Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 78 - Negotiating with a Tiger

The issue of the sect will have to wait until Ye Zhou logs in again. After all, it’s their sect, and Ye Zhou seems keen to be involved in every step.

For now, Dugu Zhuo pushed aside his thoughts of establishing a sect and asked the White Tiger, “Do you know Ye Zhou’s current condition?”

When Ye Zhou was mentioned, the White Tiger thought for a moment and said, “When he infused me with divine power earlier, I felt that he was somewhat weak. His soul seemed unstable. Has his injury not healed? Your own power doesn’t seem that strong either.”

“Ye Zhou is a player who has a real identity in this world. His soul hasn’t fully recovered, and his body isn’t in good shape. This even affects his lifespan,” Dugu Zhuo replied. “His fragmented soul is hidden within the game, and I want to help him retrieve all the pieces.”

The White Tiger’s disproportionately small ears twitched, and its tail stopped swaying. Its face, which appeared round due to its thick fur, grew serious. The tiger said solemnly, “Ye Zhou is my saviour. I want to help with this as well.”

Given the relationship between Dugu Zhuo and the White Tiger, saying ‘thank you’ would have seemed too formal. Dugu Zhuo extended his hand to the White Tiger, who glanced at him, raised its heavy paw, and placed it in Dugu Zhuo’s palm. Man and tiger had reached an agreement.

Dugu Zhuo then secretly used a Huanxin Pearl and received another system notification: **[Ding! The White Tiger in the Yaoling Huya instance now has a favourability level of 75 towards you. After using the Huanxin Pearl, it increases by 5 points. Current favourability level is 80. Congratulations on gaining a ‘Loyal and True’ friend.]**

Dugu Zhuo: “…”

He took out the remaining three Huanxin Pearls and toyed with them in his hand. What’s the difference between this and the iron walnuts older folks spin in their hands? It’s just useless junk!

Reflecting on the hard work it took to claim first kills in several hard-mode instances, only to get something like this, Dugu Zhuo suddenly felt the weariness of players clearing instances.

“Huh? You still have three?” The White Tiger looked at the Huanxin Pearls in Dugu Zhuo’s hand with some envy. “You just used two on me earlier, and I thought you were out. Give me these three as well.”

“Do you receive a notification every time I use a Huanxin Pearl?” Dugu Zhuo asked.

“I do,” replied the White Tiger.

Dugu Zhuo looked at the White Tiger, who didn’t seem to be aware of the concept of favourability, and asked, “Does this thing do anything besides help you remember things from the past?”

“It balances the demonic and spiritual energy within me,” said the White Tiger. “This time, my tribulation went so smoothly because you used two Huanxin Pearls on me beforehand, allowing me to regain clarity during the inner demon trial.”

It seemed the White Tiger only knew that he had used the pearls, but didn’t know about the favourability system. Oh well, the White Tiger’s favourability would fluctuate anyway, but it wouldn’t go too low, nor would it get too high.

Dugu Zhuo wasn’t too concerned and casually handed the Huanxin Pearls to the White Tiger.

The White Tiger didn’t eat the Huanxin Pearls after receiving them. Instead, it put away two and started playing with the third one between its paws.

“Ye Zhou doesn’t remember his past life. I…” Dugu Zhuo initially wanted to say, “I don’t want him to remember,” but then he thought about how Ye Zhou had saved the White Tiger, how this game was also Ye Zhou’s creation, and how his understanding of Ye Zhou had changed as they interacted in this life.

Dugu Zhuo had always believed that Ye Zhou should hate him, or at least hold some resentment. After all, back then…

But now, on reflection, that might not be the case. Perhaps he had always been using shallow thinking to gauge Ye Zhou’s thoughts. The real Ye Zhou was far beyond what he had imagined.

His desire for Ye Zhou not to remember his past life or not to get involved in the main storyline was simply his own selfishness.

However, after learning the truth behind the stolen balance, Dugu Zhuo realised there were many things from that past that he didn’t know about, and he had no right to keep that history forever buried.

The game’s AI was likely a part of Ye Zhou’s soul, and this fragment was slowly guiding Ye Zhou to understand the truth of the past. Ye Zhou would eventually reclaim this piece of his soul and had the right to know everything that had happened.

Dugu Zhuo’s thoughts were in constant flux, but in the end, he said, “If you want to reveal things about his past life, go ahead, but don’t let him take in too much at once. His soul isn’t complete, and I’m worried that with his current state, he won’t be able to handle it.”

The White Tiger said, “I see. That explains why Ye Zhou was so gentle with me earlier; it’s because he doesn’t remember. Remind me occasionally when I’m with him in the future.”

Hearing this, Dugu Zhuo raised an eyebrow slightly.

In his past life, he had thought that when Ye Zhou raised his hand, it was to kill the tiger. Now he believed it was to pet the tiger. Moreover, seeing how the tiger had just told Ye Zhou he could pet the fur on his back, he wondered if, in their past life, they’d secretly rubbed the tiger’s head countless times.

The thought of this made Dugu Zhuo itch to shave the tiger’s fur off entirely, just like in their previous life.

But now, the White Tiger’s words seemed to suggest that Ye Zhou’s attitude towards the White Tiger in their past life was as distant as he remembered.

Dugu Zhuo probed, “Ye Zhou has always been gentle. Why do you think he shouldn’t treat you like that?”

The White Tiger scratched its face with a paw. “In our past life, I turned my belly up to him so many times, but he never gave me any divine power. He must not have liked demonic beings like me.”

“The power of the Sujian is meant to purify evil energy. It’s not something you get to share,” Dugu Zhuo said, feeling elated to know that Ye Zhou hadn’t privately petted the tiger in their past life.

Judging by the time, Ye Zhou should be logging in soon. Dugu Zhuo gave the White Tiger a couple more reminders not to slip up, then went down the mountain to wait for Ye Zhou.

At exactly 7:00 p.m., Ye Zhou logged in. As usual, when he saw Dugu Zhuo, he ran towards him cheerfully and said, “Why is it that every time I log in, you’re already online? You can’t be online all the time, right?”

Dugu Zhuo replied, “I have plenty of free time, and I log off to eat when you do.”

Ye Zhou thought Dugu Zhuo was trying to align his online time with his own and felt a bit happy, but he still earnestly reminded him, “I don’t know what your real-life situation is, but you can’t spend all your time in the game. I can’t work because of my poor health, so I’m just a NEET, playing games at home to pass the time. As for you…”

Ye Zhou sneaked a glance at Dugu Zhuo, not wanting him to feel like he was meddling too much, so he didn’t dare to say something like, “If you’re a student, focus on studying and work hard after you graduate.” Instead, he simply said, “At least get up and exercise regularly. Wearing the game helmet all the time isn’t good for your health.”

When reality was brought up, Dugu Zhuo didn’t have much to say. After all, he didn’t even know what Ye Zhou’s world was like. He just smiled and didn’t respond.

Ye Zhou thought he had overstepped, mentioning real-life matters when they had agreed not to. Seeing Dugu Zhuo’s reluctance to discuss it, he felt a bit dejected.

He patted his face to lift his spirits and said, “Shall we go up the mountain to see the White Tiger? Did the system give any instructions about capturing the instance map?”

Seeing him change the topic, Dugu Zhuo quickly went along with it and said, “Yes.”

After clearing the “Tiger Fang” dungeon of the demon spirit, Dugu Zhuo noticed that a greyed-out section in his personal information labelled “Faction” suddenly had a conspicuous red exclamation mark next to it. Having seen players chatting in the global chat, Dugu Zhuo understood what the “!” symbol meant.

He clicked on the exclamation mark and received a prompt about establishing a sect.

Dugu Zhuo: “So, there are three ways to do this. One is to use the Illusory Heart Beads to increase the boss’s affection level to a very high value, then ask if the boss agrees to give us the mountain gate. If the affection level is high enough, it can be given for free.”

Ye Zhou said worriedly: “We only have five Illusory Heart Beads in total. Counting the two we’ve used before, each bead can only raise the affection level by 5 points, which makes 35 points. Isn’t that a bit too low? What are the other two ways?”

Dugu Zhuo: “The second method is more straightforward. The system offers a battle mode with the dungeon boss. We start a fight, and if we win, we get the mountain gate.”

Ye Zhou: “He’s a level 60 tiger demon. When he was severely injured before, he roared and killed six players in one go. We can’t beat him, right?”

Dugu Zhuo: “The third method is to ask if he has any wishes. The dungeon boss will give us some tasks, and if we fulfil his requests, we can exchange them for the mountain gate.”

“That one seems more feasible. But what if the tiger asks us to groom him every day? That would be troublesome. I can’t log in every day, and I’ll definitely need to spend holidays with my family,” Ye Zhou said, his face showing a look of longing as he made a slight stroking gesture with his hand, as if he really wanted to pet the big tiger.

Dugu Zhuo: “…”

Ye Zhou imagined the joy of living on the same mountain as the tiger in the future. Noticing Dugu Zhuo’s strange expression, he quickly corrected himself: “Of course, that’s just wishful thinking. There’s no way the request would be that simple, right? Let’s go up the mountain and take a look?”

“There’s a formation on the mountain. Hold my hand and don’t let go, or you’ll get lost,” Dugu Zhuo said, reaching out his hand to Ye Zhou.

“Oh.” Ye Zhou blushed a little and held Dugu Zhuo’s hand.

By this time, the sky had already turned dark, and the forest was pitch black, making it impossible to see Dugu Zhuo’s face in front of him. Ye Zhou could only feel their hands tightly clasped together and the warmth of Dugu Zhuo’s palm.

At this moment, Ye Zhou thought that setting his pain sensitivity to 70% was a great idea. Even though it hurts a bit when getting injured while fighting monsters in the game, it’s worth it.

As they ran quickly, Ye Zhou’s heartbeat gradually sped up. He couldn’t tell if it was because of the running or something else.

The cool mountain breeze brushed against his face, and Ye Zhou suddenly realized his face was burning. He hurriedly used his other, cooler hand to repeatedly touch his cheeks, trying to lower the temperature.

“We’re here.” After what seemed like just a few seconds, Dugu Zhuo stopped and told Ye Zhou they had arrived at their destination.

Ye Zhou looked up and saw a huge cave with lights flickering inside.

“That was fast,” Ye Zhou said involuntarily.

“Not really,” Dugu Zhuo replied. “There’s a formation on the mountain, so we couldn’t fly with swords. It took us five minutes to reach the top. Once we establish our sect, I’ll definitely set up a teleportation array at the foot of the mountain.”

“Oh.” Ye Zhou lowered his head and let go of Dugu Zhuo’s hand.

There was no longer a formation here, so letting go wouldn’t cause them to get separated. Dugu Zhuo didn’t find anything unusual and led Ye Zhou into the cave.

Ye Zhou squeezed his now-empty hand and followed Dugu Zhuo into the cave, where he saw that the light came from some glowing items with special effects.

The game’s store had many decorative items that could add special effects, like a butterfly sticker on clothes that would make butterflies flutter around when casting skills, or ornaments on weapons that would make them sparkle during skill use.

The tiger’s cave was filled with glowing special effect items, all of which looked quite expensive.

Ye Zhou: “…This tiger is rich!”

“Roar!” A small white tiger with tiny ears and thick paws walked out of the cave and gave a soft growl at Ye Zhou.

Ye Zhou naturally heard the little white tiger saying, “These are all items dropped by people who came to hunt the tiger. I like shiny things, so I just hung them around the cave for lighting.”

Why did he transform into a small tiger, barely bigger than a cat, instead of turning into a human?

The moment he saw the little tiger, Ye Zhou’s pupils contracted, and his fingers twitched uncontrollably. He clenched his hands tightly to resist the urge to rush over and ruffle the tiger’s fur until it was a mess.

“Do you get to keep all the items that players drop?” Ye Zhou asked.

“Roar!” The tiger proudly raised its head.

“Of course! If it’s dropped on my mountain, it’s mine.”

Ye Zhou suddenly felt poor and sent a private message to Dugu Zhuo: “Damn, the third method won’t work either. We don’t seem to be richer than this tiger!”