I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

Flame spun out like a corkscrew and hissed through the night, boring a hole clean through a stacked barrel.

The wood didn't burn; it smoked for a heartbeat, then cracked, cleaved in a perfect spiral path.

Victor skin tingled as the flames in his eyes went out. The control was exquisite.

Unlike the regular fire breathing, Skyfire Spiral II was like a spinning blade of flames.

The regular Dragon Breathing could burn anything but it wasn't sharp. It could still be blocked if the target was sturdy enough but then Skyfire Spiral II which was more of a spinning flame blade could cut through sturdiness.

He realized he could thread it through a Shadow Crescent Strike, lace it on his a blade's edge.

He grinned. "Nice."

Next: Void Severing Thread.

This one was trickier, half-bloodline instinct, half technique. He closed his eyes and felt for the vibrating edge of space around him.

There, something as thin as a hair materialized.

He plucked it, sending a faint ripple across space.

His bloodline responded. The arrow marks along his skin tingled.

He pinched thumb and index together, drawing out a strand of nothingness that shimmered like hot air.

It tinged in his grasp, eager, hungry. He flicked it toward a pile of crates. The strand hissed through the air and in the next instant, one crate slid apart as if someone had gently separated it along a seam.

He raised an eyebrow. "That's... an invisible space thread this sharp?"

He practiced and drew three more invisible threads from space and swung them out.

A pole as thick as half a man's waist came crashing down after being split in two.

On another end, a chair slowly wobbled for a few seconds. A line that was so thin, it couldn't be seen with the ordinary eye had split the chair from top to bottom.

Due to this, it took time before the piece of wood fully separated and fell.

However, Victor noticed that a tree on the east didn't cut all the way through.

"It's limited but nonetheless, very good... I'm sure it'll get sharper when I increase my Mastery of the technique," Victor could see a lot of potential in Void Severing Thread.

He grabbed the Moonshadow Guard, unsheathed his blade, and affixed the crescent guard with a click. The sword purred. He ran a trickle of qi through it. The blade drank it eagerly as the guard stabilised the flow into a clean, sharpened stream.

It was like, his qi reacted almost instantaneously when he tried to channel it while he was armed.

He proceeded to test out other new techniques for a few hours and also the ones he had just unlocked in order to slightly increase his Mastery.

By the time he finished, sweat slicked his hair to his nape.

His qi reserves were pleasantly pruned.

...

...

Victor strolled through the streets of Lingyun Town just as dawn's first light gilded the rooftops.

Three days had passed in quiet routine: meals shared with Chen Wen and his father over steaming noodles, unhurried strolls along the riverbank where lantern boats drifted in the soft current, and afternoons spent in the old mill's courtyard refining his newly unlocked techniques.

Skyfire Spiral had become second nature; the helix of flame now danced through his wrists and danced along his blade as instinctively as breath. Void Severing Thread; those glimmering strands of nothingness, worried the edges of crates in the millyard like playful wraiths, loosening nails and window latches merely for him to watch them fall.

Between sessions with Chen Wen's experimental dumpling recipes and Liu Shen's carefully brewed tea, he'd finally unfurled the ancient healing scrolls Lady Li Yang had entrusted him with a year ago.

He remembered her daybreak steaming smile as she pressed the rolled parchments into his hands: "You'll need more than blades soon."

Victor had been so busy that he never had the time to check out the content of the scrolls but now he did.

The first technique; "Azure Wound Mending Palm" responded to the white-dragon inheritance thrumming in his veins.

It was just like Lady Li Yang suspected back then. Healing scrolls truly were compatible with the pond of dragon tears he absorbed.

He pressed fingers together, steadied his heart and cupped a tiny bloom of qi between his palms.

When he opened his hands, the air shimmered, and a faint silver mist drifted upward.

He tested it on a broken plank, and the cracks sealed. The wood smoothened as though clenched by unseen claws of restoration.

"Now I can fix things that are not alive too?" Victor was quite astonished by this but didn't stop here.

He alternated between the scrolls and techniques from the White Dragon Legacy.

The next he learnt was: "Dragon's Tear Soothing Flow,"

It was a gentle stream of qi meant to wash toxins from blood.

He channeled the white-dragon legacy and watched a small pool of crimson ink swirl into a pristine clear well.

Each day he devoted hours to those arts, strengthening his qi reserves and deepening his legacy integration. The townsfolk, catching glimpses of shards of pale light, whispered blessings. Mothers walked children by simply to watch that strange, beautiful glow.

And then, three days went by in a binked.

The scent of jasmine tea still lingered in his room at Lingyun Rest when he rose early on the fourth morning.

He stepped outside toward the square's center where Lingyun the Hero's statue stood. The stone figure dominated the plaza: sword held aloft in his right hand, left palm open in a gesture of peace. The statue's bronze sheen had been polished recently, reflecting Victor's own gaze back at him.

And right beside it, was a statue of his avatar which caused him to crack a faint smile.

'This all seems a bit too much but its cool,' he voiced internally and then switched his gaze back to Lingyun's statue.

It's been ages since he came here... the place where it all began.

Victor squared his shoulders, mirroring the pose exactly: heel raised, stance rooted, spine straight as a blade. His fingers traced the sword's hilt inscribed on the statue's sheath. The metal was cool beneath his fingertips. He pressed both palms against the statue's breastplate.

A sudden crackle of energy roared like wind through an empty hall, and the world shifted.

He did not move but the square, the river, the lantern boats... all dissolved into memory until he stood alone in a vast emptiness of darkness flecked with pinpricks of starlight.

A single, silvery pillar rose from black mist: the Gate of Lingyun's Realm.

Here he had first learned to coax his qi into a blade's edge and use his first sword technique.

It was the sanctuary of the ancient martial hero Lingyun, whose spirit glided beside him now. He was tall and robed in colors of fading moonlight with gentle but proud features.

The ghostly form regarded Victor with hollow, patient eyes.

"Welcome, disciple," Lingyun's echo whispered with a voice like wind through bamboo.

Victor bowed his head reflexively, as if visiting a teacher. "Master Lingyun."

But as soon as he spoke, something pulled at the edges of his mind...

It was like a rush of cold water slithering through his spine.

He shook his head as Memories flooded in. "I… I've returned?"

Lingyun's silhouette shivered. "You arrive as you always do, in times of rest and in slumber. Your qi called you here more often than you knew."

Victor's heart stuttered. "I… I have been coming in my sleep?"

Victor could recall coming here once in his dream but now... the memories returning to him, told him he had been here way more than once.

Not everytime he went to sleep but definitely on multiple occasions. It didn't make any sense to him.

The hero spirit's eyes gleamed. "This realm is bound to your destiny. When your mind drifts beyond waking, it seeks these lessons."

Memories cascaded of midnights where Victor was incredibly fatigued and his breathing oddly synchronized with Lingyun's ancient space, causing him to slip into it.

This would lead to more sword training.

At times he had woken with the taste of starlight on his tongue. Fleeting instincts that had guided his sword when no conscious thought remained.

However, he wouldn't recalled anything.

Victor stepped forward with a confounded look. "I… I thought it was merely a dream."

Even the first time he had visited here in his sleep, he didn't believe it was real but there was no way to confirm this until his return to Lingyun Town.

The spirit nodded. "A dream until now. You have grown strong enough to shape your destiny awake or asleep."

It still didn't make sense to Victor... coming here in his sleep? Without being strapped to the helmet? Without logging into Ascendant Realms? How? Was it because of his Void Emperor Bloodline? Or was it because of something else?

It was supposed to be just a game... but what if it wasn't?

He now remembered the dream-world lessons... Lingyun's perfect stances, the intricate flow of martial arrays... they had sunk deeper than he realized.

He now understood why he was instictively better at using a sword even though he didn't train much in the real world.