Absolute Death Game

The moon shone bright and stars sparse, it was a night of full moon in the game, and coincidentally, it was the same in reality. Xiao Buli wondered if it was merely a coincidence, or if the time in the game syncs up with reality.

Xiao Buli sat cross-legged on the rooftop of the villa, breathing in and out while feeling the so-called moonlight's spiritual energy. His body emitted a faint green glow, giving off a plant-like impression.

Generally speaking, midnight was when spiritual energy was most abundant—if there really was such a thing as the Essence of the Sun and Moon in this world.

But after sitting for an hour, it seemed like nothing useful had been absorbed. Occasionally there would be a faint sensation, but it often disappeared in the blink of an eye, making Xiao Buli suspect whether it was just his imagination.

"That's enough for today," he said to himself as he stood up and walked downstairs. By the time he got back to the living room, everyone else had logged off and gone to sleep. Xiao Buli lay in bed for a while, but sleep eluded him.

Guess I'll browse some forums.

Xiao Buli used to really enjoy browsing forums because they broadened his thinking. Two heads are better than one, after all. However, ever since he started playing this game, he had not visited the forums in a long time.

His favorite forums to visit were those for games and novels. He skimmed through a few gaming posts; they were mostly uninformative—updates about newly released games or upcoming open beta tests.

In the past, Xiao Buli would have followed these closely, since that was his bread and butter, but now he had lost all interest—no matter how good you are at games, how can that compare to real-world benefits?

Suddenly, a post caught his eye. It was about an online game in the immortal heroes genre, yet it didn't seem all that novel, just the same old thing most domestic games did. He glanced through it briefly. The content of the post itself wasn't very informative, but it suddenly made him think, 'Why don't I discuss the problems I encounter in the game on a forum?'

With that thought, he directly found a forum for cultivation novels and posted his question.

The question was simple and rather silly—

"If you got a cultivation technique in real life, how would you practice and improve it?"

This question seemed pretty ridiculous, but Xiao Buli knew there was all sorts of people online; surely there'd be some who were bored or obsessed with cultivation novels and willing to offer suggestions and answers.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few people online in the middle of the night. Sure enough, not long after, when Xiao Buli refreshed the post, he found a bunch of replies.

Some replies were disdainful—

Madman123 said, "If only, if goodbye."

Nine Heavens Huan Pei remarked, "Damn, not this kind of post again. When will it end?"

But some actually responded—

Gudeliya said, "Simple, practice according to it."

Thunderbird advised, "Don't just start cultivating, you could go mad with power. First, get some books on traditional Chinese medicine and understand the meridians and acupoints."

Thunderbird's dad mocked, "Haha, what kind of intelligence is that? Cultivation techniques aren't martial arts secrets, why bother with meridians and acupoints?"

Xiao Buli read each reply, most of which weren't meaningful, until one caught his eye.

Nine Revolutions True Immortal stated, "Even if you have a cultivation technique, it's useless. There's no spiritual energy left in the real world; no matter how much you practice, it's impossible to succeed." Find your next adventure on My Virtual Library Empire

Spiritual Energy? Xiao Buli silently repeated the term. He had read a few immortal hero novels before and roughly understood the concept. According to some of the cultivation novels, when the world was young, spiritual energy was abundant, allowing early cultivators to make significant progress easily.

But spiritual energy was limited; as more and more cultivators emerged, naturally, the spiritual energy diminished. By modern times, spiritual energy basically didn't exist. Could the reason he wasn't able to improve his mastery of the Yi Wood Xuan Yang Scripture be due to this? What should he do?

Feeling the need to have a thorough discussion with this Nine Revolutions True Immortal, he replied, "Can we chat privately?"

After a while without response, he guessed the person probably went to sleep.

Xiao Buli couldn't help but sigh. Suddenly, he thought of Xuanxu Zi. If Xuanxu Zi could cultivate to become an immortal, didn't that mean there should be spiritual energy in the Penglai Immortal Realm?

Yeah, it must be that way, otherwise there's no explaining how the immortals in the Penglai Immortal Realm improve their strength.

It seems I need to take a trip to the Penglai Immortal Realm sometime. Xiao Buli remembered that Xuanxu Zi had an option to tour the Immortal Realm. Maybe once there, I could cultivate this cultivation technique.

But the thought of needing 1000 Contribution Value made Xiao Buli sigh involuntarily.

He could afford the 1000 Contribution Value, just needing to complete one more mission to have enough. However, to tour the Immortal Realm he only had one day. It's uncertain how much he could improve in just one day, and spending 1000 Contribution Value on such an uncertainty seemed unwise.

Of course, aside from cultivating the Yi Wood Xuan Yang Scripture, a one-day tour of the Immortal Realm certainly had other benefits, like catching a few Immortal Beasts or buying some specialty items from the Immortal Realm, which seemed like great options. But 1000 Contribution Value was still too much.

Xiao Buli turned off the computer and went straight to bed in his room.

The night passed without words. The following morning, as soon as Xiao Buli stepped into the dining room, he saw smoked meat, fried eggs, toasted bread, and milk on the table. He knew instantly that it must be Gu Shaobang's turn to make breakfast. This young master could cook nothing else but it was still pretty good.

If it were Han Wenhuan's turn to make breakfast, they would be left with instant noodles.

He greeted everyone and sat down to eat. While having breakfast, they started talking about the game again.

"Boss, do you have any Skill Books that I can learn to heal others? I struggled to save up some experience yesterday and leveled up Flame Spirit Wave to LV2. The power has increased, but so has the health points it consumes. With my tiny build, a few Flame Spirit Waves are enough to drain me."

Xiao Buli shook his head, "I don't have any healing Skill Books. However—" He paused, then remembered the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Tao Te Ching in his bag. Both were knowledge-based Skill Books, with the Classic of Mountains and Seas requiring a high intelligence of 20 points, which was ridiculously high. He might not meet the criteria, but maybe someone else could.

"By the way, what are your Attributes? Don't tell me the Basic Attributes, just the important ones."

They naturally didn't hide anything and reported their Attributes.

Han Wenhuan: "Intelligence 14, Spirit 10, Luck 11, Charm 10."

Gu Shaobang: Intelligence 11, Spirit 12, Luck 14, Charm 14.

Li Shuren: Intelligence 12, Spirit 10, Luck 10, Charm 12.

Xiao Ge: Intelligence 11, Spirit 10, Luck 9, Charm 10.

After hearing this, Xiao Buli shook his head as nobody had reached 20 Intelligence. But this wasn't surprising. After all the time they spent together, he never felt that any of them were super-genius material. So, nobody could learn the Classic of Mountains and Seas, but the Tao Te Ching could be an option for one of them.

Wait a second, why not bring a real Tao Te Ching into the game to see? Suddenly, Xiao Buli thought of this. Although he had some mishaps bringing real-world things into the game before, it might work this time, as it was the exact same thing, there's no reason they couldn't learn it. With this thought, he hastily finished his breakfast and rushed to the bookstore.

Half an hour later, Xiao Buli came back with great excitement, holding a stack of Tao Te Ching books. If this were to succeed, it would be awesome.

As he contemplated this, Xiao Buli packed them into a box and absorbed it into the Time-Space Order Keeper's independent space. Logging into the game, he opened the space in his ring, opened the box, and a stack of Tao Te Ching appeared in his bag, causing Xiao Buli to rejoice.

Tao Te Ching: A knowledge-based book. Other than using it to improve oneself, it doesn't seem to have any special uses. Ha-ha, success! Now I can give each of them a copy.

However, this book is still different from ordinary Skill Books. Xiao Buli remembered when he started learning the Tao Te Ching, someone asked questions, and he had to focus and read it out for days before he learned it. But now, without someone to question them, how could they improve their skill proficiency?

But it occurred to Xiao Buli right away. Xuanxu Zi could ask him questions to improve his proficiency because Xuanxu Zi was an NPC and was well-versed in the Tao Te Ching. Clearly, if they wanted to learn this Skill, they had to find an NPC that knew the Tao Te Ching to help them improve their skill proficiency, finally understanding Taoist Heart LV1, and acquiring the ability to learn spells.

It's like finding a Swordsman NPC to learn Swordsmanship or a marshal NPC to learn Formation. It looks like what he needed to do next was to find such an NPC. But where could he find one?

As he pondered, Xiao Buli left his room and was surprised to find Jingci standing at his door.

"Senior brother?"

Jingci said, "Good morning, junior brother. I've thought about it. I really need to ask for your help again, but I'm short on Contribution Value. Can I owe it to you?"

Xiao Buli's eyes lit up, realizing he had found the right person. "What Contribution Value is—are we not brothers? How about this? I'll help you find that stone, and you help me with a little favor. We'll call it even." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please come to Qidian to cast your recommendation votes and monthly votes.

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