In the courtyard wafting with the rich aroma of cooked rice, Li Muyang, holding a full bowl of rice, sat on the threshold of the thatched cottage and began to enjoy his dinner with some pickled vegetables.
Usually, he’d be willing to stir-fry a couple of dishes to accompany his rice, but now he was busy playing the game and just wanted to finish eating to continue the tutorial.
After all, the Spirit Rice was very fragrant, and even just with pickled vegetables, it was extremely delicious.
The light from the oil lamp inside the house spilled over him, casting a long shadow in front of Li Muyang on the ground.
A neighbor passing by the door looked at this scene and expressed surprise, “Li bro, you’re having dinner so late?”
The neighbor was a lean young man, about fifteen or sixteen years old, with dark skin and so thin he resembled a monkey, always smiling and very easy to get along with.
Li Muyang remembered his name was Guan Xiaoshun, a youth from a small town in the southern area of the Refinement Demon Sect’s territory, possessing a bit of talent in cultivation, but not much, so he could only be an Outer Sect Disciple.
But then again, how many disciples in the outer sect were actually highly gifted in cultivation?
Seeing Guan Xiaoshun smiling brightly, Li Muyang also grinned and greeted him.
Guan Xiaoshun stood at the courtyard entrance and chatted with Li Muyang for a bit, looking at Li Muyang’s large sea bowl and remarked,
“Li bro, your appetite seems to be growing larger lately, be careful not to run out of Spirit Rice.”
“I heard from the managers that if us Qi Refinement Realm cultivators get cut off from our Spirit Rice support, it’s very likely that our Spiritual Energy will decline and our cultivation will regress.”
Guan Xiaoshun half-jokingly cautioned Li Muyang.
Though Guan Xiaoshun was young, he had joined the Refinement Demon Sect a year earlier than Li Muyang.
The original Li Muyang had died just one month after joining the Refinement Demon Sect, and then Li Muyang had come through transmigration.
So regarding seniority, Li Muyang was actually the newbie in the Refinement Demon Sect.
Hearing Guan Xiaoshun’s caution, Li Muyang sighed and said, “There’s no helping it, recently my appetite has been increasing, I can’t feel full without eating more. I’ll just have to find the manager in a few days to ask for more work, so I can get more Spirit Rice.”
Li Muyang had no control over his growing appetite.
For low-level cultivators like him, the importance of Spirit Rice was no less than ordinary food to common people. It was essential to eat well, but lack of food could also pose problems.
Although running out of Spirit Rice wouldn’t starve him to death, losing its support would indeed have negative effects on his body and cultivation.
For him now, figuring out how to secure Spirit Rice was an urgent matter.
If not for the game system being loaded completely, Li Muyang would have had to go and ask the manager for another odd job tomorrow.
Of course, if this game system couldn’t help Li Muyang… it must help him!
After bidding farewell to Guan Xiaoshun, Li Muyang added rice to his bowl twice more, finishing the entire pot of Spirit Rice alone before he finally felt full.
“This appetite is a bit strange…”
Li Muyang, touching his stomach, felt that after transmigrating, his stomach seemed to have become a bottomless pit. Such a large pot of rice went in without even making his stomach bulge, which was really odd.
After finishing his meal, he scooped some water from the water tank to wash his bowl clean, then wiped his hands. The first thing after a full meal was to lock the door, lie back on the hard wooden bed, and close his eyes.
“The Game with the Fairies, start!”
The game was extremely realistic and very thrilling to play, and even without any golden finger rewards, Li Muyang did not plan to give up.
In this poor and boring Demon Sect, having a fully realistic holographic game to play was his only pleasure.
After closing his eyes and launching the system, what appeared in Li Muyang’s vision was a familiar scroll depicting the gloomy Loushan City under the moonlight.
Li Muyang straightforwardly chose to continue the tutorial, and new options popped up in his field of view.
[Please load the save file]
[First Act – The Visitor Outside Loushan City]
[Interlude — Initial Encounter with Glass Immortal Maiden]
[Interlude — Crisis within Loushan City]
Three images, three saves, each corresponding to three plot lines.
They were the start of the carriage opener, a save after slaying a Demon Cultivator at the inn, and a save after entering Loushan City.
Li Muyang naturally chose the third one; thereafter, his vision was shrouded in darkness, as if drowned by black tides all around.
This sensation of darkness persisted for several seconds before the darkness surrounding Li Muyang gradually receded.
He saw himself sitting in a carriage, beside him were Glass Immortal Maiden and a guide in conversation.
The task bar in the top right corner of his vision updated the log.
[New Task — Survive safely with Glass Immortal Maiden for ten minutes]
[09:59]
The countdown began again, and this time Li Muyang directly said to Glass Immortal Maiden,
“Immortal Maiden, something seems off in the city.”
While alerting Glass Immortal Maiden, Li Muyang pushed open the carriage door, jumped out, and stood on the roof to scan his surroundings.
The previous death had come too suddenly, but Li Muyang felt it was due to some massive object hitting or crushing the carriage, which had caused the abrupt deaths of all three inside.
Now standing on the roof, vigilant and scanning in all directions, Li Muyang was alert for the impending attack, ready to activate his time-stopping skills at any moment.
Inside the carriage, the guide was somewhat astounded.
“Something’s wrong?” The guide, under a green health bar, flipped open the carriage blind and looked outside, “What happened outside?”
After lifting the blind, a faint stench of blood drifted through the air, and the view revealed deserted, cold city streets.
Li Muyang stood on the roof, frowning and scanning in all directions; he clearly knew that danger was imminent, but up to this moment, the city in Li Muyang’s vision appeared normal.
He couldn’t detect any danger at all.
If there had to be an exception, perhaps it was that the scent of blood in the air had intensified slightly?
Li Muyang’s expression was vigilant.
The next second, a massive shock suddenly attacked the carriage, utterly without warning.
But this time, Li Muyang was prepared. Although this attack was extremely sudden, he successfully activated time stop the moment the shock occurred.
Instantly, everything lost its color, and the world turned into monochromatic shades of black and white.
Li Muyang stood on the tilted roof of the carriage, surprised to see in the frozen time that the air of Loushan City was filled with a strange fog.
Within this fog, unseen by ordinary people, emerged a gigantic and terrifying monster’s head that opened its wide mouth, blocking the path in front of the carriage.
Its ferocious mouth bristling with sharp teeth was at least five meters high, seeming even bigger than the carriage carrying three people.
The three sitting in the carriage now appeared as though they were voluntarily delivering themselves into the monster’s mouth.
And the monster’s incredibly sharp rows of teeth, razor-like and sharp, were almost touching Li Muyang’s face.
Li Muyang, having seen all this, almost had his heart stop from the shock of the terrifying sight.
—What the hell is this monster? And so huge?
He stared in surprise at the gigantic monster that had emerged from the air, altogether reshaping his understanding.
Did this thing really just emerge from the air?