Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 43 - Awakening Talisman

The three players sitting on the boat stole glances at Dugu Zhuo’s figure, huddled together to discuss quietly. Ti Toulaijian said, “Didn’t you say we need to be at least level 60 to take down so many grudges? Is there something wrong with him?”

Bai Yifeng said, “I think the problem isn’t him, it’s that sword. That sword is so eerie. Don’t you feel your eyes ache just looking at it?”

Yimeng Xiaoyao said, “Didn’t we already adjust the pain sensation to 0? Why would your eyes still hurt? Is it because it’s too dark here? I have a prop lantern. Should I light it?”

Bai Yifeng said, “Are you dumb? It’s a psychological eye pain, understand?”

Ti Toulaijian said, “Maybe he’s of a different race from us. I stared at that sword for a while and my eyes fell out. Sister, help me put them back in.”

Black Cat, who was eavesdropping on the three’s conversation, saw two round mosaics rolling towards him out of curiosity. He stretched out his paw and scratched, leaving behind a puddle of black blood where the original mosaic had rolled.

Black Cat’s paw also got wet with the liquid, his face changed instantly, and he frantically shook his paw.

Bai Yifeng reached out and retrieved two original mosaics, apologizing to Black Cat, “Sorry, my brother’s eyes bumped into your foot.”

Black Cat only then realized what his paw had touched and panicked, “Meow!”

“Be gentle, you’re about to capsize the boat,” Yimeng Xiaoyao turned his long arm into a branch and wrapped up Black Cat, holding it in his arms and smoothing its fur, “If you had looked like this when you entered the Eternal Night Zone, it would have been so much better. We’re all demons. I would have definitely recruited you and spoiled you rotten. Why did you have to look like a monk? It’s just not pleasing to the eye.”

Black Cat shook for a while before jumping out of Yimeng Xiaoyao’s arms, grinning and saying, “Don’t touch me randomly.”

“I only touched your head and back, even if you were humanoid, touching your head and back wouldn’t trigger the harmony mechanism,” the tree demon said innocently.

While the tree and the cat were talking, Bai Yifeng had already installed the eyeballs for Ti Toulaijian.

Ti Toulaijian said, “I didn’t feel my eyes hurt, but that sword does a lot of damage to both of us.”

Bai Yifeng said, “Speaking of which, we’re all grudges. I was dismembered before death, and my body was sewn together after death, that’s how I became like this.”

Ti Toulaijian said, “I was still a minor when my entire family was slaughtered, and I refused to enter the River of Styx, so I became a grudge.”

Hearing their conversation, the tree demon said, “So Dugu Zhuo is so powerful because he got that sword? And the sword only harms grudges, it’s ineffective against us?”

Bai Yifeng said, “I can only confirm that it does massive damage to grudges, it’s like a natural enemy. Just looking at it from afar would make Ti Toulaijian’s eyes fall out. But I’m not sure if this sword can’t harm you. Why don’t you let him chop you to try it out?”

The tree demon shook his branch, “I’m not trying.”

Ti Toulaijian lifted his head to the red-clothed woman, “Your attitude is so good now, is it because of that sword? What kind of sword is it? Is it specifically designed to counter grudges?”

The red-clothed woman didn’t say anything, maintaining her compassionate demeanor as the ferryman in front of the players.

At this moment, the tree demon also remembered something, “Right, you said earlier that there’s someone among us who’s from a different race. Humans can’t enter the Eternal Night Zone instance, but Dugu Zhuo can enter both day and night instances. He’s not human, he’s from a different race, right?”

The red-clothed woman nodded slightly.

“So what exactly is this ‘different race’? I didn’t see an option for a different race when I created my account,” Bai Yifeng asked.

Seeing the red-clothed woman still not responding, the tree demon said, “Forget it, she’s really not giving us the time of day. But in this game, anything is possible, even turning a cat into a monk. Little cat, how did you become a monk?”

Black Cat briefly recounted what happened at Tan Ye Temple when he received the main storyline quest.

The others listened in astonishment, and the tree demon said, “This game has too much freedom. It seems there are many hidden Easter eggs in the game. Dugu Zhuo must have had some adventures to become so powerful. Maybe he stumbled upon some treasure of a supreme master?”

The young man named Ti Toulaijian said, “It’s also possible that he spent money. The game company now openly sells treasure maps. One map costs 200, and ten maps cost 1800. They say the treasure maps contain passages to enter secret realms. I see a lot of people buying them.”

The tree demon asked, “What’s the probability of entering a secret realm?”

“About 1%, one in eighteen thousand for a secret realm entrance. Money can make you do anything.”

Including Black Cat, the four players assumed that Dugu Zhuo was a pay-to-win player. When they looked at him again, they could only see the shining aura of money all over him.

Laughing and joking, the group soon arrived at the point of choosing between the black and white paths.

They were currently on a small boat, so they didn’t need to choose a path. At Dugu Zhuo’s command, the red-clothed woman had purposely approached the shore, only for that bronze cauldron.

The three evil players were very skilled at choosing paths, and they found the bronze cauldron based on the red-clothed woman’s expression.

After all, the red-clothed woman was an NPC. Even though she behaved somewhat abnormally under the pressure of the Mysterious Sword, she still had a strong sense of professionalism in fixed situations. When she saw the bronze cauldron, even though the candle in her hand had long since extinguished, she still jumped into the cauldron dutifully. Her selflessness resembled a leap of faith.

Grudges overflowed from the bronze cauldron, and everyone prepared for battle.

The four players knew that Dugu Zhuo could take down these grudges on his own, but they didn’t follow him into the instance just to leech experience; they wanted to overcome the challenge mode themselves.

The incident with Black Cat extinguishing the candle was an unexpected event, which Dugu Zhuo could handle and they could accept. But when they stepped onto this path, they became players who were entering the instance to face challenges themselves.

If they were players who liked to slack off, they wouldn’t have chosen to challenge the hard mode from the beginning. Since they entered the instance, they had to personally engage in battle.

“I really don’t like fighting grudges. We’re all of the same race, our fighting styles are similar, and the opponents won’t be frightened by me. It’s too boring,” Bai Yifeng said.

Although she said that, she still actively prepared for battle, a white silk flying out from her collar, presumably her weapon.

Black Cat tried to step forward but was stopped by the tree demon. “Let Yifeng control the situation first.”

The white silk flew into the sky, becoming thinner and thinner like gauze, covering the grudges crawling out of the bronze cauldron. In an instant, the grudges seemed unable to discern direction and began to attack randomly.

She blocked the grudges’ eyes, noses, and ears, preventing them from locking onto the players, while the players could skillfully attack them.

Bai Yifeng raised her hands and said, “Hurry! My spiritual power can only last for 30 seconds.”

The tree demon knew her tactics and had already transformed into a huge willow tree, standing in front of everyone, countless branches extending to bind the grudges.

Ti Toulaijian pressed his head against his neck, and in an instant of complete transformation, a wolf-tooth club appeared in his palm, completely mismatched with his stature. He raised the club and charged towards the group of grudges.

Black Cat, unwilling to be outdone, transformed into a monk with hair, much to the shock of Bai Yifeng and Ti Toulaijian. He pulled down a sleeve and tied it around his waist, imitating his senior brothers by revealing his not very muscular shoulders and swinging the Zen staff.

Reciting the Great Compassion Mantra, circles of Buddha light radiated from him, weakening the power of the grudges. Similarly, Bai Yifeng’s white silk shrank, and the tree demon began to shed leaves.

“Damn it! Why would my own teammate’s moves counter ours?” the tree demon shouted. “Monk, stop using area attacks; you’re wiping out our teammates!”

“We’re not on the same team. Turns out, there are sin and righteousness values waiting for us here,” Bai Yifeng said with a pale face. She could control the grudges for 30 seconds, but with Black Cat’s recitation, the time instantly shortened to 20 seconds.

Black Cat could only abandon the most effective method of the Great Compassion Mantra and switch to using the Zen staff one by one. But these grudges were really tough to deal with. Even though their eyes, ears, noses were sealed, their movements were still very agile, and they had ample health points. Only the tree demon had enough health points to fight against them.

Even so, Black Cat and Ti Toulaijian managed to kill 7 before Bai Yifeng’s control ended, leaving 11 grudges remaining.

“It seems quite easy to deal with. Surely someone has passed this before, right?” Black Cat said.

“The control time has ended, we’re finished,” Bai Yifeng said, panting.

She could replenish her spiritual power with medicine, but she only had this one group control skill. The rest were single-target control skills, and she couldn’t handle 11 grudges all at once.

“How could this be? There are five of us. Even if they’re a bit faster and have thicker health points, they shouldn’t be able to wipe us out,” Black Cat said.

“It’s not five of us, huh~” Ti Toulaijian, who had been fighting back-to-back with Black Cat, suddenly said ominously. “It’s four!”

His head suddenly flew up, and he bit towards Black Cat’s neck. If it weren’t for the Buddhist beads on Black Cat’s neck, the Buddha light blocking Ti Toulaijian’s attack, this bite could have taken off half of Black Cat’s life.

“Hehe, it’s not four, it’s three,” the white silk that had fallen to the ground rose up again, and Bai Yifeng’s eyes changed. She and Ti Toulaijian blended into the group of grudges, feeling completely natural.

“That’s the way it is,” only the tree demon’s sanity remained relatively normal. He reluctantly said, “This instance must have ghosts to pass through, but ghosts will inevitably be assimilated and defect to these grudges. And…”

“And what? Meow!” Black Cat suddenly felt something touching his foot and screamed in horror.

“And, those with high sin values are also more likely to be assimilated. Last time we came to challenge the hard mode, five out of six were assimilated by the grudges, and the only one with a relatively low sin value, a demon, was beaten up by us, crying and saying he would never challenge the hard mode again.” The tree demon’s eyes also changed. He stretched out his branches to release the bound grudges and instead went to bind Black Cat.

“Dugu Zhuo! Zhuo God!” Black Cat fluctuated his Buddhist beads, using the Buddha light to protect himself, while running madly towards Dugu Zhuo, who was still figuring out how to take away the bronze cauldron.

If it were any other player, they would have been torn apart alive by now, but only Black Cat was surrounded by a halo of Buddha light, temporarily immobilizing the grudges.

Even so, his spiritual power was limited, and he couldn’t sustain this all-encompassing purification mode for too long.

Black Cat still had a trump card up his sleeve. He had the blood-locking skill given to him by the old monk from Tan Ye Temple. When his health dropped to a certain threshold, he could summon a Vajra Arhat to help him. But now that the opponents had turned into three teammates, if he didn’t release their assimilation, those three people would also be killed.

There was no player in their team who could heal or resurrect teammates. Once these three died, he would have to fight the final boss with Dugu Zhuo alone. What if they couldn’t defeat it?

“Help!” Black Cat shouted towards Dugu Zhuo.

Dugu Zhuo casually took out three awakening talismans and threw them to Black Cat. “Stick them on their foreheads.”

“Got it!” Black Cat caught the talismans, turned into a cat with a single spin, and pressed one of the talismans onto the forehead of Ti Toulaijian, who was chasing after him.

This was the easiest spot to stick it since Ti Toulaijian had always been using his big head to attack Black Cat.

“Huh?” Ti Toulaijian instantly woke up and felt the talisman on his forehead.

“Don’t tear it off!” Black Cat used all four paws, dashed to Bai Yifeng, dodging the attack of the white silk, and pressed another talisman onto her forehead.

Finally, it was the tree demon’s turn. With its massive body, as long as Black Cat dodged in time, he wouldn’t be hurt. Besides, climbing trees was a cat’s innate skill, and he quickly climbed to the top of the tree.

After circling around on the tree, the little black cat despairingly shouted, “Where is the tree demon’s forehead?”

At that moment, the tree demon’s branches and attacks from several grudges smashed towards the little black cat.