"The isekai trend is at its worst¹heh, you are in 2018, talk about it in 2019. Worse than school harem trend or cute girls do cute things trend. Isekai contains both cause why not? Toss some elf, cat, demon, and whatever chick into your work, season with a cheat and eureka, a standard web-novel ready for animation."

John: Plus horrific translation

"If you think the Japanese have good grammar, I beg your pardon. English translations suck because the original authors suck. Hard."

John: don't tell, I only read major novels. anyway you don't need quality to make money

"Then they introduce new cliche into a genre. I must take my revenge!"

John: humans are bad guys and demons are the victims!

"Our summoners are scheming bastards!"

John: my skill everyone deem worthless, but its a hidden cheat

"Also the Japanese cuisine is the best. You know, it's just rice with spice. And fish. I hate fish."

John: apparently several years in high-schoold makes you an expert in everything.

"Novels for girls are all about being reincarnated as a villainess in a video-game setting. A heroine or a side-character are forbidden exceptions."

John: read like two. both introduced shampoo and cosmetics into medieval society. Hand-made.

"They do it all the time, yes."

John: My biggest problem is Japanses protagonists. Even kitchen avengers are owned by damsels in distress and 'I am secretly a nice guy' narrative. do they have a Big Brother or something propagating THE correct behavior in-mass?

"Nope. They are just herbivores. Anti-military politic does this to you. Never read Chinese novels, are they any better?"

John: depends. A usual MC is a self-righteous moron who's ready to kills any number of people. Very alpha, very medieval Chinese. If any worse, he would act as a villain while proclaiming by the author to be the mister goodie.
John: Now, there is a small number of novels where the MC is the bad guy by design. Those are mostly decent since it's a stray path, author who goes there usually knows what he is doing. unless it's a popular trend

"What about female MC?"

John: What about them? famous doctor, or alchemist, or asssassin reincarnates into a body of a useless Seventh or something Miss in a rich household or princess or whatever. whos bullied by every1 and their dog all day long.
John: Fem MC are pretty much the same. Much more ruthless than your average male MC, honestly. Any uses poison and pills... are only weak against her love interest. Relationships are pretty rapey. He does things, hugs, kisses etc, she forgives him cause she is supposed to. also he is more OP so she has to rely on him to progress the plot
John: male-MC novels are pretty rapey too though. Norm is when you have at least one random aphrodisiac-induced relationship. guess they do so to keep their hero from remaining a virgin. no sex, no love, only cultivation.
John: also murdering clans and cities.
John: In short, writing a proper female lead is hard. So they tend to erase their personalities into a perfect wifey material after the deed is done and leave behind in lower realms or something
John: Chinese novels are all bout power levelling, the MC is the god OP, so any extra character is useful for one arc and that is that, forgotten and left behind.

"..."

John: I'm describing in the most condensing way, okay? There are better cultivation novels out there. Although like 99% follow certain narratives.

"No, just wow. Thanks. I get it... I think."

When the pure fantasy explanations regarding cultivation had digressed into cliche novel shaming talk, Alice honestly wouldn't tell if asked. Though the girl welcomed a distraction from another rubber-like meal she had been having.

"Bye, John. Monsters won't kill themselves."

The girl log-off and stared at a wall in the safe zone. John was the only person in the chatroom who shared one of her hobbies and it was nice to blabber together. Made her feel like they were back on Earth.

Monsters won't kill themselves. But it would have been nice. Alice palmed her own cheeks. He was eager to try this cultivation thingy... wish you luck.  

Would it bring the guy good or bad, the girl had issued her warnings, so it was on him.

"There go a hundred points." Glancing at the empty dishes with obvious disgust, Alice opened the notebook and ordered, "System shop. Weapon modification. I need to be able to carry my glaive around. Make it two-section, show every kind of fixed connection. No. No. No. Yes. Buy."

> Battle Points: 1,633->1,433

"Twenty arrows with piercing heads. I have my fist quiver still... Wait, three more arrows."

> Battle Points: 1,433->1,203

"Now add plates for armor. Thighs. Plus sheath for my glaive, show options for both. No. No. Yes. No. Yes."

> Battle Points: 1,203->853

"Seven lesser health potions²same thing as life, Alice doesn't care about the exact wording nor should you, two antitoxin potions. A custom belt for them. No. No... back. Yes."

> Battle Points: 853->13

"It's like having a penny in a pocket. What can I even buy with it? Oh... I'll go with oni. Change color to dark grey. Very dark. Yep, place on the mask."

> Battle Points: 13->0

"Here we go," Alice repeated and mocked herself bitterly. "Zero. My number!"

Having had a good laugh, the girl gathered her items on the floor for inspection. Four antitoxin potions and eight life potions presented themselves, hoarded by her after all escapades. The black belt had multiple compartments specifically for vials, which the girl filled immediately, her fingers ran across metal insertion inside. The glaive she picked next, studied it closely, bent with force a few times. It looked and felt solid, Alice nodded and then twisted and pulled the pole apart.

The glaive broke up into two sections. The upper part transformed into a short saber with a rather long and awkward handle, the lower counterpart changed into a staff. Both parts had short pegs meant to be inserted into each other and fixed by a turn with quite a force. Be it the past Alice she wouldn't be able to operate this weapon at all.

The saber, or sword the girl put into the sheath and fastened to her fresh belt, while the staff she hanged on her back with special straps. Alice jumped around, making sure the system's handcraft worked fine. She cracked her neck and then drew two glaive parts simultaneously. The sword and the staff met in the air, entered each other and clicked.

"Sounds sexy." Squinting at the glaive, Alice summed up, "If I was smarter about it sooner it'd have saved me a couple of points."

Click, the glaive in her hands broke up. Click, gathered into a whole. Click, click.

Actually, this exercise was unnecessary. Alice was doing it for fun, knowing well she wouldn't form a habit on spot and would do fine anyway without one. Her perfect body control skill had gone far and beyond just the system's logs.

"Lastly, you four..."

Low-tier magic stones dropped by hunters and armored centipedes were lying on the ground and glittering, Node #8 had left them out of recycling yet. The name was self-explanatory enough for the system not to offer a description. Alice guessed the worker ants and two hunters from back then dropped a few too, which only added an insult to injury.

Of course, Alice had assumed the purpose even before John explained the cultivation idea to her, feeling them in hands was enough.

Magic Stones contain magic. Alice transforms magic into blood energy via a mysterious process.

Cultivation. Easy.

Now, in Chinese novels, all of them (by John), cultivation was closely tied with cultivation resources, most commonly spirit stones. The dots were glaring at the girl so intensely she would have gone blind if it wasn't a metaphor.

Should I leave one and see? Dead centipedes increased the safe zone's magic concentration plenty, but in the end, Alice decided against. It must be possible to digest all magic energy in those stones, only she had to level up once before.

Status. My stats increased a bit. Endurance.. maybe a fluke. Reaction on level up would give a clue on this... cultivation. Five round thousands expo. Shouldn't be too hard.

The girl checked herself from head to toes. Armor was sitting tight, sword on the belt, bow and two quivers on the back, staff above, a small bag with a lamp and safe beacon near.

Good to go.

Alice gazed at the misty entrance sharply, for the first time with confidence and composure.

Before going deep down once more, the girl put on her mask with an indistinct imprint of oni³Take a face from the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni on it.