Defiance

"Congratulations, Path Seeker, on summarizing the third rule. Would you like to issue a Myriad World Announcement?"

Just after Zhu Jiusi had flooded the chat with messages, another prompt appeared.

Zhu Jiusi had no time to think. The Land God's hammer was already coming down.

"Announce it!"

Then came the scene everyone saw.

The announcement reward was unchanged: 125 of each basic material.

But the reward for the rule itself was what Zhu Jiusi wanted most right now.

Defiance ×3

Three chances to violate the rules of Journey Survival.

In truth, only two of those chances were useful.

Because he had to use the first one to cancel the Land God's pursuit.

Use!

The Land God statue, roaring and bellowing behind him, slowly came to a halt.

The gigantic statue stood on the road, staring at Zhu Jiusi and swinging its hammer, yet in the end, it could do nothing to him. Unwillingly, it was dragged step by step back into the Land God Temple by some unseen force.

The Land God Temple vanished completely. Even the Crude Telescope could no longer see it.

The woods on either side of the road returned to normal. The Mountain God Temple appeared again.

Zhu Jiusi was still shaken.

Having low Courage and not much brains had its benefits—it was harder to scare him. If he were still human, with all his overthinking and distracting thoughts, one roar from the Land God would have left his legs trembling, unable to move.

Several people in the group shared their thoughts.

Rain Seeker: "Thumbs up!"

Monkey Has Iron Rod: "Boss, you're awesome! Voice cracking"

Orchid Pavilion Scholar sent an emoji of someone stroking his chin. "So the trick to figuring out the rules is to court death?"

The first time the Cave Master figured out a rule, he'd gone the wrong way—courting death!

The second time, he'd run into a green zombie—certain death!

The third time, he'd killed someone in the Land God Temple—courting death again!

This wasn't a Wild Boar. It was a Blockhead!

Sword Seven Doesn't Learn Sword: "Not advisable!"

Path Seekers should fear nothing, but they shouldn't go out of their way to provoke trouble.

Zhu Jiusi replied with a thumbs-up emoji. "Definitely not advisable. Don't court death. I nearly died."

Rain Seeker: "I'm curious, what happened? Did you nearly disappear along with the temple?"

Zhu Jiusi sent an emoji of a pig's head shaking. "It took a while for the Land God Temple to disappear, but the Land God came to life and nearly beat me to death. He's powerful. Don't provoke him. If your Life is below 100, you're as good as dead."

Rain Seeker: "Then how did you survive? Uh... if you don't want to say, you don't have to."

She was curious about everything, especially the rules, and she liked to puzzle things out. But she wasn't someone who liked prying into other people's private affairs.

Master of Cloud Stack Cave: "It's nothing. I summarized the rule and got a reward—a power tied to the rules. That's what let me scrape by with my life. No one else will get that chance."

Monkey Has Iron Rod: "Amazing!"

Zhu Jiusi chatted with them for a few more messages. Once he'd calmed down, he headed for his Mountain God Temple.

The moment he entered, he sensed that something about the temple had changed.

The imposing Mountain God statue had once looked down on everything. Now, wherever Zhu Jiusi went, its gaze followed him.

But the statue was still just a stone statue, with no intelligence or consciousness. It had simply been set up here.

In his previous life, he had pieced together the official structure of Journey Survival. It seemed to consist of four parts.

One was pure rules. The moon on the scrolls, the statues in the temples. They were like system sprites, with no likes or dislikes, no sense of good or evil. They acted solely according to the rules.

Another was the Enforcers of the Enforcement Hall. They showed no mercy, but their lack of feeling was different from that of the statues. The statues simply had no such thing as emotions. The Enforcers were ruthless, and looked down on everyone!

They had the air of managers, lording it over others. Some even claimed that bribing the Enforcers could be useful. Their one taboo was divination!

Whenever divination was involved, the Enforcers would inevitably appear. There were no exceptions.

The last kind were the Path Seekers who had just entered Journey Survival and chosen the Divine Path. They would become the NPCs of future dungeons: merchants, errand runners, slaves... all sorts of people.

Perhaps they were following another path to the Dao?

Each of the three kinds of official beings sought different things. Killing someone in the Land God Temple had violated one of the temple's basic rules. Even though Defiance had canceled the punishment, Zhu Jiusi could still sense the Mountain God's faint hostility toward him.

It wasn't personal hostility. It came from the rules. It was like wearing only a shirt when the world outside was buried in snow at thirty below.

The lair's renovations had long since finished, but he'd been cultivating and hadn't taken it out.

Zhu Jiusi didn't linger to look at the Mountain God statue. He retrieved his lair and left at once.

After walking three or four li from the Mountain God Temple, he could no longer see it through the Crude Telescope. Only then did he take out the scroll and open the memorial.

"Your servant, Law Enforcement Inspector 'Master of Cloud Stack Cave,' hereby reports: three Enforcers abused their authority for personal gain by seizing the Corpses Across the Land Secret Realm; used brute force to interfere with the Path Seekers' competition; and exploited their positions to incite Path Seekers to attack others!"

Zhu Jiusi didn't just report them. He also uploaded the short video of the three men capturing him, along with the video of Daoist Number 323's testimony.

Only after doing all that did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

He'd known he'd forgotten something—how could he let his enemies keep living as if nothing had happened?

He'd already made enemies of the three of them. Those high-and-mighty bastards were bound to trip him up if they got the chance!

But at the time, they'd all still been in the Secret Realm. Zhu Jiusi hadn't dared make any unnecessary moves.

He'd only just finished his revenge when their map had thrown him out of the Secret Realm.

As soon as he got out, he'd forgotten all about it—not exactly forgotten, but he hadn't even realized he should report the three of them!

There was something strange about that map!

In fact, even when Daoist Number 323 had told him the three men were going to target him, Zhu Jiusi hadn't felt any urge to retaliate.

Only after he killed someone in the Land God Temple, broke the rules of Journey Survival, and was hunted by the Land God did that feeling suddenly disappear.

After some thought, Zhu Jiusi reported them again: "Those three Enforcers used an evil art to control me and prevent me from carrying out my duties as a Law Enforcement Inspector!"

The memorial flashed faintly, and the writing on it vanished.

Zhu Jiusi waited a long time, but nothing came back.

He put away the scroll and thought no more about it. Right now, he had no way to fight the Enforcers.

Reporting them in a memorial was his only option. Still, Zhu Jiusi wasn't afraid of them.

The Enforcers couldn't do whatever they wanted. In his previous life, the Water Monarch had killed one, and nothing had happened to him, had it?

He flipped through the scroll and checked his own attributes.

[Path Seeker: Zhu Jiusi]

[Daoist Title: Master of Cloud Stack Cave]

[Identity: Mountain Master, First Rank (2%), Law Enforcement Inspector]

[Courage: 5]

[Life: 32]

[Realm: First Realm]

Spirit Gathering had succeeded. He had officially entered the ranks of cultivators, and could now be considered a true First-Realm Path Seeker.

Though his cultivation still hadn't shown any practical use.

Zhu Jiusi took a deep breath and walked onward as if out for a stroll. His eyes were unfocused, his eyelids drooping as if he were half asleep, and he continued absorbing spiritual energy.

Now that he had a trace of spiritual power in his body, he could vaguely sense the spiritual energy around him. Absorbing it had become much easier.

He walked on aimlessly like that.

Suddenly, someone spoke through the scroll.

Heals Stomach Not Body: "Huh, huh, huh? I'm not the first to finish three renovations?"

Someone had voluntarily left the Secret Realm.

Monkey Has Iron Rod: "What made you think you'd be the first?"

Heals Stomach Not Body: "I'm lucky! You don't know, something happened in the canyon at the entrance to our village. A pillar of light shot straight into the heavens in the middle of the night two days ago."

Even through the text, his excitement was obvious.

"The next day, I went over and picked up a whole bunch of half-dead walking corpses. I even found three white-haired ones. I spent half the day killing them! I didn't kill enough, but the village chief counted the investigation as complete!"

Heals Stomach Not Body: "With luck like mine, I still wasn't first. How did you manage it?"

Monkey Has Iron Rod: "Could that pillar of light you saw have been the handiwork of another Path Seeker?"

Heals Stomach Not Body: "...Don't scare me!"

That pillar of light had been enormous, and its power immense. Could a human really do that?

Monkey Has Iron Rod: "@Master of Cloud Between Cave. This is where the big shot's supposed to show off."

Zhu Jiusi didn't reply. The result of his report had arrived on the scroll—the memorial had been returned!