Outside the game.

  In Shanyue Village,

  A figure draped in jade-green robes walked through the dimly lit corridors of the Xia estate. The figure was Xia Zhong, patriarch of the Xia family and Xia Sahui's father.

  He had a pale white complexion and an expressionless face, his eyes drooping slightly while his hands remained clasped behind his back.

  He continued walking with silent footsteps. Soon the stairs leading to the underground appeared in his view.

  As he descended, the light artifacts flickered to life at his presence. After walking down for nearly ten minutes, he arrived at what looked like an underground prison.

  There were hundreds of cramped prison cells on both left and right, filled with dying or already dead prisoners.

  But his pace didn’t slow down.

  The small cells eventually gave way to larger chambers, interrogation rooms carved from the bedrock.

  He stopped in front of one such large cell. The cell didn't have iron bars like the earlier ones but instead had a single stone door.

  The door stood slightly ajar, letting the screams from within to reach the corridor.

  Xia Zhong pushed the door open without ceremony.

  The room within was illuminated by a single, harsh white light artifact at the ceiling.

  Inside, he found five people: two of them bound by chains, their bodies hanging limp against the walls, and three torturing the two.

  Out of the three, one figure was familiar—he was the elder with the bent spine, his eyes sharp and watching. The other two were male servants.

  "Greetings, Sir Xia." The moment he entered the cell, both of them stopped in their tracks and instead greeted him with a respectful stance.

  "Anything?" Xia Zhong acknowledged their greeting with a curt nod and posed a single question.

  The two men visibly paled. Beads of sweat, unrelated to the room's chill, broke out on their brows. For nearly three days, they had tried different methods to torture the two men bound by chains, but they had yet to receive any useful information. The prisoners had proven more stubborn than they should be.

  "I-I apologize, Sir Xia," one stammered, swallowing hard. "We are trying. They have all sorts of mental defenses, so we weren't able to make any progress. I'm sure we can—"

  "You are dismissed." Xia Zhong's voice was flat. "You may return to your previous duties. I'll take it from here on.”

  "Sir Xia, w-we are confident we can extract something—"

  "I said you are dismissed. There are other tasks that require your attention."

  "Yes, Sir Xia." Both replied together and moved out of the cell, their movements hurried, desperate to escape the pressure of his presence.

  "And lock the door from the outside while you are at it."

  "Yes, Sir." They wanted to say something—but then decided to follow the orders and swiftly locked the door, taking the key with them, meanwhile the hunched elder remained motionless at his periphery like a malevolent statue.

  Xia Zhong looked at the two men, and then sat down on the chair in front of them. He raised two fingers toward them.

  Instantaneously, the chains binding them withered and crumbled into rust, disintegrating as though they had aged centuries in a heartbeat. The liberated prisoners collapsed heavily to the stone floor, gasping and coughing.

  Xia Zhong retrieved a small pouch from his robes and extracted a tiny glass vial. Within the transparent container resided a peculiar crystalline powder-like substance.

  "Where did you get this?" he asked.

  "I—I am telling the truth—I didn't know—we just came from the south." The man's voice was ragged, desperate. "This drug is extremely popular there—we didn't know about you people." He was crying now, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face. "I swear we won't try to sell anything here ever again!"

  "Several days ago, our merchandise was ambushed and plundered," Xia Zhong continued, ignoring the protestation. "Who did that?"

  "I—I don't know—please let us go—we swear we will never come back here!"

  Xia Zhong extended his hand with casual indifference, and both prisoners began levitating into the air as if seized by invisible hands gripping their throats. Their legs kicked futilely, finding no purchase as they clawed at nothing, their faces rapidly transitioning from red to purple.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "So, this is why the Yanqing clan refused our Yuedama pills last month." Xia Zhong's voice was thoughtful, almost to himself. "What are your thoughts on this matter, Elder Dayu?"

  "Hehehe," the elder's laugh was dry and papery like rustling leaves. "You ask me about it, but you already have the answer."

  "I'd still like to hear it from you."

  "The underground drug business is extremely competitive, patriarch. It's not a surprise that someone managed to create something superior to ours. But it is praiseworthy that their product is nearly 1.5 times more potent than our pills. I had heard a few things about it last year, when it was still growing—but I never expected it to make it this far this early."

  Xia Zhong didn't say anything, so the elder continued: "As for who attacked our last batch, I think it might be the Yanqing clan themselves." He paused, his expression grave. "If not them, then it's definitely the owner of this new drug—they have a lot of guts."

  Xia Zhong looked at the two still hanging in the air: "And these two here prove that they have made it here."

  "Xia Zhong, don't you think it's enough? We are already making enough with our other trades—and their product is much better than ours. Not to mention, the royal family and the righteous alliance have been attacking illegal activities more and more aggressively recently. Don't you believe you should withdraw before all of us become entangled with them?"

  "Elder, you test me too much. Of course, there is no way we will just sit back and watch as we lose everything that we have built."

  At that precise moment, the two prisoners abruptly broke free from the invisible restraints, their bodies crackling with unleashed essence.

  "You are dead, Xia Zhong! Hahaha!"

  One prisoner lunged toward the two Shanyue clan members with desperate ferocity, while the other scrambled toward the locked stone door, a talisman glowing in his fist.

  The one attempting escape hammered futilely against the reinforced door; the talisman didn’t work. Then, he heard a loud splat from behind.

  He whirled around to witness the aftermath, but the light in his eyes died before he could even see the dead remains of his friend, who had just burst like a balloon, painting the walls blood red. In that same instant, his own body had begun its horrific transformation.

  Bark erupted from his skin. Roots burrowed through his feet into the stone. Branches sprouted from his fingertips, his scream dying as his throat solidified into wood. Within seconds, where a man had stood, only a gnarled tree remained.

  "Hehehe," the elder's unsettling laughter roared through the chamber once more. "What were they thinking, sending these weaklings?"

  "I'm sure they were just testing the waters." Xia Zhong replied, rising from his seat and brushing the blood from his robes like dust. The blood particles acted like dust on his robe but turned into normal blood after leaving it. "They will soon attack our business with full force. Elder, do you have anything for me?"

  "Hehehe, indeed, I do have something." The elder's twisted smile widened. "Remember that kid who rectified the redstone wire recipe? He's currently squandering his life throwing around money ostentatiously, yet he refuses to pursue new innovations because they aren't 'interesting' enough to capture his attention. Perhaps you can recruit people like him and attempt to refine the recipe."

  "Mhm." Xia Zhong nodded. "Maybe all we need is better talent." He strode right through the door. He didn't need to do anything as he phased right through it, his body becoming insubstantial for just a moment before solidifying on the other side.

  Meanwhile, the elder withered like a tree on the ground—the 'elder' in reality was just a clone.

  …

  Inside the game.

  Lu Er wandered around the temple for some time before he arrived at the same chamber they had initially stormed while contending for control of the temple.

  There, in the formation circle, stood the one and only girl of Zhu Yan's group. She had been assigned to control the formation at all times.

  ‘Come to think of it, I still don't know her name.'

  "Heya!" He raised his hand in casual greeting and called out cheerfully.

  "Kyaah!" She shouted and almost fell backward, startled by his sudden appearance, her hand flying to her chest where her heart was surely pounding.

  "Are you alright?"

  "Ah! Yes, yes, I'm fine!" she stammered, her cheeks flushing red as she steadied herself. "Y-young master Lu Zhiheng just scared me by suddenly ap-appearing like that."

  "Nah, that's too much—just call me Lu Zhiheng, or Lu Zhi, whatever you want." He waved a hand, dismissing the formality. "Also, my apologies—I didn't intend to frighten you. So, how are you managing with all this?"

  "It's—it's normal; everything remains the same," she replied, her fingers nervously adjusting her robes.

  "The temple is already moving on a predetermined path, right?" He asked, genuinely curious now. "What actually requires you to always control it?" He asked as he sat on a wooden chair on the side, the wood creaking softly under his weight.

  "It's mostly the height of floatation and maintaining speed to use the essence stone efficiently,” she explained, her voice gaining confidence as she discussed technical matters.

  "Hmm..." He propped his leg against a nearby altar and began rocking his chair precariously on its two hind legs. "Aren't you tired of doing the same thing for the past two days? Those idiots abandoned all the responsibility to you, didn't they?"

  "No, it's honestly not that burdensome; also, Zhu Yan changed with me a few times in between."

  "Wait—I also didn't come to help. Did I just call myself an idiot—wha?!" He shouted as he fell backward with the chair, the wooden legs snapping beneath his sudden weight.

  "Hehe." A small snicker escaped her mouth despite her attempt to stifle it with her hand.

  He remained sprawled on the ground, craning his neck to look at her with mock indignation. "It just slipped my mind, okay. At least I asked about how you are doing—those guys didn't even do that!"

  "Ah, yes, yes, of course." Her voice carried a note of amusement. "You sure are generous, eh—young master Lu Zhiheng?"

  "Stop hitting on my friend, you leech." Zhu Yan's projection materialized abruptly on the altar at the chamber's front.

  "Sigh, would you look at this—" He looked at the girl while still lying on the ground, his neck craned at an awkward angle. "You don't even call me just by name, and here I am getting called a leech." He gestured lazily at the projection. "So, what's the issue?"

  "There is no problem; just come out. We will reach the peak soon."

  "Just say that you don't want me to socialize."

  "I don't." Her voice was flat, unbothered. "Is that fine?"

  Lu Er grunted, pushing himself to his feet and dusting off his robes. He gave the broken chair a half-hearted kick. As he moved to leave, he paused at the doorway and looked back. "Ah, almost forgot. I never caught your name."

  The na?ve girl met his gaze, and this time her grin was less nervous and more playful. "I am Wan Reira. You may call me Reira."

  His eyelids twitched slightly, but he maintained his composure and continued walking, soon reaching the main hall.

  He paused, his breath catching as he beheld the vista before him.

  Before him loomed a colossal stone pillar resembling a mountain unto itself. The structure rose vertically into the clouds with no visible handholds or paths. It seemed explicitly designed to ensure that no one without a flying ability would ever be able to reach its summit.

  On the top of the strange mountain pillar, a golden ray of light shot up into the sky. And the point from which the light shot up was the exact location of the golden treasure chest.