After this incident, Qiu Yunru became the talk of Li Hua Mountain.
It took the clinic apothecarist a few days to heal him properly, and when he was out and about again, all he saw everywhere were fellow disciples in white and jade robes staring at him. Some whispered behind their hands. Inside, there was a wide variety of things these disciples felt towards this newbie. Some were awed--had they finally picked up a prodigy? Some were jealous, seething at his achievement only on the first night at the sect. Some were suspicious, some were intrigued.
In the end, don't they say that any press is good press? When Qiu Yunru checked his stats menu, his Reputation points had spiked to a whopping 60 overnight!
A few other things happened as a result of his help in defeating the snake. The nearby alchemical mountain sect, Fan Yao Peak, sent him an interesting package. Fang Hai delivered it to Qiu Yunru, who was sitting in the dining hall with Pan Fa. When Qiu Yunru opened it, Pan Fa shrieked.
Sitting inside the wrapping was a shiny blue orb with a jet black streak down the middle. It seemed to stare up at the three of them with irritation.
"Snake eye!" Pan Fa yelped, pointing.
"Don't look!" Fang Hai snapped, grabbing Pan Fa and turning his head away. "Qiu-shidi, you too!"
Qiu Yunru continued to stare at the orb. It was as large as a crystal ball! "Fang-shixiong, I think it's okay. They seem to have wrapped it in a film. It won't petrify anyone unless the film is taken off."
Fang Hai leaned over with a frown. This kid was right! The enormous eye was indeed wrapped in a clear, clingy film. "Why didn't they leave a note saying so?" Fang Hai grumbled, brushing himself off. He definitely hadn't panicked a moment ago--no, not at all! "It's inconsiderate to let someone you're giving a gift to think they'll be paralyzed by it!"
Qiu Yunru had to agree; it was rather careless. But alchemists were usually the study-late into the night, mad-scientist type, weren't they? If Fan Yao Peak was full of them, it wasn't surprising a small considerate thing would slip their overworked minds. As he stored the eye in his personal pack later, a notification dinged in his game menu.
Item Acquired: Blue Three-Headed Snake Eye! Congratulations!
Qiu Yunru frowned. There had been an inventory this whole time? It was true that, in the original Spring Blossoms, Autumn Fruits game, there was, of course, an inventory--but he hadn't gotten any such notifications thus far. Why were they starting now? He tapped on the inventory page curiously.
What...? There were only two items inside!
Blue Three-Headed Snake Eye
Entry Pass to Jin He City's Li Mansion
Qiu Yunru rubbed his temples. He grabbed the menu, frowning deeply at it. "Haven't I acquired lots of other things? What about my shitty sword? What about those gold coins? What about my new robes? How do you decide what goes in the menu?! You can't be so mysterious about this kind of thing!"
Of course, there was no response. Qiu Yunru sighed internally, lighting one more candle for himself. In a game sustained and created by AI, the game menu couldn't spare a single AI brain cell to answer his simple questions?
At the very least, he had an idea of why there were only two items in his inventory. As Spring Blossoms, Autumn Fruits revolved around quest plotlines that popped up left and right, it must be that these items were particularly plot-relevant. Otherwise, he had absolutely no idea!
Though, it was strange, wasn't it? Hadn't he already completed that Medium-level quest back at the Li Mansion? So why was this Entry Pass Li Fengguang had insisted on giving him still plot-relevant?
Unfortunately, no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't figure out the answer. Usually, once a quest was completed fully, the involved NPCs largely disappeared from the player experience, having become irrelevant. The only time this didn't happen was in more complex Hard Level plotlines that involved strings of quests. But when he checked his quests menu, it was empty. How strange!
Brushing it off as a glitch, he went back out to join the others in the library. Seeing as there had been a terrorizing accident on the mountain just a few days ago, He Yongliang had called off martial training for the week and ordered them all to study.
Though Qiu Yunru despised studying certain things, he was a complete nerd for learning xianxia material. He ate through the sect's library books like peanuts! Everyone watched as books piled up beside his desk until they towered high enough to topple over. Whispers only increased. Surely this new kid was a genius! First he used alchemy knowledge to help Fang-shixiong stop a demonic beast, and now he could read like an immortal scholar! What was this guy eating?!
Through reading and talking to Fang Hai, Qiu Yunru learned many things about this world. In fact, this had been one of his favorite parts of playing Spring Blossoms, Autumn Fruits in his previous life. Some might find it tedious, but he reveled in learning the newly-generated worldbuilding every playthrough. New sects, new monsters, new world histories--he had sucked it all in with immense joy!
As for what he learned about this xianxia world, he filed away a few important pieces of information:
First, the Jade Clouds Sect, despite being its own sect, was a member of a larger allyship of sects called Baohu Mountain Range.
This five-hundred-year-old allyship consisted of nine different sects currently; in the past, certain sects had been banished for practicing demonic arts or corruption, and news sects had been brought in for their prestige and righteousness. The allyship shared this motto: Protect the weak and limit the strong. As Baohu Mountain Range had emerged in a time of political turmoil, they were committed to making sure the strongest people never got too powerful, and the weak never grew too powerless. What a sound motto! Whether they upheld it or not was a different question--but so far, Qiu Yunru had no reason to doubt it.