“No...no-no-no-no, this isn’t happening!”

I panic as I go through all the information stored in my consciousness and once again come to the same conclusion, there are no programs called Cultivation Realm inside the ‘Net-realm’.

The ‘Net-realm’ is supposed to be a place where one finds peace, not worrying if heaven or hell exists, but still being able to understand new things and have an immortal consciousness.

Just like playing an RPG, one becomes an avatar in the first person and lives a luxurious or personalized life while being in contact with other deceased people. No poverty, no illness and most important of all true freedom.

Of course, there are the more exotic people who choose to live in a fantasy world or even self-designed worlds. But I have never heard of this Cultivation Realm nor had I installed any program with such name on my dematerializator.

“Please, don’t be scared.”

I am startled out of my confusing thoughts by the same voice that greeted me.

I try to communicate with the program through basic commands.

“...who are you?”

“I am sorry Mathew, but I am not a who. I am the Dao, abstract in nature and heavenly in profoundness.”

‘Dao? Like the Chinese concept of enlightenment? This makes no sense...’ through musings I recall what little I know about the said subject.

“Are you a program? A new type of AI that someone mistakenly implanted in my dematerializator?”

I can only think of tampering with my machinery and I shudder to think who of my closest friends had the cold-bloodedness to commit such crime.

“I am not a program, nor am I a figment of your imagination Mathew.”

Suddenly the feeling of gravity leaves me and I am magically transported into a white room filled with emptiness. I look down and realize I do not have a body, but I still feel myself float in the unknown space.

“Turn around please.” Again the monotone androgynous voice.

I do as she asks, turning around to find thousands of specks of light floating as if in a shallow current.

“Sorry it took so long for us to actually meet, but Qi is hard to collect in this realm and as I am made of laws cultivating is even harder for something as abstract as me.”

Swaying closer to me I feel a sensation of boundless knowledge and understandings wash over and I unknowingly move even closer.

“Well, let me get to the point then as my energy is scarce and your soul form won’t last much longer in your current state.

I am 'the' Dao, I have no needs nor feelings but there is something that I cannot let happen and that is the destruction of the eight realms.

The problem lies with the one who created everything, the all-powerful Sovereign of the eight realms who has been gone for a long time now and so, as he disappeared without a trace, a new Sovereign as risen, but this one doesn't have the eight realms totally under his control.

Luckily he only has two, that after he took control are now called the devils-born realms.

The ones he actually controls are filled with evil cultivators and monsters, to which make the great Ying and Yang of all existence go unbalanced and bad karma is issued towards people who do not deserve it, thus hindering their reincarnations.

And this is where you come into play, you are going to be the person who returns balance to the Ying and Yang states in the entirety of the eight realms and hopefully slay the new and tyrannical Sovereign.”

Every last piece of information said to this point made my head spin as I tried to follow the ridiculous story of realms and sovereigns.

‘Someone must have really dabbled with my program. Shit, fuck!’

I rage uncontrollably inside as the situation is truly ridiculous.

“So...what you’re saying is that I am to become a typical Y*n Che in this new reality, but why me?”

I, in my childhood, had read my fair share of classical Xianxia novels, like C*iling D*agon and ISSTH. But throughout my life, I had never played any Chinese based fantasy MMORPGs for VR, let alone use one as my final resting place.

“I do not know who Y*n Che is and I can't tell you right now the choice of picking you for this quest.

But alas our time here is limited by the amount of Qi I have left, so let me finish talking.”