Developer in the immortal World !

In an event that was becoming a worrying regularity, Jin awoke while lying on the wooden floor of his hut. Despite the implications of this fact on his mental state, he quickly identified the most important factor in his current situation as the sunlight likely tickled at his eyes from the window.

The illusion Room.

It was done, glowing a soft pink. There was a slight vibration, a hum to the magical instrument. As if it was being played at this very moment.

It wasn't, of course. The exam was today, and Jin hadn't had the time to get the game properly tested.

If it could even be called the game. Just one enemy, really. It was very much a scenario in the sense of this new world.

He stood up wearily and stretched his sore and abused body, which had been learning the way of the spear with nothing but a broom for seven days straight now. He shortly deluded himself with the idea of getting another outer disciple to test the game real quick. Elder Qin had said that he would pick up Jin in the morning, but if the man wasn't here yet… then perhaps Brother Lin would be interested in taking a break from his food delivery.

However, any thoughts of play-testing the game and thus perhaps working out any of the remaining kinks were abruptly dashed by a knock on his door. Jin slumped in on himself.

"Come in respected Elder," he said.

The door opened, revealing Elder Qin in all his sakura petal robe glory. The man's blue eyes briefly swept across the room, his mouth staying decisively neutral. However, while adults were good at hiding irony from children, Jin was not a child anymore.

"I see that you have worked hard, disciple Jin," Elder Qin said, looking placidly at the disgusting mess that the house had become during the crunch of the last week.

It had been hard for Jin to believe that his house could become a mess when there was not even much in it in the first place. The outer disciple barely owned five sets of the same beige robes, let alone enough furniture and frivolities to truly make a pigsty. He'd managed anyhow. Somehow.

One of the things that he'd learned to appreciate about this world during his relatively short stay in it was that it wasn't as materialistic. Power was exhibited by how many nations one could crush with a swipe of one's fingers. Wealth was simply another attribute of man, not the single determiner of one's value in society.

Jin looked again at the illusion Room, before hesitatingly going over to the small wooden desk it was resting on and picking it up. He sighed. "It's as ready as it's ever going to be," he lied.

"Thankfully it does not need to be ready for this particular exam," Elder Qin replied lightly. "It simply needs to be enough."

The Elder stepped back from the door frame, the gesture inviting Jin to exit his little abode and to enter back metaphorically into civilization. The social structure that he'd been hiding from while working his ass off recently.

Of course, an Elder and undoubtedly a high-level cultivator, the supervisor had not walked all the way to Jin's abode. No, there was a golden cloud parked at the entrance to the young cultivator's green little garden. Big enough to hold several fully grown men, an artefact likely worth more than all the wealth Jin had ever possessed in his entire life. Which wasn't saying really much. He was poor as fuck.

The Elder gracefully walked on top of the cloud, seemingly unconcerned with its potential gaseous form. The cloud seemed to also care very little about physics and obliviously held the man's weight. While the cultivation path of an illusion game creator was pretty cool, and most importantly, not that dangerous, Jin hadn't actually been doing all that much impressive magic.

He was thus quite blown away.

The extent of a seemingly magical new existence giving him a much healthier and more resilient body was already a win in itself. The game engine stuck in his head was a cherry on top. Anything more than that? That was just indulgence. Suffice it to say, eager to make another magical experience, he didn't need much prompting beyond Qin's brief gaze to jump on the nimbus cloud and marvel at the soft sensation underneath his feet. It felt very secure. The cloud slowly raised itself from its perch and ascended into the sky, perpetually covered as it was by its white and grey non-magical brethren. It was sort of scary to ascend into the air without the usual hum of metal turbines and rotors that accompanied the act in James's previous world, but as he sat down on the soft artefact he decided that he preferred it this way.

"Most disciples with a civilian background are a bit more discomforted by their first ride," Elder Qin prompted.

Jin, busy enjoying the view of all the other mountain ranges and the view he had on his little hut replied in a manner that was probably a bit disrespectful for the Confucian society he was now inhabiting. "If you wanted to kill me, you wouldn't have to go for such a drama about it," he said. "In fact, I feel safer here than I do sleeping in my bed, considering there is no high-level cultivator watching over me there."

"I hope your enthusiasm stays during the next stages of the examination process," the other replied lightly as they finally reached the white clouds which covered the inner disciple ring of the illusion Room sect mountain.

"I'll do my best," he said as they closed in on the mountain. Close enough for Jin to see the space through the thick clouds. Their destination seemed to be a large stone gate with a thousand steps leading up to it from the previous ring. Behind the gate, from his vantage point in the air, Jin could make out a bustling village in which several disciples who were better dressed than him walked around eating food, talking and generally having a good time. It was the first time that he laid eyes on the middle ring and unexpectedly it seemed to be more heavily populated than the outer disciple one. There were more houses which were laid more closely together and there were even some non-cultivators walking around, if his eyes didn't deceive him. They were recognizable by their shabby brown robes which contrasted harshly to the sleek clothing of the cultivators.

It was likely that it was at this stage of being a member of the Illusion Room Sect that one merited having actual servants.

As expected, however, instead of flying into the village, the golden cloud landed in front of the stone gate. The large structure was burdened with a variety of runes and paper talismans. If Jin had developed the ability to sense wards, then he was sure that he would have something to explore here. However, he didn't, so he rather focused on the two people seemingly waiting for him and Elder Qin at the gates.

One of them was a short and stout man with a whiskered moustache and a head of hair with some brown still in it. Jin would have guessed him to be around 50 if he didn't know that cultivators generally lived 10 times longer than their normal human counterparts. The man's face looks like it had been stuck in a perpetual frown since he was born.

Thankfully his companion was a sight for Jin's now sore eyes.

A 35-something woman in amazing shape, as one would expect from a cultivator. A sword scabbard hung at her waist and she was covered up to her shoulders by a green outfit consisting of loose pants and a tight shirt.

Rather than risk offending anyone, Jin immediately bowed as the cloud dissipated around them and condensed itself into a bamboo flask at Elder Qin's side.

"Greetings honoured Elders," he said, clutching his illusion Room tight to his chest as he tried to touch the floor with his forehead. It never hurt to be polite. Especially in a world where people could decide to kill you if they thought that you had cost them face.

Elder Qin stepped forward until he was standing right next to the other two cultivators.

It was very symbolic to hold the exam in front of the entrance to the inner disciple ring.

He could even see, through the slight distortions covering the stone gate entrance, the inner disciples and other people moving around in what would hopefully soon become his living area as well.