End of the First Day of the Instance

Qian Gongyu knew about the Ironblood Graveyard, a Secret Realm controlled by the Jie Family, and one of the most valuable Secret Realms in the entire Liang Kingdom.

The Ironblood Graveyard was only a Rank 2 Secret Realm, but it could produce Rank 3 tokens—specifically, Rank 3 defensive tokens. It was thanks to this unique advantage that the Jie Family had stood strong in Jiang Nan for thousands of years, remaining a top Noble Class regardless of dynastic changes.

But... were the Blade Warriors outside the demon kings of the Ironblood Graveyard?

Didn't that mean—

"Could the statues we can build here all be demon kings from other Secret Realms?" Shang Xin Lei guessed, "I was just thinking, if each wave of demons is stronger than the last, then creations like the Wooden Ballista and Catapult will soon be useless. Among the demons, there are many humanoid demons that are extremely fast and can even cut arrows, and even among the beast demons, many are thick-skinned and unafraid of crossbows and cannons. The Raging Bull Demon is a prime example."

"But if we can get other demon kings to fight for us, that's different—a demon king like the Twin Blade General has extremely high lethality but lacks defense. As long as we create opportunities for him to attack, even if he's only a Rank 2 demon king, he can easily cut down a Raging Bull Demon!"

Shang Xin Lei stared intently at Jiang Shi, hoping Jiang Shi would agree with her guess.

"The Blade Warrior has lost thirty percent of its durability."

Jiang Shi suddenly said, and after a moment, she seemed to realize that everyone might not understand, so she explained, "When the durability reaches zero, the Blade Warrior will revert to a statue."

"We have to go out and help!" Jie Yuanshao couldn't wait to push the door open and go out, "The Wooden Ballista definitely can't kill the Raging Bull Demon; we can only rely on the Twin Blades... rely on the Blade Warrior to deal with it!"

"After fighting demons so many times, this is the first time fighting alongside them," Shang Xin Lei said with a smile.

Qian Gongyu wasn't as excited as they were. She took out a few pieces of Spirit Jade from her pocket to absorb, and with a pained expression, she walked outside.

"Finally finished."

Yan Qing put down his game console, rotated his wrist, stood up, and stretched his limbs, feeling that his butt had gone numb from sitting.

The first wave in the Wandering Star Forest only took fifteen minutes to complete, but the second wave of monster attacks took them a full hour—only an MMORPG could have such a long battle process. If it were in a mobile game, it would probably flop immediately, and the planner's mother would be publicly shamed.

However, Yan Qing had expected this: the monster attacks were set up for a normal four-player team, but apart from "Jiang Shi," the other three couldn't be considered players at all. Collecting resources had to be done manually and transported back to the Stone House, unlike "Jiang Shi," who could directly receive them into the warehouse.

This meant that even after two resource collections, the Shelter's resources were still far from sufficient, and the defensive strength naturally couldn't withstand the monster attacks. Then, they had the misfortune of choosing to build a Guardian Tree and a Guardian Stone, which was simply actively increasing the difficulty.

Yan Qing only realized this in the middle of the game: resource-reproducing buildings like the Guardian Tree and Guardian Stone, which aimed for long-term development, were completely planner traps. Anyone who built them was an idiot. More precisely, resource-reproducing buildings were equivalent to 'exchanging current combat power for more resources,' and the cost was that the missing combat power had to be made up by the players themselves.

"Jiang Shi's" team didn't collect enough resources in the first place, and instead of immediately exchanging them for combat power, they chose resource reproduction. It would be strange if they didn't have a difficult time. If Yan Qing wasn't mistaken, there had to be at least one Rank 4 or higher player in the team to build resource-reproducing buildings in the early stages, but the average strength of this team was less than Rank 2, and there was even "Jiang Shi," who hadn't even changed jobs.

Outside the courtyard, the Wall had already collapsed, and five Wooden Ballistas had been destroyed. The Guardian Tree had also been knocked down, and it was even the first to be knocked down. Clearly, in the demons' attack logic, 'obstacles' > 'resource-reproducing buildings' > 'attack buildings' > 'players.' Whenever they had the chance, the demons would destroy the players' hard-earned investments, so that the players would know that not everyone was qualified to invest in reproduction.

Jie Yuanshao and the other two no longer cared about noble demeanor or ladylike attitudes, and they collapsed on the grass soaked in Raging Bull blood, exhausted. The Blade Warrior, with only 5% durability left, reverted to a statue, but compared to before, the statue of the Blade Warrior was noticeably more damaged.

New information popped up in the game. Yan Qing glanced at it, copied the information content into the chat bar, and then, after AI's automatic evolution, "Jiang Shi" said it:

"There are two bad news."

Shang Xin Lei sat on the ground with her legs spread apart, not caring about exposing herself, and laughed breathlessly, "Tell us the less bad one first."

"The less bad news is that the statue can only recover ten percent of its durability every two quarters of an hour. There are three quarters of an hour until the next wave of attacks, meaning the statue will only recover to twenty percent durability when the next wave of attacks starts."

"What's the worse bad news?"

"The worse bad news is that if we leave now, we will have three quarters of an hour of resource collection time when we come in tomorrow, and then the monster attacks will begin."

This sounded strange at first. Leaving early and having more preparation time tomorrow shouldn't be good news? But everyone here was smart. Jie Yuanshao quickly understood the subtext of these two messages: "If we can hold out until the third or even fourth wave, we'll get a lot more points? But if we leave, we can only start from the first wave tomorrow?"

「Yes.」

Everyone exchanged glances, and Jie Yuanshao said, "I haven't tried my best yet, what about you?"

"Me neither." Shang Xin Lei stood up and patted her butt, "But Xiao Yu probably can't hold on anymore, right?"

Qian Gongyu was taken aback and stammered, "I, I can barely still..."

"Let's retreat."

'Jiang Shi' said, "You don't even have the energy to collect resources. The third wave will definitely be more difficult than the second. Without sufficiently strong buildings, you won't be able to defeat it."

After saying that, 'Jiang Shi' walked directly into the thick fog behind the Stone House. Qian Gongyu couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she saw this and quickly got up to follow. At this moment, Jie Yuanshao suddenly remembered something and chased after them, shouting, "Jiang Shi, Qian Gongyu, wait, I have something to tell you!"

"Let's talk outside. Every moment we stay here, we'll have one less moment to collect resources when we come in tomorrow."

The four of them stepped into the thick fog. Unlike when they came in, the fog did not separate them. After wading through the fog for a while, they saw a light appearing at the end.

The moment they stepped out of the fog, the dazzling sunlight turned the game console screen white, as if they had been hit by a flashbang. The dazzling midday sun shone on the open space at the entrance, and the chirping of birds echoed through the Wandering Star Forest.

"They're out!"

"They're out!"

With their appearance, the scattered crowd in the open space at the entrance immediately became excited. Many Noble Class children even ran out of their tents and carriages, as if they would be at a disadvantage if they were a second late. In a short while, a large group of people gathered around. The way they looked at Qian Gongyu and the other three was full of curiosity, envy, and even jealousy, like a group of starving chickens, eager to rush up and peck them to death.

But they all stood obediently on the periphery watching, because there was a man standing in the center of the open space, and no one dared to step in front of him. Not only because he had a purple ribbon tied around his wrist, but also because he was the strongest person in this Wandering Star Forest.

"Third Uncle?"

Jie Yuanshao walked in front of the others and asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"

"I was passing by nearby, so I came to see you and planned to go back with you." The man smiled.

But Jie Yuanshao didn't give him any face at all: "Third Uncle got into trouble and doesn't dare to go back alone, right?"

"Well—it's not really any trouble. But I'm a filial son and don't want to make your grandmother angry, so I thought about bringing my good granddaughter to see her, so she wouldn't get angry."

"Thanks to my filial piety, otherwise I would have missed such an interesting thing."

He stepped forward and glanced at Shang Xin Lei, Qian Gongyu, and 'Jiang Shi', finally fixing his gaze on 'Jiang Shi', and smiled: "Nice to meet you, I am Jie Yuanshao's Third Uncle, the Spearmanship Instructor of Jiangbei Military Garrison, Jie Zilong."

Is he a Tier 3 The Herald?

Although he had expected it, Yan Qing was still a little nervous to be surrounded by so many people as soon as he came out, and even stared at by someone over level 30. However, as long as 'Jiang Shi' finished the Secret Realm, Yan Qing wouldn't care even if it caused a great disturbance, at worst he would just lose a small account.

However, at this moment, a trembling figure stood in front of 'Jiang Shi'.

"She, she is my family's guard, if there is anything, please, please talk to me." Qian Gongyu said the toughest words in the most cowardly tone.

She turned her head to look at 'Jiang Shi', and her accent came out when she lowered her voice: "Don't be alarmed, the Jie Family... the Jie Family shouldn't forcibly take civilian girls, right?"