"Did you find what you were looking for?" Wang Xiuying asked him after he returned.
"No, I didn’t. Which is probably a good thing," he said.
"What are you going to do now? Head to the Mystic Pagoda? It’s only a day from this place."
"I still have one more place to visit."
Wang Xiuying nodded and followed him.
Sometime later, they arrived at the Abandoned Valley.
The only reason Yuan came to this place was for the Lan Family.
’I hope they’re fine... The explosion was extremely powerful, after all...’ Yuan sighed inwardly.
It would be dreadful if the Lan Family was also affected by the Demon Lord’s explosion.
"Wang... Healer Wang, how long was I knocked out after the explosion?" Yuan turned to ask her.
"Uhh... A couple of minutes?"
"Hmm..."
"What about a white snake? Did you see any white snakes in the sky recently?"
"Yes! I saw a flying white snake sometime before the explosion! It was really mythical!" Wang Xiuying nodded her head in excitement just recalling the flying white snake in the sky.
"Before the explosion? Then they probably haven’t left yet..." Yuan wondered where the Lan Family could’ve gone after he was blown away. Surely, they didn’t return to the Divine Forest, right? If they did, he won’t be able to return to them since he doesn’t know where the place was located.
’Hopefully, they’re fine.’ Yuan prayed inwardly for their safety.
Sometime later, Yuan turned to look at Wang Xiuying and asked her, "I’m going to head to the Mystic Pagoda now. Do you also want to come with me?"
"I do!" Wang Xiuying quickly nodded, as she wouldn’t miss this chance that every other player hoped to have— playing alongside Player Yuan!
Yuan looked in the sky to find the blue star before following the direction.
"Player Yuan, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you decide to play Cultivation Online?" Wang Xiuying asked him as they walked.
"Because I want to feel alive," he calmly responded.
"Alive...?" Wang Xiuying raised her eyebrows in a puzzled manner.
"Yes. In the real world, even though I am living, I never felt like I am truly alive— at least that was how I felt before I started playing this game." Yuan said.
"Oooh. I think I get what you mean. I have had a lot of patients who told me the same thing." Wang Xiuying said.
And she continued, "Oh, I am a nurse outside."
Yuan merely smiled.
’I know,’ he said inwardly.
"What do you do outside? If it’s too personal, you don’t have to answer. I know you’re skeptical since everyone is trying to learn your identity, but I personally don’t care about any of that."
"I don’t really do anything outside, unfortunately. I stay at home all day."
"So you’re a modern-day hermit?" Wang Xiuying said.
"A what?" Yuan raised his eyebrows.
"A modern-day hermit. Someone who stays at home and doesn’t go outside unless absolutely necessary. There are many people like that nowadays due to how popular gaming has become." Wang Xiuying explained.
"Well, I do it not because I like to. I simply don’t have a choice." Yuan sighed.
"You must be living a difficult life, huh." Wang Xiuying looked at Yuan, feeling somewhat nostalgic, almost like she has spoken with him before.
’The way he speaks and the feeling he gives me... It’s very similar to Yu Tian... I wonder if this is what he would be like if he wasn’t in that condition...’ Wang Xiuying noticed some similarities before Yuan and Yu Tian, mostly their atmosphere and speech.
’I wonder what he’s doing right now.’
"What about you? Why did you decide to play?" Yuan suddenly asked her.
"I played on a whim since it was very popular, but once I realized how effective and unique medicine is in this world, it became my reason for continuing. I have a dream, you see. A dream to heal someone, and I believe the knowledge to do so is in this world!"
"I know it sounds silly, but I have already incorporated some of the medical practices in this world into our world, and it’s working perfectly!"
Wang Xiuying looked up into the skies and mumbled, "This game is so realistic that sometimes I wonder whether this is just a game or actually something more— like another world of sorts."
"Another world, huh? How nice would that be if it was true..." A smile appeared on Yuan’s face.
After walking for some time, they encountered a magical beast with a cultivation base around the peak of Spirit Apprentice.
"Uh... You’re a Spirit Grandmaster, right?" Wang Xiuying turned to look at him.
While she was also at the peak of Spirit Apprentice, she wasn’t exactly an expert in fighting.
"I’ll take care of it." Yuan said.
He then used the Starry Abyss and Flying Daggers to take care of the magical beast instantly.
"Wow! How do you do that?" Wang Xiuying expressed her admiration for his technique.
"Hm? It’s just a Mortal-grade technique that allows me to control a dagger using my spiritual energy."
"How can such a powerful technique only be Mortal-grade?"
After taking care of the magical beast, they continued walking in the grassland until they reached a small city.
Unfortunately for them, neither of them had money, so they were unable to enter the city that required a small fee.
However, even if they had money, the Mystic Realm uses a different currency, so the currency outside wouldn’t have much worth in here.
"I guess we can only walk around the city..." Wang Xiuying sighed.
"Or we can fly over it," Yuan suggested.
"Fly?!" Wang Xiuying’s eyes flickered with excitement.
"Let’s fly!" she nodded in agreement.
"I’ll have to carry you if you don’t mind," said Yuan.
"I don’t mind."
A moment later, Yuan carried Wang Xiuying in a princess carry before flying into the sky, shocking the guards there.
"Heavens! He was a Spirit Grandmaster?! Did we just kick away a Spirit Grandmaster?! We’re dead!" The guards began crying once they realized that they’d screwed up big time.
In their minds, Yuan was probably going straight to the city lord to complain.
Of course, Yuan did the complete opposite, ignoring the city and flying straight over it.
"Wow! So this is what it feels like to fly!" Wang Xiuying looked down at the city with exhilaration.
"I cannot wait until I become a Spirit Grandmaster so that I can fly as well! But that might take a few years!"
Once they were on the other side of the city, Wang Xiuying said, "Player Yuan, do you mind if we continue flying for a little longer? If you’re tired, we can go back down, though."
"You can just call me Yuan. And I don’t mind. We travel much faster this way as well." Yuan nodded.
Sometime later, Yuan suddenly stopped in midair with his gaze towards the ground.
"There are some people there. I think they’re also participants." Yuan said.
Wang Xiuying looked down, and sure enough, there were two people wearing the same uniform at the bottom, and these people hadn’t noticed them yet.
"I think that’s the Diamond Palms Sect. They’re from the Northern Continent and ranked tenth." Wang Xiuying recognized them since they were also on the same continent as her sect.
"What are you going to do?" She then asked.
"Well, my Sect Master told me to get rid of the other participants as soon as I see them," Yuan said.
"G-Get rid of...?" Wang Xiuying’s body shivered at his words.
"Yes. If I kill them inside this place, they’ll be teleported outside and disqualified." Yuan nodded.
Then he added, "Don’t worry, I won’t disqualify you."
"Really?" Wang Xiuying released a sigh of relief after hearing that.
"Really."
"Anyways, I don’t want them to see my face, so I’ll get rid of them from up here."
After taking a deep breath, Yuan retrieved the Starry Abyss and made it turn invisible.
He then used Flying Daggers to control the Starry Abyss, commanding it to fly towards the two unsuspecting victims on the bottom.
A second later, two holes appear in their faces, instantly killing them.
Wang Xiuying swallowed nervously when she saw this.
’He can kill us as easily as breathing, and we won’t even know what hit us...’ she sighed inwardly.
The difference between them was simply too vast.
Meanwhile, outside the Mystic Pagoda, the Sect Master of the Diamond Palms Sect was shocked to the core when his disciples suddenly died out of the blue.
"What?! What the fuck just happened?! Who killed my disciples?!" He exclaimed, causing the others to look at his disciples that laid on the ground in the Mystic Realm with a large hole in their heads.
"Heavens... How brutal yet efficient..."
A few moments later, the bodies of the two dead participants disappeared from the Mystic Realm before appearing outside with their injury fully recovered.
"Huh? What happened? Why are we outside the Mystic Realm?"
The two didn’t even realize that they had been killed even after waking up outside the Mystic Realm. In their eyes, their visions had turned black for a split second, and before they were aware, they were already outside the Mystic Realm. The thought of being killed just now didn’t even cross their minds.
It was not until after their Sect Master approached them and told them what happened that they finally realized they had been killed.
"What?! That’s impossible! There wasn’t even anybody around us!" The two of them exclaimed, looking extremely confused by the situation.
As for Wang Xiuying’s view... After meeting Yuan, the mirror suddenly stopped spectating her, almost as though the treasure could no longer find her location.