The Girl Named Jue, the One That Escaped

The crowd reveled until midnight...

The Elves' bodies in the game World Tree could also grow tired. For low-level creatures, necessary rest was still required.

Although players could turn off the sensation of fatigue, the negative debuffs caused by fatigue would still remain.

Under negative debuffs, all of the body's attributes would decline, and severe cases could even result in death.

Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, most players chose to rest. At worst, they could log off for an hour while their characters rested. After all, World Tree had thought-acceleration technology—one hour in reality equaled ten hours in the game.

And so the night passed. It was now dawn on the second day of game time, making it more convenient to get moving.

Qi Lin returned to the Player Camp with the others and found that many hardcore grinders were still gathered around the bonfire, chatting and laughing.

It would have been even better if not for every player's bizarre appearance and the negative status icons beside their names.

The players gathered around the bonfire in groups of three or five, eating fruit they had gathered in the forest during the day and game they had hunted.

They laughed and chatted together. Some players had even started a party, singing and dancing, while others used unknown blades of grass from the roadside as instruments to play an unrecognizable accompaniment.

Although it was already past midnight, the entire Player Camp remained lively and cheerful, as though they were celebrating a festival.

Looking at the scene before them, the group that had just emerged from the orchard felt somewhat dazed.

The evening breeze blowing from the forest, the lake in the distance reflecting the moon and stars overhead, the flickering bonfire shadows... together with the nearby laughter of the players, this place felt like a paradise where one could escape the pressure and pain of reality.

Watching this scene, everyone seemed to gain a deeper understanding of "immersion." This World Tree game was clearly different from the games they had played before.

It was as if they were not playing a game at all, but attending an interesting outdoor camping trip with a group of strangers whose names they did not know.

Together, they escaped the disappointments of reality and stayed away from the clamor of the mortal world. Together, they completed quests with strangers, went on adventures, and shared in joy...

As Qi Lin watched them, she felt as though it was all an unreal dream.

And that dream was so illusory, yet so beautiful.

This time, everyone truly understood the meaning of "immersion."

"This is immersion, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Even though it's a game, it feels like another real world."

Ironclad Heroism gazed at the Player Camp before him, though his eyes seemed focused on nowhere in particular. He finally understood everything Young Mistress had said before.

Thinking of himself in reality, he said, "To me, this place isn't just a game anymore. It's more like a sanctuary from the real world..."

"Every flower, every blade of grass, every tree here feels so real."

"If it weren't for the Earth network and the system logout function, I'd sometimes think I was the protagonist who had transmigrated into a fantasy world."

Lord Xin could not stand it any longer. He slapped Ironclad Heroism on the shoulder. "Xiaolun, what are you doing, acting all profound over here?"

Ironclad Heroism, who was actually Ge Xiaolun, scratched the back of his head and said helplessly, "Lord Xin, I was just speaking from the heart."

"I suddenly understand what those lines in the game's promotional material meant..."

"To create the most realistic, most profound, most immersive magical xianxia gaming experience..."

"The developers really are trying to create a world like this."

Dun Qu Qi Yi muttered inwardly, Does that really require a brain? Big Sister just used a ready-made script... But she could only think it to herself.

Lord Xin, however, was getting impatient. He slapped Ironclad Heroism on the back, instantly shattering the atmosphere he had worked so hard to create.

"What the hell are you rambling on about?"

Ironclad Heroism helplessly rubbed his back with one hand. I clearly turned off pain perception, so why does it still feel itchy? He could only continue.

"Come to think of it, what exactly did we do all day?"

"Hunting." That was Hawkeye and Coulson.

"Chopping trees." That was Young Mistress.

"Cleaning the streets and looking for fruit." That was Qi Lin.

"Fighting wild boars. I died, so all the levels I'd trained were wasted." That was Lord Xin. Apparently recalling what he had gone through that day, his voice carried a trace of helplessness.

"And teasing the NPC Skadi." That was Big D.

Qi Lin, Young Mistress, and Dun Qu Qi Yi all turned to glare fiercely at Big D.

Ever since Young Mistress and Qi Lin had guessed that Skadi was an artificial intelligence with a high level of intelligence, they had been unable to feel any goodwill toward the three people who had stripped naked at the start.

Thinking of that, Young Mistress was the first to laugh.

"Now that you mention it, we spent the entire day doing manual labor, yet none of us thought anything was wrong with that. We charged right in like fools, happily doing it. If someone in real life tried to make me do manual labor, my grandfather would have them chopped into a thousand pieces."

After watching the players in the camp who had yet to rest for a while, everyone went into the wooden huts to sleep.

Young Mistress had arranged all the wooden huts. As for rent, everyone simply wrote IOUs and would pay it back once they had Mora in the future.

By midnight, a few scattered players outside were still chatting and laughing under their negative debuffs.

In a crude two-story wooden house, Young Mistress had assigned the first floor to the male players, who were squeezed together. The room on the second floor contained only the three female players: Young Mistress, Qi Lin, and Dun Qu Qi Yi.

Dun Qu Qi Yi, lying on a simple plank bed in the second-floor room, cautiously opened her eyes and glanced at Sister Tianhe Sheriff and Young Mistress, who were in the same room as her.

She sat up, raised a finger, and summoned a system panel, then glanced at the players sharing the room with her.

If anyone could clearly see the panel here, they would find that it was unmistakably the system backend, displaying the following:

[Tianhe Sheriff, status: Offline.]

[Young Mistress, status: Offline.]

"Phew!" Dun Qu Qi Yi slowly let out a breath. Although she already knew they had logged off and returned to reality, she was still extremely careful to make as little noise as possible.

After leaving the Player Camp, Dun Qu Qi Yi spread her long legs and sprinted with all her strength.

The wind whistled through the woods, outlining Dun Qu Qi Yi's curvaceous figure in every detail.

Dun Qu Qi Yi transformed into a nimble female leopard. With a light tap against the ground, she appeared dozens of meters away, just like a martial arts master from a wuxia novel.

After running only a short distance, Dun Qu Qi Yi abruptly stopped and looked toward an additional elegant, tall figure among the trees.

Upon seeing that figure, Dun Qu Qi Yi happily shouted, "Sister Skadi!"

As she spoke, Dun Qu Qi Yi leaped into the air and clung tightly to Skadi like a koala.

Skadi only saw a blur before her face sank into the soft fullness of Dun Qu Qi Yi's chest.

Skadi sighed helplessly and could only form a magical hand with her mana, lifting Dun Qu Qi Yi off her like a cat. Then Skadi said helplessly,

"Princess Jue, how many times must I tell you not to do that?" Clearly, the girl named Jue was indeed the player Dun Qu Qi Yi.

Jue stuck out her tongue and put on an indifferent expression. "What does it matter? Besides, every time Big Sister sees us like this, she seems really excited."