I'm Really Not a Great Ascension Expert

[Complete]

Lu Ming died after staying up all night revising a manuscript at the client's demand. When he woke up again, he discovered that he had become a small mountain village.

You read that right: the entire village, land and all, was his body!

Lu Ming also discovered that in this cultivation world, he had a game-based construction System. Everything here had a line of text floating above it: Ten years until the game launches.

Lu Ming: "??? Seriously, did I get dumped into a full-dive game?"

No matter what, you have to be strong yourself. Before these players, the Fourth Calamity, arrived, he had better hurry up and develop the place, then build himself a body.

So Lu Ming developed the village while cultivating talented practitioners.

Small village -> small town -> city -> Peerless City -> sacred cultivation ground.

Then Lu Ming successfully took human form, only to discover that these players were acting a little strange.

"Could this NPC Lu Ming have ascended? Those three around him are all main-story protagonists."

"Stop talking and just suck up to him."

"What are you saying? Sucking up to an NPC doesn't count as sucking up. We're all followers of the protagonist party."

Lu Ming (rubbing his forehead): "I'm really not some ascended big shot!"

Players: "No, you are!"

Short Story

The many cultivators of the Hunyuan Realm knew that Peerless City held a grand banquet every ten years, attended by sects from far and wide.

What astonished them even more was that the Hundred-Demon Talisman Master, the Little Pill King, and Venerable Mingjing, whose sword had shaken the nine heavens, were all followed by countless admirers (players) in the Hunyuan Realm. Yet in Peerless City, all three were being scolded by an unknown young man, and they obediently listened.

"Xiao Ming, how many times have I told you? I don't need these things anymore, so stop bringing them over."

"You two, don't laugh. You didn't listen to a single word I said last time!"

"Sigh, I must be getting old. I can't keep you naughty kids in line anymore."

Lu Ming looked at these children, each of whom he had sent out into the world himself, and felt the pride of an old father.

"No, no, you're forever eighteen. You're not old at all," the three said in unison.

No matter how they behaved outside, Peerless City was Lu Ming's domain, and what he said went.

All the players (thumbs up): As expected of you, ascended big shot.

* No romance, a construction-focused story (probably?)

* The protagonist starts out as a village and then a town, and takes human form later on.

* Not a conventional cultivation novel; includes original worldbuilding.

Theme: People can overcome fate.