“Damn!” Coming out from the village’s resurrection point, I realized just how unlucky I was—my only offensive magic treasure, the fire talisman, was gone. In Shushan, when a player is killed, their money, potions, and equipment can randomly drop. If you can’t bear to lose your equipment, you have to pay a high price to apply for equipment protection.

Right now, I’m just a newbie, dirt poor, with nothing worth protecting, so of course I never considered that extortionate equipment protection application. After cursing the damn Fang King countless times, I absentmindedly glanced at my personal stats.

“Drunken Green Ox, level seven, Qi 108, Mana 225, HP 207, Intelligence 10, Stamina 28, Qingcheng Sword Technique (Level 1), Sword Control Power +30, Sword Control Speed +35, learned Sword Shadow.”

“What the… what’s going on here! Could it be? Did my last strike actually kill Fang King?” After the initial shock came wild joy—no wonder he’s an eighteenth-level ghost king! The experience points are insane; I actually leveled up five times in a row.

“But… damn it! Now that I’ve died and come back, if Fang King dropped any items, won’t I miss out on them? No way! I have to go back and look!”

It’s about three or four kilometers from the village to where I fought the ghost king. In Shushan, once you reach a high level, you can fly on your sword, free and easy. If you’re lucky enough to get a celestial beast as a mount, you can travel from the North Sea to Cangwu in a day, roaming thousands of miles. But as a pitiful level-seven player, the only thing I can use to get around is my own pair of long, skinny legs.

My stamina is really lacking. After leveling up and learning the Qingcheng Sword Technique, my Qi and Mana have increased a lot, but my stamina only went up a little according to the level-up allocation. By the time I was panting and finally made it back to where I died, before I saw anyone, I heard a girl’s clear, crisp laughter.

“This wooden plaque can make fire! Mosquito big brother, look…”

A flash of fire lit up ahead, and my heart lit up with it—wasn’t that my fire talisman! Since someone already picked up my fire talisman, what scraps could possibly be left for me?

This kind of magic treasure isn’t anything special, but for a newbie, it’s still pretty rare. I didn’t expect anyone to return it to me. Even though I knew there was no hope, I just couldn’t let it go without at least seeing who picked up my precious fire talisman.

The man and woman stood together—if I called them a perfect match, I’d be annoyed; if I called them adulterers, I’d be lying. In Shushan, you can choose your character’s appearance in two ways: either beautify or uglify your real looks, or go completely random. The first option consumes innate attribute points, so generally, the better-looking your character, the lower your base stats. As for the second… it doesn’t cost attribute points, but your chances of becoming a handsome guy are pretty slim.

In real life, most people are average-looking—there are already enough frogs and dinosaurs. If you don’t beautify yourself in the game, it’s just not right! I don’t really care about that stuff, so I went with random. My character is tall and skinny like a bamboo pole, with a horse face to match—looks like a total villain.

As for these two, I don’t know if they got lucky with random or beautified themselves several times over. Anyway, the girl was pure as water, the guy was dashing as a jade tree, and what made me most jealous was the crossed purple and blue twin-sword emblem on their chests—that’s an honor only Emei disciples have! All I have is a greasy, battered old gourd—the Qingcheng sect’s emblem is honestly disgusting.

Seeing me sneaking around, the man the girl called Mosquito immediately drew his longsword and shouted, “Who’s there?”

“Jinxi Sword, flight speed 35–70, attack speed 15–20, damage 30–45, HP +10, 2% chance to double speed…”

In Shushan, equipment attributes can be hidden, showing only the item’s appearance, but this guy was clearly showing off. The sword’s attributes flashed in a row of numbers in my system window.

“Flying sword… that’s just too much!” My wooden sword can also be used to attack, but it can’t carry people in flight. The Shushan open beta has just started, so no one’s level is very high. A flying sword like that is already a priceless rarity!

Chapter Five Fang Arrow

The other guy’s cultivation was clearly way above mine. Before level twenty, no one can fly, no matter how many flying swords you have. But the Jinxi Sword’s stats were so strong that if he hit me even once, I’d be heading straight back to the afterlife.

To avoid being mistaken for a monster and killed for virtue points by these pure and kind people, I quickly waved my hand and shouted, “Don’t misunderstand! I’m a player too!”

Seeing the Qingcheng sect emblem on me, the two of them relaxed. The Emei region, whether in size or player numbers, far surpasses Qingcheng Mountain, which gives them a bit of arrogance.

“Damn! If I hadn’t run into that bastard Julia Bennett and taken on this quest to accumulate a hundred thousand virtue points, I wouldn’t have ended up in the Qingcheng sect. I’d have joined Emei too by now.”