Young Marquis

Two Green-Haired Zombies, two White-Haired Zombies, and four walking corpses.

Beautiful!

Murder and arson bring golden belts; hunting really is the fastest way to get ahead!

Zhu Jiusi was certain he hadn't taken the wrong path; detonating the ley line nodes was the absolute best way to earn points!

A Thunderbolt Fire detonated directly was nothing more than a glorified firecracker, but placed at a ley line node, it was a completely different story.

To a certain extent, a ley line node could be understood as a volcano on the verge of eruption.

Before the eruption, the situation was unpredictable—it could be as cold as an ice cellar or as gloomy as the Nine Netherworlds—but once triggered, it became an absolute sea of fire.

It was a pity there were so few zombies in this burial cave; otherwise, that last blast would have been enough to accumulate the required points.

Zhu Jiusi gritted his teeth against the sharp pain in his back, unfurled the scroll, and opened the exchange page to redeem two Life Stones.

He wasn't in a hurry for a lair; he could just spend the points to summon one when he needed it.

The Life Stones had just been redeemed and placed into his pack.

A moon suddenly appeared on the scroll.

"Yo! Young Path Seekers, someone in the 66th Path Seeking Zone has already obtained Life Stones—two of them! Aren't the rest of you going to work harder?"

"Let me whisper a secret to you: there are Mountain God Temples and Land God Temples in the secret realm. The first three people to redeem Life Stones and Soul Jades to complete their transformations will have special attributes granted to their lairs or vehicles!"

"Good luck!"

"Oh, and here's another secret: killing other Path Seekers in the secret realm results in a 100% drop rate for all their items~"

The moon, clearly fearing the world wasn't chaotic enough, stirred the pot before vanishing. Two new points appeared on the scroll: one representing his own location, and the other marking the positions of the Mountain God Temple and the Land God Temple.

Zhu Jiusi estimated the distance; he was over three hundred miles away from the Mountain God Temple in a straight line. With the winding mountain roads, he would probably have to travel seven or eight hundred miles.

A trap!

Even with Zhu Jiusi's current physique, it would take him seven or eight days to get there.

The opportunity would have long since passed.

He would hunt enough zombies, redeem the Life Stones, and exit the instance early.

Before the instance canyon appeared, a Mountain God Temple would refresh somewhere ahead of his path.

He could perfectly well exit the instance early and enter his own Mountain God Temple to complete the third transformation.

Action followed thought!

Zhu Jiusi crept up to the tomb and began to investigate carefully.

The tomb had been blown apart, but he could still vaguely deduce the locations of other nodes by tracking the ley line.

It was like an instinct; it was as natural as standing in a river and sensing the direction of the current.

After sensing for a long while, he jumped out of the ruins, drew a rough sketch on the ground with his hoof, and tilted his head in deep thought for a long time. He rose, left the cave, and headed north, facing the moon.

This time he was cautious, trying his best to avoid being surrounded by corpse swarms again.

However, he realized his worries were unfounded.

Graveyard riots, corpse uprisings—it sounded terrifying, but in reality, Zhu Jiusi walked over ten miles, and even as the moon reached its zenith, he didn't encounter a single zombie!

That made sense, come to think of it.

If there were really that many zombies, how could the ordinary people in those villages have survived?

A single group of zombies in a cluster of ten villages would be enough to make life unbearable for everyone.

In truth, there weren't enough zombies in the instance to go around for all the Path Seekers.

There were over six thousand people in the 66th Zone; even if they all killed Green-Haired Zombies, they would need thirty thousand of them. If they were White-Haired, they would need one hundred and fifty thousand, and over a million for ordinary walking corpses.

If there were really that many zombies, even the insects would have been sucked dry!

Therefore, in this first secret realm, only a very small number of people would be able to accumulate enough points to redeem Life Stones or Soul Jades.

In his past life, Zhu Jiusi had been lucky enough to start with a good identity, which allowed him to barely succeed.

He wondered how many people would manage it this time?

The first secret realm was the first true watershed for Path Seekers; most of the famous experts of the future would appear on the leaderboard from this very event.

Three hundred miles away, in a quiet official residence, a group of people had bound a Green-Haired Zombie with iron chains, holding it firmly in place.

The zombie roared, but it could not break free.

"The zombie is under control! Third Young Master, strike now!"

A young man who had been watching from afar approached with a blade. With a swing of his heavy saber, the zombie's head rolled away with a thud.

The onlookers' faces twitched. If the Old Marquis knew from beyond the grave that the Third Young Master was using the precious blade he cherished like his own life to hack apart such a filthy creature, would he not crawl out of his grave in a rage?

No—the Old Marquis would never have the chance; this Green-Haired Zombie that had just been decapitated was the Old Marquis himself!

With a single slash, the head of the zombie was severed, and the young man stood motionless.

A scroll, invisible to others, unfurled before him.

Points +30

Very good!

Daoist Number 323 revealed a satisfied smile, only to immediately shift his expression into a mournful wail: "Father! Your son is unfilial, unable to let you rest in peace beneath the springs! This zombie tide has disturbed your tranquility; I shall slaughter every last zombie to restore peace to our Xiangnan Prefecture!"

He turned to look at the personal guards beside him: "Xiangnan Prefecture was carved out by my father with his own blade and spear. The Imperial Court may ignore this zombie plague, but I cannot! Assemble the soldiers of the Marquis Mansion and hunt down the zombies. I will execute them one by one with my own hands!"

"Understood!" Several guards struck their chests in unison to acknowledge the order.

Daoist Number 323 watched the soldiers march away, his expression indescribably strange.

There was a hint of excitement at the prospect of vengeance, mixed with a trace of incredulous panic.

He was lucky; the moment he woke up, he was the young Marquis of the Marquis Mansion, commanding hundreds of private soldiers.

He also had an uncle-in-law who oversaw the Yin-Yang Studies in Xiangnan Prefecture. That was a local branch of the Imperial Observatory, capable of monitoring all sorts of phenomena that defied common sense.

For instance, he could track the movements of Zhu Jiusi in real-time.

Having opened his eyes to resolve the crisis of his stepmother seizing power, Daoist Number 323 knew his position was secure.

Yet, even so, the first slot for a Life Stone exchange had actually been snatched by someone else!

It must be that pig!

Daoist Number 323 was almost instinctively certain that it was that pig playing tricks.

Did a pig solo a Green-Haired Zombie? Or did it team up with a lackey to kill one, and the points were counted toward its total?

Daoist Number 323 felt a sense of urgency wash over him; he tapped the scroll and synced Zhu Jiusi's location to the private chats of the others.

I've given you the opportunity! Whether you succeed or not depends on your own capabilities.

It was a pity he was too far from that pig; otherwise, he would have brought his private soldiers to kill it—kill the pig first!

Daoist Number 323 suppressed the killing intent in his heart.

It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter... Even if this group of people fails, the Mountain God Temple in the secret realm is within his family's territory. Once that pig obtains five Life Stones, it will definitely come to renovate its lair.

Once it enters his turf, that pig will be at his mercy!

For some reason, Daoist Number 323 always had the feeling that this might be his only chance to kill that pig throughout the entire Journey Survival.

"It's here!"

Three hundred miles away, in another village not far from the novice village where Zhu Jiusi had appeared, a thin man suddenly jumped up.

"The number sent the coordinates; that pig is forty miles away!"

He looked at the scroll, a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

"What is that pig doing in a place like that? Seeking death?"

Over the course of the day, with the assistance of Daoist Number 323, they had already figured out the activity patterns of the zombies.

Former villages, graveyards, and battlefields were all potential spots.

Of course, ordinary walking corpses were mostly found around graveyards—that was where they were most numerous, yet they were the most useless. Killing one only yielded a single point, yet they appeared in swarms.

Only those that reached the level of White-Haired Zombie could roam freely.

The place where that pig was currently located was the intersection of a "Rice"-shaped canyon, and it was right at the junction.

That location was accessible from all directions, connecting to the surrounding barren mountains; it was precisely the place where zombies were most likely to appear.

It really is seeking death!

Turning into a pig must have affected its brain; it's too confident!

"We can change the plan; there's no need to take risks. We'll grab a few living people, bring them here, stab them a few times, and throw them down from the canyon. The scent of blood will be enough to attract a large swarm of zombies!"

The group looked at the hand-drawn map, rubbing their chins.

Bright Moon Illuminating People shook his head slightly, his face deathly pale: "Not enough! We must first attract the zombies from other areas, lure them to the entrance of the Four Directions Mountain valley. Only then, by throwing the bait into the junction, can we ensure there are no slip-ups!"

"Brilliant!" The group looked at each other and laughed in unison.