he be able to achieve another breakthrough to enter the third stage of Cultivation.

Of course, each breakthrough came with great benefits!

He asked Bao, who also confirmed his breakthrough.

As the saying goes— one door closes, another one opens up, and their lives had suddenly changed. Both of them lost everything while on the same night, they also gained this gift, the gift of having a special physique.

While Cultivation is all about using Spiritual Energy to gain Immortality, and Spiritual Energy is a concept beyond physicality, but that doesn't mean a person's body is useless in the path of Cultivation; contrary to it, a person's body also plays a significant role in the journey as a Cultivator.

During the Cultivation process, a person's body also plays an important role and some rare body types give a person an edge on the path of Cultivation.

The first body type is a normal body which every human is born with. This is a body type where a person has a normal body and there isn't anything special about it. Normally, almost every Cultivator has a Normal Physique.

Then comes the Profound Body.

Normally, a Cultivator could only use one Cultivation method, but this is a body type where the constitution of the body is such that a person could use two different Cultivation methods!

Of course, this means he had twice the benefit and growth compared to a Normal Cultivator. Of course, this is a rare body type, a person with this body type is born once a decade.

Then comes the Yin or Yang body type, which is one of the rarest body types, even rarer than the Profound Body!

~~~

A person is born with either Yin or Yang Body type; if a person is born with a Yin body type, he would have immunity to all types of Yin energy-based attacks; not only that, but he could learn to control and manipulate Yin Elements such as Water, Snow, Darkness, etc.

A person with a Yang Body Type also has similar features to Yin's body with opposite elements like Fire, Heat, Light, etc.

Even though this body type is only connected with one primordial aspect i.e. Yin or Yang. This body type when compared with Normal Body has three times faster growth potential.

Normally, a human is born with a special body type, but in some cases, with the help of a powerful herb, pill, or treasure, one can gain a special body type. But, the condition is the Cultivator should still be at Body Refinement Realm. Because once he achieves the breakthrough in Qi-Refinement Realm, the cultivation method or technique that he is using would just temper his body to such an extent, that he would never be able to change his body type. Even if he uses a powerful spiritual treasure, all it would just help him with his cultivation, but wouldn't alter his body type.

~~~

So, the fruits that were consumed, were some kind of mystical fruits and since both of them were in the Body-Refinement Realm, the power of the fruits was enough to alter their physique.

Han Wu had a Yang Body, while his younger brother Han Bao had a Yin Body, or at least that was what he believed, and when he said so, his younger brother quickly declined his theory.