He's That Big, Will He Buy Weapons?

It was seven in the evening.

After Yan Hua and a few others logged off following their deaths, they had dinner on the bustling University Street. Afterward, they suddenly noticed a message from a friend in the "Sword Forging Competition" game group:

"You lied to me, you're not dead at all."

"Who lied to you? So boring." Yan Hua felt speechless; the message was utterly baffling.

What do you mean I'm not dead?

My four brothers and I died together, remember!

We died so neatly, our bodies lined up together.

"You were clearly faking your death and came back pitifully. I opened the door for you, and you're still pretending to be dumb, aren't you?" The other person was very angry, sending several angry emojis.

?

You opened the door for me?

Was that the gate to the underworld you opened, sir?

Crazy!

Yan Hua felt like they were on completely different wavelengths. He had already logged off! What do you mean 'I' am still chatting with him?

Are you telling a ghost story? Is the person chatting with you a ghost??

Too lazy to bother with him, Yan Hua closed the chat window and opened another friend's chat:

"Big bro, did you finish compiling the surrounding map information for Sword Forging Manor that I sent you?"

While mining, the four of them had discovered several special semi-transparent crystals. By melting and polishing them in the blacksmith's shop, they made lenses, creating a crude telescope.

Taking advantage of the current opportunity to build defensive towers, the four of them visited the various players' towers to get to higher ground and survey the surroundings.

They continuously took pictures of the scenery and terrain maps from the mountains below and distant views.

Their hope was to create a 3D map that encompassed the environment around the manor.

The other person replied:

"The information from the various pictures is quite sufficient. After all, your manor is the highest peak, measured to be over four thousand seven hundred meters. It overlooks all the other mountains; hundreds of nearby peaks aren't as high as yours, so the photos are quite comprehensive."

This "big bro" worked at a map navigation company, so he could create a holographic map from these multi-angle photos.

The other person continued: "It's just that I found the terrain organized by the software to be a bit strange."

Yan Hua was a little surprised: "Strange? What's wrong with it?"

"It seems there's a ring of villages around the base of the mountain where your manor is located. There are signs of habitation, but I only managed to capture glimpses of building corners. It's not very clear, mainly because the forest is too dense."

"However, I think I saw some lanterns and a bustling street, with stalls set up? It looks like they might be preparing for a festival? It's a bit like a New Year's market."

Villages at the foot of Sword Forging Manor?

Yan Hua felt this information was crucial.

No wonder the old steward left. So after retiring, he's living down there, reunited with his wife and children, happily enjoying life, going to the market for festival activities?

But we can't get out, blocked by the illusion array.

All the excitement is theirs, and we have nothing.

But perhaps after this Crow Calamity dungeon, we can try lighting rockets and firing them towards the distance, setting the mountain on fire.

Burn away the trees on the mountainside and foothills, and the view will suddenly open up, allowing us to see the villages below.

Since it's the New Year, burning a fire to bring good luck for the coming year and celebrate sounds like a good idea.

Of course, this is just a hypothetical scenario.

The distant map might just be a false image, a backdrop, and doesn't actually exist.

The other person continued:

"Secondly, the map of the entire manor, well, it's more accurate to say the entire game's terrain is strange."

The surrounding mountain shapes and landforms resemble a keyboard, with the mountaintops as keycaps, arranged in a crooked "field" shape. It's not very neat.

Yan Hua was stunned for a moment, then after a while, he understood: "You mean the terrain is too regular, with traces of artificial construction?"

The other person said: "Yeah, it's a bit like someone used a comb to brush horizontally and then vertically, forming these 'field'-shaped mountain peaks?"

"Humans? How big would that person have to be? Why don't you say it was Zhu Bajie using his nine-toothed rake?"

Yan Hua quipped: "Right, right, the mighty Pigsy was just farming in Gao Laozhuang. We little blacksmiths are just pests in Gao Laozhuang's fields, affecting his farming and his plan to marry Gao Cuilan."

Although he was a bit surprised that the mountains were man-made, as a modern person, he wasn't that shocked.

It's all about being well-traveled and experienced!

Anyone who's read enough novels knows this.

When these powerful beings fight, they shatter mountains and fill oceans at the drop of a hat.

And after so many years, the original terrain would surely be long gone. If someone came to 'clean up' and rebuild the terrain for mortals to live on, wouldn't that be normal?

All I can say is that mortals in these high-powered worlds are truly miserable!

It could even be said that this kind of "artificial terrain" was an inevitable outcome of historical development. With the accumulation of time, there must have been strong individuals fighting in every location, right?

As places were reshaped, this was bound to happen.

Thinking this, Yan Hua felt a surge of happiness.

Finally, it could produce something substantial. It could take its 3D terrain maps out, publish strategy guides, ride the hype, and gain traffic.

The other party said, "Actually, I have another guess about the terrain. People don't use combs to wash the ground."

Yan Hua became a little excited, thinking perhaps the great being had even better intel. "Not combs? Then what do they use? Water?"

The other party replied, "It's like palm lines."

Yan Hua fell silent for a moment.

The other party sent a video.

On the table was incredibly fine flour.

The person suddenly pressed a palm horizontally onto the flour, then vertically, creating intersecting palm lines that imprinted delicate, dense micron-level raised peaks and main river channels into the flour.

"It's like this kind of terrain."

The other party typed out a line: "Like observing patterns on a palm. The palm lines press out towering, majestic mountain ranges and wide, long rivers."

Yan Hua was completely stunned, its head buzzing. "If it grows that big, how are our blacksmith shops supposed to sell it weapons?"

The other party: "."

This person, are they insane!

Do people who live in mountain peaks formed by palm lines become so arrogant?

Just imagining the scene, it was like a bacterium holding up a flagellum and asking humans if they wanted to buy it.

Hmph, blacksmith, you've successfully piqued my interest.

Do you think that existence would say something like that? They're not the type for a domineering CEO and his delicate wife trope.

Yan Hua, being straightforward, didn't really care:

"Don't worry, there's a divine ability called Dharma Form Manifestation. For example, are Sun Wukong's and Erlang Shen's moves strange? There's a move called Buddha's Palm, is that too bizarre?"

"In a xianxia world, if great beings don't use these moves to 'wash the ground' for mortals, then it's just martial arts! After powerful beings fight, are you expecting imperial guards to carry mops to clean up the blood? Does that make sense?"

After eating, Ning Zheng returned to his room, took off his shoes, and lay on the bed, holding a frog and concentrating intently.

He poked it with a needle.

One poke.

Two pokes.

Ten pokes.

A miniature Ning Zheng, about the size of a fingernail, suddenly appeared beside the frog.

After being parasitized and splitting, the frog became visibly listless.

"Still unstable."

He sighed.

Inspired by the battle from earlier in the day, he began to try and develop a spell art for his own spiritual root system: Shadow Parasitism.

The principle of the spell art was:

Parasitize a clone and hide it inside the target's body. When it's about to dissipate, secretly strike ten times, and then a new clone appears to replace it, continuing to secretly parasitize the target.

This cycle would continue, achieving a perpetual state of parasitism!

This spell art required extreme precision from his own power.

The ten strikes had to be very light, controlling the injection of poison to form a micro-parasite of the appropriate size to hide within the target's body.

Even so.

The target's mental consciousness would be continuously sown and severed, leading to persistent mental fatigue.

It was like being infected with a virus.

This was indeed a poison.

Ning Zheng was mentally poisoned, like a virus ambushing, absorbing the host, and spreading, eventually engulfing everywhere.

"Even if this perpetual parasitism is successful, the mother parasite cannot be too weak," Ning Zheng mused. "If the mother parasite is too weak, and I'm only maintaining the split with minimal energy consumption, the target's spirit will not be able to bear it, slowly leading to mental exhaustion and death, their soul being completely drained by me!"

This move wasn't very useful in direct combat.

But it was highly functional!

For example, protection.

Parasitizing Ning Jiaojiao, it would continuously absorb her mental energy, but if she encountered danger, his clone would attack and begin to multiply wildly, helping Ning Jiaojiao fight.

At the same time, he could leave hidden traps on others.

For instance, contacting an enemy, chatting with them, and secretly planting the poison, which would then erupt once they returned home.

This could be used for sneak attacks, killing people around them, causing the poison to erupt, creating clones, and wildly infecting those nearby, engulfing the area they were in.