The very next instant after Wu Guanyue made that outrageous request of Wuyun, the game displayed a system notification—
[Unlocked: Built-in Minigame!]
[Built-in Minigame: Want to play a round of Gwent? How about a game of Tavern Brawl? Or perhaps an exhilarating round of Zhunimo Racing? None of those are available! So, what will your built-in minigame be…?]
[Unlocked: Game Room!]
[Game Room: Place Wuyun inside a guest room, and the guest room will automatically be upgraded into a game room. Guests can play your built-in minigame inside!]
Wow! It really worked?!
[What kind of built-in minigame would you like to design?]
[(Enter manually)]
Hmm…
After thinking it over, Wu Guanyue wrote down her answer.
[Dark Souls III]
[…………]
The game’s system notification was actually just a long string of ellipses.
[What kind of built-in minigame would you like to design? (Please describe your requirements in detail)]
Wu Guanyue spoke with perfect clarity and fluency. “I hope to design a game that will greatly train cultivators’ agility, powers of observation, and indomitable spirit! Of course, more importantly, after playing my game, everyone should become hopelessly addicted and develop an inexplicable attachment to me… Ahem, I mean, to the inn! In the end, I’ll be drowned beneath a mountain of money and popularity points!”
[…………]
The game’s system notification once again produced a long string of ellipses.
But this time, it did not ask her to start over.
[Analyzing requirements…]
[Generating game…]
[Acquired: Cat Mario ×1!]
[Cat Mario: A side-scrolling platform game beloved by players around the world… Well, it should still be beloved, right?]
Wu Guanyue: “…………?”
A question mark slowly appeared above Wu Guanyue’s head.
…Why Cat Mario?
Cat Mario differed from Mario by only a single character in its name, but the actual gaming experience was worlds apart…
In simple terms, Cat Mario was a game of torment—a pure game of torment that had transcended all lowly pleasures!
Whenever you jumped upward, there was a high chance you’d smack your head on a hidden block and die. Whenever you passed a pipe, there was a high chance some strange creature would spring out and bite you to death. Even if you managed to land safely, the ground might suddenly collapse beneath you and kill you.
In short, unless you died at least a hundred times, you could forget about ever reaching the finish line!
Um… Would people from an immortal cultivation world really enjoy something like this…?
Wu Guanyue fell deep into thought.
But since this was cultivation, tempering one’s Dao heart through the frustration of dying countless times was probably necessary… right?
She couldn’t keep making excuses for it. ORZ…
Still, this was the only game Wu Guanyue had acquired. Even after she kneaded and fussed over Wuyun again and again, the minigame design process had already ended…
Wuyun was filled with fighting spirit. He raised his little paw, and the pink pads on it slowly spread open like blooming flowers.
Wu Guanyue: “…………”
Pretending that she, too, was filled with fighting spirit, Wu Guanyue raised her fist.
Excellent! Very spirited!
At that very moment, a pine sapling was growing in the inn’s rear courtyard.
This was no ordinary pine tree. It had grown from the inner elixir of a Seven-Treasure Pine.
When Wu Guanyue saw the words “Seven-Treasure Pine,” she had not reacted in the slightest. But in truth, if anyone else had heard that name—Wenren Ying, Lu Datong, She Wenjie… even Verdant Cloud Adept—not a single one of them would have remained unmoved.
That was because the Seven-Treasure Pine had once been one of the treasures belonging to Sword Lord Taibai.
Sword Lord Taibai had once been the sect master of the Profound Heaven Sect on Yuntai Peak. He was a hero who had sacrificed himself to suppress the great demon Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord. The place where he had suppressed that great evil creature was said to lie among the countless mountains of Mount Mei.
The Seven-Treasure Pine itself possessed the power to revive the dead and restore flesh to bare bones.
That was also why, despite having his inner elixir ripped out, he had still managed to preserve a fragment of his soul and transform into this tiny sapling.
At that moment, Daoist Master Songfeng’s consciousness was gradually returning…
The bone-deep hatred remained buried within his heart. All that hatred had transformed into a yearning—a pure and simple yearning—
I want to bloom!!! I want to sprout!!!
He had suffered such grievous injuries! Who knew how many years it would take him to recover!
And Wu Guanyue poured a ladleful of fertilizer over his head every single day…
He had to leave this place as soon as possible… He absolutely had to leave this place as soon as possible…
He needed to find someone to rescue him…!
Daoist Master Songfeng used the very last trace of spiritual energy in his entire body to send out a distress signal.
The tiny pine sapling began to sway despite the absence of wind. Suddenly, a streak of white light shot out from between its branches and vanished into the night over Mount Mei.
The streak of white light flew higher and farther, all the way to distant Yuntai Peak. It plunged into the mist-shrouded Profound Heaven Sect and landed in the hand of Perfected Renhua, Yan Shouyi.
Perfected Renhua was a blood relative of Sword Lord Taibai and one of the five great elders of the Profound Heaven Sect. The master of Verdant Cloud Grotto-Heaven, Verdant Cloud Adept, belonged to the generation below him.
Perfected Renhua glanced at the streak of white light and frowned.
The Seven-Treasure Pine had taken human form. Who knew what kind of trouble it had gotten itself into?
Forget it… After all, it was a treasure left behind by Sword Lord Taibai. He should bring it back safely.
Yunsheng and Yingfeng could make the trip.
His fingers moved slightly, and two streaks of white light flew out from the grotto-heaven, heading in two different directions.
One of them flew toward a small town plagued by demonic cultivators.
Chu Yingfeng stood there.
He was a pale young man dressed in black, standing utterly motionless like a sculpture untouched by the passage of time.
He was watching the fish in the stream… He watched them with such concentration that it seemed nothing in the world could stir his heart.
The sun gradually sank toward the horizon, bathing the sky in blood-red light.
From the dense forest behind him, someone suddenly emerged in complete silence.
The man was tall and powerfully built, yet his concealment technique was excellent. When his feet touched the ground, he made even less sound than a mysterious leopard from the Hidden Netherlands.
When the man saw Chu Yingfeng’s back, an utterly terrifying hatred flickered through his eyes.
Suddenly, he attacked!
More than a dozen streaks of bloody light shot toward Chu Yingfeng’s back. At the same time, from among the branches above Chu Yingfeng’s head, more than a dozen multicolored, foul-smelling winds pounced down upon him!
The bloody light was no light at all, but blood pests capable of sucking a person dry in an instant. And the foul-smelling winds were no winds either, but Mangshan pit vipers with poison potent enough to kill on contact!
Both of these things could kill without a sound in an instant. They were the reason so many people in the town had died—the demonic cultivator possessed both of these deadly treasures!
Chu Yingfeng was surrounded!
The bloody light and venomous winds completely enveloped him. Even the slightest contact—even the tiniest graze—would be enough to kill him. Even as a disciple of the Profound Heaven Sect, he would never survive this day!
Yet, within the bloody light and venomous winds, ten thousand points of sword light suddenly burst forth!
The countless sword rays resembled silver blossoms and waves of snow. From within the great ring formed by the interweaving blood and venomous wind came a terrifying sound of flesh and blood being torn apart.
In the next instant, the sword light had already reached the demonic cultivator’s eyes!
The demonic cultivator’s pupils had shrunk to pinpoints with terror!
The sword light abruptly halted, stopping right before his eyes. Its bone-chilling cold seemed to have pierced straight through his eyeballs.
Yet even colder than the sword’s aura were Chu Yingfeng’s dark eyes, frozen with ice.
Staring at him, Chu Yingfeng said coldly, “Didn’t I tell you not to use the same tricks against me?”
His voice was hoarse and low, like a rusted blade being drawn from its sheath.
A bead of cold sweat slowly emerged from the tip of the demonic cultivator’s nose.
His lips trembled as he murmured, “You… you did…”
“Didn’t I also tell you that if you used a move I’d already seen against me, I would kill you?”
Cold sweat had already soaked through the demonic cultivator’s back.
Suddenly, he could no longer hold himself up. He fell to his knees and begged for mercy. “Please spare me, Immortal Master! Please spare me! I’ve already used everything I know, yet I still couldn’t defeat you. Please, Immortal Master, let me live!”
Chu Yingfeng studied him with great concentration, his gaze no different from the one he had cast upon that fish moments ago.
His wrist turned slightly, and the sword light illuminated his eyes.
A short while later, a young disciple of the Xuantian Sect hurried over.
He was holding something in his hands. Approaching respectfully, he said, “Senior Brother Chu, a letter from the Elder.”
Chu Yingfeng reached out to accept it. As he lowered his head to read, a lock of black hair slipped down, making his face appear especially pale.
The Elder… wanted him to go to Mount Mei and investigate the matter of the Seven-Treasure Pine.
…Another tedious task. He did not know whether it would be enough to stir his interest.
Chu Yingfeng said nothing and slowly walked away.
Only after that oppressive presence had receded into the distance did the young disciple’s rigid back gradually relax.
Unable to resist, he turned to look at Chu Yingfeng’s departing figure.
Senior Brother Chu… a once-in-a-century genius within the sect.
He was too gifted, making him the foremost disciple of his generation. He was so gifted that after seeing any technique just once, he could use it freely himself.
The young disciple glanced at the demonic cultivator’s gruesomely mutilated corpse nearby and could not help shivering.
And precisely because he was too gifted, everything he saw seemed to him to be without challenge or difficulty… That was why he had developed this bad habit of toying with his prey.
None.
