I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 358: Bullshit!

Victor didn’t really game with other players so the chances of anyone recognising him in the real world was also very little.

Although, his current physical features in the real world was now very similar to his game avatar, the only way a person should be able to recognize him, was if they played with him regularly.

And for as long as he could remember, he wasn’t a team player.

Even if he was, Five years ago was long before Victor ever started playing the game. Ascendant Realms didn’t even exist back then.

Nothing made sense.

Not time.

Not identity.

Not reality.

Victor’s voice finally came out with a low tone.

"...Who the hell are you?"

The man swallowed as his chest rose and fell rapidly under the lingering warmth of Victor’s healing glow.

Then, almost fearfully, he whispered:

"I’m... Bai Feng... Your loyal companion... do you not remember me?"

Victor stared at him while blinking continously.

The name bounced uselessly inside his skull. He did not recognize this man.

Bai Feng’s expression tightened with deep hurt. "Fang Chen... are you joking again? Did I wake up during one of your pranks?" He hesitated before adding softly, "You used to tease me like this sometimes..."

Victor let out a slow breath through his nose.

"...I’ve never seen you in my life."

That nearly crushed Bai Feng’s face with confusion. "Wha—what? How can you say that? After everything we’ve been through?"

Then he started listing things.

Specific things ranging from names to stories and adventures.

"You, me, Tarkos... and the twins—the blade dancers. We cleared the Sky Rift together! Don’t you remember? And the trial in the Mirage Ruins, where you stole that ancient jade emblem from the spirit king because he annoyed you?"

Victor stiffened at the mention of Tarkos, his in-game companion and one of the first NPCs he had ever bonded with in Ascendant Realms.

But the twins? Sky Rift? Mirage Ruins?

He had never done any of those things.

"Hold up," Victor said sharply, raising a hand. "Stop. You’re not making any sense. I don’t know you. I’ve never done any of that. And Tarkos—yeah, sure, I know him. But he’s an NPC. A character in Ascendant Realms. A game. A video game. One that didn’t even exist five years ago."

He gestured around at the icy chamber.

"And you’ve been in that light for five years. So how could you possibly know any of this?"

Bai Feng froze.

"...five years?"

His eyes widened, darting toward Rhozan.

"I’ve been inside that thing for five years?"

Rhozan nodded slowly. "Yes. It has been five cycles since your gruesome injuries."

But Bai Feng barely heard him. He returned his bewildered gaze to Victor.

"Fang Chen... what are you talking about? What’s Ascendant Realms? What do you mean Tarkos is an NPC? He’s one of your oldest friends! You saved his life twice!"

Victor rolled his eyes.

"I told you. Tarkos is a game character. Not real."

Bai Feng flinched as though struck.

"What... game...?"

He shook his head in disbelief, then tried again.

"Okay... Okay, maybe your memory is damaged. That must be it." He approached Victor slowly, hesitant but hopeful. "You always hid your aura when you wanted to rest or avoid fighting. Are you doing that now? Because... you seem much weaker than I remember."

Victor frowned.

"And your face looks younger," Bai Feng added. "Much younger. You used to have that scar over your left brow, and your jawline was sharper. How are you... like this?"

Now it was Victor’s turn to freeze.

Younger?

Weaker?

Scarless?

’Wait, I have healing attributes, I shouldn’t even be able to develop a scar...’ but this was the least of Victor’s concerns right now.

No one here should know about his face. And Bai Feng? He clearly wasn’t lying. His eyes darted between Victor’s features with the tension of someone who genuinely recognized what they saw and was shocked by how different it was.

"Alright," Victor said slowly, trying to anchor the conversation. "Tell me exactly what you remember."

Bai Feng nodded with a look of relief and continued.

"We met many years ago," he said. "Or... it felt like many years to me. I was a wanderer in the mortal plane. Chase by the wraithborn close to the outer falls. And you—Fang Chen—you saved me. You and Tarkos."

Victor’s brows rose.

"You’re telling me," he voiced with a deadpan look, "that I saved you. In the ’Outer falls.’ With Tarkos. Who is a game character. Before the game existed."

Bai Feng looked at him as though he was the crazy one.

"What game, Fang Chen?! Tarkos is real. You were traveling with him. And you saved me from dying!"

Victor rubbed his temples.

This was insane.

Absolutely insane.

Bai Feng continued:

"You said you were searching for a lost city hidden between collapsing timelines. Something about a key... a remnant of the Void Emperor lineage. You told us that only you could enter it safely because space and time bent differently around you."

Victor paused.

That...

sounded like something his bloodline would do.

But he had never done anything of the sort.

Ever.

"We traveled together," Bai Feng pressed. "We fought wars together. Ran from eldritch things. Survived traps, ruins, corrupted dimensions. We made it all the way to the outer shell of the Lost City. Just a few more gates..."

His voice darkened.

"And then he appeared."

Victor stiffened.

"Who?"

Bai Feng swallowed hard.

"A Void Emperor. Like you. Someone who carried the same bloodline. But stronger. Older... He was a true monster."

Victor was already shaking his head, refusing to indulge this story but Bai Feng kept going.

"He fought you. Across ruins. Across collapsing dimensions. Each clash tore through reality causing space to crack within our immediate vicinity. I—"

He trembled.

"And then your clash triggered it."

"Triggered what?"

"A wave," Bai Feng whispered.

"A temporal-dimensional displacement. A shockwave so massive it swallowed us all. I felt myself being ripped out of space... pulled through realities like a feather in a storm."

His hands clenched into trembling fists.

"And then... I woke up here. On this cold, unfamiliar world. I didn’t know its language. Its sky. Its physics. I didn’t recognize anything."

Victor listened silently.

Every word sounded insane.

Time displacement?

Void Emperor battles?

Lost Cities?

Collapsing timelines?

This wasn’t Ascendant Realms.

This wasn’t the game story.

This wasn’t even remotely similar to anything he had ever played through.

Bai Feng finished with a shaky breath:

"And the last thing I remember... was your more mature and definitely more good looking face. And your voice, shouting that you would protect us no matter what."

Victor stared at him for a long moment.

Then he said flatly:

"...Bullshit."

Bai Feng recoiled.

"I don’t know how you know me, pal," Victor continued coldly, "or how you know my in-game name. But your story makes zero sense. I wasn’t traveling across collapsing worlds. I don’t know you. And none of that crap ever happened."

He crossed his arms.

"So if you’re trying to scam me, trick me, manipulate me, or whatever—cut it out."

Bai Feng’s expression slowly crumbled as disbelief turned into something raw and painful.

"I... I don’t understand..." he whispered.

Victor shook his head, equally frustrated and confused.

"Neither do I."

Because the worst part was...

Bai Feng wasn’t lying.

Everything in his tone, posture, energy, and demeanor screamed sincerity. Even Rhozan’s senses hadn’t detected deception.

And yet, Victor had never lived any of this.

One horrifying possibility existed that Victor refused to give any thought.

Bai Feng knew a version of Fang Chen...

that wasn’t him.

A version of himself that he hadn’t become yet.

But Victor wasn’t ready to accept that yet.

Because accepting that would also mean accepting that Ascendant Realms wasn’t a game but an actual world.

And he could recall clearly that after his father bought him the game, he checked out the mechanics and developers online so all this made no sense. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

But then, another possibility existed. A possibility that would explain why how this Bai Feng person knew of the game five years earlier and of Victor’s in game identity.

Victor stood in front of him with arms crossed and brows knitted so tightly together it looked like his face was considering a mutiny.

"You’re a Beta tester," Victor said slowly, as though lecturing a confused child.

"Huh?" Bai Feng stared at him in confoundment.

"You know... people hired to try a game before release and make sure everything works? Ascendant Realms? Ringing any bells?" Victor explained.

Bai Feng blinked as if the words themselves were foreign concepts.

"What is a... beta tester?" he asked, genuinely bewildered. "And what is this Ascendant Realms you keep repeating? Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

Victor stared at him as though Bai Feng had grown a second head.

"The game world, dummy," Victor said, tapping his temple. "The cultivation world. The entire setting. Where you supposedly know me from. Ascendant Realms. The MMORPG."