After some stress relief he was greeted by another pop-up message.

Masturbation skill unlocked.

Masturbation skill LVL. 1 acquired.

Bonus Dexterity +1

He blushed and looked around the cave as if checking if someone saw him doing something shameful.

'So this counts as a skill as well? What happens at a higher level? Do I finish faster? Do I get more intense orgasms?', he thought on the inside while giggling like a girl in kindergarten being tickled on the outside.

'I wish there was some kind of skill list.' he thought and suddenly it appeared in front of him.

Skills:

Lumberjack: Level 3

Carpentry: Level 1

Masturbation: Level 1

"Wow!!!", he exclaimed and focused on the lumberjack skill.

A new pop-up appeared.

Lumberjack: The art of felling trees. Knowledge of wood types and physics combine to make you more proficient in felling trees.

Bonus attribute: Strength

Next bonus at level: 5

"Hmmm. Show me the attributes list!", he exclaimed.

ATTRIBUTES LIST

Strength: 8

Wisdom: 23

Intelligence: 32

Dexterity: 21

He looked through them and noticed there were only those he acquired listed.

'There must be more of them to unlock. Hmm. Show me the attributes if the baseline for the average human is 10.', he thought.

ATTRIBUTES LIST

Strength: 4.5

Wisdom: 11.5

Intelligence: 16

Dexterity: 10.5

His strength was low, but that was to be expected as he was in a body of a malnourished 12-year-old kid. His wisdom and intelligence were above average, and his dexterity was normal.

He thought about what other skills he could learn in the woods with the equipment he had available and started making plans.

-------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas in a fancy presidential suite of a 5-star hotel a man was sitting with his laptop on a leather sofa and frowning.

"It has been two days. I can't feel the connection anymore. Why has he not logged in?! He is a game addict. This makes no sense. Something must have happened to him.", he mumbled while checking the logs of the console server remotely.

'What bad timing...", he mumbled.

He was required to attend CES as the CEO of his company Immortal which produced high end virtual reality consoles.

CES is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, the event typically hosts presentations of new products and technologies in the consumer electronics industry.

He could not leave the venue to check up in person since there was too much at stake with Immortal VR console 2.0.

His name was Ambroise Ananta which was a fake name he chose by sticking the Sanskrit word for infinite and French name meaning immortal together. He looked like a regular 40 something year old businessman in his Armani suit with black-rimmed glasses which were just for show.

Only he knew the truth that he was nearing 2400 years of age and that he had been stuck in this spirituality devoid plane for the better part of the last 2000 years.

The higher-ups have decided this was one of the perfect places to seek out new talent exactly because of the low spirituality. people who show signs of cultivation in such places would be like shining stars anywhere else.

At first he was optimistic about his job as a soul transmigration agent but over the years he noticed his cultivation was stuck in the same place and even started to decline after the first 400 years.

He was denied repeated appeals for transfer from his post on Earth and the only reason he was still doing his reports was the nearer amount of resources they transferred to him every couple of years. He was almost no different from mortals now.

With no chance of rising higher in cultivation he dabbled in human affairs through the years and with the advent of the internet he finally found a quick way to screen a lot of candidates at once without the hassle of seeing them in person.

He designed and made the best VR console on Earth for the sole purpose of finding talented individuals capable of cultivation. To find the lights in the darkness.

He got his first hit with Harrison Roberts on the first generation console. He reported him to the higher authorities but failed to disclose there were many others although not quite as talented as Harrison but well above the requirements.

If the 2nd generation console had only one major difference from the first one that would be the price tag. The first generation price tag was 10.000 USD for the headset and 30.000 USD for the whole shebang. It sold only 900 pieces, and he already found 17 suitable candidates.

The 2nd generation will cost 400 USD and 1200 USD for the whole setup so the proliferation of it will be much higher.

What he also failed to mention to the higher ups was that he fiddled with the terms of service or TOS agreement

Every suitable candidate would get a special one in the background of the original in the form of a runic text that no one on Earth was capable of reading but was capable of forming a soul contract with him.

He would bind his soul with the users making them his slaves who would have to obey him unconditionally or suffer the effects on their souls which was far worse than any physical torture could achieve. The only bonus the users would receive is a game like system that would make their ascension to the higher realms of cultivation even easier for them.

His plan was perfect, and it all started due to an acquaintance joking about Facebook's terms of service at lunch.

With the advent of smartphones his friend was installing Facebook and when he came to Terms of Service agreement he just clicked ok.

He joked with him that if the devil ran Facebook, he could rope in the souls of every Facebook user since no one bothers to read the terms of service, anyway.

He was not the devil but that lit a spark of inspiration in him since he had the actual means to make it happen. He started learning like a madman for the next 15 years about programming, hardware, game design, etc..

Anything that could help make his plan come to fruition he gobbled up like a sponge. Due to technology limitations it took him 15 years otherwise with his superior intellect he would be done in less than 5 years.

At the launch he was a nervous wreck and even after a month things didn't progress. Then suddenly Harrison turned up, and he was ecstatic. Soon he was followed by the others.

He reported Harrison to the higher-ups and waited for them to take action. He didn't want to raise the suspicion of his superiors so he only reported him otherwise the frequency of one to two people in a decade jumping to 17 in a month would probably spell a calamity for him. He would be replaced by someone more trusted in a flash.

He decided he would filter out just the very best of the best and send his reports about them. What is 50 more years for an immortal if it would mean an absolutely loyal army would be created for his use?

What he could not comprehend was how Harrison managed to escape his soul contract. In all honesty there was probably no one who would use a bullet to the head as a means of destroying it.

In some comedic way Harrison dodged a bullet by hitting it with his head.