The schism began with whispers.
Players who'd joined for the "game," for the challenge, for the power fantasy of cultivation without consequence. They'd accepted the risk in theory, but theory was different from watching Kevin nearly die in single combat, from feeling the ground shake under orbital bombardment, from understanding that the "NPCs" were people and the "quests" were survival.
They gathered in private channels, forums, secret meetings. Marcus monitored everything—his network of informants extended even among those who distrusted him.
"They're leaving," he told Chen Hao. "Not just the sect. The planet. They want out, back to Earth, and they're demanding you facilitate it."
"I can't," Chen Hao said. "The System controls the connection. I can summon, I can't send back. Not without..."
"Without what?"
Chen Hao didn't answer. They both knew. Without death. Without the extraction process that ejected consciousness back to Earth, traumatized but intact.
"Then we tell them the truth," Sarah said, joining the conversation. "All of it. The System, the extraction, the fact that leaving requires dying. Let them choose."
"Most will choose to stay," Marcus predicted. "Risk-averse behavior. Familiarity preference."
"Some will choose to die," Chen Hao said quietly. "To escape. To return home even at the cost of trauma."
"Yes."
"And we let them?"
"We help them." Sarah's voice was firm. "Honest choice requires honest information. We've been keeping the full truth from them, protecting them, treating them like children. They're adults. They deserve to decide their own fates."
The announcement was made that evening. Full disclosure. The nature of the System. The cost of departure. The risks of staying.
Forty percent chose to leave.
The exodus took three days. Chen Hao performed the ritual himself—System-assisted, but under his control, minimizing trauma, preserving dignity. Each departure was a small death, a talent he refused to harvest, a power he chose not to take.
He felt weaker afterward. The sect felt smaller. The remaining players—sixty out of the original hundred—looked at him with new eyes, understanding finally the full weight of his responsibility.
"Why stay?" a young woman asked, Gabriela's friend, one of the last to decide. "You could leave. Find another host, start over, avoid all this... this moral complexity."
Chen Hao considered. "Because I made promises. To Thomas, to James, to everyone who died believing in this place. Because I've finally built something genuine, and I want to see what it becomes." He smiled, tired. "And because, honestly, I'm curious. The System expects me to exploit, to optimize, to survive at any cost. I want to surprise it."
She stayed. Not because of his answer, but because of his honesty.
The sect was smaller. Stronger, in its way. The remaining players were committed, informed, genuinely voluntary. The energy generation dropped—fewer people, less exploitation—but the quality changed. Deeper. More sustainable.
Chen Hao advanced to Foundation Establishment Layer 3 on genuine cultivation alone. No stolen talents. No arranged deaths. Just discipline, practice, and the slow accumulation of merit.
The System watched, preferring, waiting.
[End of Chapter 16]