Chapter 7
Chapter 7: The Shock They Might Bring to Yun Zhou Continent
[System: All disciples are now online. The Longevity Sect’s iron rules are as follows.]
[1. Do not lightly offend any NPC. There is no newbie protection period.]
[2. Do not reveal your player identity to any NPC.]
[4. Extremely important: the game revolves around Sect Master Song Jiu Lai. If the Sect Master falls, the game fails and the server will shut down forever.]
As soon as all fifty were online, the System’s notification rang through everyone’s mind.
Their consciousness was connected through the System, so the message arrived clean and absolute—no delays, no missed words.
It made one thing crystal clear: this game might be free, but it was not lawless. There was a System watching.
And at the center of everything stood Sect Master Song Jiu Lai.
A handful of players were still stuck in awe, but the sharp ones reacted immediately.
“Holy shit—no newbie protection? They’re going this hard from spawn?”
“So if we screw up, we’re just done?”
“There’s a Flying Sparrow Sect on the peak. I was going to go take a look, but forget it. I’ve never eaten pork, but I’ve seen pigs run—cultivators don’t play by human rules…”
This place was pure survival of the fittest. No modern morals. No legal system you could call the cops on.
If your fist was bigger, you were right.
Han Tian had already pulled Wu Da Hu and Zhou Xiao into a temporary three-person group.
As a veteran player, he stripped the message down to its bones. “Looks like our Sect Master is weak. Our priority is keeping her alive and making her stronger. Early game, we lie low and develop.”
If she were strong, those iron rules wouldn’t exist.
Zhou Xiao pinched her chin thoughtfully. “Makes sense. The website said we should treat her like the most important woman in our lives. That’s basically my mom. But what does the Sect Master look like? Is she pretty?”
Wu Da Hu snorted. “The female lead has to be hot. If she isn’t, how do you lure the horny guys?”
Zhou Xiao shot him a look. “Do you think this game needs to lure horny guys?”
Wu Da Hu choked. “…Fair.”
Once they logged out, they’d probably lose their minds. Right now, no one was willing to log off at all.
Zhou Xiao jabbed him with her elbow. “Show my mom some respect. That’s your mom too.”
Wu Da Hu went silent.
The System then told everyone to assemble in front of A Wu.
A Wu stared at the crowd of fifty and looked almost dizzy. He genuinely didn’t understand where the Sect Master had found them.
On Yun Zhou Continent, cultivators with spirit roots were rare. Most people living at the foot of the mountain were ordinary common folk.
And even when someone with spirit roots appeared, they tended to choose a better sect.
Still, A Wu was happy. Longevity Sect used to be just him. Now he had a whole swarm of Junior Brothers and Junior Sisters to keep him company.
He looked like a kid who’d just been handed the world.
In his excitement, he even played favorites. He scanned the group, then pointed at five people—Zhou Xiao included.
“You five, come with me to identify spirit herbs,” A Wu said. “The rest of you Junior Brothers and Junior Sisters, go chop trees and build your houses. I’ve already prepared tools.”
Wu Da Hu’s face crumpled. He turned to the others like a wronged man. “Senior Brother, are you discriminating against men?”
A Wu widened his eyes, suddenly guilty in the way children got when they were caught. “How am I?”
He pointed at one of the chosen five. “This one’s a Junior Brother too!”
Everyone looked.
Sure enough—a male player with a stunning, androgynous face.
Then they looked again. The four Junior Sisters A Wu picked were all gorgeous.
The androgynous male player lifted his brows with smug satisfaction.
All the time he’d wasted outside tweaking his face—worth it.
Everyone else: “Shit.”
If only they’d known.
Most people willing to test a game like this were male players, and including Zhou Xiao, only five female players had logged in.
The one female player who didn’t get picked was a clumsy type. She had used the System’s default face, only adjusting her eyebrows and mouth slightly—forgettable in a crowd.
Now she stared at A Wu with pure gloom.
[I’m so stupid. Really.]
[If I’d known NPCs in this game judged by looks, I wouldn’t have half-assed the character creation System.]
“Can we get a face-remake item? I’ll pay for it!”
“It’s a no-wipe test—shouldn’t there be paid items? Release them now, I’ll whale till I drop!”
“It’s just money! Take it!”
No matter how they complained, the damage was done.
At least Han Tian hadn’t been chosen, which gave the veteran players a strange sense of balance.
Aside from a few unfamiliar faces—probably people Zhou Xiao recruited from other gaming groups—most players knew each other. And now, everyone knew Han Tian was Jing Bao Tian.
Too bad the game didn’t have a friends system yet. Otherwise, people would’ve flooded him with requests.
Chopping trees became the default work for the day. Aside from the five A Wu took away, everyone else followed Han Tian and split into groups.
There were a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of wood to gather.
A Wu had said the entire mountainside belonged to Longevity Sect. The mountain itself was called Flying Sparrow Mountain, and it was enormous.
Flying Sparrow Sect used the road on the other side of the mountain to go up, so it didn’t interfere with Longevity Sect. As long as no one crossed the boundary, there were plenty of places to chop.
The forest had no fierce beasts. This was sect land—safe by design.
Even so, the players didn’t dare wander too far.
An account ban was too severe. For people who had already tasted full-dive simulation—something that felt like a second life—it was unthinkable.
Song Jiu Lai watched quietly from within the sect.
Now that she’d reached the early Qi Refining Stage, her body had changed. Her vision carried far. Even from the sect, she could roughly track the players’ movements.
The System said, “If they grow complacent, it won’t help them raise their realm.”
The disciples’ strength was the sect’s strength.
And the sect’s strength was Song Jiu Lai’s strength.
Song Jiu Lai didn’t look worried. “They just logged in. Dying gets your account banned, so nobody’s going to take risks right away. But once they start cultivating, it’ll be different.”
The System replied, “If you want fast breakthroughs, they’ll have to take risks. When the time comes, you’ll need to issue mandatory quests.”
Song Jiu Lai shook her head. “You don’t understand how people from Blue Star, China crave cultivation—or how ridiculously competitive they are. Even if they’re afraid, once they realize Yun Zhou Continent is an enormous world beyond imagination, they won’t just hide in the sect forever.”
A strange new world was the kind of lure that made people gamble, even with only one life.
And later, they could even reroll accounts. If you were lucky enough, you could start over as a hero again. What was there to fear?
Of course, they would still do everything they could to protect themselves. With fifty people, there was no way every single one of them would settle for stagnation.
Song Jiu Lai was looking forward to it.
She wanted to see what kind of shock these players from her homeland would bring to Yun Zhou Continent.