Chapter 80: I've Been Caught

However, there are many eyes and ears within the Spirit Mine, and you cannot find an opportunity to use the Spirit Stones alone.

Two months later, the Sect needs to transport a batch of Spirit Stones back, so you volunteer to escort the storage bags filled with Spirit Stones back to the Sect with another fellow disciple; on the way, you take the initiative to launch a sneak attack on your fellow disciple, and after destroying the body and erasing the traces, you flee with the Spirit Stones.

In order to avoid being tracked and wanted by the Xuanbing Sect, you flee all the way to the border area adjacent to Xizhou, use the obtained Low-grade Spirit Stones at a local marketplace to purchase Naqi Pills and Gathering Qi Pills, and keep the Mid-grade Spirit Stones for your own cultivation.

Seven years old, you hide in the rarely visited forests and fields to cultivate.

……

Fifteen years old, your cultivation has improved somewhat, but your pills and Spirit Stones have all been exhausted.

Sixteen years old, you cautiously return to the town, only to find that there is no wanted notice from the Xuanbing Sect; you think it might be because too many elite disciples died in the Golden Terrace Secret Realm, leaving the Xuanbing Sect with no energy to manage the theft of the Spirit Stones. Thus, you remain in the town, and as a Third-Tier Talisman Maker at the Foundation Establishment Early-stage, you sell talismans to earn Spirit Stones while slowly cultivating.

……

Twenty-three years old, during an outing, you discover several Demon Cultivators whose strength is similar to yours; after a bitter struggle, you barely win, but you are also seriously injured. You return to the town to report this news to the City Lord, who rewards you with some Spirit Stones and Healing Pills. Your injuries recover quickly, but your Spirit Bone is damaged, and your cultivation is almost stagnant.

You no longer focus on cultivation but start paying attention to news about Demon Cultivators. The City Lord does not hide this from the cultivators in the city, so you learn that half a year ago, the Demon Cultivators in the Northern Territory suddenly rose up and slaughtered many small sects in Beizhou, occupying the territory of Beizhou. The sects of the Central Province, led by the three major sects, formed a cultivator army to crusade against the Demon Cultivators, only to find that when they sent all their sect elites to Beizhou, the place was left in ruins and completely deserted. Meanwhile, a large number of Demon Cultivators suddenly appeared in Nanzhou like locusts passing through, rapidly capturing a large number of towns and sects in Nanzhou and killing or capturing many cultivators.

Because the town where you are located is situated on the border and is too barren, it escapes a disaster and is not immediately incorporated into the territory of the Demon Cultivators. Even so, the probability of Demon Cultivators appearing near the town increases. The City Lord strengthens the protection of the city-guarding array, and since the main battlefield is in the Central Province, the town, not having been harassed by large numbers of Demon Cultivators, is preserved.

Twenty-four years old, your cultivation is stagnant, and you are in urgent need of rare treasures that can repair your Spirit Bone, but this remote town does not have such precious items. You decide to leave here and head to Xizhou; on the way, you encounter a small squad of Demon Cultivators, and you die.

【Simulation Ended】

After Ruan Xing chooses her cultivation realm, although she still hasn't broken through to the Foundation Establishment Mid-stage, her cultivation has indeed progressed a bit more than the last simulation; probably after another one or two times, she will be able to break through to the Foundation Establishment Mid-stage.

In this simulation, the figure of Sword Lai did not appear, probably because she left the Xuanbing Sect by fleeing this time, which is different from the last time she left the Sect after weighing the pros and cons; she considers this a defection, and the situation was urgent, so there was no time to go to Yunyang City to summon Sword Lai.

However, she lived a year longer than before this time... From this, it seems that even if the war between the righteous and the evil begins and the Demon Cultivators capture Nanzhou, at least Xizhou and the Eastern State are safe according to the news; by then, she can go there a few years in advance to survive.

Judging by the extent to which Xie Huai misunderstands her... perhaps she can even rely on Ghost Dao Talismans to disguise herself as a Demon Cultivator and play both sides of the Immortal and Demon paths!

Ruan Xing does not have that kind of strong sense of justice that is either black or white; according to her own understanding, she can probably be counted as Chaotic Neutral? After all, the reason she didn't want to be an Evil Cultivator at the beginning was that the life of hiding and being shouted at by everyone was not a life for humans. If this world is ruled by demons, changing camps is not a decision that goes against her ancestors.

If people don't offend me, I won't offend them. If people offend me, I will slaughter their entire clan!

Ruan Xing fantasized about the possibility of her becoming an Extreme Dao Demon Venerable, then shook her head and cast aside this thought.

When she is weak, she had better pray for justice; after all, the righteous Immortal Sects all care about their reputation, and everyone will maintain and abide by the conventional rules on the surface. If the whole world were really allowed to be managed by Demon Cultivators, then I am afraid that low-level cultivators would have to be beasts of burden, living worse than pigs and dogs.

Following the previous route, Ruan Xing simulated two more times and finally broke through to the Foundation Establishment Mid-stage. The moment the invisible shackles were broken by her Spiritual Power, Ruan Xing felt refreshed all over, as if she had taken a sip of iced Sprite in the scorching summer; a cool breeze blew into her limbs and bones, and she felt indescribably comfortable.

After stretching her muscles and bones, Ruan Xing checked her character panel.

Name: Ruan Xing

Age: Six years old

Skills: Gambling Entry, Talisman Making (Fourth-Tier),

Dance Basics, Weaving Basics, Horsemanship Basics,

Alchemy (Second-Tier), Lianyun Sword Art (Second Layer),

Sword Control Technique, Illusion Technique (First Layer), Dust-Gathering Technique, Eye Brightening Art, Five Directions Movement (Water)

Cultivation Method: Blood Refining Art, Basic Qi Refining Mantra, Tongxuan Scripture

Realm: Foundation Establishment Mid-stage

Points: 45? The points are also bottoming out. Ruan Xing plans to top up half of those five hundred and fifteen Spirit Stones later, and by the way, spend a few more simulations to practice the Illusion Technique.

As for the two extra magic arts at the end, they were learned through her own efforts during the three months of peaceful life, besides working to draw talismans and save money; they are both small spells without even layers.

The Eye Brightening Art is because of the psychological shadow left when she was in the underground river and couldn't find things for a long time because it was pitch black without light. Xie Huai had brought a Night-luminescent Pearl, but she had relied purely on herself; although she had the blessing of Divine Sense, how could Divine Sense see as far as eyes?

So, learning this technique not only allows for night vision applicable to various environments but also avoids getting lost due to being unable to distinguish directions in special terrains like Black Water that can hinder Divine Sense.

It also has a higher-level technique of the same type, the Truth Breaking Art; if cultivated to the highest layer, one can see through most illusions in the world. This technique is also recorded in her mind, but she has the Simulator, and Sword Lai is immune to illusions, so this technique has no priority for her, and she does not plan to use points to practice it for the time being.

As for the Five Directions Movement (Water) technique, it is a simplified version of the Five Elements Technique. She only practiced the water aspect; water is soft and overcomes the hard, and it is mainly to create a protective shield for herself. After all, because of the lesson of the 【Swift】 character talisman earlier, she knows that her Ghost Dao Talismans are things that cannot be easily exposed. If she wants to participate in the Jin Tai Dao Discussion, her small leather armor must be hidden. If her 【Guard】 character small leather armor were broken in full view of everyone, causing her to be pinned with the label of an Evil Cultivator... then who would she go to to reason with?

Ruan Xing takes out two hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones and starts topping up. One Low-grade Spirit Stone equals ten points, so with this, she tops up two thousand points.

She plans to use a portion of them to upgrade the Illusion Technique and see how long she can live if she leaves Nanzhou early.

She doesn't know if this counts as a bug, but the Simulator never gives her duplicate skills or skills that haven't been improved, so as long as she focuses on practicing one item in the simulation and doesn't touch anything else, then when randomizing skills, she almost 100% gets the skill she wants.

The same applies to randomizing items, but the things judged as items by the Simulator are too broad, and the accuracy is not as strong as randomizing skills.

【Simulating】

Six years old, you leave the Xuanbing Sect to start traveling low-key, and on the way, you constantly practice the Illusion Technique to randomly imitate passersby you have seen.

……

Ten years old, you take Sword Lai and leave Nanzhou, arriving at the border adjacent to Xizhou. However, you learn that the border area is a huge no-man's-land with all kinds of dangers, and even Golden Core True Persons dare not cross it at will. Ordinary low-level cultivators who want to cross a state can only use a Teleportation Array, and the price of using a Teleportation Array once is expensive. You spend one hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones and finally get a chance to use the Teleportation Array. Eleven years old, you successfully arrive in Xizhou. Xizhou has no large Immortal Sects, only the concept of clans. Most cultivators do not advocate seeking the Dao alone but marry and breed offspring to strengthen the clan. Ordinary people have almost no way to enter the Dao except through marriage or marrying into a family. For cultivators with the same inheritance technique, their fellow disciples can only be brothers and sisters of the same surname who grew up playing with them. You feel like you have entered heaven and start observing and imitating from then on.

Thirteen years old, you use the Illusion Technique to transform into a female cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Mid-stage and, in her name, borrow five hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones from her suitor. The suitor is very happy to lend them to you and says there is no need to pay them back; no one notices anything unusual.

Fourteen years old, the female cultivator's suitors happen to meet and compare notes, discovering that the female cultivator has borrowed property from many people, and the name of a "scum woman" gradually spreads. The female cultivator notices something is wrong and confronts them face-to-face; only then do the cultivators realize that a cultivator proficient in illusion techniques has appeared in the city at some point.

After the matter spreads, the victims are counted one by one, and there are as many as hundreds of them, both male and female cultivators. They all claim that the other party transformed into the person they admired and were closest to, and there were almost no flaws.

Fifteen years old, you change to another town to live.

……

Twenty-five years old, a legend circulates throughout Xizhou, making all single cultivators panic; the marriage rate drops year by year, and the birth rate hits a new low.

Twenty-six years old, many clan heads make a firm decision and, in order to save the cultivator population of Xizhou, join forces to issue a wanted order for you, but no one knows your true appearance.

……

Twenty-nine years old, after three years of being a fugitive, living up to expectations, you are finally caught.

Some young cultivators are deceived by your sweet talk and lose their appetite for tea and rice, begging their elders at home to speak for you and not let you receive too severe a punishment. After the clan heads learn of multiple reports, they are shocked in body and mind. After reflecting on the pain, they unanimously agree that letting you live one more day is a scourge to the young single cultivators of Xizhou, and you die.

【Simulation Ended】

I didn't expect the routines learned from short videos and various online dating tutorials in my past life to be so useful. Could it be because the cultivators are too simple-minded from focusing on cultivation? After all, they have clan rules, which are not comparable to the self-reliant and knowledgeable cultivators of Nanzhou.

This time I lived to twenty-nine years old, which is gratifying. If it weren't for some of her flashy operations in the simulation, she could probably have lived a little longer.

The only pity is that she accumulated more than one hundred thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones in the simulation; she stared at so many Spirit Stones, but she didn't dare to use even one!

She was afraid of accidentally cultivating something that would pollute her skill pool.

Sigh, Ruan Xing stopped looking at the last few lines of text and directly chose a random skill, successfully obtaining 【Illusion Technique (Level 2)】.

She had already become a scourge of Xizhou, yet it was only Level 2? It was worthy of being a high-level Magic Art.

Ruan Xing used it to get a feel for it and discovered that the duration of the transformation provided by the Illusion Technique had increased; she could transform for one hour every day.

However, the walking posture, tone of voice, facial expressions, actions, and cultivation realm after the transformation remained her own; these required her to manually change them, so she could only disguise herself as a Cultivator of her own realm, which was also one of the reasons she was caught... Three years, Xizhou had strictly investigated and monitored all Cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Mid-stage, and finally caught her.

She would save the remaining points and Spirit Stones for a rainy day, because she still had to participate in the Jin Tai Dao Discussion, and she would definitely need multiple Real-scene Simulations then.

She was not sure if she really wanted to enter the Golden Terrace Secret Realm, but she still had to give it a try.

Even the Central Province Xuanbing Sect would send their own rising star disciples to participate, so one could imagine that there must be good things and treasures in the Golden Terrace Secret Realm; even if she herself did not intend to enter in the end, she had to fleece some wool through the Simulator.

And the prerequisite for fleecing wool was that she had to first obtain the qualification for the Golden Terrace Secret Realm.

Ruan Xing's breakthrough to Foundation Establishment was very low-key, but it was still discovered by Lu Jin, who had been keeping an eye on her, and she sent a congratulatory message at the first opportunity.

【I went out today and found the clouds in the sky glowing with brilliant light, so I guessed something good was happening. It turns out our A-Xing has broken through~】

Ruan Xing couldn't help but chuckle after reading it, and replied on the Sect Jade Token.

【Perhaps it's a double celebration; you should be breaking through today too.】

【How could that be? I haven't practiced seriously since Foundation Establishment; it would be strange if someone with my aptitude could break through. That publicly recognized Outer Sect Senior Brother I mentioned to you before is going to walk the Questioning Heart Stone today. Do you want to come and observe? Geniuses like you should all cherish each other, right?】

The text revealed a tone of teasing.

Ruan Xing felt a bad premonition.

Could it be that all her performances on the Questioning Heart Stone were seen by Lu Jin...

Then what did it mean that she was telling her now? Did she want her to suffer social death! Ruan Xing replied immediately, 【I'll be there right away.】

Compared to her own social death, she wanted to see Xie Huai suffer social death even more.

Ruan Xing flew on her Sword to the Treasure Pavilion and entered the room on the second floor where Lu Jin often stayed, just in time to see Lu Jin sitting inside, greeting her with a smile, "So fast?"

"Yeah, couldn't wait." Ruan Xing answered with a smile, then asked with some confusion: "I broke through to Foundation Establishment, how did you know right away?"

Lu Jin shook the Sect Jade Token in her hand, "The auras of the two jade tokens are connected. I was sending a sect message to Xie Huai through a Formation at the time. There was an anomaly in the aura within the Formation, so it must have been someone breaking through. I took a peek, and it was your jade token!"

So there was such a layer to it.

Ruan Xing was even more tempted by the Dharma Artifact in Xie Huai's hand that could hide one's realm. How could it be so powerful that it could even deceive a Formation!

Lu Jin continued: "Xie Huai is the same as you; he didn't have an Elder take him as a personal disciple and only became an ordinary Inner Sect Disciple. I was just wondering, he!"

"What nonsense are you spouting." Ruan Xing didn't take it to heart and smiled helplessly.

Thanks to Shu Bu Sha for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20220124163846231 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Yi Nian Wu Chang for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to MidoriQ for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 140617162438074 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Qi Sheng Qi Chang for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20190927135209710 for the monthly ticket~(End of chapter)