The atmosphere suddenly turned downright sinister.
Everyone watched the scene, feeling a little horrified.
Who would have thought that changing professions in this world, planting Spiritual Roots, and Opening the Three Flowers could be such a bizarre process?
After seeing their companion's manner of death, the other blacksmiths also became serious and solemn, analyzing it with surprising rationality:
"Pretty scary."
"It's mainly the expressions and movements. They were so lifelike. The despair, sorrow, pain, and struggle conveyed through the eyes were especially spot-on."
"But speaking of which, this death-by-madness script was really something."
"Indeed. No wonder it made us want to read books. The Planner clearly hadn't read any shortage of them either. It was quite literary."
"For example, this line: 'Plant Spiritual Roots and enjoy freedom; break free from the cage of the head and return to liberty.' Wouldn't you need a gold-medal copywriter with a million-yuan annual salary to write dialogue with that much flavor?"
"It was all in the details."
"The last time I got that excited was over the defeat lines and exit animation in some eroge. This game's defeat exit animation was no simple matter. I actually watched it with great interest. The design and atmosphere were incredible."
"Heh, young people's bodies really are something. After reciting the lines, they just fell asleep."
Ordinary scholars and Confucian Scholars would only feel fear when they saw scene after scene of people opening immortal gates and dying sudden deaths.
This would affect morale, gradually undermine their confidence, and cause them to lose themselves while Opening the Three Flowers, sending the failure rate through the roof.
But these people were different.
These Fourth Calamities were naturally "rational" about death beyond measure.
Fear and awe?
A huge drop in morale?
Those concepts simply didn't exist to them.
From the perspective of bystanders, they were repeatedly analyzing the origins of this bizarre world and the essence of its cultivation system.
Some CG collectors even wanted to die a few more times, to see if they could collect all the exit lines and death animations—and incidentally study exactly how many gold-medal lines had been designed.
Precisely because of this free and easy attitude, they were bound to find it easier than ordinary people to open immortal gates and become cultivators.
Eye God: "We should run into this every time we change professions in the future, right? Speaking of which, something must have possessed them. They go completely crazy. How does this work?"
Food God: "I know this one! Programmers might not, but as a chef, I do."
Shao Chai Kun: "Your Excellency, the Know-It-All? You know the principle again?"
Food God: "They just cut your connection. The network goes on and off, then an AI takes control of your body, making you howl like a ghost and shriek like a wolf, twisting your waist and thrusting out your hips. If we make a bolder guess—"
"Maybe the Dog Planner personally logged in, took over your body, babbled a couple of lines, performed a Lightning Five-Strike Whip, shook his butt, pretended to be a god and a ghost, acted insane and foolish, and completely let himself go."
It had to be said, Food God really was a genius at description.
Not only did his cooking conjure vivid images, but his words did too.
If all those Dog Planners had personally come over to perform, launching straight into a shamanic dance, then their corporate culture was certainly uninhibited!
Was this the meaning of covering your face so you wouldn't die of embarrassment, allowing yourself to let loose however you pleased?
"I believe it. Sneaking into someone's body and letting loose fits Green Hat Manor's style!" Everyone chattered away, and the topic strayed further and further from the point. In the distance, another blacksmith from the Opening the Three Flowers team stood up, his expression ghastly.
"Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown! Three souls open the Three Flowers! When flowers bloom, I see myself!"
"Ten years by the cold window, when flowers bloom, I see myself!"
He roared, "Immortal gate, immortal gate!"
Seeing that another one had gone mad, one of the blacksmiths chatting nearby hesitated for several seconds before steeling himself and scurrying over ingratiatingly.
"Planner, stop howling. Aren't you tired? Want to drink some water before saying your lines?"
The madman froze for a moment, then continued roaring. His entire body suddenly withered and collapsed, foam spilling from his mouth.
"Did you scare the Planner away?"
In the end, no one could reach a definite conclusion. They only felt that the Mountain Villa was unusually lively today.
Whether it was a Planner or some remnants of foul aura and lingering thoughts possessing them, guests had come either way.
It was the New Year at the Mountain Villa. The guests had come bustling over to visit, which was rather nice—almost as lively as the market fairs down the mountain.
Farther away.
Su Yu Niang silently frowned as she watched the scene from the window of the Steward's Room, analyzing this round of the plot.
"Is this the opening kill? Our casualty rate is too high. We modern people have studied for more than a decade and have a foundation. We aren't illiterate people who haven't developed their minds at all. But who would have thought the success requirements would be so strict?"
Jiu Cai Rong shook his head, looking quite optimistic instead.
"We've already done very well. Most people can open two flowers—the essence and qi flowers. The spirit flower is the most difficult and the easiest to be bewitched by, but we're only one step from the threshold."
To be honest, this scene was a little frightening.
Planting Spiritual Roots in a physical sense, then cultivating immortality with them growing on one's head, was explosive even by the standards of cultivation novels.
"Speaking of which, this was supposed to be a perfectly good sword-forging game. Why are there so many bizarre things in the world?"
Looking at the grisly casualties in the distance, Su Yu Niang thought for a moment.
"These possessive entities are probably the resentments of past failures in the world. As they accumulate, opening immortal gates will only become more difficult. Will the immortal path be severed in the future?"
"Wait! Could the Dog Planner have deliberately designed it this way to block profession changes, increase the difficulty, and trick us into buying revival money?"
"Then again, it might be foreshadowing. Could it be that the upcoming plot will have an immortal path that's difficult to open, heralding the end of the Dharma era?"
"Our Blacksmith Shop is changing versions. As the age of immortal mythology enters the next period of civilization, will we shift from forging magical artifacts to other categories? Soul artifacts? Mechanical artifacts? Evil artifacts? Bizarre artifacts? Will we change along with the world? That actually sounds pretty interesting."
Ah, this??
Jiu Cai Rong was startled.
He felt that this person's imagination was indeed rather peculiar, and that she was quite a conversationalist. No wonder so many fans enjoyed listening to her flirtatious chatter.
There were also many miscellaneous discussions in the Steward's Room, including explanations in this area.
Jiu Cai Rong said, "The immortal path won't be severed! Otherwise, it wouldn't live up to the greatest age in history. I've heard that every hundred and fifty years, the stars, sun, and moon in the heavens cleanse the foul aura from the world."
The main reason was that plenty of people in this era, like the Demon People of the Mountain Villa, killed commoners and turned them into Spirit Manors, creating resentments everywhere.
After a large-scale cleansing, it only took a few years for them to build up again.
"Then if this won't lead to the end of the Dharma era, what is this foul-aura setting for?"
Su Yu Niang thought for a moment.
"I firmly believe that no setting is meaningless. Everything in this world must inevitably serve the main plot of Sword Forging Manor—forging metal!"
"Let's reason backward from cause and effect. That means this 'foul aura' must help Sword Forging Manor forge weapons? Perhaps it's a hidden gameplay mechanic that lets us collect the world's foul aura and use it for sword forging—a category of forging?"
"Then foul aura is more or less like radio waves!"
"Wouldn't that mean we need to research a radio receiver in Sword Forging Manor, absorb these fathers and mothers from all over the world back into Sword Forging Manor, and find them a home inside swords, spears, blades, and halberds? Let them rest in peace after burial?"
The corner of Jiu Cai Rong's mouth twitched.
What a talent.
What a marvelous way to let them rest in peace!
Su Yu Niang's flights of fancy always made people's eyes go black.
Just as Jiu Cai Rong was beginning to feel tempted, Su Yu Niang struck while the iron was hot.
"How about it? Should we use the Mountain Villa's funds to invest in this forging project? In the future, when we Open the Three Flowers and absorb foul aura, we can take the opportunity to hammer away at the heads of these scholars."
"Using the heads of scholars who are properly Opening the Three Flowers as forging anvils, absorbing the foul aura while we're at it, and inviting the 'gentlemen' into the urn—it would definitely be worthwhile! Everyone knows that a weapon needs a scholar's diploma before it can fetch a good price."
"A blacksmithing school using scholars' Three-Flower heads as anvils is clearly another brand-new path!"
Jiu Cai Rong felt a little twisted just imagining it. The Confucian Scholars of this world, who had studied hard by the cold window for years, would have a thing or two to say about it.
That forging anvil was clearly disposable!
Whether or not they succeeded in Opening the Three Flowers, their heads would be hammered straight into concussions.
But this did seem to be another new track?
After all, the native blacksmiths outside couldn't exactly hammer on another scholar's head while he was Opening the Three Flowers, could they?
Would that scholar just take it lying down?
This was the crucial moment when they had studied hard by the cold window and leaped over the Dragon Gate. They would fight you to the death on the spot!
"Seems like only we can do it. Should we give it a try?" Jiu Cai Rong hesitated, then his heart stirred. He hurriedly shook his head. "But not now."
"Eye Flower," who had been secretly crouching outside the Steward's Room and eavesdropping, was completely horrified by what he heard.
After these past few days, he had figured things out.
He felt that he might have the destiny of a protagonist and had transmigrated into another world!
After all, as an old bookworm, he knew that the transmigration-into-a-game trope was practically ancient.
At present, he was suffering terribly.
After transmigrating, he had discovered that he was the only living person in the entire Mountain Villa. All his fellow players had turned into ghosts.
They were highly wary of him. From time to time, a whole group of them would point at him and snicker from behind his back, secretly plotting while making hungry, red-eyed sounds and drooling.
The atmosphere was downright chilling!
They might eat him.
At this moment, he was preparing to write A Watch Log of the Ghoul Blacksmiths of the Mountain Villa, recording their crimes so he could tell the Old Steward later.
They had studied hard by the cold window for so many years, Opening the Three Flowers at the risk of nine deaths out of ten, and these people still wanted to make things worse by hammering on their heads? They even wanted to turn it into an entire industrial chain?
That scene had already appeared in "Eye Flower's" mind.
Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, foul aura possessing the body, then seeing someone going Duang~Duang~ on their head while happily singing and forging iron at the same time. The foul aura would probably be scared away!
Terrifying.
The scene was too terrifying!
Sure enough, he had transmigrated. That night, everyone in the Mountain Villa had turned into vicious ghosts!~
He silently recorded everything in his little notebook and sighed inwardly.
Sigh, what a pity that I transmigrated to another world. Otherwise, I could have posted for help:
Urgent! I transmigrated into this terrifying, unknown otherworld and was captured by the Demon People on the mountain to forge metal and do labor. They even pay wages. What exactly should I do?
"Eye Flower" had obtained Ning Zheng's transmigration template from back then, becoming the second transmigrated protagonist.
He began his blacksmith career, enduring humiliation and bearing burdens while being bullied by the steward.
Before you continue