Chapter 3 - COG Chapter 3
The moment the jade pendant lit up, the blood in Dugu Zhuo’s body surged, and the wound on his left chest that had healed for many years began to ache again.
After defying his life to destroy the Tianzhu, Dugu Zhuo, the demon of the world, was not as beautiful as the cultivators imagined. His meridians were severed, and his spiritual roots were destroyed. It was only because of the strong support of his obsessed soul did not dissipate, as he dragged his remnant body to search for Ye Zhou’s scattered soul.
Dugu Zhuo had no hope of being able to continue his relationship with Ye Zhou. He just felt that the way of heaven was unfair, and he wanted to fight for Ye Zhou’s stability in the next life.
The Ye Zhou, who he searched everywhere in the world but couldn’t find, was right in front of Dugu Zhuo’s eyes.
The warm jade bloomed splendidly because of finding its origin, and the ray of remnant soul hidden in the jade pendant entered the middle of Ye Zhou’s eyebrows.
Ye Zhou didn’t notice the return of the soul, he stared at the warm jade and asked, “What do you do with this prop? It looks amazing.”
Prop? Dugu Zhuo suppressed his doubts, enduring the frantic excitement in his heart, and tried his best to say in a steady voice: “Soul-locking jade, the jade pendant forcibly locks one’s soul. It’s not an ordinary thing.”
“Such a powerful prop? I’m afraid it’s godly tier. Come on! Where did you get it?” Ye Zhou stretched out his hand, with the soul-locking jade in his palm. He glanced at Dugu Zhuo and saw that he didn’t mean to take it back.
“It’s just an ordinary spirit weapon.” Dugu Zhuo stared at Ye Zhou’s actions, and saw his expression full of curiosity towards the existence of the soul-locking jade. There were still some words he didn’t understand, which showed that he had already reincarnated. Reincarnated, and didn’t remember anything.
It’s also good to forget. Dugu Zhuo recalled the terrible fate he had before, and felt that the past had no value for Ye Zhou to remember.
The only thing he worried about was whether the soul of Ye Zhou in front of him was complete.
Dugu Zhuo stepped forward and reached out to Ye Zhou.
Ye Zhou thought that Dugu Zhuo would take back the jade pendant and handed it to Dugu Zhuo obediently. Unexpectedly, the other party didn’t look at Yu at all, but put his fingers on Ye Zhou’s wrist, as if he was checking his pulse.
Ye Zhou increasingly suspected that Dugu Zhuo was an NPC. There were too many doubts about him, and he didn’t look like a player born in modern society.
However, the experience of being cheated by the game company was too tragic, Ye Zhou did not dare to jump to a conclusion, secretly observing Dugu Zhuo with the idea of scrutiny.
Dugu Zhuo let go of Ye Zhou’s wrist, frowning tightly.
He was slightly acquainted with the technique of soul splitting, and was able to find his body had a serious problem.Judging from his pulse, Ye Zhou’s life span should be more than 24 or 25, but the person in front looks only 14 or 15, with a tender face, and is still a young man who has not yet up tall.
Looking at his face again, the outline of his face did not match the bones. It was as if his appearance had been artificially cultivated, and made more ordinary.
Dugu Zhuo deliberately pressed hard during the pulse, but Ye Zhou did not respond. The sense of pain and touch were much lower than that of ordinary people. According to the pulse, there shouldn’t be this kind of disease.
Even more weird is that according to Dugu Zhuo’s inference, of Ye Zhou’s three and seven souls, half was missing. Judging from the pulse pattern, Ye Zhou should be a person who has been bedridden for a long time and relies on various drugs to sustain his life.
Just like… just a body closely related to Ye Zhou, but Ye Zhou himself was not here.
But if Ye Zhou were not there, how could the remnant soul in the jade pendant be absorbed by him?
A feeling of concern overwhelmed the joy of reunion, and Dugu Zhuo’s feverish mind gradually calmed down, thinking about his situation seriously.
Dugu Zhuo’s forcible trespass into the Canglan mountains was not unsuccessful. It was true that other people could not leave the edge of the human world. Perhaps because he had pair of Su Jian and Xuan Jian that he could come to this completely unfamiliar world beyond the mountain range.
Dugu Zhuo looked at the direction he came from. The place that was supposed to be clouds and mist turned into a forest. Only then did he jump out of the forest and took the lives of several monsters in one move.
Thinking of the monsters, Dugu Zhuo looked down again, and saw the corpses turned into ashes that scattered away. Rustling came from the depths of the woods and two extremely ugly beasts shuttled through the forest.
“Respawned!” Ye Zhou hurriedly swallowed a handful of pills, simultaneously telling Dugu Zhuo, “Don’t care if you’re an NPC or not. But if you grab my monsters, I will absolutely cut you for revenge!”
Seeing the monster spawn, Ye Zhou tossed away Dugu Zhuo, who was still unclear about the situation, and swung his sword at a monster.
Ye Zhou originally wanted to swing his sword defensively, but the sword qi struck it, splitting the trees in front of him and the monster beast hidden behind the trees in half.
The combat special effects of “Nine Heavens” are very well done. The sword qi is a light blue light, and with the special effects of slashing, it has a sharp sense of a sword cutting through the sky.
“So powerful?” Ye Zhou looked at the sword in his hand incredulously, and chopped the other monsters at a distance. The beasts he couldn’t kill with all his energy before were torn apart in an instant.
Ye Zhou also earned a few spiritual stones and herbs. He hasn’t learned the tricks yet, so he can only bend over to pick up fallen items one by one, and pat his belt, to store them into his storage belt.
His belt was given by the system when registering. The capacity is very small. It is almost full now. There’s a level 10 requirement to wear higher-level belts He is currently level 9 and can reach level 10 with a little more experience. Ye Zhou intends to farm monsters to upgrade here.
When Ye Zhou fought, Dugu Zhuo watched this strange world with full of doubts.
No, it’s no unfamiliar, Dugu Zhuo has seen this forest and monster.
This is a forest of karmic obstacles. Buddhist believers often come here to confide in their distress. Over time, the excessive accumulation of evil thoughts will turn into ugly monsters. Karma beasts have no mind, only instinct and maliciousness towards all living beings, and will attack all living beings indiscriminately.
Karma forests are planted by Buddhist schools, but eradicating evil thoughts is the task of everyone in the righteous way.
There is a karma forest near almost every martial arts sect, and sects will regularly issue tasks to clear karma beasts. Disciples below the foundation period will receive tasks, which can not only improve their skills, but also receive spiritual stones or medicinal materials from the sect as rewards…
Dugu Zhuo suddenly remembered the sound he heard when he killed those monsters. There was a storage jade pendant hanging from his waist. He used his spiritual sense to investigate. Inside were a few extraordinarily poor spirit stones and a miscellaneous jade pendant.
He must figure out Ye Zhou’s physical condition; it’s not sure if it is related to this weird world.
Seeing the young Ye Zhou looking for a monster in the karma forest, Dugu Zhuo took out a piece of jade slip to investigate it with his divine consciousness.
Jade slips are magic weapons commonly used in the cultivation world to store knowledge. Spiritual jades suitable for storing divine consciousness are made into bamboo slips. Then, practitioners uses divine consciousness to record the content in the jade slip. The recorded content is like. book that can be used hundred to thousands of times.
Dugu Zhuo originally thought that the jade slip recorded in this piece of jade slip should be the “Ni Jian Jue”1Using the phonetic to denote Dugu Zhuo’s mind of what this thing is. that had dropped before. After his divine consciousness penetrated into it, he felt that something was wrong. It was written with some unclear words and symbols-
Name: Dugu Zhuo
Race: Initial Human race, later transformed into alien
Stamina: ???
Spiritual qi: ???
Defense: ???
Attack: ???
HP: 100/???
Level: 3/???
Identity: To be unlocked.
Background: To be unlocked.
Main task: To be unlocked
Dugu Zhuo knew every word on the jade slip, but when combined together, nothing made sense.
As he was raising the jade slip and frowning, Ye Zhou had already cleared a wave of monsters, happily holding the sword and came to Dugu Zhuo and said: “The weapon you forged is so easy to use!”
This sword was originally just a newbie weapon bought by at the weapon shop. Weapons made from broken copper and rotten iron have extremely poor durability. A blade becomes jagged after a few cuts. You need to carry a large number of sharpening stones, and sharpen the blade every so often to maintain durability.
After reforging, the iron sword made a qualitative leap. In terms of power, it is at least a weapon for level 20-30, but can ignore the level difference and be used before level 10. This is a peerless magic weapon.
With Dugu Zhuo giving weapons so generously, Ye Zhou couldn’t help inquiring the other party’s identity in a questioning tone. He simply stretched out his hand and said, “Let’s add as friends!”
Only players can add friends to each other. Just add a friend to find out. If you can add, they’re a player; if you don’t add, it’s an NPC.
Moreover, after becoming friends, Ye Zhou had the opportunity to unconditionally gift items and money to the other party. Saying “thank you” isn’t enough after receiving such benefits from Dugu Zhuo.
Ye Zhou just waited for Dugu Zhuo to nod before sending a friend request.
How did Dugu Zhuo face Ye Zhou’s invitation? He actually bit his index finger and squeezed a drop of blood out of his fingertips.
“Blood alliance” – this is the way of worship that existed in the keyboard era of “Nine Heavens”. The two sides take a drop of heart’s blood to fuse together, and the racial attributes will generate a covenant skill at will.
There are many benefits of forming such an alliance, but the cost of dissolving it is quite heavy. After the dissolution, the level of both parties will drop by 10%, and an important piece of equipment will be randomly lost.
Ye Zhou just wanted to simply add a friend, and he didn’t even think about establishing such a close relationship before knowing him.
But he was the one who proposed to add friends, and he was the one who got the high-level weapon. It seemed a bit impolite to rashly refuse.
This… Ye Zhou looked at Dugu Zhuo hesitantly, and saw Dugu Zhuo’s blood dripping into the grass. Holographic games are no better than keyboard online games, and the sense of reality is too strong, unlike the relentless rejection across the screen.
In the end, Ye Zhou hesitantly bit his fingertips under Dugu Zhuo’s somewhat sad eyes, letting his blood merge with Dugu Zhuo.
[Ding, you are in an alliance with Dugu Zhuo, do you entrust the system to assign character relationships based on each other’s attributes? Yes/No]
Ye Zhoudao: “According to each other’s attributes? There was no such reminder before. Did the game change after the upgrade?”
In the original version, the relationship between the players regardless of gender are like sworn brothers. This time, with it being unknown, it feels like opening a black box, which is quite interesting.
“Choose ‘Yes’!” Ye Zhou said to Dugu Zhuo. “Let’s see how the new alliance will be distributed.”
Dugu Zhuo also received a system prompt, and a dialogue option of “yes or no” popped up in front of him, and he calmly followed Ye Zhou’s instructions. The two clicked “Yes” together.
Two rays of light, one black and one white, were released from the fused blood of the two people, spinning like a Tai Chi symbol, and finally turned into a piece of jade slip recording the relationship between the two.
According to the jade bamboo slips, their relationship determined by the system is a “mentor-apprentice relationship”. Ye Zhou is the master and Dugu Zhuo is the apprentice. The covenant skill is “Double Swords Combo”, which requires them to be level 80 or higher to use.
“Mentoring relationship? Why is it a mentoring relationship?” Ye Zhou shocked. “Now the whole game is full of low-grade novice players, and there’s no coaching system activated yet. I’m just level 9, how can I be someone else’s master?”
Seeing the words “mentor and apprentice” on the jade slip, Dugu Zhuo felt that this was already the best result.
“Is it because my account is bound to the keyboard “Nine Heavens” account?” Ye Zhou guessed, “Have you bound a keyboard account? You can receive a lot of old players returning gift packages.”
“Zai xia…” Dugu Zhuo thought for a bit, copying Ye Zhou’s tone, “I don’t have an ‘account’, and I haven’t played ‘keyboard’.”2Here he uses 在下 (Zai xia) before the ellipses and 我 (modern day ‘I’) afterwards. Similarly, account and keyboard are in quotes because he doesn’t fully get those terms and is just parroting the sounds
“The assignment of the master and apprentice may be related to the keyboard online game account binding.” Ye Zhou analyzed seriously.
Dugu Zhuo read the soul message passed on when they were forming the alliance, and read the other party’s name: “Ye Zhou?”
Similar but different from the previous life.
“Ah? Can you see my real name when registering after a blood alliance? My ID is clearly ‘Yi Ye Bian Zhou’. Can this the game company’s disclose the player’s privacy like this? But your name is still the ID of ‘Dugu Zhuo’?” Ye Zhou puzzledly asked. Dugu Zhuo doesn’t look like an ordinary name in modern society. It is most likely a screen name.
Hearing Ye Zhou mentioning “game” many times, Dugu Zhuo even felt things were not right, so he cautiously replied: “I missed two words.”
“So that’s the case, but I accidentally revealed my real name.” Ye Zhou patted his head, a bit embarrassed.
After friending, you can check some of each other’s attributes. Ye Zhou can see Dugu Zhuo’s level, race and other information, but he can’t see the hidden attributes that are all question marks.
He curiously said: “You are really a player. But you’re only level 3 and haven’t selected a profession. How did you forge my sword so powerfully?”
Dugu Zhuo felt that this world had many similarities to the world of cultivation he knew well. At this point, there is a slight difference, so he considered and said: “Humans are indeed able to refine alchemy or refining weapons after the foundation period, but aliens are different.”
“Oh, aliens are indeed a new race after the revision.” Ye Zhou said, “You may not know if you haven’t played the keyboard version. In the original game, alien is a race that only NPCs and bosses can have. After the revision, alien has been added. However, there is no way to choose alien directly when creating the account. The game company explained that it is in the game. Players who meet such a chance will have the opportunity to transform into a foreign race. Did you have any adventures to change your race?”
“I got a sword and no longer belonged to the human race.” Dugu Zhuo said.
“The broken sword in your package? You’re lucky. After you become an alien race, are there any changes? Does blood strengthening weapons also have something to do with this blade.”
Ye Zhou weighed the iron sword and couldn’t help sighing. “No, it’s not good luck at all. If other players know the effect of your blood, won’t they chase you to get blood to strengthen weapons? Is the game company so pitted? It’s already difficult to transform into a special race, and the result is more miserable than the demon or spirit race?
Alien isn’t the best term, but as a noun its being used to denote an anomalous or a foreign race. But foreign has other connotations. ?
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Visit my ko-fi page to see how close we are to an add’l release.1Using the phonetic to denote Dugu Zhuo’s mind of what this thing is.2Here he uses 在下 (Zai xia) before the ellipses and 我 (modern day ‘I’) afterwards. Similarly, account and keyboard are in quotes because he doesn’t fully get those terms and is just parroting the sounds