Destination: Clear Spring Stockade

Lin Feng opened his eyes and found himself standing on a mountain path.

The moon hung above the willow branches.

Before him stood a dark-skinned, middle-aged man in traditional ethnic clothing.

At that moment, the man was watching him warily.

For a moment, Lin Feng felt a flicker of panic.

He could no longer sense his body in the outside world!

He felt as though he was actually inside the game!

He wanted to quit, but there was no exit button!

This is bad!

Do I have to finish the game to leave, or have I become an NPC?

He looked down at himself and saw that he was wearing Daoist robes. Reaching behind him, he felt a sword on his back.

"Master Lin, shall we go?"

The guide asked cautiously.

Lin Feng said nothing. He carefully studied himself and his surroundings. He seemed to have become this so-called Master Lin and arrived in Western Hunan.

He stood on a mountain path, with a pitch-black forest in the distance. A waning moon hung overhead, unable to illuminate the dark road.

The mountains lurked in the darkness like a monstrous flood dragon waiting to devour them.

As he stared ahead, two words appeared before his eyes.

[Road ahead]

He turned to look at the guide, whose head bore the label [Guide].

Wait, what?

Where's my character panel?

At the thought, Lin Feng instinctively clicked his teeth together, and a character panel suddenly appeared before him.

Huh? Clicking my teeth?

[Name: Lin Feng]

[Class: High Ritual Daoist of Dragon-Tiger Mountain]

[Status: Blessed by auspicious stars, protected by dragon and tiger]

[Skills: Swordsmanship mastery (passive), talisman mastery (passive), ritual proficiency (passive)...

Wind Riding (active), Samadhi True Fire (active), Command Spirits and Dispatch Generals (active), Armor Horse (active), Bean Soldiers (active), Lingguan Possession (active)...]

[Equipment: Dragon-Tiger Mountain High Ritual Sword, Dragon-Tiger Mountain High Ritual Robes, eighth-grade talismans (...), seventh-grade talismans (...), third-grade talisman (Shangqing Firmament True Fire Talisman)...]

[Note: Your name is already on Zhang Daoling's shortlist. You are destined to join the Celestial Master's ranks.]

Looking at the stats of what was practically a max-level character, Lin Feng understood why this mission was called a beginner mission.

Just look at this Daoist character template.

Judging by the panel, this Daoist Lin was nothing short of an immortal walking the earth.

Once he ascended to heaven, he would serve under Celestial Master Zhang.

While still alive, he already had a guaranteed job in the Celestial Court.

And then there was this interface.

It was packed with skills, with a lavish selection of passives and actives. He was practically invincible in the mortal world.

This was a total gaming newbie logging into a max-level veteran's account!

Seeing how lavishly equipped his character was,

Lin Feng suddenly felt much less afraid.

With a character panel this stacked, surely I can't crash and burn in the very first act?

I, Lin Feng, am invincible in the mortal world!

Besides, this is the game's first act.

By basic gaming logic,

the final boss isn't going to show up in the first act.

"Master, shall we go?"

The guide timidly asked again. Lin Feng glanced at him and said, "Let's go."

"Right!"

Only then did the guide breathe a sigh of relief. He rambled on, "Master, I don't mean to nag, but if we want to reach Clear Spring Stockade before dawn, we need to leave now. It'll take about eight hours just to reach the gates.

"If the county magistrate hadn't ordered me to guide you, I really wouldn't dare walk this road. These past few months, it's been one danger after another once you enter the mountains.

"Just in the last fortnight, plenty of the peddlers heading into the stockades have gone missing."

Lin Feng paid attention to the guide's words. After all, characters in games often supplied a great deal of useful information when they spoke.

Peddlers, eight hours, missing people—every one of those details might conceal a branching storyline.

The road stretched far ahead. The guide carefully lit a candle, and Lin Feng caught its strange smell.

He instinctively frowned.

A few memories surfaced.

"A human-fat candle?"

As he spoke, disgust instinctively welled up in the high ritual Daoist's mind.

Hearing him, the guide calmly explained, "Master, yin spirits travel this road. This candle masks the human scent on us and saves us a lot of trouble."

The explanation sat uneasily with Lin Feng. He knew this was another of the crooked occult practices found among ordinary people. Such practices were countless.

He also had spells that could suppress the three flames on a person's body and mask their human scent. But since the guide had already lit the candle, there was no need to cast one himself.

As for cutting the guide down simply because he disapproved of human-fat candles,

there was no need.

The guide was also one of the local chieftain's men. Killing him would cause plenty of trouble afterward.

Following that line of reasoning, Lin Feng let it be. The road was utterly dark, but to his eyes, the mountain path was as bright as day.

Lin Feng had expected danger after danger along the way, yet their journey proved uneventful. It did seem to have rained heavily here, though. Landslides had made some stretches unsafe.

After walking for four hours, Lin Feng realized just how formidable this body was. Despite the rugged, treacherous path, he was neither tired nor breathless and had not broken a sweat. Walking these steep mountain trails felt like strolling on level ground.

The guide trudged ahead with uneven steps, already holding a fresh candle.

Suddenly, he let out a scream.

"Hm?"

Lin Feng instinctively drew his ritual sword, muscle memory making the movement incredibly smooth. Seeing that the guide had stepped into a muddy pit, he was about to ask what he was screaming for when a huge hand suddenly reached out of the mud.

The hand was covered in scales, its nails like daggers. Spread wide, it could seize a person as easily as a chick. Its fingers closed toward the guide.

With an effortless slash, Lin Feng severed the hand, cutting clean through even its bones.

It was pure instinct. This high ritual Daoist's body reacted far faster than Lin Feng himself!

But the instant the hand was severed, green blood sprayed everywhere!

Lin Feng dodged the blood, gliding a hundred feet away in a single fluid step. The guide was not so fortunate. Green blood splashed over him, and Lin Feng watched dense clusters of festering boils erupt across his body.

Before he could even scream, the guide dissolved into a puddle of pus before Lin Feng's eyes.

"What!?"

This turn of events had completely blindsided Lin Feng.

As the guide dissolved into pus, everything around Lin Feng began to freeze. Some mysterious force seemed to eject him from the world, plunging him back into darkness.

A line of blood-red text appeared before him.

[The guide has died. Mission failed.]

Below that line were two options.

[Restart]

[Exit game]

Normally, Lin Feng should have chosen to exit the game at this point.

This game was far too bizarre!

No matter how he looked at it, something was wrong.

But after a brief hesitation, Lin Feng still chose to restart!

He refused to accept this!

This game is playing dirty!

I have such great equipment and such a powerful character, but my mission fails just because the guide makes one careless mistake and dies on the road?

I won't be able to sleep until I settle this!

That damned male competitive streak had reared its head!

When other organs took over the thinking,

people lost their brains.

After he selected restart, the guide timidly approached. Before he could speak, Lin Feng swept out a hand.

"Let's go."

The guide: "..."

The guide tried to light the human-fat candle, but Lin Feng stopped him. As soon as he wanted a way to suppress their three flames and human aura, a method naturally surfaced in his mind.

He suppressed both their human auras. When the guide tried to lead the way, Lin Feng stopped him again.

Lin Feng said, "No need. I'll go first! Just give me directions from behind."

The guide: "..."

The two set off again. With the night-sighted Lin Feng leading, nothing happened along the way. When they reached the spot where disaster had struck before, Lin Feng skirted the mud, and no giant hand emerged to forcibly block their path.

Apparently, it was a triggered trap.

They continued onward, chatting as they walked.

The guide did not know much about Clear Spring Stockade, their destination.

Deep in the mountains, many Miao stockades occupied exceptionally perilous locations.

Clear Spring Stockade was no different.

Clear Spring Stockade was one of the outer stockades in the mountains, and one of the thirty-six old stockades.

The clans living in these old stockades were known as the Raw Miao. They disliked interacting with outsiders from beyond the mountains and would not even communicate with the other local Miao.

Only certain peddlers could enter and leave their stockades.

Or rather, members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard disguised as peddlers.

Several members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard had reported this incident. They said that on their last visit to Clear Spring Stockade, they had found a smashed pot and a fallen gong planted at its entrance. The entire stockade was deserted.

This meant that disaster had struck the stockade.

Everyone inside, male or female, young or old, had died.

No outsider, whoever they might be, was permitted to enter.

Otherwise, they would bring death upon themselves.

In other words, I'm heading to a ghost stockade where everyone is dead?

What am I going there for?

To investigate the case?