Her parents were civil servants. Not high-ranking officials, but career bureaucrats whose decades of service had polished their demeanor to a flawlessly calibrated sheen. They were meticulous, measured, never putting a foot out of line. That ethos had seeped into Yao's bones, shaping her into someone who valued calculation over confrontation, strategy over outbursts. She was not, by nature, a creature of violent passions.
Unless pushed beyond all endurance.
No one has ever whipped me before.The thought echoed in her mind, absurd in its simplicity. Even at her most rebellious, her parents' discipline had been a thing of words, of disappointed silences, of intellectual arguments she could never quite win—a slow, grinding erosion, not a sudden, searing rupture. The lash was a language her body did not speak, and its grammar was pure, unadulterated agony.
That pain, more than any monster or magic spell, was the final, brutal tutorial. It shattered any lingering illusion that this was just a very immersive game. This was a world with teeth, and it had just bitten down hard. The principle from every game she'd mastered, every epic tale she'd devoured, rang truer now than any parental advice: To survive, you must be harder than the hard things.
So, she had ground her heel into Li Chengkai's head. It was a petty, visceral act, born of a pain that demanded an outlet. It was a farewell, too—a silent, gritty eulogy for the part of her that still believed in the inherent goodness of people, in the safety of rules, in the clean resolution of a courtroom or a boardroom. That part was bleeding out on the floor with the bandit chief.
The moment passed. The rage-cooled, leaving behind the crisp, professional clarity of a veteran resource broker. She knelt beside the corpse, her movements efficient, her expression detached. The prompts flickered at the edge of her consciousness, but she ignored them for now, focused on the immediate task: looting.
[Bandit Chief Li Chengkai eliminated. Experience +50.]
[Bandit A eliminated. Experience +4.]
[Bandit B…]
[Experience threshold reached. Level 1 -> Level 2. All attributes +10. Skill Point +1.]
[Experience threshold reached. Level 2 -> Level 3. All attributes +15. Skill Point +1.]
Her mind was a still pond now, the storm of adrenaline receding. She tuned out the level-up notifications, her fingers deftly searching Li Chengkai's cooling remains.
[Bandit Chief Li Chengkai eliminated. Loot dropped: 'Tome: Tier 2 Fire Arcanum – Emberburst' x1. 'Tome: Tier 2 Earth Trap Arcanum – Ironvine Thicket' x1. 'Tome: Tier 1 Wind Arcanum – Arcane Missile' x1. 'Lesser Spirit Potion' x3.]
She examined the skill books. Emberburstwas a straightforward area-of-effect fire spell. Ironvine Thicketwas the powerful trap spell she'd witnessed, but it required coordination, a team she didn't have and couldn't trust. The third was a duplicate.
Without hesitation, she focused on the Emberbursttome, willing the knowledge into her newly expanded Gene-Sequence tree. It settled into an empty skill slot on her first branch with a satisfying mental click. She now had one skill point remaining.
According to Arcane Thronemechanics, a skill's maximum level equaled the caster's level. To raise her Level 1 Arcane Missile to Level 3, she'd theoretically need a total of five Missile tomes. A long-term project.
First, the clean-up.
She moved through the blasted courtyard and the tunnels beyond, a spectral figure in the gloom, systematically stripping the dead. Her back protested with every bend, a sharp reminder of the whip. In the game, you get 'Loot All' at Level 5,she thought with a grimace. If I have to do this manually every time… my poor back.
Beyond the standard gear and copper notes from the rank-and-file, the real prizes came from the nine fallen mages. Nine more Tier 1 skill tomes. As expected, Arcane Missilewas the most common. Wind was ubiquitous, fast, lethal, and without glaring elemental weaknesses—the workhorse of early-tier combat casters. Books for flashier elements like Lightning or Ice were rarer and harder to upgrade.
This bounty, however, was perfect. It would allow her to push her Missile to Level 3, with one tome to spare. Among the other books, one caught her eye: Tier 1 Wood-Support Arcanum – Forest Thorns.She remembered the caster—the secondary anchor for Li Chengkai's Ironvine Thicket, the one who had given the spell its initial, grasping form.
She learned it immediately. Her early-game build was taking shape out of necessity: Wind, Fire, Wood. A simple, robust triangle. Wind for speed and single-target precision (Missile). Fire for area denial and raw damage (Emberburst). Wood for control and battlefield manipulation (Forest Thorns). It wasn't the most exotic or theoretically powerful combo, but it was achievable, scalable, and versatile. The gourmet feast of ideal builds was a fantasy; the roasted sweet potato in her hand was real sustenance.
She allocated her resources. A mental check of her status brought a faint, grim smile to her lips.
[Level: 3]
[Primary Attributes]
[Spirit: 213]
[Strength: 73]
[Constitution: 94]
[Agility: 124]
[Active Skills: Arcane Missile Lv.3, Emberburst Lv.2, Forest Thorns Lv.1]
Power bred power. Higher skill levels demanded more Spirit but repaid it with vastly increased potency.
The financial tally was less impressive: five Lesser Spirit Potions and about 650,000 coppers. A decent sum, but her eyes were on the real prize: the bandit lair's treasury. This hideout had existed for years. The filth they'd accumulated had to be somewhere.
"I didn't do the evil deeds," she murmured to herself, slipping back into Li Chengkai's private quarters. "But I did clean up the mess. A finder's fee is only fair."
The seasoned gamer's intuition, honed by countless virtual dungeon crawls, kicked in. The room felt… wrong. She paced it out mentally. The outer chamber was roughly 10 by 8 meters. The bedroom took up 4 by 3. The attached washroom was a miserly 2 by 1.5. Several square meters of space had simply vanished into the walls.
A man who hides a kill-switch in his own horses…Her search was methodical, disdainful. She found the trigger mechanism, predictably crude and vile, beneath the toilet's ceramic base. "No wonder a Tier 2 Mage ends up a gutter-bandit," she sneered, holding her breath as she pressed it.
A section of the wall slid back with a soft shush.
The hidden room was small, claustrophobic. Shelves held stacks of copper notes and poorly kept jewels—the expected loot. But her gaze locked onto a single, unadorned iron strongbox sitting alone on a central pedestal.
There it is. The boss chest.
Her pulse quickened. She took a step forward.
Click.
The sound was soft, final. From a concealed aperture in the opposite wall, a crossbow bolt, thick as her thumb and wickedly barbed, shot forth with a vicious twang. It was aimed with murderous precision, straight for her forehead.
Time seemed to slow. Her left hand came up not in panic, but with the fluid, ingrained motion of recent, hard-won practice. A Level 3 Arcane Missile—far swifter, denser, and more responsive than its earlier versions—snapped into existence above her palm and fired upwards in the same motion.
CRACK-THUNK!
The wind projectile intercepted the bolt mid-flight, shearing through its shaft. The shattered pieces clattered harmlessly to the stone floor.
Yao stood frozen for a second, a cold sweat beading on her brow. You paranoid bastard. What if you'd stumbled in here drunk?She retreated to the doorway, her heart hammering. Then, with cold pragmatism, she began systematically bombarding the floor with low-powered Missiles, triggering two more hidden bolts from different angles before the room fell silent.
Only then did she approach the strongbox. The lid opened without resistance.
Inside, nestled on faded crimson velvet, lay a ring.
It was… ugly. A sickly, verdigris green, its band seemed woven from a thousand fine, metallic hairs twisted into a sinuous, organic form. It looked like a desiccated spider curled in upon itself. At first glance, it was standard Bronze-tier gear—nothing extraordinary. With her current wealth, she could outfit herself in a full set of decent Bronze armor.
But Li Chengkai, that cunning rat, wouldn't have secreted thisaway for no reason. The color… it wasn't the dull brown of Bronze. It was green.
Her breath caught. She focused, and the item's description unfolded in her mind.
[Arachnid Ascension Ring]
[Quality: Bronze (Pinnacle-grade)]
[Effect: Upon activation, launches a strand of ultra-strong, weight-negating 'Gossamer Silk' capable of anchoring to surfaces at extreme range. Allows for rapid, spider-like traversal across vertical and horizontal gaps. Secondary effect: Grants minor gravitational mitigation to the wearer, enhancing leaping and falling control.]
[Usage Restriction: Minimum Agility 300.]
Of course. The infamous "Arachnid Ascension." It was legendary in the early-game community—a pinnacle Bronze item that rivaled low-tier Green gear in rarity and potential, yet was universally mocked as a "super-niche white elephant."
The reason was the restriction. Any player who could naturally reach 300 Agility by, say, Level 10, was already an elite. Elites saved for personal skiffs—faster, safer, more versatile. Why swing like a bug when you could fly? Meanwhile, the average player who desperately needed such mobility couldn't hope to meet the requirement or afford the ring if they did.
It was a trap. A beautiful, useless trap.
Yet, she remembered a client. A kid, really. Grassroots, no connections, but a stubborn, grinding determination that bordered on obsession. He'd somehow lucked into this very ring at Level 7 and, through sheer, single-minded effort, poured every resource into boosting his Agility to reach 300. He'd come to her, not for the ring, but for a guide—how to use it, how to build a playstyle around it. She'd been impressed by his grit, had crafted a meticulous, step-by-step strategy for him. She liked to think it helped.
And now, the ring was in her hands.
I don't have that kind of monomaniacal focus,she admitted to herself. Her style was balance, adaptation, playing the odds. To funnel everything into Agility felt like building a house on a single, terrifyingly tall pillar.
But a tool was a tool. And in a desperate enough situation, even a niche tool could be the difference between the cliff's edge and the canyon floor.
"Couldn't have been another S1 Key?" she sighed, pocketing the ring. She was about to turn to the cash and jewels when the communicator in her hand—reclaimed from Li Chengkai's room—vibrated insistently.
The Li Conglomerate representative. Nowhe called.
If I'd died just a little earlier, you wouldn't even have made it to the funeral feast before the food got cold,she thought, a wave of bitter annoyance washing over her. She answered, her voice instantly layering with a convincingly weak, trembling frailty.
"This… this is Oaks."
"Young Master Xie! You're alive! Thank the heavens!"
Thank the heavens? Thank my triggered traps and pre-programmed explosives,she wanted to snap. Instead, she rambled, painting a picture of terrified confusion. "I'm… I'm trapped. There was an explosion, a huge one… I managed to get loose… I'm hurt, bleeding… please, you have to send someone, it's—"
"Young Master, please, listen," the representative interrupted, his voice taking on a peculiar, strained formality. "It's not that we are unwilling to assist. But the situation has evolved. Our orbital monitors have detected an official Imperial vessel on approach to your signal's coordinates. As we are currently under Ministry audit, any… overt military mobilization on our part could be misconstrued. However, the officials aboard that ship… their authority is absolute. Their methods can pierce any deception, lay bare any hidden truth. If you signal them, you will be saved. This is… a tremendous opportunity for you. Hello? Are you still there?"
A tremendous opportunity.
Yao stared at the communicator, then at the carnage surrounding her—the scorch marks, the dismembered bodies, the blood-soaked floor. The words pierce any deception, lay bare any hidden truthechoed in her skull with the force of a physical blow.
If they found her here, like this… what would the Xie family think of their newly discovered, not-so-useless bastard son? Would it be a happy reunion, or would she be viewed as a dangerous, unpredictable variable?
A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. Maybe I should have just played the idiot.All this struggle, this cleverness, this blood on her hands—would it all just paint a bigger target on her back?
She committed the representative's voice, his timing, his entire useless existence to memory. I hope you develop better reflexes in your next life. Otherwise, you'll always be late. For everything.
She offered him that silent, venomous blessing as she stared at the ceiling, listening for the first distant hum of approaching authority.