CHAPTER 53: CHAPTER 53 THIS IS NOT A HISTORY GAME!

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

"When I tear open the sky’s dusk and dawn for half a mile, the three-foot blue light spins and cleanses the smoke and dust~"

Ren Suo mumbled, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, and subconsciously reached for his phone with his right hand, only jolting slightly more awake when he felt a sting in his palm.

He picked up his phone, checked the caller ID, a flicker of confusion in his eyes, and answered, "Hello? Why are you calling now?"

Li Qingxuan, on the other end, said, "Aren’t you awake yet? It’s almost noon. Weren’t you injured?"

"Well, men do tend to stay up late thirty-some days a month... How did you know I was injured?" Ren Suo asked, surprised.

"We’re in the same department, aren’t we?" Li Qingxuan laughed. "You’re in Tactical Team Three, and I’m in Tactical Team Six!"

Ren Suo smacked his forehead. He just remembered that in the past few days, more acquaintances had been joining the Tactical Bureau—besides Qiao Muyi, Li Qingxuan, Xie Qiansi, and Zhao Huo had all gradually joined.

Their Qi Cyclones awakened a bit later, so they joined the Tactical Bureau a bit later too. However, since they weren’t in Team Three, Ren Suo had only heard about them through WeChat and hadn’t actually met them in person even once.

Over the past few days, everyone in the Tactical Bureau had been rushing between various schools throughout the city and not sitting in their offices, so naturally, there hadn’t been any chance to meet.

"Word of you subduing a young Awakener yesterday has spread all over the Tactical Bureau," Li Qingxuan said. "They say you fought on despite an injured hand, kept your composure, and used ’Lock’ to suppress the other party until the Tactical Bureau took over the Awakener. Pretty impressive!"

Hearing himself praised, especially by a beautiful girl, even Ren Suo’s usually stoic demeanor couldn’t help but show a hint of pride. He chuckled, "Well, I’m just a little bit better than you all..."

"Give you an inch and you take a yard, huh?" Li Qingxuan teased. "But we really do need someone as formidable as you to teach us—I heard from Xiao Qiao that your ’Garment’ is also quite good? Good enough to withstand the probing from the captain of Team Three?"

"Hmm?... Yes," Ren Suo blinked.

"Being so good with both ’Cloth and Lock,’ you really do seem like a major talent," Li Qingxuan said, somewhat incredulously. "When I joined the team, I could barely withstand the captain’s ’Lock.’ Yet you, in such a short time, have trained both Cloth and Lock to combat readiness... It really is a case of different strokes for different folks..."

"Exactly. We have a few days off, so I plan to go to the Cultivation Ground to train and exchange tips on using Spells. I’ve only really got ’Garment’ down reasonably well; ’Lock’ isn’t showing much progress. So, I was hoping to get some guidance from a great expert like you."

Ren Suo: "...Huh?"

"Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a date," Li Qingxuan said. "Besides me, Qiao Muyi and Lin Jia Min will be there... all girls. I’m not too familiar with your male friends."

"Are you coming this afternoon? We’ve agreed to meet at the gym at three."

Now fully awake, Ren Suo sat up straight on the sofa. He stared at the television in front of him, the upper left corner displaying ’Spring, Year 222.’ After a moment of silence, he said, "I... I’d better not go."

Li Qingxuan paused for a moment before saying, "Okay, sure. It’s because you’re not well that you can’t go out, right?"

"Ah? Um? Right..."

"Well then, if you’re unwell, it can’t be helped. I’ll explain your situation to Jia Min. But next time, you, the mighty expert, better not refuse again," Li Qingxuan said with a laugh before hanging up. Ren Suo stared at his phone for a long while, his thoughts finally catching up.

What a considerate person... Ren Suo wasn’t very fond of socializing, but that didn’t mean he had low emotional intelligence.

Li Qingxuan had deliberately given him an excuse and even said she would explain to the others, precisely so they wouldn’t think Ren Suo was the type to keep things to himself. After all, everyone’s mastery of Spiritual Energy Techniques wasn’t very good, and they wanted to learn from him. He at least needed to provide a reason for not coming.

Otherwise, they would assume he was arrogant and looked down on them, especially concerning something as important as Spiritual Energy Techniques. They might think Ren Suo had discovered a secret but was hoarding it.

After all, they were all of the same standing, and jealousy was natural. If Ren Suo simply ignored it, he could easily damage his rapport with them. Good rapport is something you might not always notice, but its absence can make you feel like life itself is against you—Ren Suo had experienced that feeling before.

But even if Ren Suo had the time, he still wouldn’t go. Because he had ’cheated’ to unlock the two skills, Cloth and Lock! It was just like cheating on an exam! How could he teach that kind of experience? Unless they also had a Mini-World Game Console!

As long as Ren Suo equipped ’Magic: Garment’ and ’Magic: Lock’ on the Mini-World Game Console, he could naturally use these two Spells without any need for practice, as though he had directly max-leveled these Spells.

But he forgot that everyone else had only just started learning. At most, they might excel in a single Spell. For someone to use two Spells as well as he did, they would typically be among the first batch of Cultivators, those who had trained for several months!

"I need to keep a low profile..." Ren Suo realized he had been getting a bit carried away lately. "If the higher-ups recognize my ability and I’m forced into Tactical Team One or Two for combat, that would be troublesome..."

Ren Suo had no desire to be a reluctant hero. If he could avoid battle and lazily pass his days, he would absolutely enjoy it—otherwise, why would he have taken a public servant position in the community committee right after graduation?

Wasn’t it precisely because he saw the work as stable and laid-back?

Even now, having obtained the Mini-World Game Console and become a Cultivator, Ren Suo still yearned for a peaceful life. Are computers not fun? Are movies not good? Has anime really gone downhill recently? Why on earth would anyone choose to go to dangerous places to fight?

Ren Suo looked at the screen, wishing he could say the same thing to the Ren Family Descendants—Why can’t you all just behave properly?

The current save file was the thirty-sixth one he had started in the past few days. Except for the first save, which he played until the year 206 before abandoning it, he used the others for experiments.

When Ren Suo started his second save file, he discovered that even if the Family Head’s surname and given name were the same, the gender, age, and names of the three starting characters were still randomized. The most frustrating start involved a character who began at 20 years old and died just three years later! Sometimes, if he was lucky, the oldest of the three characters would only be 15, and it felt like the game’s difficulty had suddenly plummeted!

Then, Ren Suo discovered he could equip Skills for the Family Head character of "Over My Dead Body!" in the ’Character’ interface.

After numerous tests, he had also figured out the effects of his current skills on the Family Head character.

"Combat Basics," +0.1 Attack; "Good Dream Technique," no apparent effect—these two skills were basically useless.

"Magic: Garment," +1 Defense; "Magic: Lock," this skill was quite peculiar, granting the Family Head character +0.5 Attack and +0.5 Management—but what did "Lock" have to do with Management...

The only thing that truly surprised Ren Suo was "Unlimited Energy"!

When the Family Head character was equipped with "Unlimited Energy," Ren Suo found that they gained +1 Action Point per turn (season)!

This +1 Action Point essentially meant the Family Head character could perform two operations in one turn, though these operations couldn’t include "Expedition." If Ren Suo sent the Family Head character on an Expedition, the extra action point would automatically be nullified.

Ordinarily, this +1 Action Point meant that the Family Head character’s Cultivation speed was twice that of other family members!

And even if the previous Family Head died, the new one would automatically be equipped with the skill!

For example, in his current save file in the year 222, he was already on the third Family Head, ’Ren Woxing.’

The first-generation Family Head passed the double attributes to his biological son before dying. This son, as the second-generation Family Head, continued to cultivate and then passed the attributes to his biological daughter before his own death. Now, this daughter was the third-generation Family Head. Even though she was only 17 and not yet at her peak age of 23, her overall attributes were already two and a half times that of the family’s second strongest member.

However, this wasn’t what surprised Ren Suo the most. The biggest surprise was that when the Family Head character performed "Spiritual Exchange," the two Action Points were still effective!

What did that mean? It meant that every time the Family Head character performed a Spiritual Exchange, they could guarantee— A double success! Therefore, in this save file over the last 32 years, unless the entity for Spiritual Exchange had a gender completely different from the Family Head’s, or if the Family Head was younger than 14 years old, Ren Suo would always have the Family Head go first! What a procreation tool!

Yet, even with such an overpowered advantage, the game’s difficulty still had Ren Suo staying up all night, practically coughing up blood in frustration, and still unable to beat it...

Of course, one major reason for this was the great plague in the Central Plains Region in the 22nd Year of Jian’an Era—that is, the year 217—which created widespread strongholds of powerful and numerous Demons. If he couldn’t exterminate them swiftly, these Demons would surely find their way to his door and annihilate his lineage.

But the plague of 217 was just a minor boss. The mid-tier boss Ren Suo was currently facing was this—the Battle of Yiling in 222!

Ren Suo, who had been poring over "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in the past few days, knew this period of history by heart. But to avoid boring the reader with excessive detail, let’s summarize: in the summer of 222, Liu Bei’s Army was devastated by Lu Xun’s fire attack, resulting in a staggering loss of 80,000 men!

The loss of 80,000 men was bad enough. More importantly, many among them were elite soldiers who had followed Liu Bei for a long time. Their horrific deaths by fire led to the emergence of a vast number of Flame Evil Spirits in Yiling!

In the previous save file, Ren Suo had tried to clear this instance by sacrificing all the Ren Family Descendants, but even that wasn’t enough... They were damn hard to beat. Then, after a decade or so, the Flame Evil Spirits roamed, killing Spirits as they went, until they finally reached the Ren Family Base...

In this current save file, Ren Suo was also racking his brains, trying to figure out how to overcome this hurdle. However, the game characters, acting on their own, were already starting to make decisions for him.

Just as Ren Suo was about to send someone on an Expedition, a young man named ’Ren Xing’ suddenly jumped out: "Family Head, since you are convinced that the King of Hanzhong is doomed to fail, I am willing to sacrifice myself to urge the King to withdraw his troops!"

Ren Xing, a fourth-generation descendant of the Ren Family and also the biological son of the third-generation Family Head, Ren Ying. Fortunately, there was an option to stop him, and Ren Suo immediately chose it.

Ren Ying: "Ren Xing, I would break your legs before I let you go to your death!"

Ren Xing: "For the rise and fall of the nation, every man has a... AH—"

System Notification: "Ren Xing has sustained Serious Injury and cannot perform any operations this season."

Losing a season of activity was better than him dying! Besides, Ren Xing was considerate enough to at least inform his mother before trying to leave, giving her the chance to break his legs.

Ren Suo pulled up the Ren Family Members list. Looking at the mere five names remaining, he felt like he could never love again.

Over the decades, he had propagated dozens of family members. Yet, apart from those who died naturally at age 23, most of the others had died due to various bizarre and unexpected reasons.

Some fell in love with Diao Chan.

Some became sworn brothers with Sun Ce.

Others sought discussions with Wolong Ridge Zhuge Liang.

Many more, overflowing with a sense of justice or their own political ambitions, attempted to assassinate Li Jue, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, or Sun Quan. There were even those who tried to kill Sima Yi...

After a few moments of lamentation, Ren Suo prepared to rouse his spirits and continue playing. However, just then, he saw a message flash on his phone.

It was Xie Qiansi, inviting him out for a drink.

Ren Suo wanted to pretend he hadn’t seen it, but then a chill ran down his spine.

He remembered something.

Li Qingxuan seemed to have said that these two days were holidays...

This meant his three-day leave actually amounted to only one extra day off... Damn it, You Jilong, with his thick eyebrows and big eyes—I didn’t expect him to be so crafty!