How to Cultivate a Game

Nee Chen's recklessness was something you would never see every day. Though that would be arguable given that he was now effectively immortal and recklessness had lost its meaning, it was certainly peculiar for Nee Chen to be so gung-ho and so bloodthirsty!

At the top of the tallest tree, he determinedly waited within the presumable territory of a herd of 1st stage monkeys.

'Oh, the things I do for Exp,' He complained to himself. 'Sigh…'

"Hooh-haah—hooh-hah-hoo"

"Hahah-hoo—hah!"

Just to an adjacent tree, Nee Chen recognized a couple of monkeys in heat, doing it in broad daylight. A male pounding the female… err… doing the female… uum, no… baby-making with the female? Screw it. Right, that was the word, screwing the female's brains out.

'Ugh… As expected, monkeys…' Nee Chen kept the thought to himself as he placed his hand over his sheathed sword. And.

Jump.

From a higher vantage point, Nee Chen descended. After reaching the 1st stage, his senses had become more acute, thus his precision.

EQUIP! It was one of his two martial skills. And with a cold glimmer of his steel, he swung his sword from its sheathe.

Nee Chen drew his sword with impressive alacrity. Equip was a martial skill with active and passive effects. It was one of the two skills he learned after receiving his Warrior class.

Actively, it granted bonus damage every successive hit depending on the amount of qi imbued on the sword. Passively, it allowed the practitioner to capably wield their weapon with a certain boost of stats according to the weapon used. For a sword, that would be additional strength and agility.

Slash—

Nee Chen viciously decapitated one of the two monkeys, and following it was a swift strike at the chest of the other.

It was a clean beheading! And a rather precise thrust! The two beasts at 1st stage fell from their tree, causing blood and gore to splatter. Nee Chen immediately hid in the thickets of the trees as the monkeys made an uproar because two of their own were killed. However, that was not the last of Nee Chen.

~~~

Enveloping the reptilian beast was his martial art: Dense Jade Armor. The Crocodilian was very still at the moment. In the physical world, he looked like a giant beast casually dozing off. However, that was not the case. 

He was actually inside his inner world. Once more, he dared to attempt rising to the 5th stage while being cocooned by his Dense Jade Armor which by no means was safe. If in his passive usage of the martial art, he emptied all of his qi, he would be then put in irreversible danger. The Crocodilian risked it because he was getting impatient.

While he was interrupted in the midst of his breakthrough, he was still intent on finding success. The Crocodilian was not someone who would easily give up. But more than that, he didn't want to get any weaker. His reptilian pride was damaged by the little bunny's stunt, and he wouldn't let it pass by him to be shamed just like this.

Outside his mental world, he imagined the little bunny futilely making efforts to attack him, which was amusing in its own way.

"I AM THE MASTER OF THE CREEK! A CREATURE OF CUNNING AND CAPRICE!"

The opportunity to achieve the next stage was here! The monstrous Crocodilian wouldn't let the opportunity slip past him.

Falling into a deep meditative state, the reptile explored his inner world once more. Shedding his scales, the Crocodilian found enlightenment in its new form. REBIRTH! NEW LIFE! TRANSCEND! Because of being pushed into the corner, and abused so much, his perspective of things small and big had changed.

He was no longer the Crocodilian who addressed himself as an 'it', and far surpassing that, he had become more accepting of how even the smallest creature could be the biggest annoyance. 

The 'it' abandoned the current self and became a 'he' in order to achieve a more perfect state.

No longer was he an ignorant beast. No longer was he an arrogant monster. No longer was he just a crocodile.

Now, he was as human as everyone. He had a name, a presence, a refined soul, and a new perception of things. Now, he could control his instincts and impulses much better. He was now an entirely different existence than he was before.

He had changed and accepted the change.

He was... Lurker.

~~~

When the reptilian beast stopped in his tracks, Bi Yuan thought that it was the opportunity she had been waiting for. So she attacked with her Sacred Ash. The brilliant white that gathered on her was a weapon of destruction of pure positive energies compressed into a beam of light. Even a ghost of demon king status wouldn't be unscathed by a sneak attack like this. That was how special the Paladin Class was that it had become the bane of everything which was evil.

Alas, her beam of light didn't do anything. Well, it did something. It took away Bi Yuan's vision for the next five seconds or so. It was so bright the little bunny's eyes were hurt. "Kyu~!"

Bi Yuan liked to fight but hated the pain. She was a peculiar creature nurtured by the system at her very core. She could not even remember her life as an ordinary bunny, there was only the life before her, the one the system paved.

Though she had the boon of resurrection, she didn't abuse it, because of her respect for the system. When she fought, she would usher all her strength and all she got with the thought of winning. This winning mentality was the core tenet of her being a player. 

While it was the White Ape's intention to make a tool of the system and share it, Bi Yuan was more thankful for the existence of the system itself, making her fanatically crazed toward whoever made the system's existence possible. It was a kind of chaotic admiration to a chaotic cycle… She was thankful to the White Ape, as a result, making her more thankful to the system; and while she was thankful to the system, she was more thankful to the White Ape for creating it; and this creates an infinite cycle of gratitude to the White Ape and the system because she was more thankful of the other making her most thankful of the next.

It was complicated if it were others who would come to learn the little bunny's thought process, but for Bi Yuan, it was fairly simple. She was just thankful... So thankful she'd give anything in return for the good she had experienced through them.

In a sense, Bi Yuan had developed a strange sense of faith in the system and its creator... At extreme measures, she might even contest as a fanatic who would do anything just to please the system and the White Ape.

That was why when the opportunity to slay a 4th stage beast came, Bi Yuan felt hopeful. By slaying and offering this reptilian monster, Bi Yuan hoped to satisfy her faith. She was eager to do good for the system. In this world where good and evil were simplified to the extreme between righteousness and wickedness, Bi Yuan had no room to enforce her own justice.

Her beam of light continued to pour at the Crocodilian until her qi reserves were empty, but it was no use. The positive karma she wielded was ineffective. It was because the Crocodilian was not evil...

[Testing the Karmic Values: Neutral] This was what appeared at the little bunny's System Interface.

It was almost a barbaric thought of wanting to sacrifice the 'innocent' beast who was minding his own business, but the way Bi Yuan saw it, slaying the reptilian monster in front of her was her greatest mission. However, it was already impossible from the very beginning. This was not simply the difference between levels, but a difference of the path they had taken.

Bi Yuan had strayed from her path. As a paladin who fought for justice, she failed to see what was wrong in her actions. The Paldin's Path was one which desired goodness. They championed justice and were righteous. Bi Yuan was none of them. She neither championed justice nor was she righteous. She was just a bloodthirsty beast.

The Crocodilian was unmoved. The little bunny's attacks had long stopped as she was made aware of its futility. None of her efforts seemed to take effect. The little white fur ball jumped high and placed her little paws over the Fork of Perforation that was embedded in the reptile's eye. Bi Yuan tried to retrieve her weapon stuck in the beast's eye. Nevertheless, it just wouldn't work as the hardened qi around the Crocodilian made it impossible.

"Kyu!" Bi Yuan lost temper and stomped on the Crocodilian's snout.

The jade qi surrounding the reptile trembled. It was like a cocoon covering the beast, and now, the time had come for what was inside to be reborn.

Dense qi started to encapsulate the Crocodilian. Burning with hot qi, the Crocodilian's body started to compress. The weapon stuck in its eye freely expelled itself, making Bi Yuan who was trying to pull it stumble, water splashing everywhere in the shallow creek.

It was a majestic sight, a beast achieving humanization!

Bi Yuan etched the spectacle in her mind. She felt envy and contempt inside her, emotions too new for her young mind.