If someone told him earlier that a mortal could step into the 3rd stage of Qi Refining in the span of a few hours, Yang Ze would have laughed in his face. Not only him, but every single cultivator would have laughed at this statement.
After all, what kind of cultivator didn't go through hellish training and years of bitter meditation to walk the path of cultivation? Even the first realm of cultivation, the Qi Refining, needs months and sometimes years to slowly polish the spiritual energy.
Even the most talented people on the continent took almost five years to step into the third stage of Qi refining from a mortal.
But now, Yang Ze did it in a couple of hours.
Feeling the surging spiritual energy in his body, he couldn't help but let out a hearty smile.
"Screw the Yang family. I am gonna stay here from now on." For the Yang family, he was already dead. Even though it was the previous body owner who did that vile thing, it still didn't change the fact that the current Yang Ze was the one who suffered the most. Spending days in that god awful cellar being constantly mocked and sometimes even beaten for something he didn't do... Who could understand his pain?
Besides, he had no emotional attachments to the Yang family. To him, they were complete strangers.
"Cheer up. My life is just starting." Patting himself on the cheek, Yang Ze focused on the small house in front of him.
The house looked like an 18th-century European-style house. It had slanted roofs and a chimney pipe attached to the side. From the outside, he couldn't see the number of rooms, but he could make a guess based on the number of windows.
"Around five?" Nodding with a smile, he wanted to go inside and take a rest, but held himself back. Now was not the time. He needed to assign more tasks to these two players. Even though there was no reward for his tasks, he believed that these two wouldn't care about it.
And he was right... Both Sera and Gust entered the house and, after admiring the interiors that were a mix of wood and stone for a long time, came out.
"What should we do next?" It was Sera who asked this question. Compared to Gust, she had never played a single survival crafting game. So, it was all new to her. She could only look at Gust with a questioning gaze.
"Err..." Gust was confused too. Even though he had played plenty of games, this was his first time playing such a realistic game and in virtual reality, too.
He didn't know what to do either. Just when he was thinking whether to gather more materials or try to find a way out of this place, he saw the boy walking towards them.
"That's right... Isn't this guy the starting NPC?"
And sure enough, he saw the boy giving them a new mission.
"Dear players, congratulations on constructing the first house. But how could a house stay empty?"
"Please decorate the interiors accordingly."
Initially, he wanted them to try to find a way out of this mountain and then take care of those wolves for more EXP. In his eyes, this was the perfect way to increase his strength. Even if the players died, they could respawn, and if they managed to kill any creature, he too would get the EXP and increase his realm.
But upon realising just how generous the EXP was from building a single house, he decided to give up the previous idea. Right now, he needed to make them do a simple task to find out the best way to earn more XP.
"Okay." Gust and Sera didn't think too much about it, but got busy with crafting.
Four more hours passed in the blink of an eye, and the two of them managed to completely renovate the house.
The previously empty house was now filled with furniture of various kinds. There were tables, chairs, stools, bookshelves, a bed, a fireplace, a dining table and so on... The only fly in the ointment was that the house was lacking cloth. Without clothes, the entire house had that unfinished touch.
But Yang Ze didn't think too much about it. Creating so many things from just sticks and stones was already a miracle. He didn't dare to ask for more. In the future, the players would have plenty of time to search for those things.
"I feel like I am missing something." Looking at his house and then the horizon that was beginning to turn red, Yang Ze muttered to himself. He felt like he had forgotten something extremely important. And just when he was wondering what it was, he heard Gust's surprised voice.
"EH! We are out of wood already? But where do we find more?"
"That's right..." Yang Ze patted his forehead. "The freaking trees."
After these two players collected resources like loctus, the entire place was rather empty. The previous handful of trees were chopped off by that bastard.
"Ahem!" Clearing his throat, Yang Ze stood in front of Gust. "Dear player, did you forget to plant trees for more wood?"
He spoke with a smile, while cursing this brain-dead player for forgetting such an important task.
"Oh, right." Gust patted his forehead. He had almost forgotten about the thirty seedlings that he got from chopping trees. After he realised that he couldn't build a farm without crop seeds, he just threw them into his inventory. It was only when Yang Ze mentioned it that he realised.
Talking out one seedling, he pointed it towards the ground and wished to plant it and sure enough... the seedling disappeared from his hand and was already planted on the ground in front of him.
And above the seedling was a small progress bar that displayed the remaining time of 'Ten Hours'.
Within a few seconds, he planted the remaining seedlings around the house, and then finally let out a sigh of relief. With these things, he didn't have to worry about running out of wood.
The two of them then began to talk about a few more things like crafting, exploration and farming.
While Gust was itching to find a way down to fight against the wolves, Sera wanted to unlock farming as fast as possible. She had already decided to make a few buildings in this place. Her mind even flashed with the drawings of the designs she had drawn when she was a child.
Yang Ze quietly listened to their bickering and had an urge to join them and talk about various other things, but then decided against it. He would have plenty of time in the future to do these things. The priority now was to get stronger and find a way to survive in this wilderness. He didn't believe that a place where even cultivators dread to enter would be a safe haven for him. It was only a matter of time before a powerful existence found him and accidentally trampled him to death.
The only way to avoid the situation was to get stronger.
Two more hours passed in the blink of an eye, and the place had changed beyond recognition. Beside the house, there were a few patches of empty gardens and a hole that was supposed to be a pond without any water.
While Sera was busy planning for the future architect, Gust had the genius idea of using a fishing rod to fish for the 'wolves' underneath the mountain. The result was obvious... the leader of the wolves just pulled the line with a bit of force, and Yang Ze was greeted with another scene of the man falling from the mountain to his death.
Unfortunately, this time, he didn't manage to land on a wolf, but instead hit the ground before his entire body exploded like a watermelon.
"This guy..." Looking at the naked man who was bawling his eyes out due to a fall in the realm, he just shook his head. Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to interfere with them. The one thing that the players liked the least was a nosy NPC who would tell them what they needed to do.
He just needed to guide them occasionally. Other than that... they can basically do whatever the hell they want. Anyway, it wasn't as if they would die if they were killed. The only thing they would lose would be EXP. This would only make them work hard to earn more EXP, which in turn would benefit him the most.
As for the matter of the players accidentally harming or killing him... Well, he made sure of that when he added the rule that 'the summoned players can not harm the summoner'.
He just sat on the grass and watched them run around with a smile on his face. Without even realising it, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
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When Yang Ze woke up again, he was surprised to see that he was the only one there.
"Huh!? Did they manage to find a way out?" The first thought that came to his mind was that perhaps both of them had managed to find a way down from this mountain.
But upon seeing a small message when he checked the mark on his hand... he went silent.
[Online Players: 0/2]
"Oh!" It was only now that Yang Ze realised that they might have gone to sleep or perhaps for work
"Looks like I need to summon more people." Though he wanted to summon more players, the mark on his hand still seemed to be on a cooldown. It's been hours, and that thing hasn't recovered yet.
With a wry smile, he stood up, shook the dust off his body and moved around for a while.
"Are those stupid wolves still there?" Thinking about the dense number of wolves sitting there yesterday, he couldn't help but think about peeking from the edge of the mountain.
Carefully making his way to the edge, he poked his head, trying to see the scenery below him, but the moment he did, his heart almost jumped out of his throat.
A giant eagle-like creature flashed past his eyes at a speed that made him unable to react.
"SHIT." Yang Ze was about to say his last prayers, but the giant creature flew right past him. It was gripping a wild wolf in its talons, which was struggling with all its strength, trying to get away.
Before Yang Ze could even process what he was seeing, his eyes went wide with shock at the next scene.
He saw a second wolf clinging to the first wolf's legs with its teeth. When the eagle reached past him and reached about five meters in height, the second wolf opened its mouth and fell, landing with a thump right at Yang Ze's feet.
"..."
"..."
The two of them stared at each other in silence. One pair of eyes was filled with cruelty and greed, while the other pair of eyes was filled with shock and disbelief, as if still trying to process what was going on.