PCJ – Chapter 739 Immortal Dream

But letting a person’s divine sense leave their body and enter a game illusion was no easy task. And how exactly to construct such an illusory world was another enormous challenge. With the abilities of Dumb and Nie Tong alone, it was naturally impossible. So, they turned to Zhang Jiaohua.

Speaking of this, Zhang Jiaohua couldn’t help but recall the time he obtained the little bell from Daoist Ma. The dream he entered then should have been an illusion. That bell wasn’t even the genuine article—it was a replica. Yet even the replica was still able to pull him into that illusion.

Wasn’t that bell essentially a login device? If he could use a spirit treasure to construct an illusion that functioned as the server, and then refine a large number of login devices, wouldn’t they be able to create a network? All the players could enter the illusion through these devices, and withdraw whenever they wished.

With Zhang Jiaohua’s late-stage Spirit Transformation cultivation, building an illusory world to serve as a game was naturally no problem. But whether those small devices could actually link with a spirit treasure to form a game network was something he wasn’t yet certain of. Still, that wasn’t a real obstacle—he could always carry out a series of experiments to test his theory.

Both the genuine and replica bells were in Zhang Jiaohua’s possession. With his current cultivation, he could already see through their internal structure. This artifact was different from ordinary magic tools because its core formation was highly unusual. It had virtually no physical attack power but could instead affect a person’s mind and soul. It belonged to the category of spiritual or soul-attacking artifacts.

After studying for quite some time, Zhang Jiaohua finally managed to produce a similar device. Testing its performance, it even seemed superior to the bell. He thought to himself: if he encountered the corpse king Chengdao again now, he wouldn’t have to be as embarrassed as before. That time was truly perilous—fortunately luck had been on his side, otherwise he wouldn’t have what he did today. Cultivation, after all, was a gamble with fate.

In crafting spirit artifacts and building illusions, Zhang Jiaohua was of course far beyond what Dumb and Nie Tong could achieve. But when it came to game design, Zhang Jiaohua was not their equal. Creating a fully realized cultivation-game world was an extremely complex undertaking. On this front, Nie Tong and Dumb were right in their element. Within a single month, they had already set up the framework—classes, quest systems, and countless other mechanics. Luckily, they were cultivators; if it had been ordinary people, there would have been no way to finish such a massive project in so short a time. And of course, it wasn’t just the two of them—there was also a large team behind the effort.

Yet when these designs were handed to Zhang Jiaohua, they became extraordinarily simple. Compared with normal cultivators, his soul was exceptionally powerful, far surpassing those at the same level. With his experience of the Dao Map, constructing an illusory game world was no great challenge. Moreover, unlike a real secret realm, this illusionary world did not demand much spiritual power to maintain. With only a small expenditure, Zhang Jiaohua could create an immortal-cultivation world countless times larger than Earth itself. In this Xianxia world, the Thirty-Six Heavenly Caves and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands—each one alone dwarfed Earth many times over. After all, in this world of cultivation, one could soar freely through the skies.

Of course, the purpose of the game was not merely entertainment—it was to select geniuses for the Meishan Sect. So the game required certain crucial functions.

Now in Bijiang City, the streets showed only a single brand of automobile. Yet strangely enough, no two cars seemed alike. This was an incredible phenomenon. Only a few years earlier, it would have been unimaginable. First, most cars on Chinese roads had been foreign brands. Second, cars of the same brand and model differed only in color—otherwise, they looked identical.

But now it was different. Production methods at Meishan Motors had undergone a complete revolution. The car bodies were no longer stamped or cast from molds. Instead, they were directly fabricated using multidimensional printing technology, generated as a single piece. The vehicle’s design simply required inputting the 3D model into the intelligent system, and the system would produce a completely unique appearance.

As a result, even cars of the same model had wildly different decorations and designs. It was nearly impossible to find two Meishan eco-friendly cars that looked identical. This left customers agonizing over choices, like children holding two beloved toys, pained to give one up.

In the center of Bijiang City now stood a magnificent skyscraper, towering like a crane among chickens—the Immortal Dream Tower, headquarters of the Meishan Group. It rose 999 meters tall, with 199 floors. Its construction cost was still a mystery, for it had been built entirely by Meishan Group’s own construction company, using only materials developed and manufactured in-house. Even more miraculous, it had been completed in just six months, a feat that shocked the world. It looked as though it had simply been stacked together like building blocks. At the time, many predicted Meishan Group would end up with the world’s tallest unfinished building. Yet half a year later, Immortal Dream Tower stood proud in the heart of Bijiang, the most vibrant city in the world.

On its glass façade now glowed a massive advertisement: “September 9th – Immortal Dream: Xianxia Virtual Reality Game Launch.” Within the tower was a colossal experience center spanning ten full floors, built to satisfy the curiosity of countless players. Meishan Group invested tens of thousands of login devices for public trials. Players from all over the country flocked to Bijiang to experience it.

“This is a revolutionary game. It will completely transform the gaming world. In the future, just as with domestic cars where only one brand remains, so too might there be only one game. Perhaps even more absolute. Compared with this, past games are meaningless. At least for me, I no longer have any interest in old titles. In this game, you truly enter an immortal realm. It feels less like playing a game and more like experiencing a dazzling dream.”

So wrote Qi Shuo, one of China’s most famous gaming influencers, after trying it out at the Immortal Dream Experience Center. His game streams regularly attracted millions of viewers.

When Qi Shuo posted this on Weibo, fans immediately @him: “Are you secretly advertising for Immortal Dream?”

Qi Shuo quickly replied: “I wish I were. But they don’t need to. Just like their Meishan new-energy cars, the Meishan Group doesn’t seem to have any intention of paying for celebrity endorsements.”