Go Down the Mountain to the Night Market

Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

The first batch of blacksmiths who had tried Opening the Three Flowers had all died, so it was finally the turn of the second batch of blacksmiths, who had been chatting and analyzing the situation.

The second batch were all highly educated scholars. Unlike the bottom-tier students in the first batch, they had excelled in the Confucian Scholar examinations at the bookshop and were the main force attempting Opening the Three Flowers this time.

That was right.

The thing they complained about most in this game was:

Even blacksmithing required a diploma. Even the bottom-tier students were discriminated against here.

"I won't say more. It's my turn." Su Yu Niang did not chat any longer either. She took out a stalk of Shadow Wine Rice and went to the front line.

"Good luck."

Jiu Cai Rong had no intention of attempting Opening the Three Flowers alongside them.

The main reason was that being a manager kept him extremely busy, leaving him no time to study.

Instead, he somewhat envied the carefree Su Yu Niang. She could experience the game from an individual's perspective and find ways to play it from all sorts of unusual angles, while he could only be the pitiful manager, responsible for squeezing the small blacksmiths every day.

Soon.

The second batch began Opening the Three Flowers.

This time, things were clearly different from the first.

The average quality was much higher, and fewer people wailed and died.

As a group of people went berserk and died, another group gathered around the blacksmiths and continued recording their dying lines. They discovered that seven or eight people had actually opened the Three Flowers.

Su Yu Niang was among them.

She had never doubted that she would fail, because she had been a top student since childhood.

She was the kind of person who could eat, play, casually listen in class, take an exam, and still get into a prestigious university—a person countless others could only envy.

She also had a great deal of insight into the "Dao"!

She touched the Shadow Wine Rice planted atop her head. It was only a short stalk, and she found it rather interesting.

She had changed professions!

So this was the cultivator profession?

She was somewhat excited. "I can sense what my Innate Divine Ability is! I can grow a kind of Shadow spirit rice. It seems to have another special ability. It looks like I can even control the shadows of these Shadow wheat ears?"

Everyone froze on the spot.

What a useless ability. Control the shadow of a wheat ear?

Still, having an innate ability of her own was not bad.

Some people had even begun to wonder: Since there was this spiritual farmer-type Wood Spirit Root, could there be a Gold spiritual root that assisted blacksmiths and came with a blacksmithing innate ability, making one even better at forging?

Su Yu Niang took a deep breath and said, "At the same time, I feel that all five of my senses have been strengthened. It's very strange."

It was as if she had previously been submerged in enclosed water and had suddenly climbed ashore. She felt incredibly relaxed, as though her whole body had shed its old skin. Even the world looked clearer.

The others were curious as well and gathered around to ask her about it.

"Stop wasting time! Strike while the iron is hot!"

Su Yu Niang ignored them and said solemnly:

"Charge with me! To the Blacksmith Shop! Our first batch of enchanters has appeared. Blacksmith Shop, get ready. Start forging with the enchanters!"

Over the past few days, they had divided their efforts into two groups: blacksmiths and enchanters.

Their enchanter group had opened the Three Flowers and could jump into the forging furnace.

Now they would see whether the blacksmith group had improved their skills these days and whether they could perform well with the crow materials.

If one of those precious enchanter materials suddenly resulted in a forging failure while they were crafting spiritual-root magic artifacts for them, someone might really get killed.

"I'm ready. Don't worry."

At the Blacksmith Shop, Dao Jiujiu was a steady person, unlike those unreliable blacksmiths who were always laughing and joking.

That was why everyone had entrusted him with the Blacksmith Shop, their most important core facility.

Dao Jiujiu had been sharpening his blade all day to keep his touch sharp. Now he directly called in the batch of enchanters led by Su Yu Niang.

"I'll demonstrate first." Su Yu Niang took the lead.

"Very well. I'll handle the blade myself." Dao Jiujiu did not yield an inch.

Before long, all the blacksmiths in the Blacksmith Shop had surrounded the two of them and begun learning from their experience.

Dao Jiujiu drove everyone out and cursed, "Don't crowd around and watch. Forging requires a quiet environment. All of you, get out! Stop chattering here and affecting my state."

Everyone was speechless.

"What an act."

"Tch."

All they could do was wait for the results outside the Blacksmith Shop.

Meanwhile, outside the mountain gate, one slender, well-built young man and woman after another emerged, dressed in grass clothing.

Clearly, they were the batch of blacksmiths who had just been resurrected.

As soon as this batch of humans entered, they caused an uproar.

"This guy is so handsome."

"That big sister is gorgeous."

"I want to change races too. I don't want to be a Money Girl or Money Boy anymore. Then I won't have to stay one and a half meters tall."

Outside the Blacksmith Shop, quite a few waiting Money Boys and Money Girls expressed their envy.

The human race option required ten Magic Coins to select.

The first resurrection required another ten.

This wave of resurrections cost each person twenty Magic Coins. That was no small expense—they had lost everything but their underwear.

Of course, this was an investment in experience.

As long as one successfully opened the Three Flowers once, future attempts after resurrection would never fail.

It was like a cultivator reincarnating to cultivate anew. Stepping onto the immortal path again would be extremely simple, and the enchanter profession would be secured!

Therefore, investing in Opening the Three Flowers was worth it!

The one who suffered the worst loss among them was this Medical Fairy Maiden.

She had now become a mature, alluring older sister and was bawling her eyes out.

"I'm completely broke. I'm suffering such a huge loss. How did I fail?"

"Resurrection plus human race cost twenty Magic Coins. Then I spent another hundred Magic Coins to buy the Shadow Wine Rice Spiritual Root, and fifty Magic Coins on a specially made nether coin that increased the chance of producing an Ember. That's a full one hundred and seventy Magic Coins! I was going to change professions into a spiritual farmer!"

"Now that I've failed, it's all gone. I'm so miserable. I'm drowning in loans!"

To become the person in charge of the medical hall, she had definitely been among the wealthiest blacksmiths.

But after losing everything in this wave, she was even poorer than an ordinary blacksmith.

"That really is tragic."

Everyone felt the pain vicariously as they watched.

This would probably be their fate in the future too.

Forging weapons was a gamble. Enchanting spiritual roots with one's life, investing in all sorts of materials—if it failed, everything would vanish in an instant, and one could go straight to the rooftop!

But someone suddenly brought the Medical Fairy Maiden back to her senses. "Stop crying for now. Didn't you succeed?"

With that, they pointed toward the several successful enchanters, who were discussing their experiences with a crowd. The Medical Fairy Maiden was among them.

No one had noticed anything wrong with that "Medical Fairy Maiden" before. Everyone had thought she had successfully opened the Three Flowers. In reality, she had already died and was chatting with everyone while inhabiting a corpse, believing she was still alive.

The Medical Fairy Maiden stared blankly, then said happily, "That's my Ember?"

She ran over on her long legs and began chatting with the other "herself."

The other party stubbornly believed that she had not died. She said she had successfully opened the Three Flowers and even asked who this true self of hers was.

After several tests, the other party clearly had a cognitive defect.

Whenever the matter involved life and death in this area, she simply chose to ignore it. Thus, after some effort,

the Medical Fairy Maiden could only bluff, "Actually, I'm the new chief surgeon at our medical hall. The two of us will work together to study herbal medicine, biological skills, beauty treatments, and plastic surgery."

"Huh? My medical hall finally has another sister joining me. You're not disgusted by the blood and cruelty anymore? You're not going to ask why the crows are so cute while dismembering them?"

The "Medical Fairy Maiden" before her was delighted as well, feeling that she had found a like-minded friend. The two held hands and walked toward the medical hall, happily saying, "Our surgical team is growing!"

How enviable.

They even formed a party!

Everyone behind them watched until their teeth ached with envy.

"Money Girl Ember and a beautiful older-sister true self—those two sisters together. I approve of this medical hall! I want to apply as an assistant too."

"Apply? I heard she's recruiting volunteers as test subjects for live dissection experiments. Do you want to apply for the bladder-capacity expansion experiment?"

Everyone fell silent.

Having a mad scientist girlfriend was something better left to watching from a distance.

They quietly waited outside the Blacksmith Shop. Before long, the door opened.

Su Yu Niang walked out, and everyone was startled.

"How did it go?"

"Wait, you didn't get on the forging furnace?"

Su Yu Niang, who had walked out the door, looked puzzled. "Get on what forging furnace? I was just about to get used to the cultivator's innate ability."

Everyone froze.

Something was wrong!

The clang of hammering had already come from inside. It had clearly begun, yet Su Yu Niang was already out here!

They realized all at once:

Was this another Ember?

The blacksmiths looked envious.

That thing Jiu Cai Rong had made to increase the chance of producing an Ember was genuinely useful!

He had sold all twenty copies on credit. Now two Embers had appeared, giving them a current Ember Baby production rate of ten percent. That was already heaven-defying!

Although it seemed the baby could only live for a little over a month?

Damn it.

They still wanted one anyway!

After calculating the figures carefully, each batch had thirty people, for a total of sixty participants in Opening the Three Flowers. Twenty of them had borrowed money to buy treasures that increased the chance of producing an Ember. The final result was: eight cultivator enchanters survived, and two Embers were produced! Everyone else was an unlucky sacrificial blade!

Ahem, ahem, ahem. Jiu Cai Rong coughed twice, stepped out, and addressed "Su Yu Niang."

"Perfect timing. I'll leave the task of going down the mountain to you. Go see what things are like below the mountain villa, how the stalls are distributed, and what the local folks need. Farming tools? Weapons? Come back and report."

They had originally planned to send "Eye God."

But Eye God had clearly become unreliable lately, acting jumpy and peculiar. They could only sigh that the baby's aptitude was too low.

They still needed the socially unstoppable Su Yu Niang, as a Travel Frog, to go to the mountain villa below and exchange information with the local folks to see whether they could set up a stall.

"I can go down the mountain? Wait, it's already dark, and I'm about to log off." The "Su Yu Niang" before them paused.

"It's fine," Jiu Cai Rong said.

"Then I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work, I'll come back."

She instinctively ignored all knowledge and information related to her own "being alive."

And so.

While the blacksmiths behind her continued hammering away at Su Yu Niang's corpse, this "Su Yu Niang" went down the mountain.

Travel Frog Number Two, sortie!

Step.

Step, step.

She followed the mountain road, which gradually darkened, downward. She passed through the dense forest, and the surroundings grew more open. All kinds of insects chirped and birds called around her, lending the place an eerie air.

Dusk was falling.

It was seven o'clock, and night was about to descend.

But nightfall was when the singing and dancing began. The night market was the most interesting, the most crazy.

The first lanterns came alight, and the glow of lamplight grew dim and scattered.

In the distant streets, the red lanterns hanging on both sides lit up as well, while people came and went.

Su Yu Niang looked at the scene below the mountain in the distance, her entire face showing extreme shock.

This was so cool. Could this game really reach maps outside?

It was so prosperous, so huge!

"I'm going to the night market fair. I hope I can meet some handsome ancient men."

She had only just walked a short distance when she really did see a handsome man—a tall, straight young man strolling through the bustling streets with an adorable little girl. The scene was warm and harmonious.