Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex and Hannah were back in the room. 

”Umm… you wanna try it first?” Hannah asked after seeing Alex’s enchanted face. 

”No, sister. It’s yours, you should get in,” Alex said.

”Stop trying to act nice and just get in,” Hannah said as she pushed him towards the capsule.

Alex stopped rejecting the offer and got into the capsule. The suction cups worked very nicely and the capsule did no wobbling as expected. 

He slowly sat down inside and then laid inside it. It inside had its own mattress and pillow to make the players feel comfortable. It was a snug fit for him. 

”What do we do now?” he asked. 

”Um, try closing the lid? I’ll see if there are some manuals somewhere,” Hannah said and left the room. Alex did as she said and lied back down before closing the lid to the capsule. 

As soon as he did that, his mind started feeling heavy, and soon, he logged into the game. 

He opened his eyes and got up from the bed back in the room inside the hotel. He had successfully logged in without any notifications from the system. 

He immediately put up his hands to block the intense light coming from the window. There was a loud noise right next to him. He turned around to see that Wan Li was reading his book in a very loud voice.

Also, he felt like he had a massive fever right now with how hot he felt. ’Is that me or is something on fire?’ he wondered. There was also a weird smell in the air that he just couldn’t put a finger on.

Wan Li seemed to have noticed him moving and very slowly lifted his head. He then said something quite incomprehensible.

”O-H-H-E-Y-B-R-O-T-H-E-R-Y-U-Y-O-U-A-R-E-A-W-A-K-E.” Wan Li spoke so slowly yet so loudly that Alex couldn’t really understand what he meant. 

Alex realized just then what actually was happening. Everything happening right now hinted that his Focus Mode was on. 

The bright light, the hot environment, the slowness of time, the weird smell, and the loudness of the sound we’re all the things that happened when his focus mode was active. 

He quickly tried to cancel his focus mode, but he couldn’t. ’Huh? What’s happening?’ he wondered. He tried to cancel the focus mode once more, but nothing was happening. 

Not sure what was happening, he wondered if it was a bug of the game or something. This wasn’t a normal Focus mode either. All of his senses were on another level when compared to the normal focus mode.

”A-R-E-Y-O-U-O-K-A-Y-B-R-O-T-H-E-R-Y-U,” Wan Li spoke once more. Alex looked at him and slowly did a gesture to inform him that it was okay. He didn’t want to tip him off that something was weird. 

’Damn, maybe it really is a bug. I should leave and check it online,” Alex thought and immediately logged out.

He slowly opened the lid back and got out of there. Thankfully, he wasn’t disoriented or anything. He was still weirded out by the experience. 

Hannah walked into the room with a manual for the capsule.

”Hey, why are you out? Get back in. I told you to try it out, didn’t I?” Hannah said. 

”Huh? Oh, I… already logged in and came back out,” Alex said. 

”Oh, so you found out how to get it working? Then you should have to spend a little more time in there,” Hannah said.

”I… It was weird. I think the capsule has a bug in it. I can’t stop the Focus mode at all,” Alex said.

”Huh? A bug? Don’t tell me we have to return it back. Tsk. Let’s check the internet, maybe they have some answers,” Hannah said, and quickly opened the forums. 

”Oh, here it is, the Bugs post. Let’s see…. Huh? It says that it’s not a bug though. Lemme check this link, wait for a second,” Hannah said and clicked some link the comments had. 

”Features? Look at this, Alex. It says that the focus mode is a feature,  not a bug,” Hannah said. Alex quickly went and read what was written on the post. 

-Focus mode has been permanently added to the players who play with capsules. Players will have to learn to deactivate it, instead of activating it now.-

”It’s auto from now on? That’s gonna be a problem,” Alex said. His pill-making required expert precision in his timing and movement when using his Qi. With focus mode ON, it was very hard to grasp the proper timing of when to follow the recipe as his perception of time would not be correct at all.

”Hmm, maybe. Or maybe it’s easy to deactivate it. You should try it out extensively when your capsule comes too,” Hannah said. 

”Maybe,” Alex said as he kept on reading. There weren’t many other in-game features worth reading and most of the features were from real life. 

One of the most beneficial ones he found was that if the player ever lost consciousness, they would be ejected from the game, unlike the previous times when they would just be in the game forever until they woke up, they were now force logged out.

’I wonder that will work with my sleeping issue if that even counts as a faint in the first place,’ Alex thought.

”Alright, I will go back in. Since we won’t need to eat food anymore, if I don’t get out, don’t wait for me, okay?” Hannah said and went into the capsule. 

She closed the lid and soon logged into the game. Alex left the room and went back to his room. He couldn’t wait to have his own capsule as well. 

He entered the room and got on the bed. He looked at the helmet on his bed, something that he would have to store away soon. 

’Ah, I probably have some explaining to do,’ He thought as he remembered his interaction with Wan Li and put on the helmet before logging back into the game.