Pig Demon

The hunter drew his bow.

The wild boar let out an angry roar and charged toward the crowd.

At that critical moment, a voice rang out from the pig cage like a tolling bell.

"Hey! You monster, how dare you hurt people!"

The powerful voice stunned everyone present.

Everyone stared at the young man in the pig cage in astonishment. Even the wild boar turned around and charged toward it.

Boom!

The pig cage burst apart with a crash. Just as the wild boar was about to knock the young man over, he drew a talisman in midair and pointed forward.

"Stay!"

The charging wild boar froze in place, motionless!

The young man walked out of the pig cage. Seeing the seven or eight people with bows drawn and arrows nocked, he said, still shaken, "Good heavens, hurry up and put those arrows away!"

"This pig is a demon that's cultivated for years. If it's wounded and its poisonous blood spills, there won't be a living soul within ten miles!"

When the hunters didn't move, the young man gave a cold snort. "I, Iron Rod, am a Taoist of the seventeenth generation of Laoshan!"

The group exchanged glances, but at last they slowly lowered their bows.

They hadn't seen anything, but that young man had only gestured a few times in midair and managed to freeze a mountain boar in place.

He probably wasn't a con artist, right?

As everyone wondered, the young man strode out without a shred of decorum, headed straight for the water vat, and made a couple of sucking noises at it.

A big fish leaped out of the vat on its own. The moment it landed, a strange little cart appeared beneath it, and it followed the young man, flicking its tail.

That settled it. No ordinary person could do that!

The mountain boar and the fish had both been caught by chance. They couldn't have been in league with this man, and they certainly hadn't been trained. This young man really was a Taoist!

"Master!"

"Master!"

The villagers crowded closer, chattering all at once. The young man raised a hand to stop them from approaching.

Then he drew a talisman in the air, slapped the wild boar on the head, and said, "Go!"

The wild boar seemed to fall under his control. It turned around mechanically and started walking away, one step at a time.

The young man followed behind the wild boar, controlling it with a pointed finger. A big red fish trailed behind him.

It was a bizarre procession, but no one dared approach. Everyone moved aside to clear a path as they passed.

The three strange figures kept going until they had left the village far behind.

The wild dog on the ground whimpered, spitting out blood with every cry. It watched the others leave, jealousy and resentment in its eyes. So that was possible, too?

"Village chief... was he really a Taoist?"

The village chief stroked his goatee. "I suppose so!"

"What kind of Taoist calls himself Iron Rod?"

"That makes him all the more likely to be one!" Only those Taoists did whatever they pleased, calling themselves whatever they liked.

"Then, village chief, should we go after him?"

The village chief fell silent for a moment, then turned to the one-eyed butcher. "In a moment, carry thorn branches and lead the whole village, young and old, after him in person!"

The young man was the one he'd captured. He ought to apologize with thorns on his back.

The butcher nodded firmly. "Right!"

A Taoist with real ability was worth doing that for.

Meanwhile, on a hill outside the village.

Three figures stood still.

At that moment, the scrolls in their hands all revealed the instance information.

``` [Corpses Across the Land]

[For some unknown reason, graveyards in countless villages across Xiangnan Prefecture have erupted in chaos, and corpses that have been dead for many years have come back to life one after another.

How can a Path Seeker devote himself to cultivation and ignore the lives of ordinary people? Slay the rampaging corpses or investigate the cause of the outbreak.]

There were details of the rewards below.

Investigating the cause: points awarded in varying amounts based on participation and the outcome.

Hunting rampaging corpses: 1 point for each ordinary walking corpse, 10 points for each White-Haired Zombie, and 30 points for each Green-Haired Zombie.

At the very bottom of the page was an exchange list, still grayed out.

5 points could summon a lair or vehicle into the realm.

30 points could be exchanged for a Life Stone or Soul Jade.

A Life Stone was a necessary resource for the Beast Nest's third modification, while Soul Jade was used to modify vehicles.

Aside from Life Stones and Soul Jade, basic supplies could also be exchanged.

Even cultivation methods!

Treatise on Cloud-Resting Consciousness Refinement and Spirit Refining Primer

There were only two, and each required 2,000 points.

That was ridiculous. Who could kill over a hundred zombies?

Just like similar instances, the cultivation methods were nothing but bait in the end. No one could get them.

In the previous round, no one had obtained a cultivation method in the first instance, Tree Demon Desolate Village, either.

Basic materials and Life Stones were what Zhu Jiusi needed.

"What are you two planning to do?"

Monkey Has Iron Rod looked back at the mountain village they'd just left and shrugged. "I'll investigate!"

He wasn't built for heavy lifting, and fighting zombies wasn't his strong suit!

He'd seen zombies last night. He wouldn't earn any points; even a single one could take his life.

As it happened, he'd just followed the Cave Master's advice and put on a show. By now, he should have earned a decent reputation among the villagers, so he might as well take the chance to investigate the cause of the graveyard outbreak.

Rain Seeker hopped twice beside him. "I'm a carp. I can feed zombies just fine, but fighting isn't for me. I'll stick with Iron Rod!"

Zhu Jiusi nodded. "Good!"

Investigating the cause required brains, which didn't suit him right now. He didn't have a brain.

After saying goodbye, Zhu Jiusi galloped off into the distance on all fours.

A man and a fish watched him go from the hilltop.

A commotion rose in the distance, and some thirty or forty ragged villagers came running out. Leading them was the one-eyed, lame-legged butcher.

His arms were bare, and thorn branches were strapped to his back.

The fellow could barely recognize a single character, yet here he was, carrying thorns to apologize.

"Master! Master! We were blind and failed to recognize your greatness. We offended you, Master... Huh? Where's the wild boar?" The one-eyed butcher had been about to wail out an apology, but as he approached, he noticed the wild boar was gone and forgot all about apologizing.

The others looked around, searching for it too.

Monkey Has Iron Rod stroked a beard he didn't have and waved his hand. "I have subdued that pig demon and sent him into the mountains to slay zombies!"

The villagers' eyes lit up all at once.

"Long live the Master!"

Monkey Has Iron Rod waved his hand, trying to put on a dignified, righteous air. But his stomach rumbled loudly, ruining the mood entirely.

After six and a half days of hunger during Journey Survival, it was no longer under his control.

The village chief slapped himself. "How stupid of me! A true immortal stood right before me, and I failed to recognize him. Master, please come back to the village first. We still have a few handfuls of rice at home. We can make you a bowl of hot porridge!"

Monkey Has Iron Rod's eyes lit up.

Zhu Jiusi set his sights on the right direction and headed up the mountain.

As for the two cultivation methods on the exchange list, Zhu Jiusi already knew them himself.

But he hadn't once considered cultivating in the past few days.

Journey Survival covered everything, but it didn't allow fortune-telling skills. The moment someone tried to tell the future, a Judicator would come after them.

It also didn't allow things that defied logic.

He'd never obtained a cultivation method before. Who knew whether practicing one directly would draw those fiends down on him?

But if he used the rules cleverly, no one could do a thing about it.

He crossed one hill and climbed higher, then looked down below.

A pair of pig eyes had terrible vision, but he could still make out the hazy outlines of the distant mountains and rivers.

The mountains rose and fell, crisscrossing like a chessboard.

The place he was in now was probably where the second black pawn from the left stood.

Ahead lay the Chu-Han Border, though it wasn't a river. It was a massive canyon!

With Zhu Jiusi's eyesight, he couldn't make out the details, but the outline was enough.

He'd been to this instance before!

Last time he'd entered, he'd been in the position of a red bishop. He'd appeared as the foolish young master of a wealthy household and hadn't gone through the experience of being pinned to a slaughtering table, so he hadn't recognized it at first.

Only when the scroll's message appeared just now did Zhu Jiusi suddenly realize.

Wasn't this the Ruins?

This Secret Realm had opened several times. It had started with low-level White-Haired Zombies, then later openings had brought Flying Zombies and even traces of Wandering Corpses.

It was the back garden where the big shots gathered treasures.

Unfortunately, someone had eventually blown the entire Secret Realm to pieces.

Zhu Jiusi narrowed his eyes at the great canyon in the middle. An idea surfaced in his mind, and he couldn't suppress it no matter what.