Chapter 19: The Young Woman In The Lake

Chapter 19: The Young Woman In The Lake

“The sect master and my thirteenth brother will surely avenge me!” Plum Blossom Twelve knew that he had fallen for Zu An’s tricks.

Zu An took out a notebook from his chest and wrote down the names of the sect master of the Plum Blossom Sect and Plum Blossom Thirteen. “Even if you didn’t say a thing, I’d still settle my grudge with them one of these days.” Since the mastermind was planning to kill him through the Plum Blossom Sect, Zu An could only attempt to trace the mastermind through the Plum Blossom Sect too.

In just a few moments, Plum Blossom Twelve was already utterly surrounded by Assrip Wolves. Before he died, he let out a vicious curse.

“You won’t… won’t die a… good death…!”

You have successfully trolled Plum Blossom Twelve for +1000 Rage!

Plum Blossom Twelve probably never expected that he would be saying the exact same words that Brother Tan did two hours ago.

“Who was the one who said that only the weak bark insults?” Zu An sighed deeply to himself. Looking at the bloodied scene below, he felt a chill running down his spine. He couldn’t take the gore, so he quickly turned around and left the area.

He needed to gather 10 goubaos, but he only had one so far. How was he going to gather the other 9?

It wouldn’t be wise to do it forcefully. Plum Blossom Twelve had put his life on the line, only to kill 6 of them before caving in. Zu An didn’t think that someone like him, who had just started cultivating, could possibly compete with him.

Furthermore, the leader of the Assrip Wolves appeared to be at the third rank. Even in a one-on-one, Zu An wouldn’t be a match for him, let alone in a many-on-one battle.

If it had been any other wild beasts, Zu An might have still considered trying it out considering that he had the Poisonous Prick and the Poison Bottle. However, after watching how Plum Blossom Twelve got his ass wrecked by them, he couldn’t help but feel a little frightened.

I should try drawing the lottery. Maybe I can get something useful in order to deal with those Assrip Wolves.

Zu An brought out his keyboard, and to his astonishment, the Rage points he had accumulated was a hulking 7220! The greatest contributor of all was indubitably Plum Blossom Twelve.

Zu An couldn’t help but find it a pity that the other party was already dead. It would have been good if he could continue squeezing out more Rage from him.

If Plum Blossom Twelve knew that the only motivation Zu An had to save him was to squeeze Rage points out of him, he would probably die of anger once more.

Looking at the lottery interface in front of him, Zu An found himself trembling in anticipation.

He hit the enter button, and the light eventually landed on an empty keycap.

Thanks for playing!

Zu An’s face darkened. He was just about to continue on when he suddenly recalled something. Wait a moment, did I forget one of the key steps?

Ah! I didn’t wash my face!

So, Zu An quickly halted his lottery drawing and rushed back. He remembered passing by a stream on his way here.

There was no statistical evidence to back up his superstition that washing his face could increase his chances of striking the lottery, but still, the ritual itself felt reassuring to him.

Thus, he went to the riverside and washed his face thoroughly. He made sure to scrub his hands too before turning his attention back to the lottery.

He hit the enter key, and the light began flickering across the keyboard. In the end, it stopped on the number ‘0’. A crimson pill floated out—Marrow Cleansing Pill!

Zu An leaped up in excitement. See! I knew washing my face helped!

Making full use of his current outburst of luck, he quickly drew the lottery once more, and it was yet another Marrow Cleansing Pill. His smile became so wide that he could barely conceal his happiness.

Thanks for playing… Thanks for playing…

Ding! It was another number ‘0’, Marrow Cleansing Pill!

When Zu An drew the Marrow Cleansing Pill for the fourth time, his smile began to fade. He wondered if the only thing he was going to get was Marrow Cleansing Pills.

Thanks for playing… Thanks for playing…

After playing for another dozen times, the item he got was still Marrow Cleansing Pills!

Before Zu An could retort about this, he heard a voice notification coming from the keyboard.

“In view that the user has obtained sufficient Marrow Cleansing Pills to raise your talent to the maximum, Marrow Cleansing Pills will no longer appear in the list of rewards. The Shop function will be opened. The user may purchase Marrow Cleansing Pills in the Shop in the future.

“A new reward will be allocated to keycap ‘0’. Please look forward to it.”

Black streaks flashed across Zu An’s face. Why can’t you just tell me what the new reward is instead of telling me to look forward to it? Look forward to it, my ass!

After retorting to the system’s notification, Zu An began exploring the new ‘Shop’ command. On his screen, there was an additional icon that looked like a merchant. However, when he tapped into it, there was only a single good there—Marrow Cleansing Pills!

However, what was even shocking was that every single one of it cost 10,000 Rage points!

This isn’t right! Zu An recalled the last few times that he drew the lottery. Even though there were times that his luck was down, on average, he was still able to get something decent roughly every ten pulls. Judging by that, the item in the shop was actually ten times more expensive than the lottery!

This is a scam!

But thinking back, the shops in the games he played in his previous life were also somewhat similar to this. They always sold items at a premium price, only to buy them back at a discounted price. Going by that logic, it was not entirely incomprehensible for the Marrow Cleansing Pill in the shop to be so expensive.

I won’t need it anyway.

Recalling the earlier notification informing him that he had already acquired sufficient Marrow Cleansing Pills to raise his talent to the maximum, there was no way Zu An would waste his Rage to purchase them from the shop.

He still had 3000 Rage left at the moment. For the time being, he decided to consume the Marrow Cleansing Pills first before continuing on. This was the only way that he could put his mind at ease. Besides, there was no saying that his luck might just rise together with his talent.

From his previous experience, Zu An knew that consuming the Marrow Cleansing Pill would force out the impurities in his body, cloaking him in a layer of dirty gunge. He was currently out in the wilderness with no spare clothes on hand, so he chose to take off his clothes first before swallowing a Marrow Cleansing Pill.

He made sure to fully assimilate the medicinal energy of the first pill fully before moving on to consume the second one. As a keyboard warrior, it was imperative for him to proceed carefully. If he were to consume all of the Marrow Cleansing Pills at once, wouldn’t his weak body blow up if he couldn’t withstand the sudden influx of medicinal energy? That would be a ridiculous reason to die for!

Gradually, Zu An felt his body growing warmer and warmer, and impurities began seeping out from his pores at a visible pace. He quickly leaped into the water to wash them away so as to avoid disgusting himself from the accumulation of gunge.

However, when he consumed the last Marrow Cleansing Pill, he realized that he had still underestimated the medicinal energy they contained. It was still comfortable at the start, but the heat inside his body continued growing more and more intense, as if his cells were being broken down and reconstructed. He felt like his bones, muscles, and skin were going to burst apart.

“Shit!” Fear arose from Zu An’s heart. Before he knew it, the intense pain had already knocked him out.

A long time later, Zu An woke up once more, only to find that he was still in the water. He was lying over a huge boulder by the side of the river. His surroundings looked a bit foreign; it seemed like he had floated quite a distance away while he was knocked out.

“It’s fortunate that I wasn’t eaten by piranhas while I was knocked out,” Zu An muttered as he began inspecting his body. He felt relieved to see that his limbs and everything else was still attached properly.

The intense pain from earlier had vanished without a trace, replaced by a feeling of lightness and vigor. He could clearly sense that something was different about his body, but he couldn’t exactly point out what it was.

He took a deep breath of air, and it tasted exceptionally sweet.

“Hm? The third formation has been filled up too?”

The golden stuff inside the third formation was still a little off from being completely filled previously, so strictly speaking, he had only truly reached the third step of rank two at this moment.

Looks like talent really makes a huge difference. The golden stuff inside the formation grows slowly just by me breathing.

Zu An was curious to know just what his current talent was. He was at lower Ding previously, which was basically equivalent to D-. Assuming that each Marrow Cleansing Pill increased his talent by a single rank, given that he had eaten 5 Marrow Cleansing Pills, it should have risen to D, D+, C-, C, and finally, C+.

No, that’s not right. The keyboard has notified me earlier that my talent has reached the maximum level, so each Marrow Cleansing Pill should go beyond just increasing my talent by a single rank. Shouldn’t my talent currently be A+ or S?

Or could there be a S+ above S?

I wonder what the highest level of talent in this world is. Looks like I’ll have to slowly figure it out in the future.

Zu An looked at his surroundings, and the world was very different from before. He could see the tree leaves rustling in the wind, a butterfly fluttering its wings, an ant moving its antlers, a beautiful woman slowly raising her head from the water, the fishes in the water chasing prawns…

Hm, something is wrong here?

Zu An quickly turned around, only to see a young woman several meters away. Due to his body being blocked behind the big boulder, as well as the fact that he was unconscious earlier, neither of them had noticed each other yet.

The young woman was standing upright, revealing her slender and delicate shoulders, as well as the fair, smooth skin covering her chest. She was humming a leisurely tune that sounded as pleasant as an oriole’s song.

She lifted her fair arms, and water began trickling down her arms and down to her chest. Due to Zu An’s enhanced senses, he could even clearly see the water droplets hanging on her eyelashes. It made her eyes look even more alluring.

Gulu~

Zu An gulped down a mouthful of saliva. Could it be that the enhancement of his talent had boosted his luck with girls too?

“Who’s there?”

The noise Zu An made alarmed the young woman.

Zu An subconsciously hid behind the boulder. He had no other choice, for it had just dawned upon him that he was in a dangerous situation here. Had it been in his previous life, it would have probably just ended up with him getting lectured. However, this was the world of cultivation! There was no way a person who was bathing in the midst of the wilderness was an ordinary human!

One must know that Zu An’s cultivation level was still at the bare bottom, so there was a good chance that the woman was far stronger than him.

If she was a vicious and unforgiving person, there was a chance that Zu An would end in the same fate as Plum Blossom Twelve.

“Miss, will you believe me if I said that I was just passing by the area?” Zu An knew that it was too late for him to hide now. It was best for him to quickly clarify the situation and express that it was all a coincidence.

“W-who are you?” The young woman sounded flustered.

Hm? This lady seems to be on the shyer side.

Zu An quickly replied, “I’m here to gather medicine, but I was chased by wild beasts earlier and ended up falling into the river. I lost my consciousness along the way, and before I knew it, I was already here.”

“Medicine? What kind of medicine were you gathering?” The young woman asked from the other side of the boulder. Clearly, she was also planning on using the boulder to conceal her body too.

Zu An was a little taken aback. Aren’t you focusing on the wrong thing here? Is the important thing here what medicine I’m gathering?

Nevertheless, Zu An still replied politely, “I’m gathering goubaos.” As it hadn’t been long since he came to this world, this was the only medicine that he knew about.

“The wild beasts who chased you were the Assrip Wolves?” the young woman asked softly.

“Yes, that’s right,” Zu An replied. He was surprised by how knowledgeable this woman was despite her young age.

“The Wolf Valley is indeed not too far away from here. Since you dared to gather goubaos, you must be quite a powerful cultivator then?” the young woman asked.

Zu An replied with a sheepish smile, “You can say so, I guess.” While others were wolves cloaked in sheepskin, he was a sheep cloaked in wolfskin. If he didn’t want to be killed out here, he had no choice but to do this.

The young woman replied with a trailing “Oh…” before falling silent. A long time later, she finally spoke up once more, “I’m heading up now to wear my clothes. Can you… close your eyes?”

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