Chapter 6: Zero Brain Cells
Irene was initially frightened inside the VR capsule, but the moment the neural network connected, her consciousness was pulled into an entirely new world.
She opened her eyes to find herself standing in a vast, boundless white space.
{Would you like to experience the tutorial? Y/N}
She subconsciously chose Y.
{Initializing Character Creation...}
As someone who had never played a video game in her life, Irene stood completely dazed.
Ting!
{Scanning player’s physical structure...}
A translucent, blue holographic wireframe grid wrapped around her figure.
While waiting, a strange sensation washed over her. She looked down. Her eyes went wide, and her hands instinctively moved to cover her chest.
She was completely naked.
"Ah!"
She curled into a ball out of pure reflex.
But after a brief moment of intense panic, Irene realized something was off. This wasn’t like being naked in the real world. There was no skin, no definition, and no vulnerability.
Her avatar was nothing but a blank, pearl-white base mesh—a featureless null body with zero textures.
Irene straightened her body and stared at her null avatar for a moment before the next message appeared.
{Please synchronize your kinetic alignment. Rotate your wrists and take three deep breaths.}
Irene focused on the text and complied.
{Calibration complete.}
{Do you want to customize your character? Y/N}
Irene chose N.
{Enter your moniker for the Centennial Tournament.}
Though she didn’t fully understand the message, she didn’t overthink it.
{Red Goddess}
She typed in the name without much thought. She wasn’t actually interested in the game—she just wanted to try out the advanced VR capsule the shopkeeper had praised so highly.
Besides, Donape had promised to refund her money if she wasn’t satisfied. Even if things felt a little scary here and there, she really had nothing to lose.
{Character Creation completed.}
A blinding white light flashed, forcing Irene to shut her eyes.
When she slowly opened them again, she found herself hovering several meters in the air over a vast mountain.
She immediately held her breath, bracing for a fall.
But slowly, her five senses began to synchronize. She could feel the breeze, smell the fresh grass, and scent the rich earth below.
She blinked rapidly; the crystal-clear imagery her retinas were receiving was far too perfect to be just an illusion of virtual reality.
Realizing she was safely suspended in midair, she began to move her arms, fingers, and legs.
She examined her overall appearance. Nothing had changed, except she was now wearing the rustic, casual clothes of a commoner from ancient times.
Her hair was still red, her height exactly 172 cm, and her body still slender.
"I-Is this real?" she stammered. "This is so different from the VR helmets sold on the market. Wow... this is truly amazing! The virtual worlds from those animations have finally become a reality!"
Before she could even process the mind-blowing technology, a new message flashed.
{The Path of the Heavenly Martial Arts tutorial starting...}
Without warning, the sky tore apart. Gale-force winds howled as a legendary master unleashed a crimson sword strike that split the clouds, while another shattered a distant stone fortress with a single, invisible palm strike from miles away.
Irene gasped as her perspective violently shifted into a third-person cinematic mode, her avatar moving automatically.
Around her, powerful martial arts masters soared across the treetops using peerless Lightness Skills. Their weapons hummed with dense, colorful Qi.
Suddenly, the camera zoomed past the explosions, focusing on a single, ordinary-looking hill.
An old man sat on a flat stone, wearing coarse, simple robes. He had no sword, no glowing aura, and no armor.
A massive, arrogant tyrant wielding a burning, house-sized broadsword plummeted from the sky, aiming a fatal strike right at the old man’s head.
The sheer air pressure cracked the earth.
The old man didn’t run. As the massive blade descended, he simply stepped forward—gently slipping into the blind spot of the swing. His bare hands lightly touched the tyrant’s wrist.
With a smooth, circular rotation of his shoulders, he redirected the massive downward momentum right back upward.
BOOM!
The tyrant was sent flying into the stratosphere by his own force, crashing straight through a distant peak.
The old man calmly dusted off his robes, looked directly into the camera—directly at Irene—and spoke:
"Embrace strength with gentleness. Reach the peak by winning the Centennial Martial Arts Tournament, and prove that you are unrivaled under the heavens!"
The old man waved his left hand, and Irene—now the Red Goddess—was violently thrown backward.
Her eyes went wide. Her surroundings blurred as the tutorial fast-forwarded her through time, transitioning from the historic flashback of the past into the game’s actual present timeline.
She had just witnessed the past of the Heavenly Cloud Sect’s first patriarch, Cheon Di-Mun.
The sect, which was originally built in glory, had eventually succumbed to fierce rivals like the Mount Hua Sect, the Wudang Sect, the Shaolin Sect, and the Emei Sect.
Suddenly, Irene stopped in midair and dropped, sticking a flawless superhero landing right on the ground.
In this current timeline, the Heavenly Cloud Sect was far from its glory days, though it hadn’t yet been completely thrown out of the prestigious sects of the Murim.
But Irene didn’t care about any of that. She hadn’t even considered pursuing martial arts or power.
All she cared about was the dirt beneath her.
"Wow, this soil feels so real. It even smells authentic!" She rubbed the dirt between her fingers, testing a bit on her tongue. "It tastes real too!"
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Donape rolled his eyes at Irene’s bizarre behavior.
Through the VR capsule’s lid, he could witness directly everything that he had experienced from the very beginning.
The clear glass doubles as a smart display, projecting her real-time gameplay directly onto the capsule’s surface.
This was due to a default system feature called the Shared Track.
It was a two-way street, meaning real-world noise could bleed into the capsule if the option was fully active.
Because of that, Donape kept his reactions completely silent. He didn’t want to ruin her immersion or make her uncomfortable.
At least for the time being, he would just watch.
The system’s logic for the Shared Track was simple.
If a player chooses to skip the tutorial, the system flags them as an expert. It automatically turned the glass blank for privacy, assuming they already know how to manage their settings.
But for beginners who accepted the tutorial, the glass lid projected their gameplay by default to serve as a live learning experience for onlookers.
The system would only teach them how to toggle it off once the tutorial was completed.
Donape pulled a chair from the counter’s left side and set it down up front, facing the row of five VR capsules.
Even though he knew the ins and outs of the hardware, he was genuinely curious to learn more about the lore of The Path of the Heavenly Martial Arts.
He didn’t waste time wondering why a woman as stunning as Irene could be so clueless about gaming.
Sighing, Donape attributed this behavior solely to ignorance.
After all, Irene had absolutely no idea that these capsules possessed the mind-blowing ability to bring supernatural techniques from the virtual world straight into reality.
Back in the game, Irene was still riding the wave of pure euphoria.
Instead of heading toward the hill to progress the tutorial, she turned right around to admire the cool, serene scenery. As far as she knew, no modern technology was capable of creating a simulation this flawless.
"This is absolutely insane," she murmured, gazing at the horizon. "It’s like an entirely different reality. If someone gets exhausted by the real world, this could be the ultimate escape. But..., can you even call it an illusion if it feels this real?"
Her five senses were receiving data identical to the real world. Because she wasn’t used to it, the line between simulation and reality became blurry.
Lost in thought, Irene wandered until she arrived at a bustling village where dozens of NPCs were roaming around.
Irene’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Spotting a cute little girl holding hands with a woman who was supposedly the mother, she walked over.
"Hello! I’m Irene—Adele Irene," she greeted them kindly, offering a warm smile. "You and your mother are so adorable. What are your names?"
Instead of smiling back, the mother and daughter, dressed in faded civilian robes, scowled. They backed away from Irene as if she were a suspicious criminal, then hurriedly ran off into the crowd.
Irene stood there, utterly dumbfounded. She spoke so politely.
Why were they treating her like a threat?
Outside the capsule, Donape finally blurted out after being unable to contain his irritation.
"This is the Murim—a parallel society of cutthroat warriors, martial artists, and rogue sects! Smiling like a weirdo and approaching strangers with modern manners makes you look like a shady cultist. No normal civilian is going to act friendly toward you!"
Irene nearly jumped out of her skin. Hearing Donape’s voice inside a virtual world that was supposed to be completely isolated was a massive shock.
She instinctively clutched her head, looking around wildly as if she had just heard a ghost.
"Y-You! Shopkeeper?!" Irene yelled, spinning in circles to find him. "Are you in here too? Show yourself!"
Back in the cafe, Donape closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose in sheer exhaustion.
’First, I get a rich young master who pees his pants,’ he thought, ’And now I have a stunning beauty who is completely brainless.’