This Poor Taoist Is Qing Miao

This was one of the things he looked forward to most every New Year.

It was also one of the few reliable ways he had found to truly make use of this "system" in these relatively peaceful times.

Kill monsters and level up!

That was right. The system had been modeled after a fairly traditional browser game.

Only by completing quests and killing could he grow stronger quickly.

As for why he hadn't used it before...

The answer was obvious.

In the world of The Outcast, never mind slaughtering living creatures on a large scale.

The remote township where he lived didn't even have a decent licensed slaughterhouse.

Even if it had, they would never have hired him as a minor.

During the New Year season, rural households needed to prepare large quantities of meat. They couldn't possibly wait until the very end of the year to slaughter and process it all.

That would leave far too little time, and they wouldn't be able to get through it all.

Most began slaughtering their animals one or two months in advance, curing or freezing the meat for storage.

Naturally, Qing He Miao wouldn't pass up this opportunity.

At first, at his strong insistence, he only tried his hand at helping his own family or very close relatives.

But as he grew older, and deliberately or otherwise let a few rumors slip,

Word spread that livestock slaughtered by "Qing Half-Immortal" died quickly and suffered less, so the meat tasted a little better.

Naturally, most of that claim was a gimmick he had made up to expand his "business."

But country folk were inclined to believe such things, and with his Stand secretly assisting him, his work really was unusually quick and clean.

Word of mouth passed from ten people to a hundred, and gradually spread.

And as country rumors went, they grew more elaborate with every retelling.

People said that because there was "something special about him," the "resentment" in meat he had handled supposedly dissipated completely, making dishes prepared with it taste especially delicious.

There were even claims that "he's the Star of Literature descended to the mortal world, and eating it will help children do better in school."

When entertaining guests, many households took pride in boasting that the meat on the table had been slaughtered by Qing Half-Immortal himself.

They felt it would bring them more good fortune in the coming year, and they could eat it with peace of mind.

In recent years, during the busiest stretch before New Year, people from villages for miles around invited him to slaughter their New Year pigs, cattle, and sheep, until it had even become something of a fad.

Hearing it left Qing He Miao utterly speechless.

Did they think this was some kind of supernatural food anime?

If it really had that effect, he would have farmed up his own attributes long ago.

Of course, Qing He Miao was happy to go along with it and turned no one away.

He charged less than a professional butcher and worked exceptionally fast. To accumulate experience, he often even helped people close to him or families in financial difficulty for free.

Of course, he wasn't actually working as a butcher.

Generally, this kind of work also involved subsequent steps such as skinning, butchering, and removing hair, and paid more as well.

Qing He Miao, however, was only responsible for the killing, earning a small amount of pocket money.

For a student like him who did well in school, everyone thought it only natural that he didn't do the dirtier work afterward.

Thus, although Qing He Miao's aptitude was not outstanding,

And with daily cultivation alone, he would actually have found it hard to gain even one level a year,

He relied entirely on this period before New Year each year.

The experience points he gathered here and there from various creatures supplemented his cultivation, barely allowing him to maintain an average pace of one level per year.

This also made him realize more clearly that the environment truly suited to his system was by no means a peaceful country like this one.

Places with more chaotic systems were probably better suited to making use of the system.

Still, if Qing He Miao were really reincarnated into such a world, he might not be willing.

Things were pretty good as they were. Different circumstances called for different ways of living.

When he returned to his family's courtyard, the sun was high in the sky, and most of the adults had gone out to work in the fields.

The courtyard gate stood open. Several village dogs lying in the woodpile for warmth saw their young master return and came over, wagging their tails affectionately and rubbing against his legs.

Qing He Miao wasn't in the mood to play with them. He gave them a couple of cursory pats, hurried across the courtyard, and went straight into the room he shared with his parents.

He shut the door behind him, shutting out some of the cold and noise outside.

He steadied his emotions, which had been somewhat stirred by leveling up just now, took off his shoes, and climbed onto the kang.

"Sss."

No one had been home to keep the kang stove fed, so the mat on the kang held only the warmth left over from the morning and was a little cool.

Qing He Miao sat cross-legged, took a deep breath, and summoned the system panel that only he could see.

[Name: Qing He Miao]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 10]

[Reputation: Miáotáizǐ Village 338/500 (Somewhat well-known)]

[Status: Forgetful, stiff, killing intent]

[Talents: Myriad Forms Return to Origin, Hedgehog Affinity]

[Equipment: Cream, Standard King Wu Whip, Standard King Wen Drum]

[Stands: Red Hot Chili Pepper, Survivor, Metallica, Cream]

[Dungeons: Awaiting draw (1)]

[Abilities: General literature (Proficient), general history (Proficient), basic science (Proficient), spreadsheet planning (Proficient), short whip handling (Proficient), single-drum performance (Proficient), folk ditties (Mastered), Bai-Style Chinese Medicine (Proficient)]

[Cultivation methods: Bingbing Ritual (Mastered), King Wen Drum (Proficient), War King Whip (Proficient)]

[Attribute panel]

[Destructive power] 25

[Speed] 19

[Stamina] 27

[Range] 12

[Precision] 9

His gaze swept over the attribute panel.

Each time he leveled up, the system randomly distributed five attribute points among his five basic attributes. This was currently one of his main ways of improving them.

Besides that, if he wanted to raise his attributes further,

He had to rely on the enhancements gained from improving his cultivation methods and ability proficiency, or on certain special heavenly materials and earthly treasures and fortuitous encounters.

Take his highest attribute, [Stamina], for example.

It wasn't as though his attribute points happened to land on it every time he leveled up.

A large part of it was thanks to cultivating the Bingbing Ritual and the power he had borrowed from the White Immortal his family worshipped.

Likewise, his [Precision] was so low partly because of the characteristics of the chuma immortal tradition.

The power borrowed from the immortals was cold and volatile, even when it came from a comparatively gentle White Immortal who cultivated.

When he exerted himself to the fullest, it often affected his fine control over ordinary qi.

There was still nothing remarkable about this allocation of attribute points. Qing He Miao's gaze finally settled on the newly appeared, faintly flickering entry:

[Dungeons: Awaiting draw (1)].

He knew what this was.

According to his memories of the game from his previous life, in that browser game, players unlocked a "dungeon" every ten levels.

Entering a dungeon allowed them to challenge stronger enemies and gain more experience.

As well as equipment, skill books, and other items that could only be obtained from certain dungeons.

In the game, however, the dungeon order had naturally been fixed, and all sorts of strategies had long since been worked out.

He hadn't expected that, after becoming part of the system, "dungeons" would also have to be drawn at random like Stands.

He just didn't know what form they would take in this real world of The Outcast.

With anticipation and a trace of nervousness, Qing He Miao clicked the [Awaiting draw] button.

Chapter 27: This Poor Taoist Is Qing Miao

A golden frame appeared instantly on the system panel before his eyes. Countless images from anime and games, some familiar and some strange, flashed and swept through it at high speed like a kaleidoscope.

They moved so fast that his eyes could barely follow.

Qing He Miao's heartbeat involuntarily quickened as a result.

A few seconds later, the images gradually began to slow.

At last, they stopped on a clear composite icon steeped in ancient-style wuxia and fantasy.

"Hua Jianghu Zhi Bu Liang Ren."

Before his eyes was a... settlement, barely held together from dilapidated shacks, haphazardly erected straw mats, and even shallow pits dug into the ground, barely large enough for one person to curl up in.

Perhaps it could be called a "village," if the word didn't object to how ragged the place was.

There was no planning to speak of here. Everything looked chaotic and hastily thrown together.

The ground was a muddy mess, mixed with unidentifiable filth, giving off a nauseating, overpowering smell of smoke and cooking fires, the stench of fermenting feces, and a rotten odor in which sickness and despair intertwined.

The air seemed to have congealed, weighing heavily on every breath.

As far as the eye could see, there were men and women, young and old, but able-bodied young men were rarely seen.

More common were people as gaunt as skeletons, dressed in rags like beggars.

Some sat in a daze, while others looked blankly around them. Their eyes were as cloudy as dust-covered glass beads, filled with hunger that sank into the marrow, fear that would not go away, and an ashen numbness to everything.

Merely walking through such surroundings and witnessing it all was a tremendous test of mental endurance for Qing He Miao, a transmigrator who had come from relatively peaceful times in both his lives.