Chapter 015: The Knock at the Door

Contracts signed by major factions were extremely strict. The fact that the village chief could pass down his spell to his bloodline and apprentices was already considered lenient.

After speaking, the chief didn’t give Yun Xi a chance to refuse. He directly dumped all the supplies from the basket onto her wooden table and hurried off, clearly afraid she would reject his gift again.

Yun Xi thought for a moment but didn’t go after him.

Compared to the value of the storage pouch, the other supplies weren’t much. However, with so much food gone, the village chief would probably have to make a supply run to Qinglan Town earlier than planned.

But the closed beta only lasted ten days. If the chief went to Qinglan Town while she was offline, wouldn’t that mean she couldn’t go with him?

With that in mind, Yun Xi packed away the supplies on the table and went to speak with the chief.

“Oh, that? You don’t need to worry. It’s a matter of higher-level arrangements. As for the trip to Qinglan Town, I won’t change the plan…”

That statement revealed quite a lot. Were “those above” orchestrating things for the newly descended adventurers?

Seeing the slightly evasive look in the chief’s eyes, Yun Xi didn’t press further.

…

Several days of the beta test passed in a flash. By making use of every spare moment, Yun Xi finally managed to learn about a third of the Light Barrier Spell.

At this pace, she should be able to fully master it before the next beta phase.

She had successfully changed classes to both Chef and Pharmacist, and recorded as many publicly available recipes and medical formulas from Blue Star as possible.

As for the Rune Master and Painter classes she was planning to pursue, she hadn’t rushed to change to them yet, since there were no available rune diagrams or painting manuals on Blue Star.

The Rune Master class was fairly common—in essence, it allowed one to draw and store known spells into talismans.

If special paper and ink were used, the effect would be enhanced even further.

It was said that high-level rune masters could even draw spells they hadn’t personally learned. As long as they could recreate the spell’s pattern correctly, they could use it even if their spellcasting aptitude was too low to learn it normally.

The Painter class, however, was even harder to master than the Rune Master.

In theory, painters could draw anything. As long as your spiritual energy was sufficient and your painting skills were high enough, you could bring your artwork to life out of nothing.

At this stage, aside from collecting Blue Star’s recipes and formulas, Yun Xi was still focusing most of her energy on developing her Spellcaster path.

Her side professions would have to wait until she reached a larger main city where the necessary resources were available for deeper study.

…

When the first beta phase ended, the internet saw a moderate surge in activity.

The reason was simple: all beta testers realized they could no longer log in to the Fallen Gods Continent, and naturally wanted to know how others were doing.

However, online surveillance had become far stricter than before. Any related posts had a 90% chance of triggering a “knock at the door”—a euphemism for being questioned by authorities.

Yun Xi didn’t plan to show up online, but realistically, even if you didn’t post anything, there would still be traces of your disappearance during the ten-day login period.

For instance, her leave of absence from school—though filed in advance—would still raise flags if she was completely off the radar during those ten days.

Compared to other students who vanished in broad daylight, Yun Xi was actually quite low-profile.

Of course, she didn’t intend to hide anything on purpose. She would just let things unfold naturally.

Still, Yun Xi didn’t expect to be found so quickly. On the second day after she could no longer log in to the game, someone knocked on her door.

After a few simple questions, she learned that the reason she had been flagged was because of a reminder post she made on her personal social platform just an hour before the game officially launched.

Yun Xi didn’t deny anything—there was no reason to.

“Miss Yun, why did you post that information back then? Did you already know something in advance?”

“I just saw that line about ‘real-body immersion’ in the game’s description. It felt unusual. Plus, it said the server wouldn’t open until after noon, so I used the free time to share the game’s note.”

“I see. Can you briefly describe your in-game experience?”

“After entering the game, I landed in a small village. The village chief was kind and looked after me. I logged in every day—I was just really curious about the game.”

“Alright, Miss Yun, we’ve noted your basic information. We’ll need to record your game ID, national ID, and phone number for future contact.

Don’t worry—your information will be kept strictly confidential.

If anything happens in the future, like encountering danger or other issues, feel free to contact us immediately.”

The two investigators questioning her were both young women, around twenty-five or twenty-six.

One of them turned out to be a formal player of the Fallen Gods Continent. She even added Yun Xi as a friend on the spot and said that if Yun Xi needed anything, she could contact her via the friend system or Weibao.

The Fallen Gods Continent’s game system didn’t support usernames—everyone’s in-game name was their real name by default.

After becoming friends, you could see each other’s ID, name, avatar, and game level, but nothing more.

This investigator’s name was Chen Nana, and her game level was 0.

But when she saw Yun Xi’s level, her pupils contracted sharply.

Having logged into the Fallen Gods Continent herself, she knew better than anyone how hard it was to gain experience from killing monsters.

When she entered the game, she had registered as an official player and spawned in a medium-sized village.

Coincidentally, as soon as she was born into the world, the village was attacked by a swarm of spectral monsters. She saw with her own eyes how easily those creatures massacred the villagers.

Many confident martial artists had died under the lowest-tier monsters’ attacks.

If not for the fact that she had three days of invincibility as a new player, she probably wouldn’t be standing here today.

So she couldn’t imagine how Yun Xi managed to level up so much.

Her gaze at Yun Xi grew more serious, but she didn’t say anything further. She just politely said goodbye and left quickly with her partner.

…

After seeing the two of them off, Yun Xi thought for a moment, then headed back to school to apply for a leave of absence.

But plans never keep up with change. Once she got to school, she found out she couldn’t even get in line.