4: Once you enter the demonic path, you suddenly feel the vastness of the world.

Dijia Inn.

“May I ask if you're here for a meal or a stay, guest?”

Seeing a guest arrive, the shopkeeper hurried forward to greet him.

“Shopkeeper, do you believe in light?”

The young man didn't answer the shopkeeper but instead asked a strange question.

“This... what do you mean by that, guest? This old man doesn't understand.”

“It's nothing. The inn has a good name. Give me a first-class room and bring some food.”

The young man placed a silver ingot on the counter and followed the waiter's guidance to the third floor.

After closing the door, he tore off his hat, revealing his original handsome face; this young man was indeed Zhou Yan, dressed in the four-piece set of a Dong Family Household Servant.

“Phew, I've finally truly escaped with my life.”

Zhou Yan threw himself directly onto the bed and rolled around a couple of times before finally relaxing.

Since killing Zhou Pi, this was already the third day of Zhou Yan's flight.

Being wanted by two Qi Refining families had maxed out the difficulty level. Fortunately, he had a set of servant clothes; with his attractiveness lowered, he was unrecognizable from the wanted posters. As for their influence being widespread?

Who could be sent out but minor characters? Seeing him in Dong Family servant clothes, those who didn't know him wouldn't look twice, and even those who did wouldn't recognize him without a close look.

Coupled with his Affinity attribute, the Dong Family wouldn't check him, and the Zhou Family was too lazy to check.

Ultimately, Zhou Yan overcame all obstacles and successfully left the sphere of influence of Nanshan Town, arriving at this Wangshu City.

During this time, the original host's memories had been fully absorbed by Zhou Yan. This place was called the Hanning Kingdom, a small country subordinate to the Great Qian Dynasty.

The Spiritual Qi here was thin, making it a frontier land. Although Cultivators existed, their cultivation levels were generally not high, with the strongest group being only at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

It was also because of this that the Zhou and Dong families were so powerful. Despite being only town-level powers, their actual control rivaled that of a city, even having their own dungeons and law enforcement rights—it was practically the treatment of a local tyrant.

Zhou Yan had run quite a distance, and only after confirming that no one recognized his clothes did he finally stop.

Opening the mini-map and looking at the long 'line' of illuminated areas, he felt this was much more exhausting than clearing maps in his previous life.

“With this start, I could already join a 'Who's More Miserable' convention, right?” Zhou Yan thought back to the experiences of the past three days—starting in a cell cosplaying as a famous physicist.

After finally escaping, he was ambushed by a hidden player and almost cosplayed as a famous president of Eagleland.

After finally turning the tables, he was wanted and spent three days as a 'Running Man.'

Zhou Yan added another heavy mark against those two families in his heart.

Hmph, thirty thousand years east of the river, thirty thousand years west. In thirty thousand years, the Zhou and Dong families must perish. If they don't, we'll see then.

“Ding, 《Prologue II - Survival》 has been achieved.”

“Reward obtained: Unknown error, error obtained.”

“Ding, the latest version v1.5 has been detected. The current version is too outdated; automatic update will now begin.”

“During the System update, some functions will remain, and quest rewards will be delayed. The update will be completed in 12 hours.”

“Huh?”

Seeing this, Zhou Yan wasn't angry about the delayed reward; instead, he looked at the countdown on the panel with interest.

“I didn't expect this trash online game could actually update? Who is its current operator then?”

However, these weren't the main points. If it could truly continue updating, it meant the upper limit was unimaginable.

After all, this was originally an Immortal cultivation-style online game. As long as it was an online game, numerical inflation was inevitable.

If this game could update to the Late Stage and randomly drop an Immortal-tier item for him, wouldn't he be able to walk horizontally through this world?

Regardless, “Wait and have hope.”

But Zhou Yan didn't stay idle. He took out two Cultivation Techniques from the System inventory. These two techniques were part of the rewards gifted by his good Younger Paternal Cousin.

The skill books had been used by Zhou Yan as soon as they dropped, but these two unknown Cultivation Techniques required identification to unlock.

Identification took time, and most of the past three days had been spent on the run, so Zhou Yan had left them in his inventory to identify themselves, and he had somewhat forgotten about them in the subsequent rush.

Now that he had some free time, Zhou Yan intended to see what they actually were.

Cultivation Technique: Flying Immortal Art Rank XX, Demonic Technique ( )

Effect: By burning Lifespan, one can obtain Rank increases. By absorbing a large amount of Blood Qi, one can obtain Rank increases.

Description: The heirloom method of a certain minor Immortal cultivation clan.

Next, Zhou Yan took out the second one.

Cultivation Technique: Flying Immortal Art Rank 1.

Each activation consumes 10% Health. Activation grants a small amount of EXP. When Health drops below 30% for the first time in a day, it cannot be activated again that day.

By killing creatures, one can obtain bonus EXP feedback equal to 10% of their Health.

That's right, these two books were the same, yet also different. One was a System loot drop, and one was looted from Zhou Pi's body by Zhou Yan.

Just as he had thought before, the rewards dropped by the System from killing mobs didn't prevent him from looting the corpse again. This meant that if his luck was good, he could even obtain double the gains.

However, the descriptions of these two books left Zhou Yan somewhat puzzled.

From the way the Dong and Zhou families acted, he could more or less guess they weren't anything good. Seeing the description, this should be a Demonic Technique, so it wasn't strange for them to practice it.

The strange thing was that the effects of the System loot and the corpse loot differed so much.

Clearly the same book, yet one only required losing health, while the other required losing life.

Was there even a choice? Could my System-bro deceive me?

Directly tossing the book from Zhou Pi's body back into the inventory to gather dust, Zhou Yan clicked on the System-dropped Cultivation Technique to begin cultivation.

As Zhou Yan clicked confirm in his mind, a mysterious sensation appeared in his lower abdomen.

First came a wave of coolness, then heat, and finally a return to calm.

“Phew, *cough cough*—ugh.” Accompanied by a puff of black Qi, Zhou Yan coughed uncontrollably, feeling as if he had eaten a pack of activated charcoal raw.

This isn't right? Shouldn't the protagonists of other cultivation novels exhale a breath of turbid Qi and then calmly open their eyes to look cool? Why did it almost choke him to death?

【Zhou Yan Health: 89/100】

Seeing the numbers displayed on the panel, Zhou Yan's mouth twitched. The health loss was a bit more than the 10% stated by the technique; it really did choke some health out of him.

Realizing that while the technique showed numerical values, there were still risks, Zhou Yan activated Story Mode again.

Because of the current update, the story hadn't finished its settlement, so he could still enter Story Mode. This allowed him to press his health down to 30% in one go without any life-threatening danger.

Zhou Yan had also slept during these three days, which led him to discover that sleeping could also restore his status.

After calculation, the minimum requirement was to sleep between 12 AM and 5 AM. As long as he slept fully within this timeframe, he would have full status the next day provided there were no negative buffs.

Well, since things have come to this, Demonic Technique, initiate!

“Please flog me, Gongjin!”

“Through thick and thin, I shall not decline!”

...