CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 55: WHITE-BROWED MA LIANG, MI FEI, THE LUO RIVER GODDESS

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

Looking at Ren Ying and Ren Wuxie, whose Lifespans only reached the age of 20, Ren Suo felt like this save file was going to be another waste.

To describe this Expedition as a disastrous defeat probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration. The three strongest combatants in the Ren Family were Patriarch Ren Ying, the ’Thunder Shield Axe’; Ren Wuxie, the ’Burning Iron Hand’; and Ren Luoyang, the ’Demon-Hunting Silver Wolf’. They headed to Yiling to eradicate the Flame Evil Spirits. This could be regarded as the most luxurious lineup in the history of the Ren Family Cultivators—though, in reality, they were practically the only ones who could set out.

However, Ren Wuxie nearly died twice, and Patriarch Ren Ying was on the brink of death once. If it weren’t for Ren Luoyang and Ren Ying both having Healing, Ren Wuxie would definitely not have made it back home.

Ren Wuxie’s near-deaths were bearable, but Patriarch Ren Ying losing a year of her life? That truly broke Ren Suo’s heart.

Because the Family Head character could equip Skills, Ren Suo had the Family Head constantly equipped with "Unlimited Energy." According to the game’s settings and the side effects of "Unlimited Energy," from the moment Ren Ying became the basic Family Head, her Lifespan should have been reduced by half. With the Ren Family’s normal Lifespan being 24 years, Ren Ying should have perished at 12.

But in practice, that wasn’t how it worked, because Ren Ying didn’t have "Unlimited Energy" equipped before she became Family Head. So, her Lifespan up to the age of 15 was normal. Even after she had "Unlimited Energy" equipped, Ren Suo would go through the trouble of switching to the main interface. He would help her unequip this Skill whenever she set out on an Expedition.

Because the "Unlimited Energy" Skill was practically useless during Expeditions, of course he would unequip it. Otherwise, it would needlessly waste a quarter of her life.

Nonetheless, due to double-speed Cultivation, Ren Ying’s Lifespan was still shortened to 21 years. Although Ren Ying had already completed a Spiritual Exchange, Ren Suo was counting on her to have a few sets of twins to increase the population.

Ren Ying losing a year of her life wasn’t just about Lifespan—it cost at least 10 points from her Attributes and a set of twins!

The Flame Evil Spirit stronghold in Yiling was just too terrifying.

And by terrifying, it wasn’t because the Flame Evil Spirits had such high output—no matter how powerful their attacks were, they couldn’t possibly exceed Family Head Ren Ying’s defensive power.

As long as the enemy’s Attack was lower than the Shield-form Cultivator’s Defense, theoretically, as long as Ren Ying could attract the enemy’s attention, what was left was merely a trivial task of wearing down the enemy’s health, just a matter of time.

After all, the battles were turn-based, and since Ren Suo couldn’t control any characters other than the Family Head, there wasn’t much difficulty in operating them.

Nevertheless, no matter how high Ren Ying’s Defense was, she couldn’t withstand the siege of Flame Evil Spirits!

According to the Scouting Attributes of Ren Ying, Ren Luoyang, and Ren Wuxie, the Attributes of a normal Flame Evil Spirit are as follows:

’Flame Evil Spirit’

’Attack 15, Defense 20, Move 10’

’Elite: In life, they were part of an elite military force, and in death, they maintained their military disposition. When there are more than 5 friendly units within a range of 5 squares, Attack +5, Defense +5.’

’Flame Blade: Their weapons have been corroded by flame, each attack deals flame damage.’

’Resentful Searing: Their ideals—to follow a benevolent and wise ruler, restore the Han dynasty, and return the world to peace—were seared by fiery flames into unwavering obsessions. This obsession, remarkably tenacious and powerful, even emanates from their bodies, causing all who come into contact with them to feel their frustration. At the end of each turn, reduce the Defense of enemy units within 1 square by 1, but it cannot cause death.’

Honestly, the Attributes of the Flame Evil Spirits weren’t that hard to take on. Even though their Attributes nearly doubled after turning into Demons, and they fought in groups, it was still within the handling capacity of the Ren Family Cultivators.

Yet, the Skill "Resentful Searing" completely negated Ren Ying’s advantage as a Shield-form Cultivator.

"Resentful Searing" wasn’t an attack and didn’t trigger Ren Ying’s passive effects; once Ren Ying was surrounded by Flame Evil Spirits, her Defense would be reduced by several points each turn depending on the number of Flame Evil Spirits!

Even if her Defense was boosted to a full 97.5 points, how many Flame Evil Spirits were there? And these were just the ordinary ones; there were even stronger Flame Evil Generals, and even historical Shu Army generals who had names and who died at the Battle of Yiling!

For example, the three strongest of the Ren Family had just encountered ’White-browed Ma Liang,’ and the swift Ren Wuxie was instantly wiped out upon meeting Ma Liang!

’White-browed Ma Liang’

’Attack 35, Defense 100, Move 10’

’Attendant Central to the Han Dynasty: In the absence of higher-ranking Shu Army generals, Ma Liang could command the movements of any friendly unit.’

’White-browed Excellence: Within a range of 5 squares and with more than 5 friendly units present, Attack +10, Move +5.’

’Flame Magic - Fiery Brow: After Ma Liang burned to death, only his eyebrows remained unscathed on his charred body. When he was revived by resentment and Spiritual Energy, he naturally mastered the Flame Brow Magic. Single-target attack at range, deals flame damage.’

These famous Shu Army generals with exceptionally high Defense were essentially the boss of each battle.

Ma Liang’s ’Flame Magic - Fiery Brow’ might not seem so impressive. Indeed, compared to the Spells of the Ren Family Cultivators, it certainly wasn’t much.

But the issue was that now, across the Central Plains, only the Ren Family Cultivators had a complete Cultivation System and Spells passed down from ancient times. Most people, even if they could sense Spiritual Energy, likely had no Spells at all. Even if they did, they were self-taught Spells like Ma Liang’s. Such magic techniques might seem quite good, but naturally, they couldn’t compare to the precious Spells recognized by Emperor Guangwu and passed down from ancient times until the Late Eastern Han Dynasty!

Emperor Guangwu originally believed that the descendants with Champion Bloodline merely needed to preserve these Spells. He thought that if the Han dynasty faced peril in the future, passing these Spells to the descendants of the Han would be enough to turn the tides. This idea was probably correct.

Why would the Ren Family Cultivators think of assassinating warlord leaders to hasten the unification of the land?

Because none of the warlords could really defeat a Ren Family Cultivator!

Even now, there were well-known military commanders and strategists who were also Cultivators, like Zhao Yun, Zhuge Liang, the Xiahou brothers, Zhang He, and Lu Meng. But no matter how talented they were, they could never be better than those Ren Family Cultivators with Champion Bloodline! No matter how formidable the Spells they comprehended on their own were, they could never surpass the Ren Family Cultivators who possessed Ancient Daoism!

Otherwise, how could Ren Suo possibly trounce all sorts of Demons in turn-based combat? In truth, the Ren Family Cultivators inherently possessed superior combat power, effectively suppressing their foes; the issue was simply the enemy’s greater numbers.

However, if the enemy possessed long-range Spells and sufficient Attack Power, it would reveal a fundamental weakness of the Ren Family Cultivators—

The Ren Family Members are too few.

Ren Suo now wouldn’t dare to let any of them die; at the sight of someone on the brink of death, he would quickly pull them back for Healing.If there were more members of the Ren Family, even just twenty or so, Ren Suo would feel more confident. If seven or eight among them had combat power like Ren Wuxie and Ren Luoyang, he would even dare to sacrifice lives to push through the Flame Evil Spirit stronghold.

Not to mention, each battle involved fighting at least a hundred Flame Evil Spirits. Shield-form Cultivator Ren Ying would be surrounded by eight Flame Evil Spirits each turn, suffering a -8 Defense. After being whittled down for five or six turns, Ren Ying would also reach the brink of death.

More importantly, if one wished to clear a Flame Evil Spirit stronghold, such battles would need to take place at least five times. Each battle would feature a different Shu Army leader, and the number of Flame Evil Spirits would continue to rise.

Ren Suo lay on the sofa, clicking his tongue as he observed the grand and magnificent family hall on the screen.

As the population of Ren Family Village increased, the family hall would become more beautiful. Now, in the year 222, the village’s population had already surpassed 1,200 people. This not only allowed them to provide high-performance Armor for Ren Family Cultivators but also enhanced the Cultivators’ Cultivation speed.

But Ren Suo didn’t feel any pride in managing success; he wondered if there was something wrong with his Expedition setup.

In fact, there was no limit to the number of participants per stronghold. The only restriction was that a team could only have four people, but Players could choose multiple teams for an ’Expedition’.

So here’s the problem—

The Ren Family had only five people.

One was 13-years-old, still in Cultivation; another was 5-years-old—yes, one of the twins born from Ren Ying’s first Spiritual Exchange with the male Spirit, the fourth-generation Ren Family Descendant Ren Xing.

At five years old, Ren Xing wanted to persuade the King of Hanzhong to withdraw his troops, which showed how politically aware Ren Family Members were. Ren Suo suspected that once this guy was old enough to move at 14, he would immediately start courting death everywhere.

Although this detail isn’t reflected in the game, Ren Suo always wondered about something. After reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," would the Patriarch of Ren Family automatically possess related memories? And if the Family Head had them, would he likely share them with the Ren Family Descendants?

Where did the other twin go? He died young.

This was actually a mistake by Ren Suo. When there was no one with the ’Healing’ Attribute among the family’s defensive personnel, and if the Ren Family Village had a large number of citizens, then the Ren Family’s children (below 8 years old) risked contracting and dying from diseases. The other twin died in the year 219, right at the end of the great plague in the Central Plains. Because for one quarter, no one in the family had the ’Healing’ Attribute selected, he fell ill and died.

However, such a death by illness could be avoided, and if the population were large enough, this risk wouldn’t even exist.

And so we’re back to the problem of education...

The people of Ren Family always got mixed up in history for inexplicable reasons, dying very quickly.

However, no matter what, the only option was to start over...

Ren Suo sighed and prepared to start a new game, but then he remembered the Goddess Jade Pendant that Cao Zhi had given him.

So he clicked on ’Spiritual Exchange’ and indeed found the option for ’Mi Fei’.

And then Ren Suo froze.

’Mi Fei, a family member, Trait: Water.’

Spiritual Exchange wasn’t about spending Spirit Crystals on... well, transactions, was it?

Why did the cost of Mi Fei’s summoning imply the sacrifice of a family member?