COG Chapter 4

After being recognized as Dugu Zhuo’s master by the system, Ye Zhou inexplicably felt a sense of responsibility. The change of status made him feel obligated to plan for his apprentice.

“Is it a passive skill or an active skill?” Ye Zhou asked.

Dugu Zhuo roughly understood what he wanted to ask, and succinctly replied: “Passive.”

Ye Zhou looked sad. “Passive is troublesome. If it’s the keyboard game, everyone is very high-level, and there is no shortage of full-level artifacts or skills in the game. It’s good for players to charge up to buy equipment, and there is no need to hunt down an ordinary player. But now, the holographic game has just been publicly tested, and the highest level on the leaderboard is only 20. Weapons above level 10 are considered magic weapons, and there is no in-game currency exchange system. You can help them upgrade weapons, and are a walking treasure chest.”

His apprentice is only level 3. If players make a cut here and a cut there, how can he upgrade?

“Before you reach a high level, try not to have conflicts with other players. Find a place where there are few people, and don’t let people discover your passive skills.” Ye Zhou thought hard, but only came up with such a solution.

Dugu Zhuo didn’t understand most of Ye Zhuo’s words, but remembered each and every one of them. He thought about it for a while, and calmly asked a question that was the safest and easiest to obtain information: “Is there any difference between the ‘keyboard’ and ‘holographic’ games? Can you tell me about the characteristics of the ‘keyboard’ game?”

Ye Zhou said: “The difference is really big, the holographic reality is too powerful! Keyboard games should be played in front of a computer. Once a long time passes, there’s back pain and eye strain. My parents have long forbidden me to play on the computer, whereas I can lie on bed with the holographic helmet to play. But there is a daily time limit.”

What about feel? Compared to reality, it is an imitation.

Games, artificial feel, helmets, lying on the bed…

Dugu Zhuo raised his hand, fingertips ran across the ends of Ye Zhou’s hair. A touch of his long hair swept across his fingers was conveyed.

“There are still many changes in the game itself. There really are too many; it is difficult to explain them one by one. We can talk about it in the future.” Ye Zhou said seriously and responsibly. “The keyboard version never had passive forging skills like yours. There is no feeling of bleeding or bloodletting on the screen. Passive skills are difficult to achieve – who knows how much the server has been upgraded to achieve this in a fully simulated environment.”

Having said that, Ye Zhou also couldn’t help but poked Dugu Zhuo’s long hair. The thick black hair looked very silky. Ye Zhou regretfully said, “Why is the sense of touch decreased when pain threshold is lowered! When I go offline, I will post comments on the official website.”

“Ah yes, you can switch between windows in the keyboard version. Go on standby while watching dramas and brushing the forum. This isn’t possible now. At present, the helmet does not have the function to download other apps, and cannot log in to the browser or other video software.”

Hearing this, Dugu Zhuo already has a general impression of the world in front of him.

This is not a real world, but more like the Qingtian Sword Sect’s mystic realm.

Sword cultivation is no easier than other methods, and weapons have no eyes. When early  stage disciples act freely from others in the sect, fatal injuries are commonplace. As a result, everywhere, they send new disciples to the mystic realm to hone their swords.

The mystic realm a passed down formation in Qingtian Sword Sect. After disciples enter, their bodies fall into a deep sleep, while their divine sense enter a secret realm composed of formations. Inside, they can let go and learn from fellow disciples, fight fake monsters, and can truly feel the sword’s power.

The biggest benefit of the realm is, apart from consuming some mental power, their bodies will not be injured and can practice swords freely.

This is more complicated than the mystic realm, and Ye Zhou’s real body should be far away from him.

Then what is he?

In order to confirm his identity, Dugu Zhuo said to Ye Zhou like engaging in small chat: “It’s really realistic. You can’t even tell whether I’m a ‘player’ or ‘NPC’.”

“You don’t know how many times I have been scammed today.” Ye Zhou sighed, shaking his head. “And you speak so sternly. If you didn’t say you have secondary disease, I will really treat you as an NPC. Don’t rob monsters in the future, this kind of behavior… even if you can beat them, you will easily offend others like this.”

Dugu Zhuo followed his words: “I was not sure if you were an ‘NPC’.”

“My speech is so modern, how can I be like an NPC?” Ye Zhou was unconvinced.

Dugu Zhuo had already roughly understood what an NPC was. They are similar to monsters in the mystic realm. All of which was false and unreal, and could not be transformed into entities or appear in the real world.

Maybe he really is an NPC.

“It’s another monster!” Ye Zhou said. “I only have less than half an hour left today, so I have to get to level 10  now. Let’s team up to share experience. Your level is too low and you don’t have any good weapons. First watch on the sidelines; Master will let you rub experience.”

Ye Zhou jumped up to the top of a tree after speaking, ready to ambush the mob.

Level up? With a thought, Dugu Zhuo’s divine sense penetrated into the jade slip with his personal information. He saw that there was a progress bar next to Level 3, as well as the option of whether to upgrade.

He tried to press “Yes” with his mind, and the 600 points of experience he earned from killing monsters was enough for jump to rise to two levels in a row. Suddenly, he became level 5.

After the upgrade, Dugu Zhuo vaguely felt that his body had undergone very slight changes. A warm current appeared in his broken dantian, and the pain in his meridians was slightly relieved.

It seems that upgrading can let his body slowly recover.

This is a good thing. No matter what world you are in, strength is very important.

In the past, Dugu Zhuo’s heart was as gray as death, and he did not put life and death in his heart. Now that he finally found Ye Zhou, there finally was some fighting spirit.

Ye Zhou’s soul is not complete. He still needs to find the scattered remnants, so he must increase his strength as soon as possible.

At this time, Ye Zhou on the other side had already quickly eliminated the two mobs. When the mobs fell to the ground, Dugu Zhuo once again heard the voice announce, “Ding, you killed the monsters and gain 100 experience.”

Each time Ye Zhou kills a little monster, Dugu Zhuo gets 100 experience. It turns out that this is the ‘team rubbing experience’. It’s a bit like a master leading an apprentice to kill demons.

He was taken care of by Ye Zhou again.

Dugu Zhuo smiled with some nostalgia, watching the experience progress bar grow longer.

In fact, he didn’t know the symbols that represented numbers. First, Ye Zhou said his level, so Dugu Zhuo remembered that “3” was “3”. When he leveled up, he learned “4” and “5”. With Ye Zhou slashing monsters producing +100 and +100, Dugu Zhuo quickly remembered the characters 1 through 9 and understood the meaning of “0”. One more “0” is a multiple of 10..

After reading the numbers, he realized that as the level increased, the experience needed to upgrade also rose. He used 200 experience to upgrade from level 3 to level 4, 400 from level 4 to level 5, and it takes 1000 to go from level 5 to level 6.According to this growth rate, isn’t a terrifying amount of experience needed to can reach level 80 where they can use the combined skills?

The monsters in the karma forest were not enough, and Dugu Zhuo looked at the unending beasts on the ground with some worry.

The upgraded weapon greatly improved Ye Zhou’s efficiency, and two rounds of monsters were quickly cleared.

He landed in front of Dugu Zhuo and let out a sigh of relief. “Finally, unlocked the group attack skill at level 10. But the cost to upgrade has reached 4000. There’s not enough mobs here; let’s go to other maps tomorrow. I hope that there will be fewer players on the next map. At one time when I first started doing quests in Novice Village, there were more players than quests!”

There are other players? And a lot of them?

Dugu Zhuo: “There are only two of us ‘players’ here.”

“Because it’s not easy to reach here,” Ye Zhou said proudly. “I took a quest to buy incense from Tanye Temple in Xinshou Village. Seeing players snatching incense at the door, I didn’t want to squeeze in with them, so I went for a walk in the sparsely populated bamboo forest. I accidentally touched a purple bamboo and was transported here. How did you come in?”

“Same as you.” Dugu Zhuo said.

“It’s time for me to go offline,” Ye Zhou said. “My family controls my game time very strictly, and can’t go online for too long every day. Uh, why don’t you first stay here and reach level 10, then look for other places. I’ll find you when I’m online.

He’s leaving? Dugu Zhuo looked at Ye Zhou reluctantly; he only saw Ye Zhou for a moment.

Emotionally, he doesn’t want to be separated from Ye Zhou. But intellectually, he knows that this is not the real world, and Ye Zhou must return to reality. Even in the Qingtian Sword Sect, it is impossible for disciples to stay in the mystic realm for too long, their bodies will gradually dry up with divine consciousness.

After a long minute, he finally uttered a sentence. “Tomorrow, how can I find you?”

“The flow of game time and real time seems to be the same,” Ye Zhou said. “I will be online at about 9 am and get off around noon. Then from 3 to 6pm in the afternoon, and will not be online at night.”

Seeing that Dugu Zhuo was ignorant about things, Ye Zhou urged: “If you encounter other players, try not to have any disputes. If nothing else works, go offline. Don’t expose that special skill. Those players are desperate to upgrade and can suck you dry. Focus on upgrading step by step, and I will send a paper crane transmission tomorrow when I go online.”

Dugu Zhuo could only say: “Okay, I’ll wait for you.”

Ye Zhou took out his jade slip, which represents the control panel, and opened the log off button. Before leaving, he glanced at Dugu Zhuo standing in the woods, and finally plucked up the courage to ask: “Er… do you really look like this in reality? The appearance adjusted to 80% can still do this, this…”

Dugu Zhuo touched his face subconsciously; he knew that his face was very attractive.

Although Ye Zhou hadn’t praised him for being good-looking, Dugu Zhuo knew that Ye Zhou cared about his appearance. There was a time when he fought with a fellow disciple, leaving several blood stains on his face, and internal injuries. After the battle, Ye Zhou threw him a few bottles of medicine for external injuries, while Dugu Zhuo had to go the deacon’s hall to receive the medicine for internal injuries.

After Ye Zhou left, there were ten years of wind and frost. Dugu Zhuo hadn’t paid attention to his appearance for a long time, which was much worse than it was at his peak.

“It’s worse.” Dugu Zhuo had a nostalgic smile.

“!” Ye Zhou logged off with his heart in his mouth. Even this can be considered a bit worse! He couldn’t communicate with Dugu Zhuo for the time being. He was angry and jealous!

Seeing him disappear into thin air, Dugu Zhuo’s smile solidified. His joy faded, leaving only the loneliness and the confusion of being in a strange world.

Standing in the forest, the corpse of the monsters under his feet disappeared, and the rustling sounds came from inside the forest again.

In Ye Zhou’s words, “the mobs have refreshed.”

Ugly monsters emerged from the forest, and will respawn after they are killed. Like the karma forest known to Dugu Zhuo, countless monsters will be born continuously.

Monster will instinctively attack people, and Dugu Zhuo was quickly surrounded by small monsters.

After rubbing experience from Ye Zhou just now, he has risen to level 7. There is true qi flowing in his body, and he may be able to use some of the techniques he has learned before.

Level 10 in the game is considered the early qi refining level. Dugu Zhuo’s current level is not even as good as ordinary outer disciples, and the true essence in the body is simply not enough to use skills.

But cultivators feeling the way of heaven, and arousing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, can often use power hundreds and thousands times their level.

He used to be a quasi-god who stepped on the Tianzhu, driving the two divine swords to smash the Tianzhu with the power of nine heavens. No one knows how to communicate with the heavens and the earth better than him.

Here, heaven and earth are full of aura.

Dugu Zhuo urged the few strands of true qi in his body and used his sword art. The aura of heaven and earth in the karma forest was attracted to Dugu Zhuo, condensing around him, to be used by him.

“Huh? There is a teleportation formation here. Ah, there are a group of mobs over there!” Not far away, two players suddenly appeared in the karma forest. Apparently, like Ye Zhou, they discovered the secret of the bamboo forest of Tanye Temple.

After they approached, they found a person standing among a group of monsters.

Fallen leaves in the bamboo forest rotate without wind, spinning around the person’s body. His index and middle fingers came together, and lightly tapped a bamboo leaf in front of him.

Countless bamboo leaves flew out like blades. The bodies of the dozens of monsters surrounding him were shot through by the bamboo leaves, and fell heavily to the ground.

The man’s hair bun was cut by a bamboo leaf, long hair scattering, flying amongst the bamboo leaves.

The black-clothed man standing in the corpse of the monster beast turned his body sideways and looked at the two players coldly, his eyes full of killing intent.

The two players made a decisive decision. Taking out an escape prop, they immediately turned and ran. Paper cranes were used to transmit a message to their teammates as they ran: “Help! There is a good-looking person in the bamboo forest of Tanye Temple. At least level 50 or above. A boss!”

 

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It was difficult tagging this piece. Is it transmigration or second chance or rebirth??? Dugu Zhuo enters a game world, Ye Zhuo’s soul is reborn in the modern day, but hm…

 

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