Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 85 - Snow Flame Mountain

The little white tiger in Ye Zhou’s arms stared with big blue eyes, tilting its head as it looked at Yi Meng Xiaoyao. It seemed to be wondering how this man, who looked so strange, could also be a summoned beast like itself.

Ye Jian envied the little white tiger and asked Yi Meng Xiaoyao, “Can your true form shrink?”

Yi Meng Xiaoyao replied, “…I really can’t do that.”

Dugu Zhuo timely interjected, “It seems that the demon clan can change the size of their true form after reaching the Nascent Soul stage. The willow tree demon can shrink its true form…”

Seeing that Dugu Zhuo couldn’t find the right description, Ye Zhou thought that he might not know much about modern society, so he suggested, “Potted plants?”

“Exactly.” Dugu Zhuo appeared to be speaking to Yi Meng Xiaoyao, but his gaze was directed at Ye Zhou, filled with gratitude and a very moving expression.

Ye Zhou pressed down on his chest, signaling his heart to stop beating so fast.

Ye Jian didn’t notice the exchanged glances between his cousin and Dugu Zhuo; he just shook his head regretfully. “Potted plants aren’t that great. I still want that black cat. Forget it; I’ll figure out something later.”

Yi Meng Xiaoyao responded, “…”

The boss, while eating from his bowl and looking at the pot, was still thinking about the black cat, as if he was a bit of a jerk. Moreover, he was somewhat unfortunate; the system announcement said that if summoned beasts were unsatisfied with their player, they could terminate the contract at any time, yet he still had to endure for two more months.

Why did a game’s summoned beast mechanics turn into a labor contract? He was here to play a game, not to work; he wanted to resist, he wanted to…

“Let’s go; protect me.” Ye Jian said disdainfully.

“Okay, boss.” Yi Meng Xiaoyao replied.

With Yi Meng Xiaoyao, this super invincible meat shield to guard him, Ye Jian indeed wouldn’t hold back. Dugu Zhuo sighed about the wickedness of human nature; someone like him who had cultivated for hundreds of years could be rendered speechless by Ye Jian, still lacking experience.

Leading the group, Yi Meng Xiaoyao directed them to Snow Flame Mountain, located further north than Bei Ning City, the northernmost point on the current game map.

“I once tried to climb this mountain with a small team to see what lay beyond the extreme north. Guess what happened?” Yi Meng Xiaoyao said.

Ye Zhou listened intently, his eyes filled with curiosity. “What’s beyond the north?”

“After crossing that mountain, we were teleported back to Jiu Chuan City. Doesn’t that mean the Nine Heavens are round? Hahahahaha!” Yi Meng Xiaoyao laughed.

Snow Flame Mountain was a snow-covered peak, constantly blanketed in ice and snow, creating a world of white north of Bei Ning City. In this world clad in silver, a mountain peak was inexplicably ablaze.

It was a mountain without a peak, split in half halfway up by some unknown force, revealing boiling magma within. This active volcano seemed to have some combustible gas that caused the mountain to have a fiery upper half while the lower half remained frozen. Water and fire perfectly merged on this mountain, creating the beautiful sight known as Snow Flame Mountain.

Yi Meng Xiaoyao continued, “I discovered this place because I made a bet with a friend about whether there were hot springs on the mountain, so we ran up to check. Who would have thought we actually found hot springs of all sizes? We turned our pain sensitivity to the maximum and jumped into a hot spring, only to trigger the ‘This Mountain is Mine’ dungeon, where we got beat up by the boss and burned to a crisp…”

Recalling that experience, Yi Meng Xiaoyao couldn’t help but shiver.

Of course, they never cleared the dungeon; they cursed the game company for being unreasonable.

But which popular game company hasn’t been criticized? The game companies didn’t care.

“This awful game requires you to soak in hot springs in a dungeon. My friend and I agreed that once we level up enough to take down the boss with minimal damage, we’ll come back to soak for free,” Yi Meng Xiaoyao said.

Although they couldn’t soak in hot springs, this was still a regular dungeon. Aside from the high-level boss with strong skills, there wasn’t much difficulty. Dungeons like the Demon Spirit Tiger’s, which were explicitly designed to prevent players from clearing them, were still rare.

Following Yi Meng Xiaoyao’s instructions, the group ascended the mountain and chose a hot spring to activate the dungeon.

As usual, the sequence was minor monsters – boss 1 – minor trouble – boss 2 – boss 3. The minor monsters and bosses mainly consisted of mountain spirits and earth creatures. They fought through to the final boss to reach the top of the volcano.

When Yi Meng Xiaoyao and the others were only in their thirties, they had been scalded and exhausted by the little hot spring monsters, giving up against the first boss after only three moves and choosing to be burned to death instead.

This time, even though there were only four of them, Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou had a tacit understanding in their swordplay. Although they hadn’t reached the level of combining their dual swords, their destructive power was astonishing.

Moreover, the intense geothermal activity here was perfect for Dugu Zhuo’s “Earth Fiend Step Technique.” He used the technique while Ye Zhou simultaneously wielded the fire sword and ice sword from the “Five Elements Sword Technique” (it was impossible to use both at the same time before reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, but it was feasible at the Core Formation stage). With two flying swords in play, they fought like a human bulldozer, truly achieving the motto of “killing a monster every ten steps, leaving no trace a thousand miles away.”

Ye Jian was sitting leisurely on a branch of the willow tree demon, munching on sunflower seeds. He worked hard most of the time and didn’t enjoy the fighting and killing in games; he preferred to watch immersive experience films.

“My cousin is really skilled! Where would he rank on your game leaderboard for combat power?” Ye Jian asked.

“He hasn’t played before; I don’t know.” The willow branches fluttered around, blocking the scalding water and lava that attempted to attack Ye Jian.

“Guess what? You often participate in the arenas, so you must have some experience, right?”

“I don’t know.” The willow tree demon embraced a magma monster charging at it, sacrificing half its trunk and losing half its health in the process.

Without any teammates to heal him, Yi Meng Xiaoyao could only pop some pills and endure!

“Crack, crack…” Ye Jian said while munching on sunflower seeds, “You’re too cold-hearted.”

Yi Meng Xiaoyao suppressed his anger, “Yang Fan Yuan Hang, I’m busy fighting here and have already taken three healing pills!”

Ye Jian replied, “Double the reimbursement for the pills, plus a thousand spirit stones as a chat fee.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Yi Meng Xiaoyao said.

Despite lacking control, healing, and being short on numbers, they managed to defeat the final boss in just half an hour, thanks to the strength of Ye Zhou and Dugu Zhuo, and arrived at the top of the volcano.

The final boss was a fire spirit that had formed from the essence of fire. Although this spirit was neither animal nor plant, as it was born from the earth, it could be considered a spiritual being as long as it had developed intelligence.

The white tiger had been snuggling in Ye Zhou’s arms, sleeping, but upon sensing the presence of an intelligent fire spirit, it peeked out to observe the boss.

The fire spirit detected the aura of its kind from the white tiger, and upon seeing it was the dungeon’s boss, it immediately sprayed out a burst of flames and made excited sounds that resembled bird calls.

“The final boss can’t be killed for now; if it dies, we’ll be teleported out of the dungeon,” Dugu Zhuo said. “We should try to restrain it for a while so we can use the geothermal energy to forge our items.”

“But can your binding spiritual technique trap the dungeon boss?” Ye Zhou asked.

Dugu Zhuo had already taught Ye Zhou all the binding techniques available at level 40, but Ye Zhou couldn’t think of a way to restrain the fire spirit.

“If it were an ordinary demon beast, it might be possible. But this fire spirit is born of heaven and earth, and as long as it’s in this geothermal vein, it will have endless power and cannot be trapped,” Dugu Zhuo said, a bit worried.

He glanced at Yi Meng Xiaoyao, who had followed them up, and said, “If the willow tree demon is willing to make a sacrifice, the attribute of wood can generate fire. His presence is very appealing to the fire spirit; as long as he’s here, the fire spirit won’t attack the others, allowing us to take care of business.”

Ye Zhou imagined that scene and sighed, “That’s a bit cruel.”

Logically, a tank (T) should attract monsters to protect their teammates, but in a situation like this, the teammates would be attacking the boss together, and he had never seen a tank distract a monster while the rest of the team sat around munching sunflower seeds or busying themselves with other tasks.

The white tiger said, “I can communicate with that fire spirit.”

Dugu Zhuo responded, “You?”

The white tiger continued, “I’m also a half-spiritual being. This fire spirit seems stuck at the Core Formation stage and can only develop intelligence without transforming. I can share some insights about the Nascent Soul stage’s cultivation methods to help it transform sooner. Once it has the heart method, it should allow us to use the geothermal energy for forging.”

Ye Zhou was speechless.

If the level 40 dungeon boss were to level up to the Nascent Soul stage at level 60, how would the players survive? They had finally reached a sufficient level to come for the dungeon, only to find that the boss had leveled up too, and at a faster rate than the players…

This was also a major aspect of the game, Ye Zhou thought to himself.

Dugu Zhuo, the game bug, didn’t care whether the players were enjoying themselves; he was only focused on whether he could successfully forge items.

He readily agreed, and the white tiger jumped out of Ye Zhou’s arms, returning to its normal tiger size. It roared at the fully ignited dungeon boss, making the magma below nearly erupt.

“What is this?” Yi Meng Xiaoyao exclaimed in shock. “How does the little cat in Yi Ye Bian Zhou’s arms look like the boss from the Demon Spirit Tiger dungeon?”

Ye Jian replied, “It’s that white tiger; didn’t you hear the system announcement?”

Yi Meng Xiaoyao said, “I just couldn’t believe it.”

With a mighty roar, the fire spirit dimmed its flames. The white tiger transformed into a pure flame, which was not bright red but rather orange with platinum-colored glimmers at its core.

Flames reach a temperature of three thousand degrees at orange, and at about four thousand degrees, they turn yellow or white. This fire spirit seemed to be cultivating toward a higher level but was stuck at a bottleneck.

The white tiger, undeterred by the terrifying temperature, sniffed the fire spirit and softly “awoo, awoo.”

It was unclear what the two spiritual beings communicated, but the fire spirit took a few steps back.

Dugu Zhuo took out the empty Xiao Liu Jin, tossed it into the magma, and was about to operate the Earth Fiend Step Technique to harness the geothermal energy to forge treasures when he saw the fire spirit leap into the magma, circling around the empty Xiao Liu Jin, causing the high-grade forging material to gradually melt and take shape.

The white tiger also spat out a demon core, from which the fire spirit took a wisp of spiritual energy and injected it into the empty Xiao Liu Jin, raising a small flame resembling a head and emitting sounds akin to “bi bi” that resembled burning.

Dugu Zhuo didn’t understand the fire spirit’s language, but he grasped its meaning. He quickly dripped a drop of blood into the melting empty Xiao Liu Jin, and Ye Zhou followed suit with a drop of his blood.

Dugu Zhuo hadn’t asked Ye Zhou to do this, but as the sword was about to take shape, Ye Zhou suddenly felt he should contribute something as well.

“Let’s give it a try,” Ye Zhou encouraged, watching Dugu Zhuo.

Dugu Zhuo executed the spiritual technique, and countless sword energies danced around the empty Xiao Liu Jin as a dazzling sword gradually took shape.

**Author’s Note:** Yi Meng Xiaoyao: Just another day for a corporate slave, starting by secretly cursing the boss.