RPAGF Chapter 59 The Path of Cultivation, Talking About History
Chapter 59 The Path of Cultivation, Talking About History
It takes a full ten days to travel from Liquan Town to Anzhou City, which is an acceptable distance. Any further and one would really have to use light-footed skills to save time.
"I'm starting to think you're more troublesome than that woman," Jin Xiaohu sighed.
Lin Zhuo sat on the carriage shaft to rest, his clothes stained with mottled blood. Every change of clothes he wore was filthy.
It has been eleven days since he left Liquan Town. He has completed the cultivation of the Divine Meridian Chart, and his internal strength is progressing rapidly. At the same time, he has begun to study the Divine Meridian route of the Fallen Dragon, striving to merge it into the meridian system of "Refining Marrow and Changing Blood".
They should have arrived in Anzhou City yesterday, but they are still a third of the way there.
Because of the many unexpected events encountered along the way, the trip was severely delayed.
The world of "Cangcheng" is teeming with bandits and thugs, almost like they respawn at fixed points.
These gangs are often formed by a few self-taught martial artists who coerce a group of ordinary people. They either become bandits who seize mountains and plunder the local area, or they become local tyrants who prey on the people.
If given a few generations, they might actually evolve into a local martial arts sect.
When a江湖人士 (jianghu shishi, a person from the martial arts world) encounters a bandit blocking their way, they usually just give him some money as a toll, or they show off their skills and the bandit will naturally back down when they see how powerful they are.
After all, the heroes came for money; they only kill when they're unhappy.
Unlike other players on the cross-platform, those who aren't happy unless they're killing someone are not happy.
In the past few days, whenever Lin Zhuo encountered bandits causing trouble in the area, he would always step in to help. Moreover, he would kill them without saying a word, giving the outlaws no chance to be polite.
Even when those supposedly generous gentry hosted a banquet, Lin Zhuo would immediately take action against them after learning of their numerous misdeeds, and then take the corpses to the victims for examination.
Sometimes the people he saved would look sad, because the bandits' rule was that if one brother died, ten civilians would be buried with him.
So Lin Zhuo, wanting to see things through, also wiped out the bandit strongholds near the village.
This kind of unexpected situation is considered a miscellaneous task. The difficulty level is not high, and the reward is just a pittance: a few dozen disaster coins, a hundred or two hundred experience points, and one or two gray drops, which is enough to make up for it.
Unless you encounter a large bandit stronghold, you can gain several hundred experience points.
But overall, the risks are high and the returns are low.
If it weren't for his strong internal healing ability, he would probably have bled to death and fallen into a vicious trap in some remote mountain stronghold.
Fortunately, the outcome of the battles was often that he would sit and rest amidst the broken corpses, or chase after any survivors for miles until he blasted them to death and carried their bodies back home.
Jin Xiaohu followed Lin Zhuo until his legs were worn out, and he killed people like flies.
What makes it even more numb is Lin Zhuo himself.
"You've killed too many people these past few days, I won't even count. You've probably given away about a thousand taels of silver, haven't you? Why do you give money to just anyone who starts crying in front of you? And we bought the storage ring, not to use it as a grain transport vehicle for you."
Every time Lin Zhuo breached a bandit camp, he would transfer the captured money and grain using a storage ring. The specific operation involved him moving the goods in the warehouse, then trading the full rings to Jin Xiaohu for free. He would then have his cat stand in front of the crowd and dump the grain and loot with its paws. He would repeat this process several times, making the transportation extremely efficient.
"You seem to be enjoying it too, don't you?"
Lin Zhuo still remembers how Jin Xiaohu was drunk and swayed by the villagers calling him "Tanuki Immortal" and "Golden Boy Who Brings Wealth".
"Ahem, let's put the cat thing aside for now. Anyway, I suggest you don't get too caught up in this. You know this is a virtual instance that refreshes, right? Everything you save and kill will reappear in three months. Are you prepared to save them all again and kill them all again then?"
"Why not? Anyway, most of what I'm spending is the bandit camp's money and food. Besides, actual combat can increase my cultivation level, so it's a sure win."
Jin Xiaohu pounded the gong, meowing loudly as if angry: "You can still use these tiny, fishbone-like gains as an excuse now, but what will you do when you kill and save people and there are no rewards left? Think about it! After five hundred dungeon runs, what reason will you have left to uphold justice?"
Lin Zhuo smiled. "The future you're talking about is just the future of the present, but history often doesn't unfold as we expect. At least what I see now are real people. I care about them, Little Cat. Even if we can't rewrite the real story or history, at least they're happy right now, and that makes me happy too."
"Ugh, I can't stand you. Boss Panda even praised you for being able to control your own mind. I think you're just a confused idiot who can't distinguish between reality and the game," Jin Xiaohu sighed.
"Isn't it a small kind of freedom to overcome the weakness of succumbing to absolute rationality, ignore the world's ridicule of good deeds, and follow one's heart?" Lin Zhuo spread his hands and smiled.
His skills were honed through countless bloody battles, and he witnessed firsthand the joys and sorrows of hundreds of strangers in an unfamiliar era.
These unprecedented and novel experiences quietly nurtured his fighting spirit.
Unbeknownst to him, Lin Zhuo's grand ambition to cleanse the world received small but real responses from his repeated acts of punishing evil and helping the weak. His magnanimity was no longer ethereal and unrealistic, but began to become grounded and substantial. His mental energy became more agile and powerful, and his control over his true martial arts also increased accordingly.
Sometimes he wouldn't practice all day; he would just sit on the hood of the car, deep in thought, until inspiration struck, then he would jump out of the car and practice a few moves.
Jin Xiaohu witnessed that the palm strike of the Fallen Dragon was initially louder and more explosive, its sound reverberating for miles. Suddenly one day, it became hoarse and low, like a cannonball falling into water, only making a faint thud.
Later, the sound of the palm strikes grew fainter and fainter, almost giving it the illusion of gentleness and tranquility. But seeing the destroyed vegetation and rocks still sent chills down its spine.
Jin Xiaohu couldn't persuade this man. Lin Zhuo wasn't one to back down, and when he tried to reason with him, the man always had a strong point to make, so he couldn't easily win the argument. He had no choice but to let him be.
"As the old saying goes, 'If you can't sweep your own room, how can you sweep the world?' If I can't even alleviate the minor hardships and difficulties before me, what kind of face do I have to claim I can save the world?"
"Just like every shameless politician," Jin Xiaohu retorted sharply.
"Politicians exist in your world too? I thought cats lived in pumpkin houses in fairy tales."
They passed the time chatting during their travels, and gradually became very close. Shu Yuliu, who was also on the team's chat channel, was a typical internet chatterbox.
The players talked about their real world.
Jin Xiaohu lives in a megacity teeming with all sorts of animals, and they all get along fairly well. However, he hates rats; these smelly little creatures always take advantage of the law to provoke the cats.
Shu Yuliu was born on Earth and lived in the early to mid-21st century, but the specific historical development of his home planet was very different from what Lin Zhuo knew about humanity's home planet.
They are Earthlings from different timelines, so they can be considered half-fellows.
Shu Yuliu was in high spirits and begged Lin Zhuo to tell him everything about his era.
When talking about this, Lin Zhuo is no longer sleepy. He can talk endlessly, forgetting to eat or sleep, introducing his hometown and the human community.
This enthusiasm felt both familiar and unfamiliar to Shu Yuliu, but overall it was very heartwarming.
During their leisurely days and nights on their journey, Lin Zhuo and Shu Yuliu would talk and talk, each telling the different histories of their two Earths.
[Mingxiao Drum]: How does the Taixu Dimensional Shuttle technology achieve instantaneous arrival at every corner of the universe?
[Mayfly Mountain]: Simply put, there is no spatial distance within the Taixu dimension; everything in the universe is stacked together. The jump device locks the jump location by capturing the gravitational characteristics of celestial bodies, that is, the heartbeat of the stars.
[Mingxiao Drum]: How amazing! Is the Void Dimension a special setting in your universe? Have you ever ridden a warp drive?
[Fuyou Yue]: No, but I know that during a jump, ordinary people must go into deep hibernation, otherwise they will be driven insane by the jump experience. Only dragon rider armored warriors can remain conscious during a jump.
[Mingxiao Drum]: That sounds really scary. By the way, have you ever encountered aliens?
[Fuyouyue]: Extraterrestrials definitely exist, because warp technology and colonies were discovered by alien spacecraft. But we haven't seen any living ones yet. Humanity is too scattered; not every colony maintains contact with Earth. Perhaps some lost pioneering teams encountered aliens. Currently, our main problem as humanity is still a lack of unity.
[Mingxiao Drum]: I always feel that humans are like clueless lambs venturing out of the yard; what if they run into hungry wolves outside?
[Fuyou Yue]: I always worry about that too, which is why I want to grow faster and become stronger, strong enough that the entire universe fears me.