Chapter 12

"Familiar ceiling."

With his vision going dark then bright, Chen Shicheng had already returned to his familiar rented apartment.

Looking at the darkening sky outside the window, just like in the game, he did a carp sit-up on the bed.

"I go!"

This exertion seemed a bit too strong; he jumped up nearly two meters with a straightening motion, and if he hadn't quickly braced with his hands, he would have had close contact with the ceiling.

"Sure enough, it synced with reality."

Chen Shicheng, fallen on the bed, stared at his own hands, dazed.

Colorful light streamed through the window, making his expression flicker.

Selling it would yield 440 million game coins, and the power, no different from in the game, gave him an extremely surreal feeling, as if he had undergone an absurd and unrestrained dream.

But the firm muscles of his abdomen and the basic sword technique seemingly engraved in his bodily instincts told him that all this was real.

From now on, he had already diverged greatly from the masses; his future self would embark on a road with uncertain prospects, fraught with danger or strewn with flowers.

However, he would risk his life to walk this path! Of course, this is only temporary; the game is still in closed beta, and he is only a small step ahead of others. If he settles for this and stops progressing, he may end up as obscure as before.

Therefore, Chen Shicheng glanced at the pendant on his chest, picked up his phone, and sent a resignation message to his superior, then frantically ordered a pile of barbecue takeout he previously wouldn't dare imagine.

As for logging back into the game to continue leveling, he currently had no such intention.

After the maid's explanation, he had a rough understanding of the game: at night, the wild monsters outside the county seat would enter frenzy mode, and with their level unchanged, their strength would roughly double.

Therefore, going out at night to level up by fighting monsters is a very unwise choice.

Anyway, the thugs raised in the brothel are high-level, and the patrolling soldiers seem to have been dealt with; they often linger around here, so logging off in the private rooms poses no danger. Thus he still decided to rest and recuperate, continuing the game tomorrow morning.

While waiting for the takeout, the bored Chen Shicheng tested his current strength in the kitchen and, meanwhile, practiced a routine he had figured out himself with a kitchen knife, which he named the 'Sword Technique Body Refining Chapter'.

One must say, transcendent is awesome!

His refrigerator isn't large; it's a 1.7-meter-tall double-door fridge, which when full of food weighs about 200 catties.

Before, even if he were exhausted to death, he couldn't lift it.

But now, he merely exerts a little force, and the fridge easily leaves the ground.

He roughly estimated that one point of essence attribute in the game adds about 120 catties of strength, and with his current 6.3 essence attribute, with some effort he could lift over 700 catties.

He doesn't know if this strength could kill a cow with one punch, but a person hit by it would surely die or be crippled! The attribute side is fine, but the technique is somewhat problematic.

In the game, leveling actually has two tracks: one is the normal monster‑killing upgrade, the other is daily hard training like an NPC.

And although the body‑refining realm techniques have different names, their function is identical: refining food essence into qi and blood to strengthen the body.

So, Chen Shicheng, with an empty stomach, hadn't even finished half his practice when his stomach began to rumble.

However, he didn't care about these; if he doesn't practice, he doesn't practice. Players like them gain only about 0.001 experience points after fully practicing a technique once.

To level up through personal cultivation, one must painstakingly practice tens of thousands of times. Moreover, the prerequisite is that the game character must be well‑fed and well‑hydrated, with meat as the top choice, preferably high‑level monster meat.

Calculating this way, eating meat three times a day, with each meal allowing three to five practice sessions, even ignoring the game currency needed to buy meat, it would still take nine years to successfully raise a level.

With the effort to make money and cultivate, it's better to go out and fight monsters.

After abandoning the experimental technique, Chen Shicheng couldn't help but swing the kitchen knife, releasing several sword auras that cut the living‑room table into a mirror‑smooth cross‑section, whereupon he finally settled down honestly, waiting for his takeout.

Half an hour later, over three hundred units of barbecue went into his stomach, not a scrap left.

"As expected of a cultivator, even his appetite differs from ordinary people." Patting his eighty‑percent‑full stomach, Chen Shicheng walked toward the bathroom while picking his teeth, saying, "Eat your fill, drink your fill, take a shower, rest and recuperate—tomorrow we keep grinding!"

"Huh? I still have the RAP talent, isn't that maxed out?"

The next morning, gentle sunlight shone on Chen Shicheng's face.

He rubbed his sleepy eyes, turned over, and scratched under the blanket with his right hand until he finally woke up.

The first thing he did upon waking was to feel his neck; only when the cool sensation came did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness it's not a dream, thank goodness it's not a dream!"

Lingering in bed, Chen Shicheng struggled to crawl out from under the blankets, freshened up briefly in the bathroom, then burrowed back into bed.

"Enter the game!"

As the light and shadows before his eyes shifted, when he opened his eyes again, he was already back inside the side room of the brothel.

But why was his breathing so difficult?

Chen Shicheng raised his hand and grabbed the fluffy head on his face; a row of black strands instantly hung from its head.

He didn't know whether it was because he hadn't tied it tightly, or because the purple ferret had chewed the rope itself; at that moment it had somehow crawled onto his face and was sleeping comfortably.

Even though he was already up, the purple ferret still hadn't woken; its head drooped as if it had no bones, its pink little tongue rested at the edge of its mouth, making one want to yank it off.

"So heartless and reckless? No wonder the hunter caught you alive; if you hadn't met me, you'd have been skinned eventually anyway."

Chen Shicheng shook the purple ferret in his hand vigorously; with the violent shaking, the ferret gradually began to react.

"Squeak~~~"

The moment it opened its eyes and saw Chen Shicheng, the purple ferret seemed to have suffered a tremendous injustice, looking at him with watery, teary eyes, which inexplicably stirred a hint of guilt in his heart.

But that feeling of guilt came quickly and left even faster.

"What are you staring at? You're still feeling aggrieved; since I didn't skin you, go enjoy yourself in secret," Chen Shicheng said, scratching the purple ferret's chin.

Seemingly having understood his words, the purple ferret clearly became somewhat despondent, its raised head drooping again, and a tear slipped down from the corner of its eye.

(End of Chapter)