Lu Ze transmigrated into the body of an outer disciple of the Lingxiao Sect, a cultivation sect on the Tian Xuan Continent. With only mediocre aptitude and a perfect memory as his sole talent, he spent three years trying to activate his system by writing novels from his past life. He discovered that the system required one thousand emotional points to activate, but only negative emotions were counted. After copying *The Condor Heroes* and triggering a massive surge of negative emotions from the disciples reading his tragic story, the system finally activated. It was called the Demonic Path Child System, branding him a demonic cultivator. The system required him to kill righteous cultivators to gain demonic path value, which could improve his cultivation base. This put him in extreme danger because demonic cultivators were hunted relentlessly by the righteous path, and the Lingxiao Sect itself was a righteous stronghold. Lu Ze could not simply kill disciples, as his cultivation was only at Qi Refinement third layer. He realized that if he could cause righteous cultivators to die inside a trial illusionary realm he created, the deaths would still count for his system.Using his talent in artifact refinement, his past life experience as a game designer, and the programming logic he understood from that world, Lu Ze designed a game called "Demonic Cult Escape" based on the concept of an endless runner. He placed it within the cultivation hall's large illusionary realm, presenting it as a trial for practicing the basic body technique Broken Cloud Art. In the game, players had to escape from a terrifying demonic cult monster while following strict rules: only Broken Cloud Art could be used, and touching barriers, mechanisms, or the monster resulted in instant death. Players collected spirit stones, avoided traps like fire talismans and arrow rain, and could use accumulated spiritual energy to activate acceleration skills. The game featured a scoring system, distance tracker, leaderboard, and a home page with a shop where players could purchase mounts, magical artifacts, and new cultivation techniques using spirit stones collected in the game, all set with exaggerated prices to encourage repeated play.The outer disciples quickly became addicted to the game. Zhang Ming, one of the players, improved his Broken Cloud Art from minor accomplishment to major accomplishment within an hour and a half, far faster than the usual two months. This convinced him that the game was a profound ancient secret realm created by an unfathomable power. Lu Ze received a system prompt: because Zhang Ming was fully convinced by the game, Lu Ze randomly obtained Zhang Ming's Broken Cloud Art at major accomplishment. This confirmed that Lu Ze could absorb abilities from players who were completely impressed by his game. More importantly, Lu Ze discovered that when players died in the game, he gained small amounts of demonic path value, even though the amount was far less than killing a real cultivator. Since players could die infinitely in the game, this opened a sustainable method to farm demonic path value.To complete a system mission requiring him to prevent more than thirty percent of Lingxiao Sect disciples from cultivating peacefully for five days, Lu Ze needed to keep them playing the game nonstop. However, the outer disciples' temporary tokens for the trial had a daily three-hour limit. Lu Ze spent three days crafting unlimited-duration temporary tokens that could only be used for Demonic Cult Escape and sold them for one spirit stone each, allowing five days of uninterrupted play. The disciples eagerly bought them. One disciple named Wang Ba, who ranked very low on the leaderboard, angrily complained that the trial was inferior to the real cultivation illusionary realm used by inner disciples and accused Lu Ze of deliberately giving them worse content. Lu Ze responded by casually demonstrating his own Broken Cloud Art at major accomplishment, moving behind Wang Ba in an instant, telling him that if he was bad he should practice more. Wang Ba, humiliated, stormed off. Lu Ze decided that if Wang Ba returned to take the trial again, he would design a special set of levels to ensure Wang Ba stayed dead last forever. Lu Ze felt that making games was the correct path for using his system, because it allowed sustainable development of demonic path value without having to kill cultivators directly, and he could even gain abilities from players who admired his work. He began to think about how to attract inner disciples and even elders to play his games, dreaming of using game creation to become the strongest cultivator, forgetting for a moment that he was actually a demonic cultivator hiding within a righteous sect.
