“Go on, Miss Zuo! Take down this Flame Emperor!”
“Wait, you…”
“Heh heh, up next is the Sea-Covering Dragon! I never would have guessed Miss Zuo was such a battle junkie!”
“Hold on, I didn’t…”
“Hm? Even the Sea-Covering Dragon had no effect… Looks like we’ll have to try the Frostallion after all!!”
“???”
…
Zhong Yi figured that if Zuo Yi needed to fight in order to raise her Bond Level, then challenging stronger Pals would surely be more effective.
And so, he took Zuo Yi around to challenge one great demon after another.
All the while, he simply stood to the side and watched Zuo Yi fight them one-on-one.
“You… What exactly are you trying to do…?”
Zuo Yi, panting as she was chased by the Frostallion, glared viciously at Zhong Yi, her teeth clenched.
“Catch a Pal, obviously. What else?”
Zhong Yi looked at Zuo Yi in confusion. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a plate of Mammorest Curry, and began to chow down.
Watching him wolf down his food, Zuo Yi couldn’t help swallowing.
“Hm? Are you hungry, Miss Zuo?”
Only then did Zhong Yi remember that Zuo Yi’s fullness level seemed to have already dropped below the critical point.
The mechanics inside the illusion were slightly different from the original game. The Feed Bag could automatically feed Pals, but Tower Lords had to be fed manually.
“N-no, of course not…”
“Grrr…”
Before Zuo Yi could finish speaking, her stomach let out a loud rumble. Her cheeks immediately flushed crimson.
“Here. Eat this.”
Zhong Yi took another plate of Mammorest Curry from his backpack and held it out to her.
“Hmph! If my father hadn’t taught me not to waste food, I wouldn’t be interested in your food at all!”
Zuo Yi snatched the Mammorest Curry from him and turned her face away, doing her best to keep Zhong Yi from seeing her expression.
“Ohhh—ohhh!”
Zhong Yi stroked his chin and let out a sudden cry of realization.
“I see…”
“Miss Zuo seems to have a habit of saying the opposite of what she means?”
The moment he said this, the livestream chat erupted with laughter.
[Zhong has finally figured it out???]
[Good grief, we’ve been telling you this for ages! You finally believe us??]
[The feelings of Miss Zuo are obvious to everyone in the livestream chat!]
[No wonder Zhong Yi is handsome, powerful, and has never once been linked to any woman. He’s single purely because of his strength!]
[Looks like that changes today!]
…
Zhong Yi paid no attention to the discussion in the chat and continued talking to himself.
“So you were hungry, but insisted on saying you weren’t… Does that mean I can understand what Miss Zuo really wants to say by simply interpreting your words in reverse?”
“Eh…?”
“Let me think. What else have you said before…?”
“N-no, that’s not how it works!!”
“You called me a weakling… So that means you actually acknowledge my strength, right?”
“…No, I was completely serious about that.”
“You also said that I’m the mos—”
“Ahhh! Stop! You’re not allowed to say that again!!!”
…
Zuo Yi’s face turned bright red. Flustered and frantic, she interrupted Zhong Yi before he could finish recalling her previous remarks.
At the same time, a system notification appeared in Zhong Yi’s field of vision:
[Zuo Yi’s Bond Level has increased to: 8]
[Partner Skill Unlocked: Swift Lightning]
“Swift Lightning? Borrowing the power of a Grizzbolt to briefly stimulate the bodies of nearby allied units, increasing their maximum stamina, movement speed, attack speed, and reload speed for a certain period? That’s an incredibly powerful support skill!”
Zhong Yi’s thoughts were instantly derailed by the newly unlocked Partner Skill. He looked at Zuo Yi with undisguised delight.
“Wait a second! Her Bond Level was only halfway through Level 7 just now. How did it suddenly reach Level 8…? Could it be…!?”
Under Zhong Yi’s intense gaze, Zuo Yi’s face grew hot. She instinctively bit down on her lower lip.
“I understand now… It’s because you ate the Mammorest Curry I gave you that your Bond Level rose so quickly! So…”
“I-it wasn’t…”
“So you really are completely different from how you appear on the surface! You keep saying you don’t like it, but actually you do—”
“No! I don’t… That’s not…”
“You just love fighting, right? Hahaha!”
Zhong Yi laughed proudly, planting his hands on his hips.
“Although you didn’t defeat the Frostallion, Miss Zuo thought it was because you hadn’t eaten enough, not because you couldn’t beat it… So after filling your stomach just now, you feel like your fighting spirit has returned! Right?”
“…”
“In that case, let’s go back and challenge the Frostallion again! I’m sure you can defeat it this time… Huh?? Why are you hitting me?!”
As Zuo Yi furiously chased Zhong Yi down the road, sending bolts of electricity at him, the livestream chat dissolved into laughter.
[This is a textbook example of what not to do!!!]
[Sometimes you really have to give him a good shock!]
[I actually thought Zhong had finally figured it out… What a sin, what a sin!]
[When pigs fly, iron trees bloom, and Zhong Yi finally gets a clue.]
[Add Zhou Yue getting lucky to that list.]
[Brilliant!!]
…
Even after taking a completely undeserved beating from Zuo Yi’s electricity, Zhong Yi still dragged her around to fight all kinds of Pals.
Together, they watched the dawn from the summit of Icefield Spirit Peak, felt the desert winds brush their cheeks in the Desert Arena, and watched the evening glow beside a volcanic cavern…
Before they knew it, Zhong Yi and Zuo Yi’s Bond Level had already reached Level 9. They were only a hair’s breadth away from reaching Level 10.
“I never would have guessed… Miss Zuo really does love fighting this much?”
Zhong Yi looked at the unbelievable Bond Level and clicked his tongue in amazement.
The Clouded Reindeer that had been in his party for years had only just barely reached Level 9.
And Zuo Yi had only joined his party recently.
She was already almost at max level!
From Zhong Yi’s perspective, fighting Pals must have been so enjoyable that Zuo Yi’s Bond Level had risen at an astonishing speed.
“Stop saying such ridiculous things… This young lady is not that uncouth!”
Zuo Yi glared at him and huffed.
“If it isn’t fighting, then what else could be the reason…?”
Zhong Yi frowned, clearly unconvinced.
“Hmph. It certainly won’t be because of you.”
Zuo Yi turned her face away and muttered so quietly that her voice was barely audible.
“Hahaha, isn’t that obvious? How could my presence possibly raise your Bond Level? Hahahaha… Ow! Why did you shock me again?”
…
After spending a long time training outside, Zhong Yi returned to the base with Zuo Yi.
“My backpack is full. I should go back and sort through it…”
Zhong Yi stretched lazily and was just about to organize his inventory when he noticed that the livestream chat was buzzing over news concerning a Tower Lord.
[Zhong is seriously impressive… He guessed Li Wei’s recruitment condition correctly. It really was related to hatching Pal eggs!]
[Li Wei’s Partner Skill seems pretty powerful too. Apparently, it can increase our damage?]
[No wonder he researches forbidden arts. It suits his character perfectly.]
[When are you going to catch one, Zhong? Someone already found the location!]
…
“Oh? So the Tower Lord in the snowfields is that powerful? I really should go take a look when I get the chance…”
Zhong Yi replied with a laugh.
Just then, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
Zhong Yi turned around.
The girl who had been following him all this time—
At some point, she had vanished without a trace.
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?!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
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!
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
