Great Sage Sun's Staff (Please Bookmark!)

After reading through the quests, Shen Bing could not help looking up and sighing. What the hell kind of game was this?

No starter equipment, not a single monster in sight, and no character stats panel. All it had were these bizarre quests, and the damn things did not even say what the rewards were.

How was he supposed to choose a suitable quest? What kind of joke was this?

Fine, I'm a newbie right now, so I can forget about Great Sage Sun's quest. If I go looking for him while he's in a rage, who knows whether he'll kill me with one swing of his Staff?

One swing... and I'm dead! Shen Bing shivered. He decided he had better stay well away from Great Sage Sun.

"Maybe I'll try my luck and see which quest is easiest to finish." As a veteran gamer, Shen Bing was not about to sit there guessing.

"Is there auto-pathing? Doesn't look like it. How am I supposed to find these NPCs?... Wait, I nearly forgot. I seem to be on an island. Don't tell me I've hit a bug and gotten stuck in the map?"

Shen Bing stared at his phone Screen, wondering whether he should uninstall this ridiculous game.

Then he absently tapped one of the items in the quest bar, and a prompt immediately popped up.

"Teleport to quest location?"

"Might as well try." Shen Bing had nothing better to do, so he tapped confirm.

The scene on the Screen abruptly changed to the entrance of an ancient-looking hall. Only... the hall seemed rather run-down, like a temple that no one worshipped at anymore.

The Plague God Hall? That made sense. Who would worship the Plague God if they did not have to? People could not get away from him fast enough.

Shen Bing zoomed out and found that he was finally off the island.

What bothered him was that there still was not a single other player. Was this a single-player game?

"Ice, I'm in a bad mood. Come work out with me." The voice came from the doorway—not from his phone, but from their dorm room door.

Shen Bing looked up. A big guy with a buzz cut was standing there. He shot him an irritated glare. "My name's Shen Bing, not Bing! You're the little one. Your whole family's little."

The big guy was Shen Bing's roommate, Wang Bo, a bona fide man from Shandong.

Normally, he would have retorted that the whole world knew just how "big" he was. But today he looked dejected. He sighed, lay down on his bed, and said nothing.

"What's wrong? Weren't you meeting your girlfriend's mother today? Meeting her family in your senior year—you're living a more exciting life than the rest of us." Shen Bing kept his eyes on the game as he spoke.

At that, Wang Bo sprang up and bared his teeth. "Ice, we can still be friends if you don't bring up that meeting!"

Shen Bing's interest was piqued. He looked up. "Oh? Something painful happened? Tell me so I can have a laugh."

"Get lost..." Wang Bo glared at him with the fury of a Diamond Warrior. It lasted all of a second before he sagged again. "It's a long story. That old woman actually wants me, the sole male heir for eight generations, to marry into her family! Marry into her family... damn it! I cut those words out of my dictionary years ago."

Shen Bing froze for a moment, then burst out laughing.

It might not have been so funny if it had happened to anyone else. But asking Wang Bo, a fiercely macho Shandong man, to marry into his wife's family? The image was priceless.

"Do you have a heart? I'm about to lose my mind, and you're laughing?" Wang Bo looked ready to rush over and throttle him.

Shen Bing knew the guy too well. His misery would not last half an hour. There was precedent.

"Then find someone else. This is already your hundred and eighth relationship. What's one more?"

"But I've always admired the heroes of Mount Liang! One hundred and eight is a lucky number..."

"Uh..." Shen Bing decided to ignore the lunatic. The guy was getting more ridiculous by the day.

Under Shen Bing's control, his character had already entered the hall...

When Wang Bo saw that Shen Bing was ignoring him, he went back to bed. He even pulled down his mosquito net to spend his half hour grieving.

“What fellow cultivator has come to visit?” A dialogue box like the ones in any other game appeared on the Screen. It pointed toward the back of the hall, where an NPC clearly waited.

How unoriginal.

Then another box popped up above Shen Bing's character, with a field waiting for him to enter text.

Could he actually talk to the NPC directly?

If so, the game really did have something worth advertising.

Games these days all used fixed dialogue scripts. At most, they offered players a few choices. All anyone did was keep clicking the mouse or tapping the Screen. Who bothered reading the dialogue?

Shen Bing promptly typed a line into the box.

"I am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven!" It was a thoroughly mischievous thing to say.

But as soon as Shen Bing pressed confirm, little dialogue boxes began popping up across the Screen.

Clang...

Crash, clatter...

Then a figure stumbled out. He had prominent brows, sunken eyes, a narrow forehead, and two little eyes that darted about before settling on Shen Bing's character.

"Great Sage, my... Great Sage?" A dialogue box appeared above his head.

"I, the humble Plague God, pay my respects to you, Great Sage."

"Great Sage... why have you changed your appearance like this?"

"What are your orders, Great Sage?"

The fellow was clearly beside himself. Shen Bing suddenly felt a little guilty. Had claiming to be the Great Sage Equal to Heaven gone too far? Look how badly he had scared the Plague God!

A moment later, Shen Bing began to wonder when games had become this intelligent. Had the programmers prepared a dialogue pattern for someone claiming to be the Great Sage Equal to Heaven?

He had to test it properly!

"I'm bored out of my mind. Whatever good things you have, hurry up and bring them out for me!"

He tapped confirm.

Perhaps it was Shen Bing's imagination, but as the words appeared, his character's expression and bearing matched them perfectly. It was almost as though the game knew what he was thinking.

The Plague God NPC immediately looked ready to cry. "Great Sage, you can see how lowly my position is. What treasure could I possibly offer you?"

Suddenly, a cat meowed from behind the hall—or rather, a line of text said that one had.

An idea struck Shen Bing, and he quickly typed: "Old Sun likes the sound of that cat. Give it to me!"

"Great Sage, you're asking for my life! Doudou means everything to me. She may be an ordinary Demon Beast, but she's tough! Giving her a beating now and then is my only amusement." The Plague God NPC's face crumpled.

Shen Bing nearly spat blood. The fellow really was bored. Eat, sleep, beat up Doudou...

"But... Doudou recently had a litter of little Cat Demons. If you truly like cats, Great Sage, I could give you one." The Plague God looked uneasily at the ordinary-looking person before him. When the Great Sage Equal to Heaven came knocking, there was no avoiding a loss. Even the Grand Supreme Elder could not escape it, much less a minor Plague God like him.

Shen Bing's interest stirred. A kitten demon was still a cat demon. It ought to make a decent Pet.

Anything from the Immortal Realm had to be top-notch.

He had never expected to get his first Pet in this game by extorting someone.

He had never heard of a game that let you play this way.

"Then hurry up and bring it here!" Shen Bing was settling into the role of a bully quite comfortably.

The Plague God NPC had not expected to get off so easily. He trotted away and soon returned carrying a kitten, which he held out to Shen Bing.

"The Plague God wishes to trade with you. Accept?"

"Accept!"

A trade panel appeared, with a kitten in the trade slot. Shen Bing clicked confirm without a second thought.

And then... the kitten vanished from the Plague God's hands.

"Such impressive skill, Great Sage!" the Plague God said, offering a little flattery.

It was rather insincere. Universe in the Sleeve was not considered a profound spell in the Immortal Realm; almost everyone could use it. The one who wielded it best, though, was Immortal Zhenyuan, the Ancestor of Earthly Immortals.

"I hear you've been lonely lately and want a friend?" Shen Bing entered the line, then opened his inventory.

Kitten Demon (unnamed): A newborn kitten demon with weak magical power. Innate ability: Plague God Possession. Causes the designated target to suffer repeated misfortune. Duration depends on the Cat Demon's magical power.

Shen Bing thought that innate ability was a rip-off. Weren't pets in games supposed to help fight monsters and other players? What use was making an opponent unlucky? Was luck especially important in this Immortal Realm game?

A box popped up in the upper right corner of his inventory: "The other immortals won't associate with me. I have been terribly lonely."

"How about I become your friend?" Shen Bing figured he could keep stringing the Plague God along, and closed the inventory panel.

But before the Plague God could answer, a box appeared at the bottom left of the Screen: “What fiend dares sully Old Sun's name?”

The next instant, Shen Bing saw a Staff growing rapidly larger before his eyes. It struck his character...

"My first death..." Shen Bing would never have guessed that this was how it would happen.

NPCs could attack players whenever they wanted? What kind of rotten setup was that? There had to be more to it.

"You were killed by Sun Wukong. Choose: Revive in Place / Safe Revival."

Looking at the grayed-out Screen and the monkey who had leaped into view, Shen Bing knew better than to choose Revive in Place. That would only get him killed again.

The monkey seemed to be talking to the Plague God, but no dialogue boxes appeared, so Shen Bing had no way to know what they were saying.

With no other choice, Shen Bing selected Safe Revival.

The scene changed, and Shen Bing found himself back in a familiar place: that little island.

"Sent right back to the starting area," Shen Bing muttered.