Losing Face

Of course, she couldn't learn any moves that obviously defied logic.

For example, if she suddenly followed up a slash with an Aikido throw mid-combo, wouldn't that just be asking to die?

And things like suddenly sliding over with superhuman speed to deliver a slash—moves that probably required skills to pull off—were out too.

In the end, games inevitably mixed in choreographed martial arts routines and action-movie flair for visual effect.

She needed to filter those out.

Still, there was no harm in trying.

After all, the whole point of creating this dungeon had been to learn attack methods.

The attack patterns she had developed by fighting bosses were certainly usable, but most of them were still simple quick slashes and horizontal cuts.

Learning some boss moves seemed pretty good too. The more skills, the better.

Besides...

Lu Xiu thought it would be incredibly satisfying to learn boss techniques while constructing dungeons, then use them outside the dungeon. After all... not everyone in reality knew how to deflect attacks, right?

Mm, she would start by trying to learn Emma's moves.

If that worked, then she could try Genichiro's Floating Passage.

"..."

Once she made up her mind, Lu Xiu stopped hesitating. She looked at Emma in the distance, charged straight at her, and activated Acting Mode once more.

At the same time, Emma moved as well.

Lu Xiu gripped her sword hilt tightly, brimming with confidence.

A diagonal robe-cut slash—I can do that too—

Aah!

Lu Xiu's scream rang out the very next instant.

Clearly, it was not that easy to learn.

Up until now, Lu Xiu had mainly relied on deflections and step-dodges. Her attacks were basically simple, straightforward quick cuts and horizontal slashes.

Changing her habits so suddenly and trying to imitate a boss's moves was difficult in itself.

What was more, Emma would not stop and let her practice.

She had to maintain the rhythm of her deflections

while also trying to use her opponent's techniques.

Lu Xiu did not have that ability yet, and Emma immediately chased her down with a flurry of slashes.

But

she was a dungeon architect. She had plenty more chances.

Soon, the repeated clang-clang-clang of colliding blades rang out without end.

The idea had been wonderful, but by the time Lu Xiu exited the construction space, she had learned less than twenty percent of it.

"This is really hard..."

Thinking back to how she had been chased around and slashed at afterward, Lu Xiu stood in the middle of the living room, torn between laughter and tears.

After quite a while, she finally shook her head and stretched. "Forget it. At this point, I should eat first..."

Soon, the kitchen light flicked on, spilling light across the room.

Lu Xiu rummaged through the supplies in the refrigerator, wondering what to eat, when she suddenly noticed her hand and froze.

She raised her right hand toward the overhead light.

Slender and fair, with soft fingertips—there was not the slightest trace of the wear that came from gripping a sword for long periods.

She stared at it for two seconds, then unconsciously curled her fingers before opening them again.

It was definitely her own hand.

It really was strange. Even though she had fought bosses for so long inside the dungeon, with life-and-death battles and bloody trials etched into her reflexes, not even a single scar had been left on her body.

This counted as a kind of cyber training, in a sense.

But as Lu Xiu looked at her hands, she could only wonder whether she had actually learned anything.

It all felt strangely unreal.

After a simple dinner.

Once Lu Xiu had cleaned up, she did not rush back into the dungeon. Instead, she opened the system shop.

She planned to buy a sword and give it a try.

Otherwise, it would never feel real.

The system shop's melee weapons were not expensive, though they were all just ordinary iron weapons.

Lu Xiu browsed through the selection.

More than ten minutes later, a straight sword gleaming with a cold light appeared in her hand.

It was no divine weapon—just an utterly ordinary blade.

Standing in the not-so-spacious living room, the instant she gripped the hilt... her originally gentle demeanor vanished, and a faint sharpness surfaced.

Whoosh!

The next second.

Without warning.

She stepped forward. The instant her right foot landed, she drove her center of gravity forward with fierce killing intent.

The blade rose with it.

A flash of cold light.

The blade swept upward from below, tracing a clean, crisp arc.

Then she drew her weight back slightly, her shoulders and back guiding the motion as the force pressed down along with it.

The blade flipped and fell!

It finally stopped less than a centimeter from the TV stand, held in check without releasing its force.

Because the living room was so cramped, Lu Xiu had to control her strength within an extremely limited space. That instead forced her to be even more precise.

Lu Xiu looked at the subtly trembling tip of the blade, her expression thoughtful.

So she really had learned something...

After all, even though she had been playing Sekiro, it was this body that had fought minor bosses nonstop. How could it possibly forget?

Still, reality had none of the system's stat bonuses. Though her movements remained as fluid as they had been in the dungeon, both the speed and power felt somewhat lacking.

Her attributes still were not enough.

Lu Xiu sheathed the sword and let out a soft breath.

She hoped clearing the Sekiro dungeon would give her more attribute points.

Strength, agility... even a single point increase would make wielding a blade in reality feel completely different.

She could not keep [Atypical Courage] active forever.

"Hopefully it'll give me a few good skills too."

Lu Xiu muttered to herself, then glanced at the sword in her hand again.

She intended to try again.

Only this time.

She began recalling the sight of Emma making her move.

About a minute later, she raised her sword again.

Huff—

Kesagiri.

A left cut.

Then a reverse kesagiri.

Although Lu Xiu completed the sequence in one smooth motion, she could not shake the sense of sluggishness clinging to every swing.

Reality had no system corrections, nor did she possess Sekiro's absurd explosive strength.

Honestly, she was having a hard time getting used to it.

In the cramped living room.

Lu Xiu kept swinging her sword as she recalled the scenes of battle. Her movements grew faster and smoother, and she gradually became immersed in them.

...Deflecting, slashing, sidestepping to evade.

Scene after scene from the dungeon became increasingly clear.

And then.

Almost instinctively, Lu Xiu jabbed the tip of her foot sharply toward the front side.

A shuffle step.

But in reality, she did not possess any skill that could grant her that kind of explosive acceleration.

Her attributes did not support such a movement either.

"Eh?!"

The result was—

Her center of gravity instantly went out of control.

Lu Xiu pitched forward and lunged straight toward the front side.

The next second.

Thud.

Her head hit the wall, the sound exceptionally clear in the quiet living room.

"..."

Lu Xiu tossed the practice katana onto the floor, slowly crouched down, covered her head with both hands, and let out a mournful cry.

That fierce killing intent from before vanished without a trace.

But soon enough.

She came to her senses.

"No."

Lu Xiu abruptly lowered her hands from her head, her expression turning strange. "Why did I start doing it again? Why is it still affecting me...?"

Halfway through her sentence.

She suddenly realized something and looked down.

Because she had crouched too quickly, the hem of her nightgown had flipped up and bunched around her thighs, revealing a large expanse of creamy, smooth, lustrously pale skin.

Seeing that, Lu Xiu slapped her forehead. She roughly understood why... and completely lost her temper.

She sighed and stood back up.

No more trying. It was pointless.

When it came to fighting, compared with being constantly thrown off by that subtle disconnect in reality—

The dungeon was far more straightforward.

Most importantly, her current attributes did not meet the requirements, and she had no matching skills. Even if she kept trying, she would not get anywhere.

In the end, she would have to see what clearing the [Sekiro] dungeon rewarded her with. Only by combining that with the rewards could she find the fighting style best suited to her.

Still, no matter what, honing her skills could never be wrong.

As Lu Xiu pondered this, she summoned the system interface and entered the building space once more.

At the same time.

A thousand meters away.

Wang Baosheng stared at the window before him in astonishment.

[Urgent Notice]

[All builders are to suspend their current projects]

[Within one week, submit the access lists for your personal dungeons]

Wang Baosheng scrolled up, confirmed that he had not misread it, then typed his question:

[Sheng]: Access lists? Which dungeons do we need to submit lists for?

[Sheng]: The ones we made recently?

[Administrator]: All of them.

[Sheng]: What time range?

[Administrator]: All time periods.

Seeing the administrator's reply.

Wang Baosheng was even more stunned.

He had been in the Spirit Pivot Dungeon-Building Society for so long, yet he had never seen data collection on this scale.

The others probably had not either.

Because the messages started flooding in.

[Old K]: My dungeons have nearly a hundred thousand visits combined!

[South Wind]: I've got five dungeons here, how am I supposed to do this??

[Li Bailu]: What exactly happened?

The administrator offered no explanation, only replying:

[Follow the steps below—Data Extraction and Submission Procedure.]

[Do not filter.]

[Do not delete.]

[Submit the raw data.]

Wang Baosheng opened the tutorial and gave it a quick scan, growing increasingly uncertain.

What the hell was this for?!