MTL - Taoist Master and the Cat - Chapter 12

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Suddenly, the unmarried twenty-year-old Ye Zhizhou had many more relatives, yet it was too late for him to clearly understand the circumstances as he nearly died in a car accident. After that, he somehow managed to survive and was even forcibly bound to a Salvation System.

How is it salvation?

Harems destroy worlds! Preventing a harem will save them!

. . . .

Ok, prevent harems. After seeing the entire system introduction, the corners of Ye Zhizhou’s mouth twitched. In order to return home safely, he decisively began his risky journey—he’d just treat it as if he was playing a large-scale strategy game.

Since then, the people the protagonist would rescue, he rescued first.The businesses the protagonist would make, he made first. The little brother the protagonist would take in, he took in first. The cliff the protagonist would jump off of, he jumped off of first. The gay s*x the protagonist would have, he’d have. . . . Wait wait, can’t do this one, change it, let me change it.

???: No, you can do this one.

Ye Zhizhou (alarmed): Who’s speaking?

???: Your husband.

Ye Zhizhou: . . . .

- Description from novelupdates

war, blood, and betrayal carved him into something else. A legend. A killer. A mercenary whose name struck fear into both criminals and so-called heroes alike.But now, the world had changed. Lines blurred between right and wrong, between justice and vengeance. Should he step into the light, wear the mask of a hero, and fight for a cause greater than himself? Or should he embrace the darkness that had always been his home, a place where morality was just another illusion?“Don’t box me in with your shallow ideas of good and evil,” he muttered, his voice calm but edged with danger. “I do what I want, when I want.”The air was thick with tension as he moved like a shadow through the dimly lit room. The writer had no time to react—one moment, he was scribbling nonsense about legends and myths; the next, a cold barrel pressed against the back of his head.The figure smirked beneath his mask, eyes gleaming with something between amusement and menace.“You wanna write fiction?” he whispered. “Then let me show you how real legends are made.”A single gunshot shattered the silence.As the writer’s body slumped over the desk, the man holstered his weapon, stepping into the faint glow of a flickering neon light.“It’s that simple,” he said, his voice unwavering. “I’m Deathstroke.”

Hi there, I’m Chen Mo, as you’ve already noticed from my name, I’m a main character profile, or at least that’s how it was supposed to be. For legal reasons, I won’t be disclosing my real name, I’m a typical corporate slave working 996 at a game development company.Although I hate it, its not all that bad, I hop on with my non-existent friends every now and then doing the usual stuff, yk, cranking 90s, getting the Ws(never) and reading some dogshit wuxia novels with negative translations but I still make it work.That was my life until I was transmigrated into the world of cultivation and took over my boy Chen Mo’s profile RIP lol. Chen Mo’s your typical MC profile, yk, has talent, then gets spiritual roots removed or whatever, engagement annulled, just the usual stuff.Anyway, enough about that, during my transmigration, I somehow got to keep my programmer job, don’t ask how idk either. To pay tribute to my boy Chen Mo for taking his account before he had his heaven defying opportunity to take revenge, I’ll build a sect for all MC profiles in the world. Your engagement got annulled? here’s a cultivation system, your sect got destroyed? here’s a god-level cultivation technique, your spiritual roots are broken? here’s some more.