Windrise Isle.
Li Moran's figure appeared at the teleport point on the starting plateau.
Watching the Mischief Cats, Peepchicks, and Fluffpuffs leisurely shuffling around her, Li Moran blinked in surprise.
These "spirit beasts" were cuter than she had ever imagined.
"It really doesn't seem like something he could have created..."
Li Moran smiled softly, then immediately found herself in a bind.
She looked at her own hands, her slender brows slightly furrowed.
"I'm supposed to..."
"Kill these... little things?"
...
...
Ten minutes later.
As tree after tree fell before her eyes, Li Moran's level finally reached 4.
"Well, chopping wood, mining ore, and crafting items all give experience... not bad."
Li Moran wiped the sweat from her forehead and muttered to herself.
In the end, she still couldn't bring herself to slaughter the Mischief Cats, Peepchicks, and Fluffpuffs.
Outsiders all believed Li Moran was cold by nature, devoid of joy or anger.
But in truth, she adored cute little animals—her choice of the Teemo skin when she won the championship in "Immortal vs Demon" was proof enough.
For the three little ones who had done nothing to wrong her, she simply couldn't strike them down, so she chose the slowest route instead.
In Palworld, as long as your actions produced results, you earned experience points.
Gathering, crafting, smelting—all of it could level you up.
Li Moran silently decided that she would only strike down Pal souls that were less cute, or that attacked her first.
Just then, a private message from Lu Ze came through.
[Bai Mu: Wait... are you seriously not catching a single Pal?]
Li Moran: "?"
...
...
Main server world.
Lu Ze watched Li Moran's simulation feed from behind the scenes and began to reflect on whether his conditions had been too harsh.
I said beat the game without relying on Pals—I never said you couldn't catch Pals and have them work for you!
If you tried to do everything purely by yourself, you'd be stuck at home grinding materials your whole life...
Oh right, you can't even smelt metal ingots, so you'd have to use wooden weapons dealing [-1] forced damage.
Lu Ze never expected Li Moran to take him so literally...
She really hand-crafted even her own Pal Spheres.
At this rate, when would she ever make progress?
Lu Ze's true intention was for Li Moran to contribute massive demon-cultivation points by defeating enemies without relying on Pals!
"What I meant was, just don't summon Pals during combat. Catch them when you need to, ride them when you need to..."
Lu Ze added helplessly.
He had no doubt that if he didn't spell out the conditions more clearly, Li Moran might just walk across the entire Palpagos continent on foot.
If she spent all her time traveling, where would he get his share of her spoils?
[Moran: I see... then that's actually much simpler.]
Seeing Li Moran's reply, Lu Ze couldn't help but laugh.
Simpler?
Aside from the ultra-late-game fully-formed humanoid Pal setups, just try those boss fights before that—every single one would leave you speechless.
Especially since the difficulty in this simulation was higher than in his previous life.
Just then, Li Moran sent another message.
[Moran: You... were watching my simulation feed, weren't you?]
Without a hint of shame, Lu Ze denied it: "I'm not that bored... I just saw that you'd only reached level 3 after being in the simulation for so long, and made a guess."
After learning the full extent of the restrictions, Li Moran resumed her conquest of the Palpagos continent.
"Pfft! Do I look that bored? I just happened to catch a glimpse, that's all!"
Lu Ze muttered under his breath, switching his view to Zhong Yi's base for a while, but eventually, his curiosity got the better of him.
"What do you have to hide that you can't let me see?"
Lu Ze's curiosity skyrocketed, and in the end, he couldn't resist—he shifted his viewpoint back to Li Moran's location on Windrise Isle.
At Li Moran's base, three Fluffpuffs stood around lazily working on crafts with their paws.
Behind her stood an oversized, shiny Fluffpuff.
Li Moran closed her eyes, resting her head in the soft, fluffy wool of the shiny Fluffpuff, a girlish smile on her face that Lu Ze had never seen before.
Suddenly, she snapped her eyes open, alert, and glanced around. Then she looked up at the sky.
"..."
Lu Ze took a deep breath and quickly shut off the simulation feed.
"I absolutely cannot let her find out about this, or I'm dead..."
...
...
After learning she could catch Pals and use them for logistics and support, Li Moran found much more enjoyment in the game.
She had just stepped out of the starting plateau when she was drawn by the earth-shaking tremors of battle not far away.
With her shiny Fluffpuff in tow, she hurried over and happened to see Zhou Yue locked in combat with a Forest Mammoth.
The so-called "Newbie Village Demon King" was being subdued with ease by the level-37 Zhou Yue, as if it were nothing more than a toy.
"Senior Brother Zhou, what are you doing here?"
Li Moran asked in confusion.
"Oh? Junior Sister Li is already here?"
Seeing Li Moran, Zhou Yue looked somewhat surprised.
Knowing that Li Moran was coming, the four of them had agreed to clear out the Forest Mammoth at the entrance every day—lest Li Moran, in a fit of stubbornness, refuse to leave the starting area until she beat it.
Of course, Zhou Yue could never say the real reason out loud. Otherwise, given Li Moran's competitive nature, she'd only be even more determined to clash with the Forest Mammoth from the very start.
"I really need materials from this big beast, so I came here to farm it."
Zhou Yue made up an excuse to gloss things over.
"A level-37 great beast, placed right at the spawn point's doorstep..."
Li Moran blinked.
"That does sound like his style."
She had witnessed the shockwaves of the Forest Mammoth's battle earlier and could easily guess what misfortune Zhou Yue and Zhong Yi must have suffered at its hands before.
"By the way, Junior Sister Li, would you like to come check out our base? Old Zhong and Junior Brother Mu built it with their own hands—it's quite impressive!"
Zhou Yue immediately extended the invitation.
"Of course."
Li Moran nodded.
She was equally curious about this world and wanted to see what kind of life her fellow disciples were living.
Zhou Yue handed Li Moran a Pal Sphere containing a Galehawk, tossed out a Galehawk saddle from his inventory, and mounted the Thunderbird he had just caught.
The two of them flew one after the other toward the mountain-top base in Verdant Bamboo Ravine.
...
Along the way, Zhou Yue regaled Li Moran with all sorts of amusing stories they had encountered across the Palpagos continent in the past few days. She nodded quietly, the longing in her eyes growing deeper with each tale.
"Junior Sister Li, you have no idea—our base is developing so fast right now!"
Zhou Yue bragged proudly to Li Moran.
Under Zhong Yi's daily reforms, the base's growth far outpaced that of ordinary players.
As they laughed and chatted, the two arrived above the base, landed directly on the second-floor balcony, and pushed open the door to walk inside.
"Look, down there is our—"
Zhou Yue froze mid-sentence, the smile on his face stiffening.
Zhou Qiaoling stood there, holding a small whip, cracking it with sharp, crisp sounds.
"If you won't work, there are plenty of Pals who will!"
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
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.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
