Chapter 10: Dare to Get Up Again

Fang Qi killed monsters whenever he had a spare moment, his opponent remaining none other than the Hunter!

It was still a deadly struggle relying solely on a dagger!

Death and pain made him remember every lesson of blood deep in his bones! In this manner, he pushed the combat skills that came with Chris to their absolute limit; choosing Chris could grant him all of Chris's knowledge, true, but he could not utilize it with any proficiency.

But now, in this way, he was rapidly mastering every single one of Chris's combat techniques!

At the same time, he also etched every single move of the Hunter deep into his mind!

Fatty Wang arrived in the afternoon, walking with an outward splay to his stride, his face the very picture of spring breeze and smug satisfaction; Fang Qi did not even need to ask to know what had transpired.

"Haha! Qi, guess whether I passed my assessment today or not?"

Fang Qi laughed in spite of himself. "It’s practically written all over your face, why would I even need to guess?"

A flicker of embarrassment crossed Wang Tai's face, though it did nothing to dampen his triumphant mood. "Not only did I pass, but I exceeded it by quite a margin!"

He placed the spirit crystals onto the table one by one, ten in total. "Today, we continue killing zombies!"

"Where on earth did you get so many spirit crystals?" Fang Qi stared at the crystals on the table, dumbfounded.

He knew Fatty Wang's financial situation well; though his family made a handsome profit running a restaurant, these were spirit crystals!

A dozen or so yesterday, and another ten today—this was simply too much!

Wang Tai looked at Fang Qi, his mouth grinning almost from ear to ear as he laughed, "After today's results came out, the old man finally made up his mind to support me in becoming a warrior. You know as well as I do that the medicinal herbs needed to temper the body don't come cheap."

"You're using body-tempering money to play games?"

"Of course!" Wang Tai took it completely for granted. "I just play games to level up, and raising my strength this way is much faster than grinding away bitterly to temper my body! Why should I spend this money to suffer that kind of hardship?"

"..." There was actually a point to that logic. wasn't he doing the same thing? Advancing directly through this black-tech game provided by the system, he had never once thought about continuing standard body tempering.

Yet his current strength had already reached the peak of the Body Tempering Realm!

Fatty Wang then let out a bitter laugh. "I say, Qi, can't you really make an exception? Fortunately, the old man at home was happy today, so I asked for a few extra spirit crystals. If it stays at this price in the future, I really won't be able to afford six hours a day."

"At most, I suppose it'll only be three or four hours."

Fang Qi shrugged. "It’s not that I won't help you, but there's truly nothing I can do about this."

"That's so unbrotherly." Though he knew this would be Fang Qi's reply, Wang Tai remained rather depressed.

However, at least he had five hours to play today, and he impatiently started the game.

...

Fang Qi fought frantically against the Hunter within the game, using the combat to familiarize himself with the attack habits of these cold-blooded killers.

At the same time, he continuously learned Chris's clean and decisive style of combat.

Although there were not many customers coming to the internet cafe yet, there were some after all.

The assessments at Lingyun Academy were drawing to a close at this time. Some who went early, like Fatty Wang, had basically settled all subsequent matters, including the admission procedures.

"How could this happen... how could it be at a time like this!" A young woman of about eighteen or nineteen, dressed in an exquisitely crafted purple dress, walked out of Lingyun Academy with her brow tightly furrowed.

Xu Zixin felt as though she were going mad. She had originally planned to use her cultivation time in the Lingyun Academy's Martial Arts Tower to reach the late stage of the Martial Master Realm before the Lingyun Board opened, hoping to achieve a good result.

Who could have known that she would recently hit a bottleneck? No matter how hard she cultivated, she could not break through to the late stage of the Martial Master Realm. Now, to make matters worse, the cultivation time she had painstakingly accumulated in the Martial Arts Tower had run out, yet her cultivation remained entirely unchanged!

"Is there really no other way?" Her heart was filled with acute anxiety, yet she knew that rushing would not solve anything.

She wandered aimlessly through the city, originally intending to relax her mind and ease the pressure in her heart, but her eyes now held a trace of disappointment. "This Jiuhua City may be large, but there's nothing worth seeing. It's been several years, and it's still the same old way."

But there really was nothing much to explore in Jiuhua City. As a woman, she could not visit certain places like men did; at most, she could only eat some snacks and then stroll around at random.

After so many years, she was truly bored of it.

Right at that moment, her eyes suddenly caught the two characters "Origins" ahead.

"How come I've never seen this shop before?" She could not help but feel a little puzzled, and furthermore, this name was written with far too much arrogance.

"Origins"—the beginning of all things is called origin. Someone actually dared to name their shop this?

She could not help but want to see just what kind of person the owner of this shop was to be so audacious.

Pushing the door open to enter, she saw four machines of unknown purpose arranged inside the clean and tidy shop, with three men sitting before

Fang Qi sized her up, and seeing she was a pretty girl, asked once more, "Are you afraid of ghosts?"

"What do you mean?" Xu Zixin was caught completely off guard by his sudden question.

Fang Qi pointed toward Fatty Wang’s screen, where Wang Tai was currently grappling with two zombies.

Fang Qi spoke up, "This house is crawling with monsters like that. If you're scared, forget it."

Xu Zixin glanced over. A zombie with a completely rotted face was indeed rather unsettling, but the thing was behind a screen and couldn’t bite her, so what was there to fear?

She let out a cold snort. "What's there to be afraid of? You're not backing out on letting me try, are you?"

"As long as you're not scared." Only then did Fang Qi teach her how to enter the game.

Yet before long, Fang Qi heard a startled cry, "How did I get inside?!"

The surroundings were pitch-black and the atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive. Coupled with the sudden sensation of entering an entirely different world, it felt as though she had been admiring a painting only to suddenly find herself pulled inside. It was far too uncanny!

Fang Qi said, "I recall the method to exit was written at the door."

"The method to exit?" She pondered for a moment before realizing that the phrase on the small blackboard actually meant this.

She immediately exited the game and only then asked, "Are you saying I have to go in there and deal with those monsters?"

"...Didn't you say you weren't afraid?" Fang Qi looked at her with an expression of utter speechlessness.

She was, after all, a genius of Lingyun Academy. To be looked down upon by an ordinary shop owner? Filled with indignation, Xu Zixin quickly said, "Who's afraid? It's just killing a few monsters! I was just worrying about having no place to flex my skills!"

"Don't worry, even if you die ten thousand times in there, you won't suffer a scratch. After all, it's just a game," Fang Qi reminded her at the appropriate moment.

"Is... is that so?" Only then did Xu Zixin feel a bit more at ease. The scene just now had been far too vivid, so realistic that it made her feel as if it were a genuine world.

"Of course," Fang Qi said. "Otherwise, wouldn't people be dying in my shop every few days?"

Just then, she indeed witnessed Wang Tai's character die on the adjacent screen, after which he simply exited the game and logged back in, completely unharmed.

"So it really is like that?" She breathed a sigh of relief. It truly seemed to be just a game!

Though she had no idea how it was accomplished, this was a world where cultivators existed. The methods of cultivators were unpredictable and profound, naturally beyond the comprehension of ordinary folk.

She hastily followed Fang Qi's instructions and entered the game.

Soon, two options appeared before her:

1. Choose Jill

2. I am also a special forces member assigned to investigate, now converging with Alpha Team

"So only female players can control Jill?" Fang Qi realized. In the original game, one could freely control either Chris or Jill, but the system's remastered version lacked this feature, seemingly dividing the choice strictly by gender.

Unlike Chris, who started with only a knife, Jill possessed a gun from the very beginning. Since she had chosen Jill, she naturally gained Jill’s knowledge of firearms as well.

At the same time, Xu Zixin discovered that she could no longer use the martial qi within her body.

Martial qi, the energy of a warrior, was something one could only master after crossing from the peak of body tempering into becoming an official warrior. It was also the standard by which one was judged to be an official warrior.

However, she had only come out to clear her mind, so she didn't care too much about whether she could use her martial qi. She looked at the pistol in her hand. Though she couldn't employ her martial qi, having chosen Jill allowed her to know exactly what this device was for, and thus she felt she had nothing to fear.

She quickly began to search the western-style mansion.

The light in the hallway was incredibly dim. Turning a corner, she immediately spotted someone crouching just ahead.

"Is that a member of the missing squad?" Joy flared in her heart. "To think I'd find a teammate so quickly. This is simply too easy!"

She hurried forward and patted the "teammate" on the shoulder. "I'm here to rescue you, hurry and come with me."

Just then, she watched as the "teammate" slowly turned around, revealing a rotted, deathly pale face right before her eyes, its mouth drenched in blood and shredded flesh!

It might have been fine if she had been mentally prepared, but to imagine a human she thought was a survivor suddenly exposing a bloody, mangled face—even the most composed person would feel a jolt of terror!

"Ah—!" Xu Zixin, who had been so full of confidence just moments ago, turned pale with fright and hastily fled back the way she came!

"Didn't you say you weren't afraid?" Fang Qi chuckled.

Only then did Xu Zixin remember that wasn't this the very monster she had previously deemed unimpressive?

She halted her steps, let out a cold snort, and forced herself to appear calm. "Who said I was afraid?"

Seeing that the zombie's speed was not fast, she became even more convinced that the monster was merely terrifying in appearance. She immediately fired several consecutive shots at the zombie.

Before long, the zombie collapsed to the ground from the excessive damage.

Only then did she say triumphantly, "See, what's there to be afraid of?"

She stepped forward and fiercely kicked the zombie several times.

Xu Zixin could be said to have severely desecrated the corpse for a good while, as if venting her shame, anger, and dissatisfaction at being frightened by such a weak monster. She chided in a tender voice, "If you've got the guts, get back up and try scaring this lady again!"