This Save Is Ruined (Revised)

"Summer 195: Ren Wo Xing died at the age of 23. Last words: I really want... to catch river shrimp with my brothers again..."

"Summer 195: Ren Chang Sheng inherited the position of family head and changed his name to Ren Wo Xing. From then on, every successive family head changed their name to Ren Wo Xing."

"Autumn 199: Ren Chang Sheng died at the age of 23. Last words: I never regretted being born into the Ren family."

"Autumn 199: Ren Xiao Bai inherited the position of family head and changed her name to Ren Wo Xing."

"Spring 206: Ren Luo, the son of Ren Xiao Bai and the White Horse Spirit Lord, was born."

"Summer 209: Ren Bu Hui died in the Red Cliff Ghost Domain at the age of 15."

On the third day after getting the game, Ren Suo had reached this point and basically knew this save was ruined. There was no real hope of clearing it.

Ren family cultivators could only begin cultivating at age eight, and could only commune spiritually and fight at age fourteen. For their first eight years, newborns were nothing more than population figures.

Ren Suo had originally wondered whether, after Ren Wo Xing died, he would only be able to sit before the screen and watch the game play itself. He had not expected every successive family head to change their name to Ren Wo Xing—meaning control would be handed over to the player.

When time advanced to 209, just after Cao Cao, Sun Quan, and Liu Bei had fought the most decisive battle of the Three Kingdoms period at Red Cliff, Ren Suo sent Ren Fei Fan's daughter, Ren Bu Hui, to farm Aura Crystals in the newly spawned Red Cliff Ghost Domain. The Ren family only had two cultivators who could be deployed, Ren Xiao Bai and Ren Bu Hui, and one of them had to remain home. Thus, only Ren Bu Hui could set out.

Ren Bu Hui was not the third-generation Ren Wo Xing, so Ren Suo could not control her. Yet after sending her out, all that returned was news of her death. Apparently, the demons in the Red Cliff Ghost Domain were far beyond Ren Bu Hui's expectations. She could not even escape.

Now, the Ren family only had three-year-old Ren Luo and eighteen-year-old Ren Xiao Bai. Ren Xiao Bai had nearly died twice, leaving her with a lifespan of only twenty-one years.

Even if Ren Xiao Bai died of old age, Ren Luo would still remain. But as time advanced, the Three Kingdoms demons would only grow stronger. Ren Luo, starting cultivation from scratch, simply could not beat them! If he could not defeat demons, he could not earn Aura Crystals, and naturally could not find spirits to reproduce with!

It seemed unsolvable. Ren family cultivators only had from age eight to twenty-three to cultivate, a fixed amount of cultivation time. Perhaps the number of villagers could accelerate it, but once the older generation died, the new generation would inevitably be too weak to enter the battlefield because of their short cultivation time. If they spent time cultivating, the demons would keep growing stronger, shortening their mating period—they only had ten years to reproduce!

However, two-star difficulty did not mean there was no solution. This game had two methods that could always keep Ren family cultivators above the demons. First, reproduce with powerful spirits. Not only would the children born possess special attributes, but their cultivation speed would also increase.

For example, Ren Xiao Bai, born from Ren Wo Xing and the Tai Bai Plain Earth Spirit, mastered the offensive spell Earth Vein Art after cultivating. This spell was fundamentally no different from Ren Chang Sheng's Flame Art. Yet if Ren Xiao Bai chose offense as her cultivation direction, her defense would also increase by 0.5. If she cultivated defense, her defense would increase by 1.5.

In other words, if Ren Xiao Bai cultivated offense, her attack increased by 1 and her defense by 0.5. If she cultivated defense, her attack increased by 0 and her defense by 1.5.

And that was without factoring in the effect of the village population!

The Tai Bai Plain Earth Spirit herself was a relatively weak spirit—one could tell from her cheap price of only 300 Aura Crystals. If they found a stronger spirit to reproduce with, gaining +10 to all attributes in one season of cultivation was not impossible. Of course, that meant the Ren family had to defeat more demons and earn more money...

The second method was inheritance. In spring 199, when Ren Xiao Bai had just turned eight and could cultivate, a new function called "Inheritance" appeared on the left side of the family hall.

"Inheritance" could instantly exhaust all of a family member's remaining lifespan and transfer their attributes into another family member. Depending on how closely related the two family members were and how compatible their attributes were, the recipient could obtain between 25% and 50% of the donor's attributes.

Ren Suo chose the nearly dead Ren Chang Sheng to pass on his inheritance to Ren Xiao Bai. Ren Chang Sheng immediately kicked the bucket, while Ren Xiao Bai gained 35% of his attributes. Otherwise, she would not have been able to earn enough Aura Crystals at the Guandu Battlefield to sleep with the White Horse Spirit Lord.

This was the safest and most economical way to grow stronger. With inheritance passed down generation after generation, the next generation would always be stronger than the last, allowing them to keep pace with the demons—as long as the inheritance line was never broken.

Moreover, Ren Suo discovered that trying to become the Shilipo Sword God, cultivating until absurdly powerful before farming demons, was completely unfeasible. Not only would the mating period shorten and the demons keep getting stronger, but more importantly, once demons grew stronger, they would not stay still. They would actively destroy nearby spirits!

In other words, they would actively reduce the number of possible mating partners for Ren family cultivators!

After Ren Chang Sheng died and before Ren Xiao Bai could grow stronger, the Battle of Guandu took place in 200. Cao Cao's army won decisively, and the Guandu Battlefield became another demon resource point. Since no Ren family cultivators could set out, Ren Suo could only leave it alone.

Then, in 203, Ren Suo suddenly received a message: "The Guandu Flame Ghost Army has killed the Liyang Earth Spirit."

Only then did Ren Suo realize that demons really did have the habit of attacking spirits. When the Tai Bai Plain Earth Spirit had called for help before, Ren Suo had thought it was merely part of the plot!

But by this point, Ren Suo had basically figured out the game's settings and its fundamental strategy. Without question, places where demons appeared were closely related to major events of the Three Kingdoms period—or, more accurately, historical events where many people died.

Hulao Pass, Guandu, and Red Cliff had already occurred. Later there would be Xiaoyao Ford, Hanzhong, Jieting... Interspersed among them would be demons born from natural disasters such as locust plagues, snowstorms, and Yellow River floods. Then there would be the great plague of 217, when the Central Plains would become a ghost domain. By then, there definitely would not be any shortage of monsters to farm.

Managing a family, the unpredictability of human hearts, generational succession...

Ren Suo wrote down his strategy ideas. After reading through them and finding no issues, he prepared to restart the game.

Just then, his phone suddenly rang.

Ren Suo looked at it. He did not recognize the number, though it was local. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Ren Suo?" The caller was a girl with a crisp voice.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"I am An Su Yu, a member of the Anti-Special Crime Task Force. I am formally notifying you that you have been accepted into the Anti-Special Crime Task Force. Please report to the National Security Bureau at 220 Revolution Road, Yuexiu District, Lianjiang City, within today or tomorrow. You will officially begin work the following day."

Ren Suo was somewhat stunned. "I'm still a fourth-year student about to graduate. Normally, I shouldn't start until June..."

"I don't know the exact base salary and allowances for Anti-Special Crime Task Force members," the other party interrupted him. "But the Cultivation Field built in Lianjiang City has already been completed. At present, it is only open to state employees... More accurately, only members of the Anti-Special Crime Task Force are qualified to enter the Cultivation Field. Each person may stay there for one hour every day."

"Alright, I'll report this afternoon!" Ren Suo immediately said.

No matter how much he played the game, he gained little beyond mission rewards. But if he became a state-employed cultivator one day earlier, he could begin cultivating one day earlier in the Cultivation Field, where spiritual energy was highly concentrated!

Ren Suo was quite rational about this sort of thing—one only had to look at how he bought the game console only after receiving an offer to know that he was someone accustomed to suffering first and enjoying life later.

The Little World Game Console would not run away if he left it here. But whether he could catch this wave of the era, become one of the first generation of Xuan Kingdom cultivators, and then coast through the rest of his life depended on his efforts over the next few years!

Remembering something, Ren Suo picked up the controller, returned to the main interface, and selected "Game Character."

The skill he currently had equipped was Good Dream Art, while his backup skill was Infinite Stamina. Since he would be going out this afternoon, it was better to be cautious and equip Introduction to Fighting—he was still unfamiliar with the two spells, Clothing and Lock.

However, when Ren Suo saw the list on the left of "Game Character" and the skill list on the right, he immediately froze.

"Game Character": Ren Suo.

"Ability Slot": Good Dream Art.

"Item Slot": None.

"Backup Slot": Infinite Stamina.

"Unequipped Skills": Introduction to Fighting, Spell, Spell.

"Game Character": Ren Wo Xing.

"Ability Slot": None.

"Item Slot": None.

"Backup Slot": None.