Chapter 344: Winding Down

Two wooden swords clashed against each other with such force that the goblins thought there was another attack incoming. Panic spreads across the majority of goblin army, who have not seen such a sight and they picked their arms up. But when Sword General Gladios noticed the silhouettes of the two humanoids above, he calmed the goblins down saying it was nothing to worry about although he warned them not to interfere in any way.

Some of the resting goblins continued with their business while others who saw such humanoids before came over to watch the fight as if it was some sort of martial arts contest. Yun was wearing a full white plain mask with no holes at all when she started the fight with Zeru while Zeru’s one quarter mask was covered with a lotus petal design. However, from the inside, she could see everything as if the mask was not really there.

One would wonder why would Yun spar with Zeru? That was actually way before Jin had his first training session that they had been sparring in secret.

There were multiple reasons for their little bouts. One was to make sure Yun was capable of fighting if the need for that arises. Two was to keep Zeru in fighting form and three was merely to kill some time and release stress. Yun being part of the System had copied Zeru’s fighting style and allowed Zeru to somewhat spar against himself. Surprisingly, this initially resulted in a very quick defeat for Zeru when they first fought against each other. Instead of feeling down, Zeru was more than happy with the result that he immediately asked Yun to spar with him whenever she was free.

Zeru hoped that he could learn about the flaws of his own techniques and improve them accordingly as no one in the real world or in his past life had managed to defeat him nor copied his style. Mainly because he created this series of techniques from his own experience and kept to himself.

The System even went beyond Zeru’s initial request and gave Yun access to the amalgamation of all the martial arts, experience and techniques acquired by the System so far in its lifetime. This made it hard for Zeru to predict what he was up against as Yun’s style could change daily while sometimes staying the same just to throw him off. Unfortunately, this was only a temporary power up and once it was over she only had her own style to back herself up in order to fight.

It was due to the fact that each time Yun accessed such information from the System, it would take precious resources away from the System, mainly Souls. That was because those experiences and techniques were the embodiment of other cultivators’ memories. There was no way to replicate its actual technique through just sending said information to Yun’s brain… normally.

Thanks to her special constitution as a being created by the System when it extracted her spirit from the broken Dantian, her Soul was “incomplete”. For that reason, it was possible to assimilate other souls to fill that gap and complete itself. The System made use of this by coding the information into a particular soul and sending it to her for use and experience those souls for oneself. After a set amount of time, the soul would devour the “foreign” soul as it was not part of it. Yun had asked the System if there was a way to make it permanent but the answer was that by sending a larger part of a foreign soul would create the risk of her being taken over or simply go crazy by too many different experiences. It assured her that through collating more data via Zeru’s sparring, there might be a way to prevent, overcome or maybe exceed that.

For this reason, Yun was more than happy to accommodate Zeru with his training as she enjoyed trying out the new techniques. Hence, the techniques that Yun used when she fought with Jin in the random arena with the large cleaver was not her own but came from another cultivator whose fighting style was noted down by the System. In a way, this was also the last resort the System had in place to protect Jin in case of any catastrophic incidents such as fighting against a Grade 19 cultivator. However, if there was ever a Grade 20 cultivator who was trying to kill Jin, the System was unsure how much it could help Jin out as its records only included the entry for one particular Grade 19.

Former Panda Lord Zhou Lin.

Despite that, Yun was able to copy Zeru’s moves was because Zeru worked enough for Jin to earn a partial soul fragment a day as his daily reward. (Yeah, bellators were given daily pay too, Heh.) Therefore, Zeru always paid for Yun a set number of souls to copy his techniques and sometimes more to incorporate other techniques for him to train himself up or else he would not be in shape. Other bellators had their benefits too. Peppers were given partial soul fragments to recover her body or used them to buy books. Milk used those partial soul fragments to strengthen her magic while Kraft refused the soul fragments but instead bargained with the System for things whenever he needed them. (the System gave in to the bargain because he had done too much for the System defences compared to the other bellators.)

The fight was proceeding like the ones before it. While both fighters seemed to be evenly matched at a point, Yun managed to push her advance mainly because she was so familiar with his fighting style unlike him who had to adapt at the fly. Till this day Zeru had not seen Yun utilising her own cultivation technique as if she wanted to hide it from Jin or even Zeru for some reason or another.

The two wooden swords clashed one final time and the impact from the swords even made the heavy cathedral bell rang out once. After the gong, Yun called it off. She wiped her sweat off while adjusting her business skirt. “As always I find it incredible how you manage to fight at this level with your skirt on and still show off your style in coolness.” Zeru complimented her as Yun opened a button from her shirt to release some heat.

“Its a subtle way to distract male fighters and made them think I do not have the mobility.” Yun winked as she cleaned up the tray and disappeared into a portal without saying another word.

“She is as elusive as ever. Oh Yun, how do you manage to appear so close at times and so mysterious and distant as if you were someone else at others. I wonder what Jin would say if he knew…” Zeru sighed before he smiled and looked up into the sky. He took a good look at the foreign black sky before he resumed to keep watch at the corner of the tower after a satisfying workout. The rest of the goblins clapped for such a show before they returned to their work. Even Sword General Gladios learnt a bit or two from their fight.

“Heh, loaning an army you say Master Jin? You yourself already have that many One Man Army in your possession.” Gladios reflected while he patrolled the area to ensure the goblins were doing their job recreating the defences.

——————–

Xiong Da was lying in a private ward recovering peacefully in his sleep with light snores escaping him. At the same time in the same ward as him, Ruo Ying had just woken up in a separate bed. She stared at the ceiling confused for quite some time before realising where she was. Then her mind replayed all that she had gone through in the last hours (even though in their world not too much time has passed) only to become aware how many times she could have died in that particular dungeon instance. It was hard to believe anyone could create something like that.

The monsters felt too realistic, their screams of horror when their comrades went down. The victorious war cries of the orcs during the laser cannon attack. The heat emanated from that laser cannon even when she was tens of metres away from it. Her mind briefly wandered and as if it was just nearby, she could still hear the far-off ringing noise of the anti tank cannons and the sounds of the marksmen shooting their rifles. She did not know why but it made her heart uneasy and her body started producing adrenaline. Only what seemed like a few seconds on, there was a light knock at the door.

“Miss Ruo Ying, we noticed your heart rate and blood pressure elevated to an abnormally high level in a short period of time. Do you feel alright? Is anything hurting or does something feel strange to you?” A panda nurse came in to check on Ruo Ying and she did not know how to respond.

“I think I am alright. I do not know. It’s just me thinking back at what we just experienced. I am unsure if it was fear or excitement. Whenever I think back about the horrific orc and goblin deaths, I consider myself lucky that I am to still alive here through my own sweat and blood…I feel ecstatic and the same time scared. Is it stupid of me to think that way?” Ruo Ying told the Panda Nurse about how she was feeling.

“It is alright you are not the first one to feel that way. You just need to remember. This is just a dungeon instance. However, Boss Jin has made precautions in such cases as yours. We have a specialist who can help you to cope if the memories are too burdensome but it requires some more time and you would not be discharged that soon.” The Panda Nurse offered. “Else, we can let you see a counsellor and talk about this. Remember, all you experience might feel real but it’s just a dungeon instance.”

“Give her some time to rest, I had those thoughts at the start too but after I got over the fact that all this was just a dungeon instance, my mind seemed to relax. Boss Jin aims for perfection, though I have to admit that he may have taken it a bit too far.” Milk came into the private ward, lying so blatantly that it somehow convinced Ruo Ying.

Unknown to the cultivators while they were relaxing in the recovery instance, the foxes of Kraft were making their rounds to reduce such possible cases of PTSD or general anxiety disorders one might feel after the raid instance. After all, it was a real world that they had joined and not a controlled environment.

However, for veteran customers of Boss Jin, the past dungeons they experienced had already triggered both placebo and nocebo effects of the cultivator and conditioned them to think that everything was not real. It was mainly for new cultivators where it might trigger the effects of anxiety orders. With the new Goblin Raid Event, gossips and rumours were making their rounds that you can experience a true fight. Of course, some of the gossips were more extreme, stating that everything was possible with the Dungeon Store as long as Boss Jin was behind it and he actually listened to the requests of his customers.

Jin too heard about such rumours and he himself would love to keep it that way by exposing them sufficiently just for a fight and not too much to learn about the whole grand scheme of stuff. It was indeed a dangerous move by him but he felt that with the current state of dungeon suppliers being just an entertainment venture rather than something to train the mind, body and ultimately the improvement of oneself. If possible, he would like to return to the roots of being a Dungeon Supplier.

Despite it being an unorthodox move, Jin had the System in place to regulate his customers properly. With the System being somewhat omniscience and omnipotent when it came to the well being of innocent third parties, it was there to ensure incidents did not happen at all cost. (Customers always first right?) Worst come to worst, a memory wipe would suffice though Jin does not like that a single bit and that would be the last resort.

Milk personally went to check on Ruo Ying and at the same time apply a calming spell on her to let her relax. Ruo Ying was finally able to lay down peacefully but at that moment, she did not realise that there was a black fox in her peripheral vision. When she blinked and turned to confirm what she saw, it disappeared. She thought she was seeing things as Milk reassured once again before allowing her to sleep peacefully. Milk smiled and walked out of the private ward to check on the others.

Bu Dong and his other high school mates who were allocated in another private ward were not resting as compared to the first wave of cultivators. They were excitedly discussing what had happened in the Raid Event. Of course, Bu Dong was still trash talking about Yue Han but he did not care much since Yue Han knew it was Bu Dong way of showing concern to him.

“That combination is not that bad huh?” Kong Xian talked how proud he was to showcase a new attack during the counter offensive which he used after Bu Dong unleashed an intermediate sword technique. Yue Han was curious and all three of them gathered at Bu Dong’s bed as they watched the replay which was exclusive to the raid members.

While the System did not have any ‘magic eye’ similar to its own dungeon instances per se, it was already monitoring the goblin world’s battlefield in its own way, hence allowing the replay for Bu Dong and the others to watch. (The System was in control of its own dungeon instances, any replay was easy to capture.) Therefore, the goblin raid event footage was more expensive than normal because the monitoring footage was not cheap to process. Those who had subscribed to the ‘Nettoflix’ of Jin’s dungeon replays had to pay 20 Yuan more to get the footage which Bu Dong gladly did so.

“Oh wow, Kong Xian, I did not know the Towering Tortoise had such an attack.” Yue Han was complimenting him. The high school kids continued watching the replay though they somehow made a ruckus everytime the footage showed some crazy stunt made by one of them. That was when the Panda Nurse had to step in and asked them to keep quiet and made them to go back to their beds to rest like little kids. They initially obeyed but when the Panda Nurse closed the doors, they all scurried back to Bu Dong’s bed to continue watching.

Meanwhile, Luo Bo signed a waiver form for early discharge as she wanted to see the rewards in the redemption store. “You sure, you do not wish to stay here longer to rest? The time dilation here would be more beneficial for you to rest right now, allowing you to save more time in the real world.” The Panda Nurse asked to reconfirm her decision.

“I want to go check out the store, with these much points there is definitely something to buy!” Luo Bo noticed that her normal clothes were already washed and dried when she changed from her ward gown. Shi Zuo was awake but he was lying down lazing in the bed and told Luo Bo to have fun while Bu Dong and Jia Le were peacefully asleeped in their own beds.

“If there is anything nice, do take a picture for me to see. Don’t go overboard with your purchase.” Shi Zuo said sluggishly as he waved goodbye to Luo Bo.

“Heh, if there is anything pretty, it will be mine.” Luo Bo stuck her tongue out to Shi Zuo as the Panda Nurse escorted her out of the recovery instance.