Loyalty!

Chapter 3: Loyalty!

"Slap—!"

The sound of the slap mingled with the thunderclap in the night sky. The Stubbled Man, collapsed and motionless, had his head knocked askew.

Chu Huai Xu stared at him with icy eyes, wanting to test if the Information Scan feature still worked.

In Borrowed Sword, players had access to Information Scan, allowing them to check basic info on NPCs.

Of course, what you could see depended on your own authority level and the target's rank and clearance.

For instance, if this NPC's Character Level was far above yours, or they had a special identity, or were tied to a major mysterious event, tossing an Information Scan at them would just yield three question marks.

In terms of Borrowed Sword's cultivation system, a player's Information Scan was essentially an enhanced version of divine sense.

The difference was that divine sense could only detect cultivation realms, artifacts, skill attributes, and the like, while Information Scan could pull up even more basic details.

Yet, Chu Huai Xu's Information Scan feature hadn't even unlocked its permissions.

"What the hell?" He sank into deeper confusion.

If he could scan some of the other's info, he'd at least know his own situation—what kind of mess he was in—and analyze why this guy was chasing him, trying to throw him into the celestial prison.

Beyond that, there was something even more critical—the Dao Sect!

"Why did he say I was trying to infiltrate the Dao Sect?" Chu Huai Xu wondered.

The world setting of Borrowed Sword was called the Xuanhuang Realm.

The Xuanhuang Realm was divided into four continents: East, West, South, and North.

Among them, the South Continent and North Continent, due to special reasons, had already fallen and become forbidden zones during the last great calamity.

From the map, Chu Huai Xu could see that he was currently in the East Continent.

And the Dao Sect was one of the Four Great Sects of the East Continent.

Only the prodigies of the East Continent could join the Dao Sect.

Among the sea of players, very few managed to enter the Dao Sect.

If they succeeded, it was basically an instant takeoff, with a much higher ceiling for future growth.

That meant in real life, you could treat gaming as a job and make a decent chunk of change from Borrowed Sword each month.

Chu Huai Xu had basically confirmed that he'd transmigrated into Borrowed Sword, and even the timeline had shifted.

So, the Dao Sect became the top priority!

After the Information Scan failed, he raised his hand and slapped the Stubbled Man again.

Should've kept him alive first, questioned him, then killed him.

"Useless trash!"

"Think hard about why you were so easy to kill!"

To Chu Huai Xu, the Stubbled Man was indeed too weak.

Chu Huai Xu had ranked second on the women's Must-Eat Companion List for a reason—he had standout qualities.

Looks, skill, voice, emotional value—he was well-rounded.

So, even though he almost never took male players' companion orders, he still ranked forty-ninth on the men's Must-Eat Companion List. Believe it or not?

Yeah, in these two lists, gender wasn't a strict barrier.

Throw in the chaotic nature of goofy players and the antics of the vast "phone book" crowd, and you can imagine what the final rankings looked like.

Of course, when he teamed up with male players, his main role was carrying them—no extra services on the table.

Speaking of which, Borrowed Sword, like most games, had a Character Customization Feature.

Simply put, after buying an account and creating a character, you got one free chance to modify your appearance.

If you wanted to customize again later, it'd cost a hefty fee, comparable to real-life plastic surgery.

And believe it or not, there were actually idiots who took out "plastic surgery loans" to alter their game characters.

For top-tier companions like Chu Huai Xu, who made the Must-Eat Companion List, activating the customization feature used full-body scanning to perfectly replicate their real-life selves, ensuring no difference between online and offline—no fraud involved.

These companions were tagged and certified by the platform.

Basically, anyone on the Must-Eat List was this type.

Worth noting, this full-body scan didn't waste the customization feature's uses.

Chu Huai Xu was the standard fox-type handsome guy, a bit of a Fox Face.

If Scenes from an Ordinary Life ever got a live-action adaptation, he could audition for the Fox Scholar role.

He wasn't as sinister as the anime version, but as a male model in the game, he knew how to act.

A good model—how could they not?

As for why he could easily kill the Stubbled Man, there were two main reasons.

First, in Borrowed Sword, a newly created game character's physical stats were slightly higher than an ordinary mortal's.

So he joked with the Stubbled Man about being a sports scholarship student.

Second, and more importantly, it was body control.

For a normal person, control over their own body is never one hundred percent.

For example, if you swing your arm and try to stop it at the nine o'clock position, it's hard to nail it exactly.

But in "Borrowed Sword," that was possible.

Of course, even with perfect body control, you still needed to adapt to understand your own limits.

As a veteran player who had opened countless accounts, Chu Huai Xu was all too familiar with this.

That was precisely why he could dodge the Stubbled Man's slashes so easily, killing him like a dog.

But the problem now was that he was too strong.

"The useful information I can get is far too little." Chu Huai Xu tilted his umbrella and looked up at the rain-soaked night sky.

He couldn't even check his own identity information right now—that function was also restricted.

"An opening like this, clearly carrying a main quest from the start, means the character must have an identity and a past," he thought.

Yet Chu Huai Xu knew nothing about any of it now.

"At least, even though I've crossed over, some player functions are still here. That counts as a bit of a golden finger."

The next second, a system prompt sound rang in his ear: "Ding! The Mission System is about to unlock permissions!"

Chu Huai Xu's face lit up with joy.

"Nice, nice. Heaven favors this mold brother of mine."

On a small slope beside the dense forest, two men in black robes and masks silently watched everything that had just happened.

The man on the left wore a golden mask, and the one on the right wore a silver mask.

Just moments ago, the Silver Mask Man couldn't help but exclaim, "He killed him that easily? This newcomer sent by the organization has incredible body control!"

The Golden Mask Man clicked his tongue in amazement and sighed, "His talent on the Art Path is probably not low."

"Sir, a talent like this should be thrown to our Moon Kingdom's border. Even if he's a false spirit fetus, he's definitely a good prospect for body refinement. A few years of polishing at the border, and his achievements might be impressive," the Silver Mask Man said.

The Golden Mask Man nodded slightly. "Sending him to the Mirror Kingdom's Dao Sect as an outer servant really is a waste."

Both masked men were from the Moon Kingdom's spy organization, having lurked in the Mirror Kingdom for years.

The organization had no name—or rather, its name was simply the Organization.

They were both seasoned moles, jointly responsible for guiding newcomers.

Over the past two years, they'd complained plenty, feeling that the organization had been sending nothing but rotten eggs lately.

But when a good seedling actually showed up, they couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him.

Right now, their guiding work was already done.

According to the organization's tradition, what they called "guiding" wasn't about meeting the newcomers face to face.

So-called "guiding" meant: "receive" meant "I know I've received him," and "guide" meant "lead him into a good lesson."

The Stubbled Man, now dead, was from the Mirror Kingdom's Patrol Office.

These two masked men had used some methods to let the Patrol Office learn of the young newcomer's identity, leading to the chase just now.

The goal was to make the newcomers stumble from the start, completely unaware of how they'd been exposed, so they'd be more cautious.

--Low-key! Low-key! And even more low-key!

But they never expected this kid to be so skilled, finishing a solo kill so easily.

Clean! Sharp! Decisive! Ruthless!

He even remembered to show off before and after the fight.

Not long after, the masked men watching from the shadows saw Chu Huai Xu slap out those two crisp blows.

The Stubbled Man's corpse was swollen from the hits.

The two masked men exchanged a look.

Seriously? With that temper and attitude, was he really fit for undercover work?

"The organization's pick this time... is a bit unique, huh?" the Golden Mask Man said.

The Silver Mask Man nodded. "Sir, I really think he should go to the border!"

The Golden Mask Man raised a hand and said solemnly, "Enough. The organization has its reasons for this arrangement. We just need to do our own jobs."

"Yes!" The Silver Mask Man bowed in acknowledgment.

No matter how absurd the organization's actions were, the two would obey absolutely.

Because everything they'd experienced since childhood had molded them into what the organization needed.

They believed that this young man with a bit of a fox face must have gone through the same thing growing up.

As long as that experience was there, as long as that unforgettable memory was there, then the three of them shared three common traits:

Loyalty! Loyalty! And loyalty!