Chapter 48: Can’t Go
Half a month later.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the legendary banquet, Lu Yunxi found herself bursting with culinary inspiration. She promptly went into seclusion to study the culinary arts.
Not only did she successfully replicate the intricate dishes from the feast, but she also developed numerous original recipes of her own. Her advanced cooking skills, which had originally been boosted by the elixir, were quickly maxed out—grinding through this stage even faster than her transition from the intermediate to advanced level!
Unfortunately, bridging the gap from advanced to master was no simple feat. Even after completely maxing out her proficiency bar, she failed to trigger a breakthrough.
Yasi and Zhou Xiaoyu were utterly amazed by her culinary prowess, making it a daily habit to drop by her house just to dine on her creations.
However, after a month of this peaceful routine, Lu Yunxi decided it was time to set off.
Yasi and Zhou Xiaoyu had purchased a storefront in Jinzhou City, running a small, steady business selling various sundries. Seeing that their shop was finally on the right track, Lu Yunxi knew she had to resume her own quest.
Her aunt was still nowhere to be found.
Worried that she might blindly walk into danger, Yasi pulled her aside to offer a stern reminder. “Xiaoxi, you’ve only just reached the intermediate tier overall. You can wander anywhere you like within our empire’s borders, but if you intend to cross into foreign territories, your current martial arts level simply won’t cut it!”
Knowing her friends were just looking out for her, Lu Yunxi offered a compliant nod.
But Yasi knew her too well. Reading the subtle skepticism hidden behind the girl’s nod, she warned her repeatedly, “I’m serious, you’ll be wasting your time trying. Unless you reach the advanced tier, the moment you hit the imperial border, you’ll be completely stuck, unable to pass. Your only other option would be to beg an advanced-tier master to physically escort you across. Otherwise, you’ll never get out!”
Lu Yunxi’s heart jumped. An invisible barrier!
She vividly remembered striking an air wall during her very first trek to Jinzhou City. Did the native NPCs encounter that phenomenon too? Back then, she had suddenly become able to pass through it. Was it truly because her attributes had grown stronger?
“Aside from brute-forcing your way to a higher level, is there really no other method?” She frowned. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t the commoners who never practice martial arts be trapped inside the country for their entire lives?”
“The boundary is set to safeguard our people. Every major province has been fortified with massive Bagua formations to regulate passage,” Yasi explained. “Furthermore, it isn’t strictly tied to your combat level; your professional trade skills count toward your evaluation as well. Since your registered profession is a chef, if you can successfully break through to become a master chef, you can easily bypass the restrictions and leave.”
So it maps to my profession, Yunxi realized. No wonder she had been barred from entering Jinzhou City initially! Back then, she was just an ordinary villager; it was only after arriving in the town that she formally unlocked the chef profession.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Yasi paused, a sudden thought striking her just as Yunxi turned to leave. “I’ve deployed networks across the entire empire, but there isn’t a single trace of your aunt anywhere. It’s highly probable she resides in a foreign realm. If you intend to hunt for her abroad, you’d better prioritize upgrading your martial arts. Word is the wilderness beyond our borders is vastly more lethal than anything here.”
She hesitated, then added, “Your best bet is to seek out a sect to refine your cultivation. Unfortunately, those factions are hidden deep within forgotten massifs and ancient forests. Heaven knows where one even begins to look for them.”
Armed with this new understanding of the world’s mechanics, Lu Yunxi bid a fond farewell to her two friends and officially embarked on the next leg of her journey.
That afternoon.
Lu Yunxi sat quietly on a low wooden stool, a wide straw hat shading her eyes and a blade of grass bobbing between her lips.
If one were to look at her in isolation, the scene possessed the serene, leisurely charm of a traditional landscape painting. However, expanding the view revealed a massive crowd of individuals seated in dense rows along both sides of the riverbank. They were all perched on identical small stools, their hands gripping fishing rods with absolute, deadpan seriousness.
Yet despite their focused expressions, their lips never stopped moving as they chatted away.
Fortunately, the river was teeming with a massive school of fish; otherwise, with this many lines in the water, no one would have caught a single thing.
“Haha, this fishing mechanic is awesome! Look at this monster, it easily weighs a full two kilograms!”
“Man, why does the fish we grill ourselves taste like total garbage, but the stuff served at the local taverns and inns tastes like heaven?”
“Oh, give it a rest, Old Wang! Are you seriously still trying to brute-force the cooking skill on your own? I told you, you have to trigger an apprenticeship with a master NPC before the system unlocks the hidden recipes!”
“But I really wanted to complete a self-sufficient run…”
The fishing rod in her hands gave a sudden, subtle tremor. Lu Yunxi’s focus instantly narrowed. Tuning out the ambient chatter of the surrounding crowd, she deftly reeled in the line, plucking a plump fish from the water and tossing it into the wooden bucket resting at her feet.
The nearby event coordinator quickly jogged over, weighed the catch, recorded the metrics on his ledger, and transferred the fish into a master container.
Yes, she was actively participating in a regional fishing tournament.
If she were the person she used to be, she would have gone to extreme lengths to avoid an event so heavily saturated with players. But a few days prior, while navigating a mountain pass, she had accidentally stumbled upon a player squad struggling against a wild boss. Desperate for assistance, the team had yelled at her to join the fray.
Without thinking it through, she had raised her bow and loosed a volley, shredding the monster in a matter of seconds. After smoothly splitting the dropped equipment and silver coins with the grateful party, a grand revelation hit her: As long as I keep my mouth shut, absolutely no one can tell I’m an NPC! In fact, the party leader had assumed she was a high-level solo player and eagerly tried to send her a friend request.
When she hunted monsters in the wilderness entirely on her own, the system never granted her silver, copper, or gear drops. But the moment she integrated into a player party to execute a target, she received an equal distribution of high-tier resources! It was an unimaginably lucrative loop—vastly more profitable than spending days crafting items just to sell them for a pittance at a general store.
Since that discovery, whenever she detected player-driven community events, she no longer fled. Instead, she actively thrust herself into the crowd. After all, she was currently entirely blank on clues regarding the secret sects; she might as well utilize the time to hoard capital.
Which brought her here, crouching incognito among a massive swarm of players, perfectly masquerading as an eccentric gamer to reap the tournament rewards.
She wasn’t entirely sure what this fishing event would yield. Every entrant was guaranteed a basic participation prize, but rumor had it the top three finalists would walk away with high-grade, premium items. She could only wonder how high the quality tier actually scaled.
“Hey, beautiful! Earth to beautiful?!”
A hand aggressively waving back and forth in front of her eyes abruptly shattered her daydream.
Yunxi stiffened, sitting up straight. She turned to find the male player from the neighboring station leaning over with a familiar grin. She sighed inwardly, her expression flat. “…Is there something you need?”
“Hehe! Hey, beautiful, I’ve been watching your station. Your catch rate is insane! Care to share the secret trick?” The man chuckled, his hand extending forward as he spoke.
Tracking the hand as it drifted closer and closer to her shoulder, Yunxi’s expression remained entirely placid, but her inner instincts flared. This idiot is looking for a beating. Trying to use a casual question as an excuse to get physically familiar with her was a fatal mistake.
The exact microsecond his fingers were about to brush her sleeve, Yunxi let out a cold mental snort, her own hand snaking out to execute a lightning-fast counter-grip to break his wrist.
However, the moment her fingers made contact, a highly unexpected texture caused her to freeze dead in her tracks.
She blinked, staring blankly down at her palm. She was holding a small, heavy velvet coin purse.
Her fingers twitched slightly as she loosened the drawstring, peering inside. To her utter bewilderment, the bag was packed with a flat 100 silver coins.
She snapped her head up, staring at the grinning guy in front of her. What kind of unhinged, naive trust-fund child is this?! He had actually dropped a small fortune in silver just to ask a baseline mechanical question!
Is this what it feels like to have money literally rain down from the heavens?
Yunxi clutched the velvet pouch, her baseline survival instincts warring fiercely with her core moral compass. In the end, her conscience won the battle.
She aggressively shoved the purse back into the man’s chest, turning her head away to force herself to stop staring at the silver. “Take it back. This question isn’t worth a fraction of that sum. My core fishing proficiency has simply reached the intermediate tier; that’s the only reason my reel speed and success metrics are optimized.”
The man scratched his head in confusion. Seeing the absolute resolution in her eyes, he had no choice but to awkwardly reclaim his money. He rummaged through his dimensional inventory for a moment, eventually pulling out a massive, packed crate of culinary items and sliding it over to her.
This time, she didn’t refuse. A quick glance revealed the dishes the boy had gifted her were all of exceptional, Blue-tier quality.
She happily devoured the premium lunch with immense relish. Noting that the player next to her was still struggling to hook a single bite, she offered a casual piece of advice. “If you want to unlock the proficiency scaling, drop the event and go map-hop through the Novice Villages. Virtually every starter zone features a local resident who explicitly teaches the baseline fishing forms.”
The man’s eyes flared with excitement. “Wow, thanks! Hey, miss, what’s your player ID? I want to add you to my friends list!”
Right then, the system chime echoed, signaling that Yunxi’s tournament duration had officially concluded. She smoothly stood up and began packing away her rod.
Hearing his request, she offered an immediate, polite refusal. After all, she was an administrative anomaly—a literal fake player. If she permitted someone to log her into their social matrix and they eventually detected the structural code anomalies flagging her as an NPC, it was a data security nightmare. She had no desire to be captured and sliced open for corporate study.
Before she could even distance herself from the riverbank, a roaring shout boomed out from behind her:
“Hey! Miss! My character name is ‘Super Awesome Hero’! Make sure you accept my request when you log back on!”
