The entire Eagle Spirit Mountain was lush and green. There were not many trees, however; most of the mountain was covered in weeds and a sparse scattering of shrubs.
On some of the steeper slopes, bare rock could be seen jutting out from beneath the vegetation.
The stones were white and had a texture similar to those at the quarry.
A muddy mountain path, a little over three meters wide, wound its way upward. At the foot of the mountain stood a sentry post built from piled stones.
Six or seven soldiers were stationed outside the post, though no one knew how many more were inside.
Liu Xuan swept his gaze over the soldiers from a distance.
[Hamovi Soldier]
Level: 14–18
Attack: 200–260
Health: 2,500–3,000
Armor: 60
Skill: [Basic Training: By forming a formation, the soldiers can increase their attributes to a certain degree. The amount of the increase depends on the number of Hamovi soldiers in the formation.]
The soldiers’ levels varied, ranging from 14 to 18.
As for their attributes, Liu Xuan found it difficult to judge whether they were high or not, since there was such a large gap between them and the monsters he had fought before.
He could, however, compare them to Captain Finch, whom he had encountered at the outpost.
[Captain Finch (Elite)]
Level: 10
Attack: 270
Health: 5,000
Armor: 80
In that light, although these soldiers were higher level, their attributes were still inferior to those of the elite Captain Finch.
With not even 3,000 health, they were beneath Liu Xuan’s notice. He simply swaggered toward the sentry post.
Before he reached it, a sudden blast of a horn rang out from the top of the post. Clearly, someone up there had spotted him.
But these fellows were probably too lax in their duties. By the time they noticed him, Liu Xuan was already less than fifty meters away.
The few soldiers outside the post had been leaning crookedly against the walls, chatting and fooling around. The horn startled them badly, and they hurriedly jumped to their feet and scrambled to grab their weapons.
An arrow landed crookedly in front of Liu Xuan. It had been fired from the top of the sentry post.
Liu Xuan had no idea whether the soldier had missed his aim or had deliberately shot wide as a warning.
A soldier standing on the tower shouted angrily, “Hey, you! Stop right there! Who are you?”
“I’m your daddy!”
Liu Xuan couldn’t be bothered to waste his breath. He continued charging forward.
The little soldier froze for a moment before flying into a rage. “You’re asking for death!”
Another arrow came flying over.
This time, it hit its mark, striking Liu Xuan directly in the forehead.
“...”
The soldier was immediately afflicted with [Fear] and toppled headfirst from the watchtower.
“-4851!”
His body slammed into the ground with a dull thud.
“Killed [Hamovi Soldier (Level 15)]. Gained 25 experience points.”
“Killed a [Poisoned] monster. Base health +1.”
“Killed a [Feared] monster. Intelligence +0.1.”
The corpse landed right beside Liu Xuan’s feet, frightening the soldiers below. They hurriedly shouted for reinforcements.
A string of angry curses came from inside the sentry post. Moments later, seven or eight more soldiers rushed out.
They arranged themselves into a crooked formation. When Liu Xuan used [Eye of Insight] to examine them, he discovered that both their health and attack had increased slightly.
[Hamovi Soldier]
Level: 14–18
Attack: 250–300
Health: 3,000–3,500
Armor: 60
Skill: [Basic Training: By forming a formation, the soldiers can increase their attributes to a certain degree. The amount of the increase depends on the number of Hamovi soldiers in the formation.]
But this slight boost still wasn’t enough to matter.
Their courage had grown considerably, though. One of them shouted viciously, “You little bastard, you’re courting death! Brothers, take him down!”
These men had perhaps realized that their formation was too poor. If they charged forward, it would only become even more chaotic. So, despite shouting threats, they remained rooted to the spot as if their feet had been nailed down.
Only when Liu Xuan reached them did they raise their spears and thrust at him.
“Ah!”
“Ah!”
One scream after another rang out as the Hamovi soldiers instantly collapsed in a heap.
Liu Xuan slipped inside the sentry post and looked around. Seeing that there was nothing worth taking, he curled his lip and followed the muddy path up the mountain.
He had figured these deserters out. Their discipline was terrible and every one of them acted like a good-for-nothing, but they had made surprisingly thorough arrangements.
Along the road up the mountain, there was a small camp every so often, each guarded by roughly three to five soldiers.
This setup clearly wasn’t meant to defend against the villagers.
If the villagers had been strong enough to fight their way up the mountain, they wouldn’t have been having their food stolen in the first place.
Liu Xuan guessed that these deserters were guarding against enemies from the north.
After all, that was where they had been beaten into becoming deserters.
.......
While Liu Xuan was slaughtering his way through Eagle Spirit Mountain, Zhang Meng was holding the regular battlefield meeting.
At present, there were 4,145 living players recorded across Battlefield No. 2468. Zhang Meng had divided them into twelve major battalions.
Each battalion had roughly three to four hundred people, and below them were squads of around twenty members each.
Under normal circumstances, everyone would level up in squads. Depending on their needs and team compositions, squads could be split up and reorganized.
However, replacements and transfers had to be made from within the same battalion whenever possible.
The first reason was to make management easier, ensuring that everyone’s survival status was clear at a glance.
The second was to help the people in each battalion get to know one another. Once they became familiar with each other, their cooperation would improve, making them more effective in battle.
Zhang Meng was holding the meeting mainly to inspect how well each battalion had completed its assigned tasks.
As mentioned before, they couldn’t have everyone pile onto the same type of quest.
Therefore, Zhang Meng had set basic targets for each battalion: each one had to complete a certain number of specific quests.
Anything beyond those targets was left up to individual choice.
After all the squads had finished reporting, Zhang Meng nodded in satisfaction.
“Thank you all for your cooperation. We’ve completed more than 3,000 quests now. I’m sure we’ll finish everything soon. Once that’s done, we can head north.”
Someone below laughed and chimed in, “It’s nothing. Everyone wants to get on with the next battle as soon as possible. We’re all around Level 10 now, and our experience bonuses are about to run out. We’re just waiting for the rewards from the next battle.”
“Old Cai, you can still level up without the experience bonus.”
“That’s true, but once you’ve gotten used to a fast pace, going back to leveling slowly is painful.”
“Old Cai, I see you’re really eager to start the battle. Here’s a mission for you! Since everyone is basically starting from the same line right now, once the northern area opens, you can charge straight ahead. I’ll support you in clearing the battle!”
“Get lost, get lost! What do you mean, we’re all at the same starting line? How can I compare with Legendary Liu Xuan? I’ve been to the lumberyard and the quarry. Even the simplified versions were so difficult that I couldn’t do a thing. I’ll just lie back and wait for the legendary expert to carry me.”
“Look at you, no ambition at all.”
“Oh? And you’re ambitious?”
“I’m not either.”
“Hahaha!”
The entire venue erupted in cheerful laughter. Zhang Meng laughed along with them, completely unaware that two of the battalion commanders below had exchanged a meaningful glance.
It seemed they were plotting something.
One of them gave a slight nod. Following the previous speaker’s words, he casually said, “It’s a shame we haven’t even met the legendary expert yet.”
The laughter abruptly faltered.
Quite a few people turned toward Zhang Meng with curious expressions.
Zhang Meng sold so much equipment and so many materials every day that everyone knew he hadn’t obtained them himself—they had been given to him by Liu Xuan.
Clearly, the two of them knew each other.
After all, they had both once been top professional players in the same circle. It was only natural that they had known each other for a long time.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
