Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 2: Status Bar

“In short, the big dragon realized something was wrong. They say twins are ominous and should be checked by the boss with the long name. He was taken away, and the next time I saw him was…the day he died. That’s all I know.”

The dragonling’s voice still sounded confused when it mentioned “death”.

“How do you know about the secret passage? Have you been here for a long time? You…You’re human too, right? Please, can you tell me how to get home?”

It pleaded incoherently, subconsciously moving towards Xu Yue. At this moment, a shadow sprung out of the darkness, standing between them.

“Hey!” The shadow made a loud grunt. “I’m also from Joy Garden! Are you Ye Meng from Unit 1 on the fourth floor? The second year of junior high*? I’m Grandma Li from Unit 3. You helped me carry groceries before, remember?”

*This is equivalent to 8^th grade in western schools.

The dragonling stood frozen, only nodding after a long time.

“Weren’t you supposed to stay hidden?!” Another shadow jumped out. “We still don’t know what that fire is!”

“Bah, letting this child take the risk—have you no shame?”

The two shadows squabbled loudly.

With the help of his own firelight, Xu Yue could finally see the two mysterious “roommates”—two blobs of slightly turbid slime bobbing up and down, bubbling inside, with no eyes, nose, ears, or mouth.

They were low-level monsters from “Tahe”, commonly known as slimes.

The day the dragonling was killed, it was probably them chattering in the pile of bones. After that, they never made a sound again. The other party didn’t want to come out on their own, possibly because they must have their own concerns, so Xu Yue didn’t insist on finding them.

Now they had appeared together.

“I’m Ye Meng. Nice to meet you, Granny.” Meeting a neighbor again—even a bizarre one—the young dragonling’s voice was a bit shy. The atmosphere eased a little, and even the creepy Dragon Tomb didn’t seem so scary anymore.

“Hey, good. We woke up like this too after a nap.” The slimes finally stopped arguing, and Grandma Li squeezed the slime next to her. “This is my old man, Lao* Chen. Don’t mind him. He’s a scaredy-cat.”

*Old (老) When used in front of a name conveys feelings of a close relationship.

Elder* Chen grumbled a couple of times, turning towards Xu Yue warily. “Scaredy-cat my ass. I’m telling you that fire—”

*Old Man [laotou] (老头). In this context, it’s used as a familiar but respectful way to address someone (in this case, the narration pointing out that he’s an elderly man).

“My name is Xu Yue, from Unit 701, Building 7 of Yunshang Joy Garden.” Xu Yue interrupted. “I was busy with work before, so you probably haven’t seen me.”

“Oh, oh. That single young man.” Grandma Li thought for a moment, then asked loudly, “How did you know about the secret passage?”

Xu Yue suspected she remembered everyone in the community. He paused for a moment, pretending not to hear the first half. “This place resembles a game developed by our company, so I have some information.”

Given the shocking nature of the content, he rushed through his explanation while the flame within him flickered rapidly.

There was a moment of silence as the bubbling of the two slimes stopped.

“Game?” A few minutes later, the dragonling asked in confusion.

“Tahe World, a virtual reality game.” Xu Yue explained. “I don’t know why we’re all here, but my knowledge can help us survive… First, we need to survive before we have a chance to go home.”

Everyone seemed okay, but their mental states were certainly not as stable as they appeared in this strange place. Instead of beautiful words on the surface, he needed to give a real guarantee.

A guarantee of “survival”.

The silence lingered even longer this time, with only the drip of water echoing in the tomb.

“I’ve never heard of Tahe…” Elder Chen grumbled, breaking the silence.

“As long as there’s a way to survive, it’s better than being in the dark.” Grandma Li interrupted her husband with a bitter smile. “Let’s talk more later. We need to bury that college student first.”

Nobody objected.

No matter what customs the dragon had, humans paid more attention to burial rites. They didn’t dare to move the dragon’s body arbitrarily, so they left it in place, carefully covering it with rubble and vegetation.

A crude tomb was added in the corner.

They hoped that this young neighbor was just “offline”—that he would wake up in reality. However, the swollen and ugly corpse of the young dragon exuded a real stench, and no one wanted to take the risk of dying.

They knew he was once a living person, but facing the body of a different species, it was hard to feel any sadness; only the melancholy resembling the rabbit’s death and the fox’s grief*.

*(兔死狐悲) It’s an idiom referring to the tale where a fox mourns the death of a rabbit after having formed an alliance to fight against the hunter. It’s a metaphor for empathizing with the loss of one’s own kind, but in modern usage, it could also mean empathizing with someone’s misfortune or hardship that you often see, even though you don’t have close relations with them.

The atmosphere was heavy, but whether they were old or young, no one cried or broke down. Just staying “alive” was taking up all of everyone’s mental energy.

There was no choice. Sometimes, people could only hang on to their breath, pretending everything would get better.

……

“Monsters don’t have as many classes and skills as Players, but we can choose our evolution paths.”

After a short period of mourning, Xu Yue seized the time to explain the basics.

It was really inconvenient having no form of physical explanation. It would be nice if he could open the status bar.

As soon as the thought appeared, a blue, translucent pop-up window appeared abruptly in the dark.

[Will-o’-Wisp – Lv.1]

[HP: 10/10 | MP: 6/6]

[Strength: 1 | Agility: 1 | Intelligence: 3 | Physical Defense: – | Magic Defense: 3]

[Status: Immune to physical attacks; Fire and light attribute attacks deal 500% damage; Automatically perish in sunlight.]

It was really “Tahe World”. The interactive interface was the same. When speculation became reality, Xu Yue still felt a moment of horror.

“Can you see this? This is the status bar of the monster.”

Xu Yue calmly continued after a few seconds.

“Same kind of monsters have the same initial attributes. Only three actions can change the values—leveling up, evolving, or eating special items.”

“Understood. Level up fast, choose the right evolution path, and eat more heavenly materials and earthly treasures,” Elder Chen summed up.

“How did you make this box come up?” Grandma Li’s attention was elsewhere.

As it turned out, the design of “Tahe World” was very convenient.

To see the status bar, all one had to do was silently think “Open status bar”. By default, the status bar was only visible to oneself. To show it to others, you needed to think about it a little bit, which wasn’t hard to practice.

Soon, three new pop-ups appeared in mid-air.

The properties of the elderly couple were exactly the same—

[Common Slime – Lv.1]

[HP: 25/30 | MP: 2/2]

[Strength: 5 | Agility: 1 | Intelligence: 1 | Physical Defense: 7 | Magic Defense: 7]

[Status: Hungry]

As for the junior high school student Ye Meng—

[Black Dragon [Juvenile Body] – Lv.50]

[HP: 1,218,890/1,218,890 | MP: 1/176,013]

[Strength: 39,260 | Agility: 4,452 | Intelligence: 7,018 | Physical Defense: 52,106 | Magic Defense: 52,106]

[Status: Has not undergone a Mana Baptism; temporarily unable to cast spells.]

Although the four of them could only muster a pair of eyes, they all “stared” at Ye Meng’s status bar.

“Well, that’s quite something. Enough for a down payment in our neighborhood,” Grandma Li exclaimed. “Xu Yue, aren’t you from a game company? How…” She politely swallowed the rest of her sentence.

Xu Yue slowly moved his gaze away. His total attributes were only enough for a meal.

“Ye Meng did very well before.” Xu Yue turned his gaze to the dragonling’s face, which was covered in scales and difficult to read. “The dragons are very conservative. If you’re found out, you’re dead.”

Ye Meng shivered. “Can you lead us to escape?”

“It’s more dangerous outside. As long as we don’t expose ourselves, this is the safest place in the world.”

Dragons were full of treasure. For Ye Meng to leave the Dragon’s Lair now, it would be like a piece of fat with wings.

“But…”

“Dragons grow fast. Your range of activity will gradually expand,” Xu Yue comforted her. “The next part is very important. Everyone, listen carefully.”

The old couple didn’t think about their own affairs. The two transparent balls slowly squeezed over.

“Soon, the giant dragon will hold a Mana Baptism, allowing the cubs to choose their own magic system. Ye Meng, you need to choose ‘Water’, and the symbol is this.”

Xu Yue moved his body, drawing a series of trajectories in the dark.

The physical strength of the black dragon was high, but its magical talent wasn’t as good as other dragons. They instinctively chose fire and wind magic to assist in physical combat. In contrast, water magic lacked offensive power, and the only interesting ice branch was also easily restricted by the environment.

A black dragon choosing water was basically considered trash—no matter which group it would be in, trash wouldn’t get too much attention.

Coincidentally, the last thing Ye Meng needed was attention.

“Both of you should choose ‘poison’ as your evolution direction. From now on, you’d better only eat poisonous things. Don’t worry. Slimes won’t be poisoned, and they have no sense of taste.”

“The Dragon Tomb Garden has a poison stage, which is full of poisonous plants and monsters. I will take you there.”

“Can we spray poison outward after practicing? Like bullets?” Elder Chen’s tone finally had a little more expectation.

“Slimes can only gather poison on the surface of their bodies.” Xu Yue shattered the old man’s dream. “But you can cooperate.”

Ye Meng let out a sound of sudden realization.

Xu Yue glanced at her and continued, “Ye Meng, you should go together. You need to eat detoxifying herbs for a long time to increase your tolerance. The toxicity of dragon corpse poison is very strong. Their poison can hurt you.”

“Even if the black dragon’s magic is poor, it is stronger than ordinary monsters. If the corpse poison mixes with water magic, you can use the poisonous fog to ambush or escape.”

Anyway, humans didn’t need the pride of a great dragon. Xu Yue believed that compared to the “glory to the dragon’s blood”, Ye Meng definitely preferred to save her life.

There used to be a powerful boss in the “Dragon Tomb Garden” plan; a bone dragon adept at poison/water compound magic. Its image was too bloody and ghastly that Xu Yue was worried it would affect the reviews, and in the end, it was scrapped.

But Xu Yue clearly remembered its attack moves. Two venomous slimes plus a black dragon could completely make up a young version of the bone dragon.

After listening to the instructions, Ye Meng nodded vigorously. The two elderly people had no objections.

Xu Yue breathed a sigh of relief.

The three were either too young or old enough; they all know the age of eating full meals when they are persuaded*. It would be troublesome if they had someone who thought they were the protagonist.

*An expression referring to people who are sensible and willing to heed advice (like young children or older people).

“What about you?” At the end, Ye Meng asked shyly. “Aren’t you going with us?”

It took a lot of effort to catch someone who knew about this world. Realizing that Xu Yue might leave, the sense of security she just got was shaking again.

“I have to go out and take a look. Maybe there are other people outside,” Xu Yue said. “I’ll leave after I finish leveling up. During this time, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

The idea of “having a dragon by your side” was indeed tempting, but the Dragon’s Lair lacked information from the outside world, and the efficiency of leveling undead monsters was also low. If he stayed for a long time, he was destined to only survive.

He had to move forward.

……

Ye Meng stayed in the Dragon’s Lair during the day and sneaked in to listen to the lecture at night; the elderly couple lay in the poison level to eat and drink. Since they could chat, it seemed they were fine. Only Xu Yue floated around in the Dragon Tomb, consciously swallowing other will-o’-wisps.

The whole process was extremely boring, without any sensation of eating, like an old synthetic game. This kind of day lasted for nearly a month before Xu Yue reached the threshold of level 20.

The full-level prompt “ding” sound was as beautiful as heavenly music.

After reaching the full level, the will-o’-wisp had two evolutionary lines—”Nameless Ghost” and “Skeleton Soldier”.

The former specialized in the magic route; the latter would lose the feature of “immune to physical attack”. As compensation, they would have physical form and could wear equipment.

The experience of upgrading was very peculiar. It was like driving to an intersection and choosing to turn left or right. Xu Yue decisively turned to “Skeleton Soldier”—he needed to blend into the crowd to collect information. It was hard for ghost-type monsters without form to do this.

The moment the selection was completed, a green light suddenly lit up around him.

Countless fragments of bone drilled out of the stone cracks, and they merged with each other accompanied by a little glow, gradually forming the shape of a human skeleton. The huge will-o’-wisp scattered, adhering to the skeleton like a liquid, and then was absorbed by the muddy bones.

Two groups of blue flames ignited in the hollow eye sockets of the skeleton, and then all the bones clicked and fell to the ground.

Xu Yue: “……”

How careless. He lost his footing.

After trying hard on the spot for five minutes, Xu Yue managed to piece himself together. He staggered towards a nearby puddle and saw his appearance—

A dirty human skeleton, with grape-sized will-o’-wisps burning in his eye sockets.

Xu Yue held his breath, concentrated for a moment, and summoned the status bar.

[Skeleton Soldier – Lv.1]

[HP: 81/81丨MP: 22/22]

[Strength: 21丨Agility: 5丨Intelligence: 14丨Physical Defense: 15丨Magic Defense: 15]

[Status: Fire and light attribute attacks deal 500% damage; Automatically perish in sunlight.]

…It was still weak enough to make people cry.

Well, skeleton soldiers usually appear in groups, so a single soldier couldn’t be too strong.

The attributes of a skeleton soldier were slightly inferior to those of the level 20 will-o’-wisp. However, its initial attributes were superior, and its max level was 30. At least he had changed from an “ambient light” to a “scrap used for environmental decoration and occasionally to scare people”.

Everyone had their own destiny. Xu Yue decided not to think about Ye Meng, who was born at level 50.

It was time to embark on a journey.

Since this world was like a game, he hoped that there were real Players here. It was best to let him meet one as soon as possible, so as not to try finding clues like a headless fly. Xu Yue patted the mud off his body and made a silent wish.

At this time, he didn’t realize that the wish would be realized so quickly.

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The author has something to say:

“Expert Guide: Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Become a Mean Outlander”

Chapter One: The Poisonous Fog of Justice

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Guess who is the first Player he’ll meet?

It’s not that difficult (……

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