Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 37 – The Heart’s-Dream Pearl

After the Sun-Worshipping youth heard the elder’s words, his body glowed red and spewed out flames, immediately burning away Dugu Zhuo’s ropes and breaking through the binding spell.

Flames burning in both eyes, he charged directly at the two.

At the same time, Ye Zhou and Dugu Zhuo heard a system prompt. “The Sun-Worshipping youth has fallen under the elder’s control! You must defeat the elder in order to save the youth. Ensure you do not harm the youth!”

That last reminder was the most important. When Ye Zhou saw the youth was spewing out fireballs and about to attack them, he already had a fist clenched, and wanted nothing more than to beat up this NPC who had been determined to be an obstacle this entire journey.

After already meeting misfortune once because of the youth, Dugu Zhuo wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen again.

As the youth started spitting out fire, countless lines of writing suddenly appeared across his body, while Dugu Zhuo recited something under his breath. The youth instantly froze.

“What is this?” Ye Zhou asked.

“The Immobilization Curse,” Dugu Zhuo replied.

His current power was insufficient for directly casting the Immobilization Curse, so he needed the support of talismans. While he had been writing talismans, he had also used the cinnabar to write the necessary inscription for the Immobilization Curse on the youth, in case of an emergency.

After coming under the elder’s control, the youth’s power had increased dramatically, easily able to break through the ropes and a rudimentary binding spell, but the Immobilization Curse was significantly more powerful and could even temporarily immobilize someone with equivalent power to oneself.

By Dugu Zhuo’s estimate, the boss of a level 20 instance should be only level 25 to 30 at most, so they would not yet be at Core Formation stage. Thus, the youth couldn’t be that powerful under his control, so an Immobilization Curse at Foundation Establishment stage should suffice.

They saw the youth rooted to the spot, still able to breathe fire, but his movements were sealed. As long as Ye Zhou and Dugu Zhuo made sure to stay away from him as they fought, they wouldn’t be attacked from behind.

Dugu Zhuo knew so many techniques, Ye Zhou didn’t even want to bother asking whether he was the system come to life. He focused on attacking the elder.

“The system shows that the Immobilization Curse will only last three minutes,” Dugu Zhuo said. “Let’s finish this quickly.”

Compared to the previous elder, the current elder not only had slightly stronger offensive and defensive stats, he also had an ability which could randomly take control of one player every thirty seconds.

Fortunately, this technique could be dodged, so as long as they moved quickly, they would be able to avoid it.

While fighting, the elder also spewed some lines towards the players:

“The Sun-Worshipping Tribe can never leave the light. I will not let you take away one of our young members.”

“Even if I am to fade away along with this realm of suspended time, I will persevere to the end.”

“Please… take care of him…”

The last line was spoken when he was on the verge of defeat. He had a sliver of health left, and Dugu Zhuo invoked the power of the sun with the Tiangang Steps, summoning a ferocious blaze down from the sky and incinerating the last of the elder’s health bar.

When the flames faded away, the Sun-Worshipping Elder’s body had vanished, and a sunflower stood where he used to be.

“Elder!” The youth had also come to his senses, and seeing his elder like this, he was completely stunned.

The Immobilization Curse wore off by then and the youth dashed over to the sunflower, wrapping his arms around it. “Elder, how did this…”

Ye Zhou was also shocked. This scene had never been mentioned in the strategy guide he’d bought. After they defeated the elder, he should’ve become amicable again and encouraged the youth in his journey, as well as gifting the players the Foundation Establishment Pills.

The guide had also contained instructions for how to find the correct door, emphasizing that they should never walk though the other door, since the divine beasts behind it were impossible to defeat. As for what kind of beasts they were, the guide had neglected to mention.

Who would’ve thought that the Sun-Worshipping Elder would transform into a sunflower? Weren’t they the guardian beasts of the Sun-Worshipping Temple?

Ye Zhou shared a glance with Dugu Zhuo, and a single conjecture arose within both of them. Could it be that up to this day, every player who had gone through the instance had used the correct door?

The Eternal Day District had only been released for half a month at this point, and in order to ascend to level 20 as soon as possible so they could enter new maps and join sects, the players would generally choose the easiest route through the instance. After all, the instance could only be attempted once a day, so if they were defeated while fighting the beasts, they would have to wait until the next day to try again.

Even the players who had the patience to attempt the hard route were probably given a lot of trouble by the sunflowers’ omnidirectional attack and the youth’s death-seeking tendencies.

So, while blindly fighting their ways through, they had managed to discover an alternative ending to this instance?

The sunflower weakly waved a leaf, touching it to the youth’s face. “You’re a good boy.”

While sobbing, the youth said, “Elder, why did you turn into a sunflower?”

“This is the price of the time-reversal spell,” the sunflower said. “You just opened the gate which held this temple’s guardian divine beasts, did you not? Those ‘divine beasts’ are all members of the Sun-Worshipping Cult. For generations, we have prayed to our founder, Kuafu, to stay the sun in its course, so in the end we have become plants which live facing the light.”

“But my mom and dad are both part of the Sun-Worshipping Cult. They make me breakfast and dinner every day. Will they…” A look of fear showed on the youth’s face.

“While time flows normally and the sun travels from the east to the west, we can remain as we are. When night begins to fall and the time reversal starts, we will become sunflowers. Only I, here in the worship hall, will not change,” the sunflower said with difficulty.

“Why did you all do this?” the youth said, sobbing. “Isn’t it better if we all leave together?”

“Because we fear darkness and crave the light. Each member of the Sun-Worshipping Tribe who has already birthed a child must join the Sun-Worshipping Cult, offering their strength to our sun. In the village, only the unmarried youths are still human.”

The youth threw his arms around the sunflower and started bawling.

The sunflower turned to Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou and said, “Brave heroes, you have lent your courage to this young member of our tribe, in order to allow him to face the truth. I hope that in the future, as he enters ordinary society, you can continue to give him such courage.”

Rather moved by what he was hearing, Ye Zhou nodded vigorously and said, “We will.”

“Thank you. I will give you these.” The sunflower spread out a leaf, which held two Foundation-Establishing Pills.

After they took the pills, the sunflower said, “Also… you may take what is inside that room, too.”

He pointed to a side door in the worship hall, which, based off the direction, seemed to lead to the room where they had just fought the divine beasts.

Opening the door, the two found the sunflowers standing in two rows, silently watching them.

At the far end of the sunflowers, there was a small box, which Ye Zhou opened and found a golden pearl inside.

“What’s this?” Ye Zhou said, trying to open the item’s information.

[Heart’s Dream Pearl: A mysterious pearl gifted by the Sun-Worshipping Elder, it represents the gratitude of the instance’s boss for the player. When used, it can increase an instance boss’s favor toward the player. With sufficient favor, it is possible for a boss to see the player as a trusted friend.]

“What kind of a weird effect is this?” Ye Zhou said. “Can favor make a boss stop attacking the player, or decrease its critical hit rate?”

He scrolled the description, but there was no mention of any attack decreasing effect. If it wasn’t listed, it must not exist.

“If it won’t give us an advantage when clearing an instance, what good does increasing a boss’s favor do? We went through all the effort of going through the instance in hard mode and all we got was this little thing? What about high-level equips? Crafting materials? A weapon like Unrivaled Divine General had? We don’t get any of that?” Ye Zhou said doubtfully.

His question still hung in the air when he was ejected from the instance, and the system made a server-wide announcement at the same time. [Congratulations to the players Dugu Zhuo and Yi Ye Pian Zhou for clearing the Sun-Worshipping Cult Instance in hard mode.]

The system would only make a server-wide announcement upon the first clearance of an instance, and it would usually mention what kind of powerful equipment or materials they had received, but Ye Zhou and Dugu Zhuo’s announcement mentioned nothing.

“One, two… one, two… one, two… I’ve counted three times, but the announcement still lists only two players.”

“Two players cleared the level 20 instance in hard mode? This must be a joke!”

“I remember a few days ago someone picked a fight with Unrivaled Divine General and declared they were going to clear the instance with two people. Are these those people? That’s impressive.”

“I can clearly tell you guys are new players who joined since open registration. Do you see this name? Dugu Zhuo? No matter what happens involving him, I don’t find it strange anymore. He’s a frequent guest of the system announcements.”

“Hold on, what was the reward for the first clearance of hard mode?”

“Doesn’t seem like there’s any…”

“There really is none, the announcement didn’t mention any.”

“Dang. You would get a prize for clearing it normally, but they cleared the hard mode and got nothing. Is their luck just abysmal?”

“Our luck isn’t necessarily bad.” As the players discussed amongst themselves, Dugu Zhuo took the pearl from Ye Zhou’s palm. “Remember our tasks for founding a sect? In order to obtain the land, we need to seize territory from one of the instances. Perhaps this pearl is related to that task.”