“Where are we going now?”
Jiang Xueyao asked.
“Xu Yuan, you decide,” Yang Xiaobing said.
“Afei, hand out the pills. Xiaobing, you’re in charge of scouting the path and covering the rear. Jiang Xueyao and I will take the vanguard. Be ready to fight at any moment.”
Xu Yuan quickly assigned their roles.
—It was only an exam, something that shouldn’t have mattered much.
But now it was tied to the nightmare-level competition.
That woman who had appeared just now—no, it should be called a monster. Just looking at it had inexplicably made his heart tense up.
First, they had to leave this area!
“Got it.”
The others answered together.
Zhao Afei directly took out several gourds, one for each person, and said quickly:
“Fasting Pills, Spirit-Replenishing Pills, Body-Healing Pills, and Detoxifying Pills are all inside the gourds. I refined them all myself, and they were reported before the exam, so you can eat them without worry.”
Yang Xiaobing drew out a talisman and held it upright before her.
A pathfinding talisman.
The three corners of the talisman turned pitch-black, while the remaining corner stayed clean and bright as new.
“Demonic energy has corroded the east, west, and south of the city. Only the north is still relatively safe. Should we head north?”
she asked.
Before her words had even faded,
the talisman’s last corner also turned black.
“We’ve only just come in and the city’s already surrounded…” Zhao Afei said, his face deathly pale.
The group looked at one another.
—This disaster had been covered up extremely thoroughly. There was no intelligence at all.
All they knew was that such a disaster event existed.
They were completely in the dark.
So which way should they go now?
“Follow the gunshots.”
Xu Yuan suddenly spoke.
“Huh? Isn’t the place with gunshots where fighting is breaking out? Why would we go toward it?” Zhao Afei swallowed and asked nervously.
“High-level cultivators and high-level demonic beasts don’t use guns in battle. Wherever there are gunshots, it should only be a minor skirmish.”
“We need to make contact with the military and police who are still holding their ground and understand the current situation.”
Xu Yuan explained.
—Having played apocalypse survival role-playing games for many years, he naturally had abundant experience with situations like this.
Once he said that, the other three had no objections.
They held their breaths and waited for a while.
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rang out from a distant street.
“Go!”
Xu Yuan said.
Jiang Xueyao was in front, Zhao Afei followed, and Yang Xiaobing walked side by side with Xu Yuan.
The four of them ran several hundred meters and emerged from the alley.
They saw a police car overturned on the road.
The body of one police officer lay in the grass by the roadside, while another officer held a handgun and hid behind the police car, continuously firing across the street.
Across the road,
a humanoid monster three people tall, with grayish-white skin all over, staggered toward the police car.
The handgun rounds struck its body, merely making its chest tremble again and again, but they could not even force it to take a step back.
“It’s a tree demon—there are ‘demons’ in the exam, everyone!”
Zhao Afei’s voice trembled.
“It’s fine. The book says it’s the weakest kind of ‘demon,’ only responsible for reconnaissance,” Yang Xiaobing immediately added.
The monster reached out with its claws, yanked a streetlamp out of the ground in one motion, and used it like a club to smash toward the police car.
Before anyone could react—
Jiang Xueyao sprang forward, her figure sweeping up, the longsword in her hand leaving its sheath as she thrust ahead.
It was the first form of the Yan Song Sword Art, Chasing Falling Leaves!
Boom!
Crimson flames transformed into a line of fire, stabbing toward the tree demon’s body.
But before the flaming edge could strike, the tree demon was sliced into several sections by an even faster, even sharper sword qi. Its corpse collapsed to the ground.
Xu Yuan!
His sword had arrived later but struck first, beating Jiang Xueyao to it. He had released an arc of sword qi through the air, cutting the tree demon into two!
The Qiongxia Sword had +5 Sharpness, +3 Agility, and +2 Strength.
But using it also required corresponding spiritual power.
With this slash, though Xu Yuan had stolen the kill, the spiritual power in his body had also been consumed by twenty percent.
—What an astonishing amount of consumption!
Jiang Xueyao frowned slightly and explained:
“My sword is fire-elemental and naturally counters wood-type enemies. It also consumes less spiritual power. It would be safer for me to take the fight.”
Xu Yuan seemed not to hear.
He stared fixedly at the tree demon’s corpse until several golden, glittering coin phantoms flew up from it. Only then did he let out a long breath of relief.
Open for business!
The little money has arrived!
To prepare for the subsequent nightmare competition, I practically ran faster than a rabbit and fought harder than Jiang Xueyao just to grab that kill.
Was that easy for me?
“Got it. I’ll pay attention next time.” He nodded apologetically at Jiang Xueyao.
“It’s fine,” Jiang Xueyao said softly, her brows relaxing.
First, he should check the gains.
Xu Yuan opened the “Qi Refiner’s Combat Preparation Room” and saw that the number of gold coins had risen to 21.
One tree demon had given 7 gold coins!
What a profitable deal!
He was calculating his gains when he saw, across the dark road, another shadow over three meters tall charging toward them.
“I’ll do it!”
Jiang Xueyao gave a light shout and leaped up to meet it.
Her longsword moved—
Whoosh!
Xu Yuan darted over, got one strike in first, and released another arc-shaped sword qi, instantly cutting the tree demon into several pieces.
Yan Song Sword Art, Third Form, Arc Dance!
His spiritual power was consumed by another twenty percent.
The gold coins flew up, radiating dazzling brilliance.
Xu Yuan’s face seemed to become vivid beneath that illusory glow.
—Gold coins +7!
The total had reached 28!
Now that I have money,
what can I buy?
Can I get an individual rocket launcher with unlimited ammunition?
Xu Yuan was still fantasizing when he suddenly sensed an icy gaze and finally reacted.
He had stolen another monster.
—But this isn’t a game. Even if you kill them, you won’t get experience.
“Sorry. I acted subconsciously just now. Next time will definitely be yours.”
He opened the gourd, fished out a Spirit-Replenishing Pill, and explained while chewing.
Jiang Xueyao looked at him, then at the monster’s corpse. Her originally indifferent expression turned playful.
—So he wants to compete with me in this.
This was even more interesting than a head-on fight.
Fine, then.
Let’s compete and see who kills more!
The corners of Jiang Xueyao’s lips lifted ever so slightly. She suddenly felt that this dull and boring exam had become something to look forward to.
At that moment, Zhao Afei strode forward and forced himself to greet the police officer:
“Respected officer, are you all right?”
There was no helping it.
Those two fierce men and women were fighting each other for the chance to battle monsters.
They were practically risking their lives!
Although Yang Xiaobing had not attacked, she held talismans in both hands, ready to cover the two of them at any time. She did not even glance at anything else.
—Someone normal had to step up and take charge of the situation, right?
“And you are?” the officer asked.
“We are a squad of cultivators sent here under orders to provide support. What’s the current situation?”
Zhao Afei asked.
“Recently, there have often been incidents of demonic creatures entering the city. Who knows why, but this year, they’re acting as if they’ve gone mad,” the police officer sighed.
Zhao Afei began wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
—The police only felt that recent events were unusual. They had no idea at all that the entire citywide massacre had already begun silently!
In other words—
At this very moment, this was the beginning of the entire incident!
“Right. Please show me your documents.”
the police officer said.
“All right, please wait a moment.” Zhao Afei grew nervous and looked back.
Jiang Xueyao held her sword, her face perfectly calm.
Xu Yuan seemed as if he had heard nothing at all, his gaze fixed on the distance. Who knew what he was thinking?
Yang Xiaobing, however, had already come back to herself and quietly nodded at Zhao Afei.
Her hand was behind her back, swiftly folding a talisman paper into shape, then urging it with spiritual power.
—Transforming a talisman into an object!
Talismans could imitate everything and were the best support power in battle.
A dim spiritual light radiated from the talisman paper, and it quickly transformed into an ID embedded with a spirit stone. Written on it were a serial number, identity, and origin.
Zhao Afei took the document, handed it to the police officer, then looked at Yang Xiaobing.
Yang Xiaobing made an “okay” gesture.
If she said there was no problem, then naturally there was no problem.
After all, what she was best at was talisman arts. She had even obtained independent admission qualifications from Jiuyao and Luofu.
After the police officer examined the document, his attitude improved further, and he asked:
“By the way, do you need additional firepower?”
Zhao Afei shook his head and said:
“No need. We cultivators don’t need—”
Xu Yuan came back to himself at that moment, directly covered Zhao Afei’s mouth, dragged him behind him, and said with a smile:
“We do indeed need additional firepower—thank you for your support. After we finish the job, where should we return the weapons?”
The police officer said, “Use them first. Later, just come find me at the East City Police Station.”
He opened the police car’s trunk.
Several tactical vests, grenades, handguns, and a submachine gun fell out of the overturned trunk and landed on the ground.
—Among the students taking the exam, most had not awakened spiritual power.
Some combat skills, supplemented by firearms.
That was the mainstream way to tackle the exam.
Of course,
students who had already reached the Qi Refining stage could do without these.
“Hey, why would we use this stuff—”
Zhao Afei’s voice stopped.
He saw that Yang Xiaobing had already picked up a tactical vest and was putting it on.
Xu Yuan was checking the guns and ammunition.
“Don’t be arrogant. If we can conserve spiritual power, then we should conserve as much as possible.”
Xu Yuan lowered his voice.
—He directly put away the submachine gun, then went to pick up the handguns and boxes of bullets on the ground.
“Xu Yuan is right,” Yang Xiaobing also whispered. “We’re only low-level cultivators. Spiritual power has to be used at critical moments.”
Zhao Afei curled his lips and casually took a gun.
—You guys just haven’t opened the gourds to look.
For the sake of letting me get a high score on the exam, the alchemy materials my family gave me were simply absurd.
There’s no need for these things used by ordinary people at all.
Look at Jiang Xueyao. She’s standing to the side with her sword in her arms, her gaze falling into the surrounding darkness, only waiting to kill the enemy.
—She has absolutely no interest in these guns or whatever.
Now that is the bearing of a cultivator like us!