Chapter 55: Assessment
Lu Yunxi eventually brought the man to the cave.
Specifically, it was the exact same cave where she had been frantically clearing the bandit dungeon before. Since she had actually obtained her purple dress from running the instance, she figured there shouldn’t be any issues with bringing him directly to the source.
Besides, she was harbor-ing her own deep curiosity. Was she truly the only pseudo-NPC in the world capable of entering a dungeon, or could all native NPCs cross the instance barriers?
Wrestling with her doubts, she guided the man right toward the bandit stronghold.
The clearing outside was exactly as she had left it—throngs of players were milling about, organizing into parties and chatting animatedly. The area was buzzing with life.
The man stood at the cave mouth, quietly observing the surroundings for a moment. It was unclear what his high-level perception was picking up, but after a brief pause, he gestured for her to follow and led her inside.
Unlike her solo runs, where the cave path instantly illuminated with orderly torches and perfectly stationary mobs, it felt as though they had stepped into a living, breathing criminal den.
Several bandits were stumbling around, thoroughly intoxicated, while a few others aggressively slurred, “Drink! Keep drinking!” Positioned on a massive wooden chair in the center of the chamber was the bandit leader. His two high-ranking cadres sat flanking him, while the surrounding space was packed with a chaotic circle of ordinary bandits and low-tier minions.
It certainly looked a whole lot more realistic than the clinical layout of the standard dungeon instance.
The man marched forward, his face a mask of absolute severity. He grabbed one of the drunken cadres by the collar and shook him violently. “Wake up!”
But the bandit was far too deep in a pleasant, alcohol-induced stupor to realize that sudden death was staring him in the face. The cadre half-heartedly slapped the man’s hand away, bellowing in a slurred but booming voice, “Get lost! I’m trying to drink! Quick! Bring up more wine!”
Watching a common bandit slap a Level 63 master across the face, Lu Yunxi’s eye twitched violently. She immediately lowered her head, intensely pretending she hadn’t witnessed the exchange.
The man’s head had been knocked to the side by the blow. He slowly turned his face back, entirely expressionless. He stared quietly at the snoring bandit for a few seconds, and then, a sudden, terrifying smile spread across his lips.
A brutal round of thudding kicks and heavy punches later, the entire bandit squad was violently jolted awake from their drunkenness.
“How dare a pathetic rat barge into our stronghold!” The bandit leader growled from his elevated throne, attempting to glare down at them with absolute gravity. However, with his face heavily bruised and his nose actively bleeding, the performance lacked any real authority.
The leader executed a sharp wave of his hand, and a full-scale brawl erupted instantly.
Lu Yunxi: …
Watching the bandits charge forward with reckless abandon, she genuinely didn’t know what to say. The man beside her was Level 63, while the bandit leader topped out at a measly Level 35. A near thirty-level gap in this world represented a catastrophic chasm in power.
Even she, when calculating her odds against the man earlier, had contemplated using her entire stockpile of biological toxins just to secure a thin chance of survival. But these bandits… having cleared them dozens of times, she knew their basic attack patterns inside and out. Aside from the leader, the rest didn’t possess a single masterful form. When they fought, they simply hacked and swung blindly—there was no finesse to it whatsoever.
Seeing a cluster of minions closing in on her position, she reached toward her sleeve to manifest her bow and arrows, but the man smoothly intercepted the group, overturning the entire front line with a single sweeping strike.
What followed was a completely one-sided massacre.
Yunxi stood idly by the cave wall, completely unbothered. Finding herself with ample free time, she pulled up her character status panel to check her metrics.
Her eyes widened in immediate surprise. The system was actively routing a passive share of the man’s kill experience straight into her own attribute bars! Furthermore, because they were executing live, high-level map entities rather than standard instance data, the experience yield per kill was vastly superior to anything she harvested from her solo dungeon speedruns!
Tracking the experience bar as it surged forward, a wave of pure joy washed over her. She hadn’t anticipated that after losing her dedicated “apprentice experience pack,” she could simply pick up another high-tier NPC to passively farm levels for her!
Teamwork truly is the supreme meta of this world!
“The truth is clear to me now. To think a low-tier menial disciple of our grand lineage was foully murdered by these rats while traveling the mortal realms!” The man let out a heavy, solemn sigh. He methodically ransacked the bandits’ storage chests, carefully reclaiming every ancestral artifact belonging to his organization, before carelessly tossing the remaining chests of gold, silver, and fine jewelry toward her feet.
Yunxi stood dazed, staring blankly at the massive crates of wealth piled before her.
“Furthermore, young maiden, you have my immense gratitude for your guidance. Had you not directed my path, locating our missing disciple would have been an impossible feat.” The man secured his pack and turned his focused gaze onto her. “Our organization abides strictly by the laws of karma; we always repay our debts. Is there any specific desire or request your station wishes to fulfill?”
“Ah?!” Yunxi blinked, it taking her several seconds to fully process the prompt.
What did she actually need assistance with? Elevating her physical combat parameters wasn’t something he could magically execute for her account. And unlike players who could repeatedly trigger instance data, once an NPC cleared a live map stronghold, the entities were permanently eliminated from the world layer. She couldn’t simply keep dragging this man back here to farm experience loops.
“There isn’t any pressing matter I require aid with…” she replied after a moment of careful consideration. “Gifting me these crates of gold is already more than enough to satisfy my needs.”
But the man flatly refused to accept her modesty. “Absolutely not! You have rendered an immense service to our lineage; I will not settle this debt with a perfunctory handful of coins!”
In his mind, he reasoned: What value do mere silver and material treasures hold? For those walking the path of mastery, cultivation and martial prowess are the only pursuits that matter; gold is just worldly clutter. This young lady’s baseline agility is exceptional, and on our trek over the ridges, she fiercely ordered her own student to abandon his rescue attempt to ensure his safety. Her moral character is flawless…
“Tell me, maiden—do you harbor a desire to join our grand sect?” Since her moral compass and physical foundations were so profoundly optimized, it was only natural to consider recruiting her into their ranks.
Yunxi’s breath hitched, her heart leaping with immense excitement. “Would that truly be acceptable? It won’t cause any administrative complications for your station, will it?” If she utilized a backdoor recommendation link, she didn’t want to inadvertently trigger a penalty for this man. Although she was desperate to breach a sect’s perimeter, she refused to compromise someone else’s standing for her own gain.
The man let out a boisterous, booming laugh. “Of course it won’t! Once you cross the threshold into our territory, you must still submit to the formal trial parameters. Should your attributes fail to meet the standard, even my personal endorsement won’t save you from being ejected.”
At this, his expression turned intensely solemn. “The absolute limit of my authority is to escort your station directly to the sect’s central assessment grounds. Beyond that marker, I am barred from granting you any further mechanical assistance.”
Yunxi nodded vigorously, her understanding absolute. “To simply be granted a slot in the formal sect trials is a magnificent favor!” She had spent more than half a year scouring the corners of the empire, completely failing to locate a single spatial marker for these hidden factions; this opportunity was priceless.
Half a month later.
The man led Lu Yunxi into the basin of a sprawling, isolated valley.
In reality, the geographic assets rendered across the game’s wilderness looked incredibly uniform, to the point where she routinely struggled to differentiate one mountain pass from another. But the master navigated the terrain with absolute certainty, entirely confident that they had arrived at the exact coordinate layer of the sect’s testing grounds.
Yunxi stared across the completely barren, silent canyon, a heavy silence falling over her.
Just as a wave of skepticism began to form in her mind, the man abruptly manifested a specialized jade token from his inventory.
A sudden, blinding flash of yellow light erupted before her eyes. Yunxi instinctively clamped her eyelids shut to avoid being blinded by the sensory flare. When she carefully reopened them, the ambient light had normalized, and a serene elder possessing a long, snow-white beard had materialized directly in front of their positions.
The old man slowly stroked his beard, his eyes locking onto her frame with a profound, knowing gaze, as though he could read every line of data embedded in her character file.
“Young lady, simply follow the examiner into the trial zone. He will outline your specific parameters momentarily.” The master offered her a reassuring nod, then executed a powerful leap, vanishing over the ridge in an instant.
Yunxi turned her attention back to the silent elder, offering a tentative, polite greeting. “Good day, honored Examiner?”
The old man cast a brief glance over her dress and nodded. “Young maiden, please follow my steps closely.”
With that, he executed a single step forward, walking directly into… a door?
She flinched in surprise.
When did that gateway manifest?!
The phenomenon perfectly mirrored a spatial tear leading into a separate dimensional pocket, radiating an intensely mysterious aura. Watching the elder’s form begin to fade into the shimmer, Yunxi checked her footing and cautiously stepped through the threshold behind him.
Crossing the barrier, a completely transformed world materialized before her eyes.
Though both sides of the tear featured identical, dense forest assets, the trees on the outer map were vibrant, lush, and green. Inside this pocket dimension, however, the foliage had long since shifted into deep, autumnal gold, and the forest floor was heavily blanketed with a thick layer of crisp, fallen leaves.
