Chapter 209: Fake Difficulty And Real Gameplay?
“What is going on? I was ready to grind for half a year for core disciple status, and now I just need to pass an assessment to become a core disciple?”
“Hahaha, the game manufacturer has finally acted like a decent human for once. Now we don’t have to grind; we can show our real skills.”
“But this assessment doesn’t look easy. We actually have to go to the wilderness. The number of monsters there is no joke. If martial artist level players run into them, it’s certain death. To safely bring back a ton of that golden ore, even those few who have reached intermediate martial artist level will probably find it very hard.”
“But this assessment seems, apart from limiting strength to martial artist level and above, with a five-day time limit and costing two thousand contribution and three hundred thousand points each time, to have no restriction that forbids forming parties. Players who have become martial artists can completely work together to complete this assessment.”
“No way, if parties are allowed, doesn’t that make it very easy to clear the assessment?”
The players in the martial arts hall were overjoyed at the notice newly issued by Lin Qi, especially those newbie players who had missed the version limited-time event. This was definitely a great chance to quickly catch up to the game’s first tier.
Core disciple permissions were currently the highest player permissions in the game.
Not only did they grant level one wilderness exploration permission, but also allowed occupying territory and owning a stronghold, earning contribution and points while basically lying down.
Originally, this required spending a huge amount of time grinding contribution, but now that the game manufacturer was willing to provide another quick method of obtaining it, it was an unexpected surprise.
“This game patches too fast.” Yi Ye Fu Yun stared at the notice on his smart watch speechlessly. “I haven’t even enjoyed the welfare of free exploration yet, and now they’re letting martial artist level players casually become core disciples. The game manufacturer is being downright inhuman.”
“This assessment is not as simple as you think.” Ye Qinglu, beside him, finished reading the notice and smiled. “Even if you can form parties for this assessment, you and I have seen the wilderness. Any random monster pack can wipe us. Even with Desert Eagles it’s useless. High-level monsters’ self-recovery and life force are insane. Unless we have infinite bullets, we’ll only be worn down and killed by high-level monsters, let alone going hundreds of kilometers deep into the wilderness and bringing back a ton of ore. Just a group of beginner martial artists has no chance.”
Yi Ye Fu Yun suddenly understood. “So that previous wilderness escort quest being mandatory was to showcase the core disciple assessment. If you don’t know the wilderness, beginner martial artists taking the assessment is a total waste of time.”
“No, beginner martial artists are not without a chance.” Ye Qinglu shook her head and analyzed. “Didn’t the martial arts hall launch the primary gravity room? I guess that is the path reserved for beginner martial artists. As long as they can train the body strengthening secret technique to the second level in the primary gravity room, their body toughness should rival intermediate monsters. With such strong defense, as long as they don’t run into a siege by high-level monsters, they have a chance to survive.”
“Doesn’t that mean I have a chance too?” Yi Ye Fu Yun felt that made sense as soon as he heard it.
Now, through training in the primary gravity room, he understood how good it was. He was currently reconstructing his cells under five times gravity, with 24% proficiency in the first level of the body strengthening secret technique, and his body defense and recovery power were already close to low-level monsters.
If he really trained the body strengthening secret technique to the second level, which was at martial artist level, then his body defense and recovery power would probably surpass ordinary intermediate monsters. Paired with B4-grade battle armor, even intermediate monsters would have a hard time hurting him, and only high-level monsters could injure him.
And cultivating the body strengthening secret technique, apart from costing some points, was not like cultivating the cultivation method, which required consuming type II potions. If you wanted to train fast, it just depended on whether you dared to die.
The B2-grade Desert Eagles he was now making were a favorite of super rich players. They might not be able to provide monsters, but they had bought up a lot of points. He had already earned more than twenty million points, enough to splurge for quite a while on improving the body strengthening secret technique.
“Actually, we can discuss with Fang Zhen and the others, and, like those super rich players, co-rent a primary gravity room so everyone uses it together. If we push aggressively with the body strengthening secret technique, we’ll die who knows how many times. After becoming martial artists, each resurrection takes forty minutes to an hour, and during that time others can use it. That not only saves money but is more efficient,” Ye Qinglu said. “Then everyone can complete the assessment quickly together.”
“Alright, I’ll go talk to Fang Zhen now.” Yi Ye Fu Yun nodded, feeling this was indeed the best method.
Although he had more than twenty million points, if he used it alone, he could only rent for one day. If he trained aggressively on that day, the real usable time would actually be very little.
If everyone co-rented, although only one person could enter at a time, in the span of an hour it could be used by several people, which was more economical.
For a while, the players in the martial arts hall who had participated in the wilderness escort task surprisingly did not rush to register for the assessment. Instead, they were all completely addicted to the primary gravity room. Apart from eating online and logging off to eat, they basically lived in the primary gravity room, crazily improving the body strengthening secret technique.
The next morning.
“What is with them? The strongest ones aren’t coming to register?” Lin Qi looked at the list of participants for the assessment in his hand, full of doubt.
He was currently waiting for Rem Titanium Gold to repair those sets of battle armor for the Ten Thousand Star City Defense Group. This had been confirmed by Luo Qi: those battle armors could be repaired, but they would need alloys of the corresponding grades. Some of the severely damaged B4-grade battle armors would have to have all alloys replaced with the same kind to guarantee performance.
As for alloys above B4 grade, not to mention in the City of Light Chasing, even in major cities they were not for sale. They were absolute strategic materials.
Maybe some factions in the city proper had some privately mined stock, but without enough trust, they would never trade.
What he could do now was have Luo Qi first patch up those battle armors with usable alloys, piecing together as many full sets as possible. As for the rest, he would have to wait for the Rem Titanium Gold the players brought back from the deep mountains of the wilderness.
But he had not expected that, after a whole day, Luo Wu Shang and the others had shown no reaction at all.
The temptation of core disciple status was something no player could refuse, yet aside from those like Lu Fanchen, who had just become beginner martial artists and had already set out, all those who had joined the previous wilderness escort task were remaining completely quiet.
Instead, they were clinging to the primary gravity room, unwilling to come out, as if planning to spend their lives married to it.
Just as Lin Qi was about to go see what was happening with those players, a system notification suddenly sounded in his mind.
System: Congratulations, host, the beginner meditation room renovation is complete.
“Finally finished. I wonder how effective it is.” Looking at the renovated beginner meditation room, Lin Qi stopped worrying about whether Luo Wu Shang and the others would participate in the assessment and headed straight to the third floor to inspect the beginner meditation room.
The beginner meditation room had the effects of enhancing mental activity and calming the mind.
Compared to players, this effect was far more impactful for him and local residents.
Players could revive infinitely as long as they spent money and could practice with extreme recklessness, but he and the local residents did not dare to do that. Even after becoming martial artists, every step they took brought significant risk to their lives.
Improving mental activity and gaining a calming effect could maximize their cultivation speed while remaining relatively safe.
Arriving on the third floor, directly facing the stairs was the completed beginner meditation room.
The entire beginner meditation room covered two hundred square meters. The floor and walls were all paved with a layer of pale red crystal, etched with runes that were impossible to understand.
The moment he stepped into the room, Lin Qi felt his mind become clear and refreshed. All five senses became sharper, and he could distinctly sense the flow of qi and blood within his body.
“What an incredible effect.”
Lin Qi slightly manipulated his qi and blood and felt his control over them rise to a whole new level.
If his previous control over qi and blood had been like a puppet on strings, always separated by a layer, then now maneuvering his qi and blood was like using his own hands to manipulate the puppet directly. The precision of control was on a completely different level.
“With this level of qi and blood control, my grasp over ore energy also improves a lot. Combined with sharp senses, both daily cultivation to improve the cultivation method and learning martial skills will rise by more than one tier.” Lin Qi tested cultivation effects briefly with some energy ore and could not help but marvel at the strength of the beginner meditation room.
Although he was cultivating using energy ore, the effectiveness was not much worse than using type 2 energy potions normally and was even safer.
Lin Qi then swept his gaze across the whole room.
“With this size, if I divide it with barriers, it should allow ten people to cultivate at the same time. This will serve as a place for training and improving the garrison.”
He estimated that in a two-hundred-square-meter room, ten people would each have twenty square meters. As long as they were not practicing martial skills, there would be no problem.
And with more than three meters between each person, plus special barriers for isolation, even martial artist level qi and blood would have little impact on others.
Just as Lin Qi finished moving a batch of energy ore from the warehouse and partitioned the beginner meditation room into ten areas, Meng Wei suddenly contacted him.
Looking at Meng Wei’s image on the smart watch, Lin Qi noticed that he seemed a bit younger, his face brimming with excitement and joy.
“Hall master, I have already selected the first batch of disciples to be cultivated for the garrison. Here is the list.” While speaking, Meng Wei sent Lin Qi a document. “I made the decision to give the qi and blood watermelons you gave me to my disciples and a few old friends with great talent. They have all become martial artists and can begin training the garrison disciples at any time.”
Lin Qi checked the list and found that Meng Wei had selected only young people, mostly around twenty, whose strength was intermediate apprentice level and above. Those around twenty-five were advanced apprentices. It was a group of very talented youths.
“Is Xia Ling also in there?” Lin Qi saw a familiar name on the list and was puzzled.
“Hall master, Miss Xia had already joined our Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. I was too busy before and forgot to tell you,” Meng Wei explained. “Miss Xia has outstanding talent and is now about to become a limit quasi-martial artist. It would be a great waste if she did not join the garrison of the martial arts hall.”
As the young lady of the Phosphor Fire Gang in the suburbs, Xia Ling’s resources were unquestionable. Even the resources Obsidian Martial Arts Hall now provided the garrison, such as mid-level monster meat and allocations of type II potions, were not hard for the current Phosphor Fire Gang to obtain.
With monsters becoming more numerous in the wilderness, all major factions were acquiring far more monster flesh and blood, especially from mid-level monsters. From the frontline, they were transported back by the dozens of carriages, making monster meat in the market much cheaper and no longer so scarce.
If Obsidian Martial Arts Hall did not have limited public teachings but provided internal free instruction in the hall’s signature martial artist cultivation method and high-level martial skills, then Xia Ling joining the garrison would indeed be beneath her potential.
“Alright.” Lin Qi nodded, then instructed, “The martial arts hall has just set up a meditation room that can hold ten people cultivating at once. You can send the ten best performers in the garrison each day to cultivate there for six hours. The remaining time, you can allocate as rewards for others in the garrison.”
“A meditation room?” Meng Wei looked confused, not understanding what that was, but still agreed. “Understood, I will arrange it for them.”
Meng Wei then ended the call and started on training arrangements for the garrison.
“With the current size of the garrison, and player demand as well, one beginner meditation room is far from enough. Looks like we need players to collect more molten crystals.”
Lin Qi looked at the first batch of garrison members on the list from Meng Wei. There were already more than two hundred, and the number would only grow. The demand for beginner meditation rooms would definitely increase. He immediately posted a long-term daily collection task on his smart watch.
Collect molten crystals: for every ten thousand units, the martial arts hall rewards one hundred thousand points and ten thousand contribution.
The moment this mission was posted, many newbie players were tempted.
No one yet knew what molten crystals were, but ten thousand contribution was a huge sum for newbies. Even some veteran players were tempted. This was definitely the highest contribution reward of any daily task the martial arts hall had issued.
One mission yielded ten thousand contribution; doing it fifty times meant five hundred thousand contribution. That meant even if you were not a martial artist and could not join the core disciple assessment, you could still directly become a core disciple.
This made many veteran players who were still some time away from becoming martial artists start asking and investigating what molten crystals were and where to get them.
But after a full day of asking around, no one found any particularly useful information. The only thing known was that the molten crystals came from the mission that Lu Fanchen and others had done previously. Everyone then speculated that molten crystals must come from somewhere under the martial arts hall.
Soon, many players in the martial arts hall started a new life of digging holes and exploring underground.
As time passed, in two days Obsidian Martial Arts Hall saw more and more players become martial artists. After becoming martial artist players, they began attempting the core disciple assessment, which reassured Lin Qi that the timeline for repairing his garrison’s battle armor was getting closer.
But as the martial artist players participating in the assessment entered the wilderness, they realized this test was anything but ordinary.
Even experts like Lu Fanchen and his group were completely wiped out before going fifty kilometers into the wilderness, with no one surviving. It was simply not a place martial artists could casually explore. Many martial artist players gave up and obediently went back to doing tasks. Only Lu Fanchen and two others, for some reason, never got tired of it and kept entering the wilderness again and again.
In the wilderness.
“Fanchen, the wounded lord monster should be up ahead. Are you going this time or are we?” Lin Xinyao, hidden in the grass, looked at the faint golden bloodstains on the ground, licked her lips, and a hint of excitement flashed in her beautiful eyes.
“I’ll go. I am already an intermediate martial artist. With this run, you two should be able to break through to intermediate martial artist as well,” Lu Fanchen said directly.
“Then we’ll leave it to you.” Lin Xinyao nodded.
“Relax, I’ll give it something big this time.” Lu Fanchen grinned and crawled forward.
Lin Xinyao and Li Tianxing stayed where they were, quietly watching Lu Fanchen move away.
In these days after entering the wilderness, they found the place truly deadly. They did not need to go a hundred kilometers deep; less than fifty kilometers in was already lethal, with packs of hundreds of intermediate monsters roaming everywhere, often led by high-level monsters. Not only the three of them, even a group of thirty would be slaughtered.
This assessment was clearly not made for people to complete.
They had been about to give up when they discovered a lone monster. Over twenty meters tall, it was a jet-black leopard wreathed in cold air with two horns on its head. The blood qi it naturally radiated made it hard for the three of them to even draw close.
For some reason, this two-horned leopard was wounded. A wounded boss in the field like this appearing before them was something that, as veteran players, they absolutely could not ignore.
It would be a crime not to deliver the finishing blow.
Without another word, Lu Fanchen charged up a Heaven Shaking Fist and slammed it into the wounded two-horned leopard. It howled in pain, and pale golden blood sprayed from its wound like it cost nothing.
But after that punch, they realized he had not actually injured the two-horned leopard; the punch had only torn its existing wound further. Killing it was simply impossible for them.
However, when the leopard’s blood splashed on the three of them, they discovered that this was not a field boss, but a walking treasure trove.
Just getting a bit of that blood on their lips made the energy in their bodies boil. Compared to cultivating with type 2 energy potions, it was many times better, like a natural divine medicine.
Although the two-horned leopard immediately killed the three of them, after tasting that pale golden blood, they could no longer tolerate training with type 2 energy potions and instead decided to use the two-horned leopard for cultivation.
As long as the Heaven Shaking Fist was placed well, it would make the two-horned leopard freeze briefly from the pain in its wound, which was their chance to rush in and drink its blood.
Drink then run. The second Heaven Shaking Fist would make the leopard ignore those who had run and instead berserkly obliterate the one who had just made it howl.
After days of repeated attempts, not only had they all mastered the Heaven Shaking Fist, but their cultivation method progress had skyrocketed. Lu Fanchen had become an intermediate martial artist, while the other two had reached the level of limit beginner martial artists, needing only one more round to become intermediate martial artists. It was almost too good.
As Lu Fanchen slowly approached the two-horned leopard, a transport convoy less than two kilometers away entered the dense forest.
“Vice leader Dona, following the planned route, another three hours should get us to the frontline stronghold,” a captain of the Ten Thousand Star City Defense Group quietly reported to a beautiful woman with snowy white beast ears standing on top of a vehicle.
“Alright, I know. Everyone stay sharp. Monster activity is very frequent here. A convoy was completely wiped out here before,” Dona nodded and reminded him.
Following Dona’s order, the captain grew more cautious of their surroundings.
Traveling to the frontline stronghold was becoming increasingly dangerous, but fortunately this mission was led by Dona, a top ten graduate of the genius training camp whose strength was not much weaker than intermediate level bone forging realm martial artists. Even facing a beginner lord, she could tangle with it for a long time.
Just as the captain was about to leave, a thunderous explosion boomed from the distant forest. The shockwave shook the trees around them, and immediately after came a heart-rending roar.
“There is a battle over there!”
“Everyone on alert! I will go take a look!”
Dona looked toward the blaze of fire lighting up the sky in the distant trees, stepped on the armored vehicle, and shot toward the source of the flames like a cannonball.
As she drew closer, her body began to tremble instinctively.
When she was within just over five hundred meters, she saw a twenty-meter-tall two-horned leopard baring its teeth in pain, glaring at a human man whose arm had turned to black charcoal, while his other hand was raised, seemingly gathering some kind of power.
“Who is he?”
“He dares to fight the mid-level lord Shadow Leopard King alone?!”
Dona could hardly believe her eyes as she stared at the man.
The Shadow Leopard King was the top predator in this region. Even other beginner lords would turn and run at the sight of it, afraid of becoming its food.
For Ten Thousand Star City to face the Shadow Leopard King, they would need to send several high-level bone forging realm martial artists just to barely hold it back. And now, a single man had actually injured it?
Before Dona could snap out of her shock, two figures burst out of the forest. Dressed in the same silver-gray clothing as the man, they rushed straight to the Shadow Leopard King’s back and bit down on the wound there…
