The Game with Fairies

Li Muyang thus entered Tianjiao City and joined the Blood Lotus Sect.

It went very smoothly, so smoothly that it seemed entirely reasonable.

His initiation ceremony into the Blood Lotus Sect was very simple. Shen Yan set up an altar in the city lord’s mansion and personally presided over the ceremony.

To Li Muyang, this kind of initiation ceremony was quite similar to many scenes he had seen in movies in his previous life.

Incense wafted in the dimly lit room, where candles and red lanterns burned.

He then knelt and kowtowed three times in front of the altar, made offerings to the Blood Lotus, burned joss paper, beheaded a chicken, and then dripped blood into a bowl to swear an oath.

After the process was completed, Li Muyang officially joined the sect, becoming a disciple of the Blood Lotus Sect and receiving two sets of lotus robes.

This robe symbolized a very high status within the Blood Lotus Sect, and only those above the rank of Banner Master were qualified to wear it.

However, Li Muyang currently held no official position.

After joining the Blood Lotus Sect, he was given a courtyard in the city lord’s mansion to live in, and four maids were assigned to serve him.

Li Muyang’s daily task was to soak in a wooden tub prepared by the Blood Lotus Sect for medicinal baths.

The tub, filled with various medicinal herbs and water, was placed over a fire that burned continuously, causing the water temperature to rise steadily until it boiled.

Sitting in the boiling water, Li Muyang felt his body slowly absorbing the essence of the medicinal bath, his physical body growing stronger bit by bit.

Shen Yan said his Martial God Tyrant Body had not yet reached Minor Achievement and needed further tempering and cultivation.

Although it looked more like he was being cooked like pork ribs, this medicinal bath was an excellent way to temper Li Muyang’s physical body.

Shen Yan did not allow him to go to the front lines, and after Li Muyang’s feigned requests to join the battle were rejected several times, he settled down to enjoy his baths in the courtyard.

After all, Li Muyang had already figured out the core intelligence that the Demonic Sect wanted.

He just needed to find an opportunity to secretly transmit it.

He soaked in the bath for seven hours a day, from early morning until night.

The rest of the time was for rest.

After soaking in the medicinal bath for a long time, his whole body felt as if it was being pricked with needles.

So every time he climbed out of the tub, all Li Muyang wanted to do was lie down and rest, rarely moving.

The only benefit of this medicinal bath was that Li Muyang could close his eyes and play games while lying in the tub.

In the game, he constantly controlled the Emerald Blade Mantis as it roamed the mountains, attacking the wild beasts in the forest.

At this point, the Emerald Blade Mantis had evolved to the 5th tier, measuring two zhangs in length, and had become a dominant force in the wilderness, with wild boars and leopards among its prey.

As for the ferocious tiger, the Lord of Mount Wu, Li Muyang would occasionally send it to attack the Blood Lotus Sect’s grain transport teams, evolving it through eating people and the robbery of spiritual medicines.

The Blood Lotus Sect had taken notice of this tiger and began to send people to hunt it down, resulting in Li Muyang encountering ambushes three times.

Fortunately, with the system’s save-and-load ability, he managed to clear the time-limited levels by repeatedly loading saves.

The Evolution Points gained from devouring cultivators and martial artists were much higher than those from ordinary people.

The Blood Lotus Sect’s attempts to kill the tiger inadvertently allowed the Lord of Mount Wu to acquire even more Evolution Points.

After consuming a Banner Master from the Blood Lotus Sect, the Lord of Mount Wu’s Evolution Points finally reached the threshold for evolution.

The massive tiger, now over five zhang long, formed a cocoon of light underground and fell into a deep slumber.

However, Li Muyang estimated that the 3rd tier was the limit for the Lord of Mount Wu’s evolution.

This beast had too low a potential for evolution; despite consuming so many spiritual medicines and cultivators from the Blood Lotus Sect, it had only evolved to the 3rd tier.

To evolve it to the 4th tier would require even more resources, making the investment in this creature not cost-effective.

In the same evolution game, the Emerald Blade Mantis, which specialized in hunting ordinary wild beasts in the mountains, had evolved to the 5th tier.

Now, the combat power of the 5th tier Emerald Blade Mantis was only slightly weaker than that of the 2nd tier Lord of Mount Wu.

Moreover, the resources consumed by the Emerald Blade Mantis throughout its evolution were not even a tenth of what the Lord of Mount Wu had consumed.

The further along, the higher the cost-effectiveness of cultivating the Emerald Blade Mantis.

Li Muyang decided that once the Lord of Mount Wu evolved to the 3rd tier, he would no longer waste time and resources on the tiger, instead focusing all his efforts and resources on the Emerald Blade Mantis.

During the day, he would soak in a wooden tub for medicinal baths, managing the evolution of beasts in the game, and at night, he would rest in his house, rarely going out.

Occasionally, Shen Yan would come to visit Li Muyang, taking him for walks in the city or sitting by the lake to drink tea together.

It seemed that chatting with Li Muyang had become the young lady’s only pastime during her leisure time at work.

Following her around, Li Muyang also met several Banner Masters from the Blood Lotus Sect, though most were under Shen Yan’s command.

Only occasionally would he see one or two Banner Masters from other branches come to Tianjiao City to demand supplies or to quarrel.

Li Muyang discovered that the conflicts and differences between the different branches and incense halls of the Blood Lotus Sect were more severe than he had imagined.

At a time when they should be uniting against the pressing threat of the Demonic Sect’s armies, these Incense Masters and Banner Masters could always find some strange reasons to argue.

On Li Muyang’s third day in Tianjiao City, Helmsman Xie Shanhai from the Liehai Hall nearly came to blows with Helmsman Liu Churen from the Yubo Hall.

To mediate this dispute, Shen Yan was forced to leave all matters in Tianjiao City and lead four hundred beast cavalry along with Li Muyang to a military camp over a thousand li away to resolve the conflict between the two sides.

Although the dispute was eventually settled, Li Muyang could see fatigue on Shen Yan’s face on the return journey.

However, as a newcomer, Li Muyang didn’t say much.

He maintained his calm and restraint, quietly observing this chaotic and fervent sect.

He didn’t deliberately probe for information, but he would ask a few more questions and take a few more glances in his daily life.

The details of the Blood Lotus Sect that Li Muyang saw, heard, and observed were written into letters and sent out through a small wooden box.

This wooden box, which could send Li Muyang’s letters every three days, was his only means of communication with the outside world.

Without any contacts or instructions, Li Muyang was completely on his own, lying low within the Blood Lotus Sect.

Although he was already aware of the ultimate secret of the Blood Lotus Sect’s relentless killing, Li Muyang did not immediately inform the Demon Refining Sect of this.

Instead, he wrote about his daily observations in his reports, gradually revealing more depth.

Even these simple and superficial reports were enough to excite the bigwigs of the Demon Refining Sect.

The mysterious veil of the Blood Lotus Sect, which had always been impenetrable, was finally lifted before the Demon Refining Sect with the arrival of Li Muyang’s letters.

……

The elders passed around the letter in the grand flying ship’s elder meeting.

Their expressions varied, but overall, they were satisfied.

Li Muyang, the spy they had successfully planted inside the Blood Lotus Sect, was the best news they had received in the past month.

However, the elders’ joy was their own.

Yan Xiaoru, the elder of the Hall of Enforcement, remained as indifferent as ever, showing no joy or excitement for the remarkable achievement of her subordinate.

Even when other elders congratulated her, Yan Xiaoru’s response was ice cold.