I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

The City Lord turned to Victor. "You, despite only being halfway integrated, are our best shot."

Victor met his gaze with a calm look. He still remembered especially with the quest always visible in his quest window.

"So what do we do now?"

Xuan Wenzhou explained, "Enter the Hollow Verdant. Locate the Sealed Gate. Examine the runic formations and binding arrays placed upon it. Then bring back the knowledge. We can work on a solution from there."

Elder Mo added, "Your ability to endure the Grove's rejection will determine how long you can stay."

Victor exhaled. "Then we won't know until we try, will we?"

The City Lord's eyes lit with a flicker of approval. "Well said. In that case, we will reinforce your body with every layer of protection at our disposal. Talismans, cultivation-enhancing medicine, and formation-runed attire... all will be prepared within a day."

Tarkos finally spoke. "He will not go alone."

Xuan Wenzhou studied Tarkos with scrutiny. "You are that famed assassin Headless Bone... the one that walks in shadows."

"That would be me," Tarkos responded as his lips curled in a cocky half-smile.

The City Lord chuckled faintly. "Well, I will not question the Void Emperor descendant choice of company... I will trust you to watch his back... not stab it."

Tarkos gave a dramatic bow. "I've retired from that line of work."

Victor smirked. "Mostly."

Xuan Wenzhou nodded before signaling to his guards. "Escort them to the Flame Lotus Hall. Their accommodations will be arranged."

As they were led away, Victor couldn't help but glance back toward the hallway where Xuan Qing had vanished.

...

...

Victor stood silently as attendants and stewards of the Blueflame City Lord busied themselves around him, attaching several layers of protective talismans to his robes, his arms, his back, even under his collar.

Some glowed faint gold, others shimmered with strange patterns, and a few bore arcane sigils that emitted rhythmic light.

Sacred chants and the rustle of scrolls rang out as Elder Mo stood by giving final instructions.

"These talismans will ward off residual soul rot and suppress any ambient curse energy," said one of the palace magisters, holding a glowing black gem. "This one is keyed specifically to your bloodline signature. It'll amplify your Void Qi if the environment becomes too hostile."

Victor nodded while absorbing the significance of every tool granted to him. The City Lord was indeed generous—he was sending him off into danger with everything short of a divine relic.

...

The next morning, they arrived at the edge of the Ancient Grove.

It looked desolate. Eerily so.

The sky was obscured by an unnatural dimness, like a thick veil had been draped over the sun. Even with no canopy overhead, the forest was caught in a state of eternal dusk.

The trees were twisted and grey, like petrified bones. The wind did not whistle. It whispered. It carried the groans of long-dead warriors.

"This place is cursed," Tarkos muttered while stepping forward instinctively.

The moment his foot passed an invisible line, his entire body convulsed violently. A crushing pressure caved into his chest and belly as if invisible fingers were trying to turn his lungs inside out.

Before anyone could react, Tarkos was flung backward like a ragdoll, landing several meters behind with a sickening crack.

Victor rushed to help, but Tarkos was already coughing blood and trying to get up.

"I don't know how you intend to survive in there..." Tarkos groaned.

Elder Mo pointed at the threshold. "The Ancient Grove starts from there. You just crossed the line into it and the Ancient Grove isn't a place you can brute-force."

He proceeded to turn to Victor and placed a hand on his shoulder. "That's why he is the inheritor of the Void Emperor Bloodline... and you're not."

Victor smirked at Tarkos before stepping forward. As soon as his boot crossed the invisible line, the world around him seemed to hold its breath.

[ Notification: You have entered the Ancient Grove ]

A subtle pressure coiled around his abdomen, like fingers gripping him from the inside, but it was nothing he couldn't bear. It was like a foreign body trying to reject him, but only half-heartedly. It knew he belonged here—mostly.

Elder Mo shouted final instructions from behind. "Find the Hollow Verdant. It should appear to you, eventually. Don't trust your eyes. And remember—this land has memory. Tread carefully."

Victor nodded before pressing forward.

Everything was wrong here.

He moved past twisted flora that oozed black ichor instead of sap. Some trees had limbs—not branches—real limbs, humanlike arms entangled in bark.

Once he saw what looked like an armoured corpse half-merged into a tree trunk with its mouth agape in a frozen scream.

The ground was a carpet of ash and dirt which occasionally crunched beneath his boots as if it were bone dust. The air held a faint burnt smell, mixed with the coppery tang of old blood.

Glimmers of ancient battles echoed faintly with ghostly mirages playing out between the trees—armies of cultivators clashing with beings made of warped Qi and screaming flame.

[ Notification: Ancient Grove Trial Initiated ]

[ Trial I: Soul Test - You must pass through the Field of Fallen Echoes. Tread carefully. ]

Victor paused. Up ahead, a glade of glowing moss stretched forward with no visible end.

Wisps hovered above each patch of moss—echoes of fallen cultivators. Their translucent forms flickered as they stared with empty eyes. As Victor stepped in, the whispers began.

"He died alone..."

"You are just like us..."

"Your blood will feed the seal..."

Victor kept walking. He focused his Qi and activated internal techniques to strengthen his will.

The voices grew louder...

"She left you, remember? Your mother—she never even looked back."

His step faltered as images appeared in his mind.

It was like every voice was accompanied with the memory of its owner; from blissful to horrific and Victor was reliving it.

He gritted his teeth as he continously shoved one foot in front of the other.

"You're no emperor... just a child playing with a dead man's legacy."

He roared and unleashed a burst of Void Qi with his eyes glowing. The phantoms shrieked and backed away, clearing his path.

When he emerged from the Field of Fallen Echoes, his breath was heavy and his back was soaked in sweat.

[ Trial I Complete: Soul Test Passed ]

After completing the trial, Victor moved silently through the twisted expanse of the Ancient Grove.

Despite the dozens of talismans strapped to his chest and layered beneath his robes, the void-infused mist still clawed at his insides.

He couldn't imagine how much worse it would have been if the City Lord didn't go through the trouble of equipping him with all of these...

Bone fragments and rusted blades jutted from the earth like the aftermath of a battlefield—

It was the last battlefield where cultivators stood against the corrupt immortals after all.

Suddenly, a system notification shimmered across his vision.

[Ancient Grove Trial II: Path of the Relic]

[ Objective: Locate the "Forgotten Thorn Bell" buried within the Red Gardens ]

[ Time Limit: 4 Hours ]

[ Note: The Red Gardens shifts locations. Track its sorrowful echoes ]

Victor frowned. "A scavenger hunt in a cursed land... lovely."

He paused while straining his ears. At first, he heard nothing but the rustling of skeletal leaves.

Then, a distant, almost melodic wail echoed faintly through the trees. It was like a sob caught in wind. Victor followed the sound, weaving between broken columns and shattered sigils etched into the earth.

The Red Garden was a basin sunk beneath twisted blood red roots, constantly weeping mist like tears.

Victor figured that a lot of blood must have been shed here which was why it bore the name Red Gardens.

He knelt and brushed aside moss and brittle debris. Minutes turned into hours. Just before the final toll of the system's internal timer, his fingers grazed cold metal.

He pulled out a small, corroded bell, shaped like a thorn emitting a dormant energy.

<[ Trial II Complete ]>

[ Reward: 1x Void-Woven Charm, 12,500 Wisps Of Qi ]

Victor tied the charm to his belt as the next notification replaced the first.

Then came the final trial.

[Ancient Grove Trial III: The Flame of Remembrance]

<[ Objective: Relight the Cenotaph Flame at the hill of fallen heroes. Use only memory and silence ]>

Victor climbed a steep rise littered with weatherworn statues of cultivators, each shattered and leaning.

At the hill's peak was a massive brazier, dark and cold. He knelt and placed his palm against it.

A vision bloomed in his mind: hundreds of thousands of cultivators screaming, dying, standing their ground. A single warrior—a woman in robes kissed by moonlight—stood at the front, screaming "Hold the seal!"

Victor proceeded to stand, clench his fists, and channeled Dragon Breathing Arts into the brazier mixed with his Void Qi.

A pale silver flame roared to life.

[Trial III Complete]

[ Reward: Coordinates to Hollow Verdant, + 25,000 Wisps Of Qi, Ancient Grove Affinity +5%]

Victor dropped to one knee with a look of exhaustion.