Barely Satisfactory

After analyzing the situation, Glaze Fairy immediately looked at Li Muyang.

"Lord Wuming, are there still Blood Demon Beasts blocking the way ahead?"

While Glaze Fairy spoke, Li Muyang kept striking, casually cutting down the Blood Demon Beasts that emerged from the air one after another.

By the time Glaze Fairy finished speaking, the carriage had stopped coming under attack.

Those bizarre Blood Demon Beasts seemed to have been completely exterminated, and the carriage traveled unhindered through the streets of Loushan City.

But Li Muyang looked at the ticking numerical countdown in the upper-right corner of his vision and shook his head.

"There should still be Blood Demon Beasts blocking the road..."

[06:39]

Of the ten-minute survival limit, six minutes and thirty-nine seconds remained.

What they had just repelled was merely the Blood Demon Beasts' first wave of attacks.

Li Muyang, immortal sword in hand, directly flipped onto the roof of the carriage and looked into the distance.

Li Muyang could easily clear the first stage of the beast-nest assault with save-scumming and Time Stop.

But during the second stage of the Blood Demon Beast attacks, both their numbers and frequency far surpassed the first stage, making them much harder for Li Muyang to resist.

He had failed nineteen times. Even his best attempt had only survived until the countdown reached 02:19.

The Blood Demon Beasts that came later would only grow more numerous, packed together so densely that it was practically a bullet hell game.

A perfectly good fully immersive simulation game had suddenly turned into a tower defense game at this moment.

Li Muyang swung the immortal sword in his hand, doing his best to slaughter the monsters without using Time Stop, saving it for the most critical moments.

After killing so many Blood Demon Beasts, he gradually grasped the pattern behind their appearances.

Whenever a Blood Demon Beast was about to emerge from the void, the bloody stench at that spot would intensify for an instant.

Relying on his sharp perception of changes in the scent of blood, Li Muyang could now accurately predict where the Blood Demon Beasts would appear.

Sword lights flashed one after another as Li Muyang flew up and down around the carriage.

At times he stood atop the carriage and cut down Blood Demon Beasts; at times he slipped into the carriage; at times he rushed ahead of it. Occasionally, several Blood Demon Beasts even emerged from beneath the carriage.

His number of failures continued to rise.

Li Muyang was nearly sick of hearing the Guide's panicked shrieks from inside the carriage.

This Guide was always making a fuss over nothing, and every time, he died in the third beast tide that erupted at the seven-minute mark.

During the third wave of attacks, the Blood Demon Beasts emerging from the air nearly filled his entire field of vision.

Even with Glaze Fairy helping him, Li Muyang struggled immensely to hold them off. He had no time at all to care about the Guide.

This sort of high-difficulty challenge level vaguely reminded Li Muyang of the feeling of playing Soulslike games back then.

This difficulty, this frustration, this struggle, dying again and again, yet somehow being irresistibly addictive... so Soulslike!

Finally, when the countdown in the upper-right corner of his vision completely reached zero and the quest log updated once more, Li Muyang, sitting atop the carriage, let out a long breath.

He had finally fucking cleared it.

Why was this beginner tutorial so hard?!

Li Muyang looked at Glaze Fairy beside him, half-covered in blood and in rather poor condition, and asked,

"Fairy, are you all right?"

During the final beast-nest wave just now, one Blood Demon Beast had spat out some kind of sharp hidden weapon that pierced through Glaze Fairy's shoulder.

Glaze Fairy's face was pale now, and she looked to be in considerable pain.

She shook her pale face and bit her lip. "I'm fine. It's just Lord Zhao..."

Glaze Fairy looked toward the corpse inside the carriage, a trace of sorrow flashing through her eyes.

Amid the Blood Demon Beasts' wave after wave of frenzied attacks, the carriage was now on the verge of falling apart. Its heavy roof had been torn away, its body was covered in cracks, and even the driver had long since vanished into the beast nest. Only the two weak horses pulling the carriage still galloped onward.

Zhao Erhu, the Guide, lay motionless inside the carriage in a miserable state of death, blood and intestines spilled all over the floor.

And on the street ahead of Li Muyang and the others, figures finally appeared. Judging by their attire, they were Loushan City's defenders.

These armored soldiers, swords in hand, stood guard outside a government office, warily watching the approaching carriage.

The strange bloody stench in the air completely vanished, and the quest panel in the upper-right corner of Li Muyang's vision changed.

[Survive safely with Glaze Fairy for ten minutes—Completed]

[Current quest progress has been saved]

[New quest: Accompany Glaze Fairy to meet the Commander of Loushan City]

There was not much left for Li Muyang to do in the following plot.

Although the nearly shattered carriage and the corpse inside it gave the soldiers quite a fright, the moment Glaze Fairy stated her identity, someone immediately led Li Muyang and Glaze Fairy through the heavily guarded gates of the residence.

This Commander Wu of Loushan City looked extremely afraid of dying.

The inside and outside of his residence were packed with fully armed guards. He had probably summoned every elite soldier he could mobilize to protect himself.

No wonder the city streets were so deserted that not a single person could be seen.

The common folk were afraid of death and hid indoors, while Commander Wu was even more afraid of death, gathering every force he could command to guard his residence. It would have been strange if anyone could still be seen in the city.

Not long after Glaze Fairy entered the commander's residence, her expression changed slightly, as though she had sensed something.

When she brought Li Muyang before the Commander of Loushan City, she did not waste a single word on pleasantries and went straight to the point.

"Commander Wu, could you gather all the family members and servants in your residence?"

Glaze Fairy seemed to have already confirmed that a demonic cultivator of the Blood Demon Path was inside this residence, and right beside Commander Wu.

Commander Wu, fat-bellied and drenched in sweat, was overjoyed at Glaze Fairy's arrival as though he had seen reinforcements.

Upon hearing Glaze Fairy's request, Commander Wu did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately complied.

Very soon, every maid and servant in the commander's residence, including several beautiful female relatives, had been brought out.

When Commander Wu's most favored concubine was helped outside, Glaze Fairy's gaze turned cold, and the immortal sword at her back instantly left its sheath...

"It's finally over."

On the hard wooden bed, Li Muyang let out a long breath, opened his eyes, and stretched lazily.

The demonic cultivator in Loushan City had actually been lurking right beside Commander Wu.

Glaze Fairy had drawn her sword the instant she saw her. Though the woman had dodged the strike, Li Muyang had been there as well.

He directly activated the [Sword Hidden in Belly] skill, spat out a flying sword, and easily pierced through the demonic cultivator. It even happened to trigger the fifty-percent instant-death chance, and the demonic cultivator died violently on the spot.

[Beginner Tutorial—Mystery of Loushan City cleared]

[Guide: Dead]

[Glaze Fairy: Lightly injured]

[Mastermind: Dead]

[Clear Rating: B (Barely Satisfactory)]

[By relying on your sharp reactions, formidable strength, and invincible talent, you successfully slew the source of unrest in Loushan City and saved the lives of an entire city, earning boundless merit. However, the Mastermind's death has shrouded the mystery behind Loushan City's unrest and the disappearance of Imperial Observatory warlock Zhang Daniu in a veil of fog, making further investigation impossible. The result can only be called barely satisfactory.]

[Would you like to claim your clear reward?]

[Current available rewards (choose one of three): Blood Demon Heart Refining Art (fragment), ordinary-grade flying sword, 200 jin of spirit rice]

[Host, please note: After claiming the reward, this tutorial stage will end permanently and cannot be entered again.]

The rows of settlement information floating in his vision made Li Muyang blink in surprise.

First, he was surprised by the choose-one-of-three rewards... they were all good stuff!

A cultivation manual, a magical treasure, or two hundred jin of spirit rice... any one of these three rewards was something Li Muyang, a bottom-rung nobody, desperately needed right now.

In the Demon Refining Sect, he had no advanced cultivation manuals and no magical treasure to protect himself with. He was destined to remain a laboring nobody, and he did not even have enough spirit rice to eat.

If he had a cultivation manual and raised his cultivation, perhaps he might have a chance to enter the inner sect!

And the third option, two hundred jin of spirit rice, would be enough to feed him for half a year, perfectly easing his urgent need.

But tempting as the rewards were, Li Muyang did not claim them.

Because this clear rating was extremely low, only B—Barely Satisfactory.

Perhaps if his clear rating were higher, the rewards he could claim would be stronger as well?

With that thought, Li Muyang let out a breath. He closed his eyes and lay back down on the wooden bed.

Game with Fairies started once more!