The First Simulation Ends

As "Lu Ping" died in the simulator, all the text vanished.

The white screen remained blank for a full five seconds.

Then the results screen appeared.

[Simulation ended.]

[Duration of this simulation: 40 years.]

[Total traits generated: 41.]

[Traits ultimately inherited: 41.]

[Currently equipped: Salted Fish (S-rank) / Artisan Spirit (Grade A) / Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement (Grade A).]

[Trait library: Flattery, Fall Guy, Passing the Buck, Paid Pooping, Nameplate...]

[Inherited cultivation: Early Body Tempering Realm.]

[Inherited Cultivation Method: Incomplete Body Tempering Instruction.]

[Inherited memories: a complete 40 years of life memories.]

[Four decades of hammering forged an iron frame; the salted-fish craftsman's Dao heart held true. In a ruined temple amid wind and snow, he stole heaven's secret; his broken body finally stepped through the gate of longevity.]

Then all the text shattered at once.

White light came crashing down over him, exactly as it had when he arrived.

The next instant, damp, moldy air rushed into his nostrils.

The smell of rust, the cloying sweetness of rotting flesh, and the sharp crack of a whip in the distance.

A mine tunnel.

Mine tunnel number three.

His pickaxe was still raised in midair, its tip less than three inches from the rock wall.

Lu Ping's body stiffened slightly.

Then a warm force welled up from deep within his Dantian and flowed slowly through his limbs and bones.

His bones hummed silently, his muscles tightened, and an extremely faint but real strand of Spiritual Qi circulated through his meridians.

Early Body Tempering Realm.

Forty years of bitter endurance, fifty-eight years of life, compressed into this single instant.

And Lu Ping's own information panel appeared before his eyes!

Name: Lu Ping

Age: 18

Cultivation: Early Body Tempering Realm

Cultivation Method: "Incomplete Body Tempering Instruction"

Law Treasures: none

Currently equipped traits: Salted Fish (S-rank) / Artisan Spirit (Grade A) / Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement (Grade A)

Trait library: Flattery, Fall Guy, Passing the Buck, Paid Pooping, Nameplate...

[Returned from simulation. Trait library updated (41 traits). A one-time reconfiguration of equipped traits is permitted. Equipment slots currently filled: 3/4.]

[Change traits?]

In the simulator, he could only change traits once a year.

Finishing a simulation gave him another chance to change them?

And the number of traits he could equip had risen to four!

In other words, after stepping from mortality into the Body Tempering Realm, the number of traits he could equip had increased by one!

Lu Ping chose to make a change.

Salted Fish had to stay.

Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement and Artisan Spirit were good, but those were traits for peaceful times.

In this mine, where he could not be sure of living from one day to the next, survival came first!

So Flattery and Passing the Buck were the traits that would keep him alive at this stage.

What should he take as his fourth?

In the end, Lu Ping chose [Friend of Women]...

He chose Friend of Women only because it was a Grade A trait.

That was all.

Lu Ping had convinced himself.

His equipped traits became: Salted Fish (S-rank) / Friend of Women (Grade A) / Flattery (B-rank) / Passing the Buck (B-rank)

Lu Ping gripped the pickaxe firmly with both hands.

The skin between his thumbs and forefingers was smooth, with no splits.

His palms were dry, without a trace of sweat.

Three steps away, the triangular-eyed overseer was wiping blood from his whip with a dirty rag.

Lu Ping glanced at him.

A mortal.

His bones were fragile, his muscles slack, his right knee had an old injury, and his left shoulder sat slightly higher than his right.

That was an occupational ailment left by years of swinging a whip.

The perception of the Early Body Tempering Realm fed all this information into his brain in an instant.

Every weakness on the triangular-eyed overseer's body was as clear as if a bull's-eye had been painted on it.

Lu Ping slowly let out a breath.

He raised his pickaxe again, his movements more servile and timid than before.

He bent at just the right angle, even the curve of his back carrying an instinctive submissiveness.

But this time, the force with which the pickaxe struck the rock wall was precise down to the last fraction, exactly what an ordinary slave ought to be capable of.

The system's blue panel hung quietly at the edge of his vision.

A new line of gray text flickered on it at an unhurried pace.

[KPI task issued--]

[Pass probation: obtain official status within the Black Tiger Gang and leave the slave rank behind.]

[Task rewards:]

[1. Unlock the second simulation.]

[2. Trait draw, D-rank or above ×1]

The triangular-eyed overseer's whip cracked through the air again.

Lu Ping flinched slightly, showing just the right amount of fear.

But on Lu Ping's lowered face, there was no expression at all.

Lu Ping swung his pickaxe again.

A few chips of stone flew from the wall and struck his face. They barely stung, and he did not even blink.

The physical toughness of the Early Body Tempering Realm already far surpassed that of mortals, and his perception surpassed theirs by even more.

The grain of the load-bearing timbers in the mine, the hidden crack in the rock wall, the split in the third crossbeam overhead.

All this information, things he had spent a year slowly figuring out in the simulator, now entered his mind at a single glance.

The split in the crossbeam?!

Lu Ping's pickaxe struck the rock wall mechanically.

But he kept the split in the corner of his eye.

In the simulator, this beam would break at dusk today.

The old slave who had kindly given him a warning would die in this mining accident.

The KPI task was to obtain official status within the Black Tiger Gang.

Standing out in a crisis was undoubtedly the fastest way to draw the Black Tiger Gang's attention and complete the KPI.

Lu Ping glanced at the beam again. It weighed about three or four hundred jin; it wouldn't be much of a problem.

As for whether doing this would arouse the Black Tiger Gang's suspicions?

Lu Ping sneered inwardly. Go tell that to Lu Ping in the second simulation.

The pickaxe fell again, throwing off sparks that lit Lu Ping's face for an instant.

He began edging toward the old slave, Uncle Sun.

For every three strikes, Lu Ping shifted half an inch to the right.

After about twenty strikes, he had closed the distance to within an arm's length of Uncle Sun.

Uncle Sun still looked half-dead.

He swung his pickaxe weakly, every strike looking as if he were trying to negotiate with the rock wall.

Lu Ping lowered his voice and squeezed the words through his teeth, softer than a breath.

"Follow me."

Uncle Sun's pickaxe paused.

The pause was almost imperceptible, but Lu Ping caught it.

The old man's eyes, so cloudy he was nearly blind, shifted. He neither looked at Lu Ping nor spoke.

His fingers, like withered twigs, trembled on the pickaxe handle.

Then he went back to mining.

Time passed one pickaxe strike at a time.

As Lu Ping worked, he counted down in his head.

It was afternoon.

Sunlight slanted in through the tunnel entrance, casting an ever-lengthening shadow across the ground.

By the time the shadow reached the fourth pillar in the tunnel, it would be about dusk.

The shadow had reached the second pillar now.

About one shichen remained.

Lu Ping slowed the pace of his strikes.

He was about seven steps from the beam that was about to break.

Seven steps—for a cultivator at the Early Body Tempering Realm, a single breath was enough.

The shadow crept to the third pillar.

A muffled sound came from deep in the tunnel.

It was very faint, as if something had broken inside the rock strata.

An ordinary person could not hear it.

But to Lu Ping, who had already reached the Body Tempering Realm, a sound like that was clearly audible, especially when he was deliberately listening for it.

The mine's support structure was beginning to lose its balance.

Lu Ping's pickaxe did not stop; his rhythm and the force of his blows remained unchanged.

Uncle Sun was two steps to his right, bent over and striking the rock again and again.

The shadow reached the space between the third and fourth pillars.