Chapter 44: End of the First Day of the Instance

Qian Gongyu knew of the Iron-Blood Graveyard—a secret realm controlled by the Jie family and one of the most valuable secret realms in the entire Liang Kingdom.

Though the Iron-Blood Graveyard was only a second-turn secret realm, it could produce third-turn tokens—specifically, third-turn defense tokens. It was precisely thanks to this unique advantage that the Jie family had stood tall in Jiangnan for a millennium, remaining a top-tier noble family regardless of how dynasties shifted and changed.

However... were the Blade Warriors outside the demon kings of the Iron-Blood Graveyard?

Doesn't that mean—

"Could the statues that can be built here all originate from demon kings of other secret realms?" Shang Xinlei guessed aloud. "I was just thinking earlier, if every wave of demon hordes is stronger than the last, creations like wooden crossbows and catapults will soon become useless. Among the demons, there are no shortage of humanoid demons with extreme speed who can even slice through arrows. And even among beast-type demons, many have thick hides and fear neither crossbows nor ballistae, with the barbarian bull demons being prime examples."

"But if we can have other demon kings fight for us, it's a different story—demon kings like the Twin-Blade General have extremely high lethality but lack defense. As long as we create attacking opportunities for him, even though he's only a second-turn demon king, he can easily cut down barbarian bull demons with his blades!"

Shang Xinlei stared intently at Jiang Shi, hoping Jiang Shi would validate her hypothesis.

"The Blade Warrior has lost thirty percent of its durability."

Jiang Shi suddenly stated, and a moment later, seemingly realizing that the others might not understand, she explained: "When the durability drops to zero, the Blade Warrior will revert back into a statue."

"We must go outside and help!" Jie Yuanshao pushed the door open eagerly and stepped out. "Wooden crossbows definitely can't kill barbarian bull demons. We have to rely on the dual-blade... rely on the Blade Warrior to deal with it!"

"Having fought demons so many times, this is the first time I'm actually fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with one," Shang Xinlei laughed.

Qian Gongyu wasn't nearly as excited as them. She pulled a few pieces of spiritual jade from her pocket to absorb them, then walked outside with a look of utter heartache.

...

"Finally finished."

Yan Qing put down the game controller, rotated his wrists, stood up, and stretched his limbs, feeling as though his backside had gone numb from sitting for so long.

The first wave of the Overgrown Woodlands had taken only fifteen minutes to clear, but they had spent a full hour slogging through the second wave of monster assaults—only in an MMORPG could such a prolonged combat sequence occur. In a mobile game, it would likely have bombed instantly, and the game designer's mother would have been shipped out on wholesale.

However, Yan Qing had anticipated this long ago: the monster assaults were balanced for a standard party of four players. Yet aside from "Jiang Shi," the other three could hardly be considered proper gamers; they still had to manually haul collected materials back to the wooden cabin, unlike "Jiang Shi," who could deposit them directly into storage.

This meant that even after two resource-gathering phases, the sanctuary's resources were still severely lacking, and its defensive strength naturally could not withstand the monster assault. To make matters worse, they had foolishly chosen to build the Guardian Tree and Guardian Stone, which was practically asking for a difficulty spike.

Yan Qing had only realized it halfway through: resource-reproduction buildings like the Guardian Tree and Guardian Stone, which traded long-term development for future gains, were complete designer traps—anyone who built them was a fool. More accurately, resource-reproduction buildings were equivalent to "trading current combat power for more resources," at the cost of having the missing combat power made up for by the players themselves.

Since "Jiang Shi"'s party had not collected enough resources to begin with, choosing resource reproduction instead of immediately converting into combat power made it inevitable that the battle would be a struggle. If Yan Qing wasn't mistaken, a party needed at least one player above the fourth turn to build resource-reproduction buildings in the early stages, yet the average strength of this party was below the second turn, not to mention "Jiang Shi," who hadn't even undergone her class advancement.

Outside the courtyard, the perimeter wall had long since collapsed, five wooden crossbows had been destroyed, and the Guardian Tree had been knocked over. In fact, it had been the first thing to be flattened. Evidently, within the monsters' aggro logic, "obstruction structures" > "resource-reproduction buildings" > "offensive buildings" > "players." Whenever they had the chance, the demons would smash the players' hard-earned financial investments just to teach them that not everyone was qualified to invest in resource reproduction.

Jie Yuanshao and her two companions could no longer maintain their aristocratic elegance or ladylike composure; they collapsed, exhausted, onto the grass soaked in the blood and flesh of the barbarian bulls. The Blade Warrior, reduced to five percent durability, had reverted to a statue, though compared to before, the statue was visibly missing large chunks.

A new message popped up in the game. Yan Qing glanced at it, copied the content into the chat box, and had "Jiang Shi" speak it out loud through the AI's automated voice synthesis:

"There are two pieces of bad news."

Shang Xinlei sat on the ground with her legs spread, completely unconcerned about exposing anything, and laughed as she panted: "Let's hear the less bad one first."

"The less bad news is that the statue can only recover ten percent of its durability every two quarters of an hour. There are three quarters of an hour left before the next assault, meaning the statue will only recover to twenty percent durability when the next wave begins."

"And the worse news?"

"The worse news is that if we leave right now, when we log back in tomorrow, we will have three quarters of an hour of resource collection time before the monster assault begins."

At first hearing, this sounded strange. Leaving early to have more prep time tomorrow—shouldn't that be good news? But everyone present was clever; Jie Yuanshao quickly grasped the subtext behind these two statements: "If we can hold out until the third or even fourth wave, the score we get will be much higher? But once we leave, tomorrow we'll have to start all over again from the first wave?"

"Yes."

They exchanged glances. Jie Yuanshao said, "I haven't exhausted all my strength yet. What about you guys?"

"Neither have I," Shang Xinlei stood up and dusted off her backside. "But Xiao Yu is probably at her limit, right?"

Qian Gongyu was startled and stammered, "I—I can actually barely manage..."

"Let's log out," "Jiang Shi" said.

"You don't even have the energy left to collect resources. The third wave will inevitably be harder than the second. Without sufficiently powerful buildings, we simply won't be able to win."

With that, "Jiang Shi" walked straight toward the thick fog behind the stone house. Seeing this, Qian Gongyu couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief, quickly getting up to follow. At that moment, Jie Yuanshao seemed to remember something, chased after them, and shouted, "Jiang Shi! Qian Gongyu, wait up! I have something to tell you!"

"Say it outside. Every minute we stay here is a minute less of collection time tomorrow."

The four of them stepped into the thick fog. Unlike when they first entered, the fog did not separate them. After trudging through the mist for a short while, they saw a bright light appear at the end.

The moment they stepped out of the fog, the glaring sunlight made the game controller's screen turn completely white, feeling almost like taking a flashbang to the face. The dazzling noon sunlight spilled over the open clearing at the entrance, and the chirping of birds echoed through the woodland.

"They're out!"

"They're out!"

With their appearance, the crowd scattered around the entrance clearing instantly stirred with excitement. Many young nobles even sprinted out of their tented carriages, as if being a second too slow would mean losing out, and a large crowd quickly gathered around them. The gazes they cast at Qian Gongyu and the other three were filled with curiosity, envy, and even jealousy, resembling famished chickens desperate to rush forward and peck them to death.

Yet they all obediently stood on the periphery and watched, because a man stood in the center of the clearing, and no one dared to step ahead of him. Not only because he wore a purple ribbon tied around his wrist, but also because he was the... strongest person in this woodland.

"Third Uncle?"

Jie Yuanshao walked to the front of the others and asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"

"I was passing by nearby, so I dropped by to check on you and planned to take you back with me," the man smiled.

Jie Yuanshao gave him zero face: "Did Third Uncle get into trouble and not dare go back on your own?"

"It's—not really any trouble. But I am a dutiful grandson after all, and I didn't want to make your grandmother angry, so I figured I'd bring her good granddaughter along to see her. That way, she won't be able to stay mad."

"Thanks to my filial piety, otherwise I would've missed something this interesting."

He stepped forward, sweeping his gaze over Shang Xinlei, Qian Gongyu, and "Jiang Shi," before finally letting his eyes rest steadily on "Jiang Shi." He smiled and said, "A pleasure to meet you. I am Jie Yuanshao's third uncle, instructor of the spear arts for the Northern Jiang Garrison, Jie Zilong."

Is he a third-turn envoy?

Although he had anticipated it, being surrounded by so many people right upon exiting, and even being targeted by someone over level thirty, still made Yan Qing feel somewhat nervous. However, as long as "Jiang Shi" finished clearing the dungeon, Yan Qing didn't care if things turned completely upside down; at worst, he'd just lose a smurf account.

Yet at that moment, a shivering figure stepped in front of "Jiang Shi."

"S-She is my family's bodyguard. If you have any business, please, please speak with me." Qian Gongyu used the most cowardly tone to say the bravest words.

She glanced sideways at "Jiang Shi," her hometown accent slipping out as she lowered her voice: "Don't be scared, the Jie family... the Jie family shouldn't forcibly seize maiden girls... right?"