CH 8

“Meow~” The black cat resurrected on the spot. The originally curled paws stretched out, revealing soft paw pads.

The holographic visuals of “Nine Heaves” is very beautiful. Even the death of a character is beautiful. Female characters of the human race will gracefully rotate and fall on the ground, skirts scattered, with blood stains on the corners of clothes like blooming blood red flowers. Their faces slender and dusty, with eyes closed and a teardrop hanging in the corner of their eyes, as if she was having a sad dream that they cannot be awakened.

The death scenes of male characters are less beautiful and more heroic.

Non-humans, such as the cat in front of him, curled up their limbs and their body rolled up. There was a special effect of sunlight (moon or starlight at night) hitting the small body to make the cat look a little serene and a little sad.

“Dropped 2 levels.” the black cat checked his level, his eyes shining. “Absorbing a human NPC increases it by 4, and only drops 2 after being killed once. This exchange! If I can find someone far away from Tanye Temple, I will soon be the number one player in the rankings. Hahahahahaha!”

He jumped up with a wild smile, stepping on Qingyue and Aotian’s shoulders as he ran away from the Tanye Temple. But when passing by Dugu Zhuo, he was once again caught by on nape of the neck by this person.

Dugu Zhuo used the black cat in order to verify the connection between his original world and the game world, and did not intend to cultivate a monster that sucks human spirit everywhere.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” The black cat attacked Dugu Zhuo with its teeth and dancing claws, but the claws were too short, and the position that Dugu Zhuo held was too clever. It happened to be the blind spot of the black cat. He could not touch Dugu Zhuo at all.

“The easier the way, the more costly.” Dugu Zhuo said lightly.

The practice of absorbing the essence of other creatures is indeed easier than the practice of worshipping the moon, but when encountering lighting tribulation, it is very difficult to counter. What’s more, does the black cat think the righteous sects are dead when acting so recklessly? It may not be able to wait for lighting tribulation, but end up encircled to death by righteous sects.

Dugu Zhuo didn’t explain these things to the black cat. After all, he wasn’t sure whether the rules of the game were consistent with his original world. He just didn’t want these NPCs to be killed due to his own suggestions, which would increase his evil karma, and he didn’t know when he would be ‘rewarded’.

“It doesn’t cost anything as long as I stay away from Tanye Templ. Let me go, I’ll use my claws if you continue!”

Seeing that the physical attack didn’t work, the black cat began to consider other attacks.

After using the charm skill once, a brief skill introduction appeared behind the skill. After the black cat clicked it on, it was discovered that the target of the charm talent skill does not distinguish between NPC, player, or boss, only the level difference.

As long as the opponent is a human race and the level difference is within 10 levels, they can charm the opponent indiscriminately, unless the opponent is practicing monkhood or uses a pure heart mantra to resist.

The highest ranking list now is only level 16, and the level of the human race in front of him does not exceed level 10. The black cat made a decisive action and used “charm”. He raised his tail and “meowed” at Dugu Zhuo, with big eyes. Poor and cute, his long tail swept across Dugu Zhuo’s wrist.

“Charm” is a group attack skill. Players within 1 meter will be affected. The closer the distance, the greater the impact. As the level increases, the range of the skill will expand accordingly.

When the black cat lightly “meowed”, the onlookers Qingyue and Aotian were also affected. Qingyue already likes cats and was greatly affected. She grabbed Dugu Zhuo’s arm and said: “How can we hurt this cat? So cute!”

[email protected] also opened the paper fan like losing his soul, and readied an attacking posture at Dugu Zhuo: “Let go of that cat!”

Seeing that the excellent effect, the black cat called out again, adding fuel to the fire. “Meow~”

It turns out that this method can be used to get other players to protect him. The demon race is pretty good!

Seeing the look of the black cat, Dugu Zhuo sneered.

If a sword cultivator wants to unite human and sword, his will must be as firm as a sharp blade, otherwise he will not be able to subdue a spiritual sword at all.

Don’t say that his state of mind is far higher than that of the level 3 untransformed monsters in this area. Even if the monsters come to seduce him, in the eyes of Dugu Zhuo, those monsters who are scratching their heads are not worthy of carrying shoes for Ye Zhou.

Dugu Zhuo stretched out his long arms and snatched [email protected]’s paper fan. [email protected] was in a controlled state, his speed and power were all halved, so his weapon was easily taken away.

The paper fan “popped” twice hit on Aotian and Qingyue’s foreheads. Aotian rubbed the light red mark and said: “?! Huh I just seem to have lost control of my account.”

“You, do you want to upgrade so much?” Dugu Zhuo said to the black cat. “I’ll let you.”

“Meow? Why weren’t you charmed?” The black cat shouted, “Are you a human? What are you going to do!”

Carrying the black cat, Dugu Zhuo walked into the Tanye Temple and the karma forest teleportation array, and threw the cat into a group of monsters. “This place is suitable for players below level 10. Play slowly.”

“Where is this? What are these little monsters? Looks so terrible!” Seeing a monster attack, the black cat raised its claws to resist, scratching the forehead of the monster beast with one claw, and saw a long blood bar appearing on the monster’s head, with a -1.

The demon race’s initial attack power differs based on one’s species. Monsters such as bear demons, tiger demons, etc., have no charm skill, but an extremely high attack. Whereas this cat monster’s attack is not worth mentioning in front of this group of monsters.

Under the siege of monsters, the black cat began to lose blood.

Now everyone is a low-level player and has never been out of the Novice Village. Other maps have not been unlocked, so they can only resurrect in place. It will also be like this after going offline.

Dugu Zhuo kicked down a few bamboos and laid down a wandering formation. It is difficult for unfamiliar people to escape of the formation. The phenomenon of “ghosts hitting a wall” will appear, and they will spin around in place.

“There are a lot of monsters here, enough for you to reach level 10.” Dugu Zhuo made a “please” gesture to the black cat, and then left the karma forest.

Qingyue and Aotian: “…”

They listened to the screams of the black cat “Me-oowwww~” and watched it quickly reach a state of residual blood under the siege of the monsters.

“Is it too cruel?” Coming out of the karma forest, Qingyue asked sympathetically. “Going offline can only return in the same place. And there are no resurrection points to respawn at. Charm doesn’t work on mobs. How can he get out of this forest?”

“It’ll be fine at night.” Dugu Zhuo looked up at the sky and determined the time according to the position of the sun, “It is three quarters to the hour. When the moon reaches the treetops at haishi1, the demon race can absorb spiritual energy, and its power will increase.”

Qingyue: “…What time is haishi?”

They knew that the game control panel would display the time in the lower right corner, and one could switch between game time and real time. The real time display was 18:30, and the game time was youshi three-tenths.

“Zi, chou, yin, mao…” Aotian has some basic understanding and converted with his fingers. “It is about nine o’clock in the evening. Two and a half hours later.”

“I hope he will not be so angry that he will not be online all night. Otherwise it truly won’t be able to get out.” Qingyue said sympathetically.

Although Qingyue sympathized, she didn’t mean to save the black cat. After all, the black cat charmed them first. If Dugu Zhuo hadn’t been affected, the three of them might have become a group of coolies now. Such punishment would be nothing. Speaking of it, the black cat even took advantage of Dugu Zhuo finding such a good place to level up. What does a few deaths count as?

“Why do you still use this 12 shichen2 method for telling time? It’s been a long time!” [email protected] asked.

At the beginning, Dugu Zhuo was worried that they would find out who he was. After seeing the strange behaviors of players, he calmed down. He said casually: “Is this not in line with the game?”

“It fits the scene very well, full of feeling.” Aotian accepted Dugu Zhuo’s explanation naturally.

Dugu Zhuo said: “You know how to convert time, so let me test you. What time is 9 o’clock in the morning?”

[email protected] pointed and counted: “End of chenshi, start of yishi.”

“12 o’clock in the morning.”

“Wushi, halfway.”

“3 o’clock in the afternoon.”

“End of weishi, start of shenshi.”

“6 o’clock in the afternoon.”

“You shi and 2 points.”

“Don’t ask any more.” Aotian raised his hands in the air for mercy. “I can be considered dead.”

Dugu Zhuo obtained Ye Zhou’s specific online hours. According to [email protected]’s answer, he roughly understands the conversion 70-80%, so he longer tortured [email protected]

“I think you know a lot. Obviously we are low-level players, how do you know so much?” Qingyue asked curiously.

Dugu Zhuo recalled how Ye Zhou guessed the rules of the holographic game based on the keyboard era, and said: “I guessed based on keyboard games.”

Dugu Zhuo wanted to visit the small town near Tanye Temple to learn more about this game. After taking a few steps, he received the system prompt—

[Ding! You eliminated a harm for the people, and justice value +1.]

[Ding! You create your own formation. The system rewards a blank jade slip, which has been collected as a storage magic weapon. Please name the formation and follow the prompts to make a jade slip and submit it to the game company for review. After the review is successful, the formation can be passed on to other players in the form of transactions.]

He paused and analyzed these two system prompts.

When killing monsters before, the system prompted “killing monsters”, and the rewards were items such as spirit stones, experience, herbs, and useless manuals. The prompt that suddenly appeared at this moment was “elimination of harm for the people” and increased justice value, which was different from before.

He hasn’t done anything now, just simply walked. Why is he rewarded?

Unless it was…

Dugu Zhuo looked in the direction of the karma forest, that cat should have been killed by monsters once.

“How did you stop? Yes, where are you going?” [email protected] asked.

“What is justice value?” Dugu Zhuo chose not to answer.

“I don’t know, there was no such thing as justice in the keyboard era.” [email protected] replied.

The cat demon absorbed the human race’s spirit which is harmful to the “people” in the game. Dugu Zhuo threw him to the karma forest to die, which was regarded as his hard work, so he got 1 point of justice.

As for the value of justice, it is still unclear.

Dugu Zhuo temporarily suppressed his doubts, and took out a blank jade slip from the storage bag. Instead of looking at the system prompt, he used a method he knew well to engrave the array method of the Wandering Array in the jade slip with divine consciousness.

A ray of light flashed, and the “Submit” button popped up in the void. Dugu Zhuo clicked “Submit” and waited for the game company to review.

He took his follower Qingyue and Aotian out of the range of Tanye Temple, came to the bustling town. Walking to the edge of the town, he saw a very familiar tea shed, which was almost the same as the deadly expensive tea shed at the foot of the Canglan Mountains.

Dugu Zhuo was about to walk towards the tea shed, when a voice sounded in the sky-

“Announcement: Dugu Zhuo created the “Wandering Array”. The system has reviewed and approved it, and he has been awarded the title of ‘Array Master’.”

Think ancient way of calling certain hours of the day.

shichen = roughly 2 hours. The ‘shi’ in haishi refers to the ‘hour’-like unit