Wait, Weren't We Here to Practice Swordsmanship?

Zhong Yi's illusion.

At this moment, Zhong Yi found it difficult to describe the excitement in his heart.

After unlocking the true gameplay of "Plants vs. Zombies," it was as though he had opened the door to a whole new world.

Slashing fruit in the sky was merely one way of acting.

The true core of the game lay in the Spirit Field beneath his feet!

After clearing the First Level, he obtained a new spiritual plant.

It was a sunflower that could increase the production speed of spiritual energy.

Zhong Yi was exceptionally intelligent and immediately understood that he needed to plant sunflowers first to ensure a basic supply of spiritual energy, then use the continuously produced spiritual energy to grow more Peashooters for defense.

He cleared the Second Level with ease as well.

Then came—

The Third Level, Level 4...

Every level brought him an enormous shock.

He acquired more and more spiritual plants, while the zombies came in increasingly numerous varieties and grew stronger and stronger.

He found himself ever more impressed by Lu Ze's creativity and ingenuity.

Peashooters that could fire peas like arrows, mutated Ice Peashooters with ice attributes that could slow enemies, walnuts that could actually be used as shields...

Zhong Yi even became curious whether these plants could truly be cultivated in a Spiritual Medicine garden.

As for the zombies, they too came in a wide variety.

In particular, the zombie wielding a bamboo pole for pole-vaulting could leap straight over even a Wall-nut Wall, giving him a terrible headache and causing him to lose spiritual plants several times.

Yet the more it was like this, the more interesting he found it.

He kept searching for ways to crack the enemy formations.

Just as he was immersed in it, Mu Yawen's miserable wail suddenly came through Spiritual Sense transmission: "Senior Brother Zhong, why is this illusion so difficult??"

Zhong Yi had not wanted to pay him any attention.

But Mu Yawen kept sending him messages and bothering him.

He had no choice but to temporarily exit the illusion. "What problem did you run into?"

Mu Yawen wore a miserable expression. "Senior Brother Zhong, why is this illusion so hard? Every time, it tells me something about the zombies eating my brain."

"...How did you fight the zombies?"

The corner of Zhong Yi's mouth twitched slightly, as though he had thought of a possibility that should have been impossible.

"I used my sword to fight them, of course!"

Mu Yawen gestured with his hand as though swinging a sword.

"But this illusion restricted my strength. My sword qi was far too short..."

"You could still release sword qi?"

Zhong Yi was stunned.

In a certain sense, Mu Yawen was also among the very best.

"Of course! But the sword qi couldn't reach the zombies, so I threw my sword down to smash them... In the end, it didn't kill them, and I could only stay in the sky... Then the zombies rushed into my house..."

Mu Yawen sighed as he described what had happened.

Zhong Yi's fists clenched as he listened.

You didn't read the rules of the illusion at all!

After all, he was his good brother, so Zhong Yi patiently began explaining to Mu Yawen how to plant spiritual plants and what each of them did...

"Oh! I get it! I'll go try it now!"

Mu Yawen suddenly understood.

Though it was somewhat regrettable that he could not fight the zombies personally, Zhong Yi had described it so vividly that he was quite interested.

Zhong Yi closed his eyes again and returned to his own illusion.

He had barely made a few moves when Mu Yawen's cry for help came again: "Senior Brother Zhong! Why are these spiritual plants so weak? They're no match for the zombies at all!"

"How could that be?"

Puzzled, Zhong Yi exited once more.

"Project the scene from your illusion outside. Let me take a look."

"Alright!"

Mu Yawen entered the illusion, projected the scene outside, and began operating.

Watching Mu Yawen sweep his sword with overwhelming momentum, severing every fruit while precisely leaving behind a single pea pod, Zhong Yi silently praised him. What fine swordsmanship.

The next second, Mu Yawen threw the pea pod onto the front line, where it immediately began fighting the zombies hand-to-hand.

"Look, Senior Brother Zhong! This spirit plant is way too weak!!"

"..."

Zhong Yi rubbed his forehead, feeling rather embarrassed.

"Junior Brother Mu, why... don't you place the Peashooter farther back?"

"A true man fears neither life nor death! When narrow paths meet, the brave prevail!"

"..."

For a moment, Zhong Yi had no idea how to respond.

He felt that his junior brother had trained his brain stupid through Body Tempering...

"I was this weak once too. Maybe dying a few times will fix it."

Mu Yawen suddenly came to a realization, her fighting spirit instantly surging.

"No, no, no... you need to put it in the back row. He is, uh... a cultivator who specializes in spells and is only good at long-range attacks."

Zhong Yi did his best to make himself understood.

"Tch, no wonder it's so useless."

After Zhong Yi talked her through it and told her that there was a Wall-nut Taoist in the back specifically trained in Body Tempering, whose fleshly body could withstand zombies head-on, Mu Yawen finally re-entered the Illusion Realm with lingering doubts.

Although the concept of tower defense games was far too advanced for the people of this world, they were still cultivators, after all. Their minds could not be that dull.

After failing many times, the disciples gradually began to grasp the mysteries of this Illusion Realm.

The Spiritual Sense transmission channel among the Inner Disciples was exceptionally lively.

"Why is this Illusion Realm so difficult? My Peashooters are completely insufficient! I'm too short on spiritual energy!"

"Fellow Daoist, don't tell me you didn't plant any Sunflowers?"

"This Buckethead Zombie is so hard to kill! It's too tough. A single Peashooter only has enough firepower to knock off the bucket on its head."

"This is really strange. What exactly does Junior Brother Lu have against buckets..."

"Don't panic, Fellow Daoist. Once you unlock the Wall-nut, you can block the Buckethead Zombie."

"Hahaha! I just unlocked the Ice Peashooter! This spirit plant is born with an Ice Spirit Root, and the peas it spits out carry icy energy! Slowing them down feels amazing!"

"Ice Peashooter? Wonderful, wonderful."

"Wait, weren't we here to practice swordsmanship?"

"Ahem, Fellow Daoist, that is not quite right! Look, have the swords in our hands ever stopped?"

"That makes sense!"

"If I'd had this Illusion Realm earlier, I could swing my sword thirty thousand times every day!"