Chapter 271: A Monster Family - Prelude 4 - Mass Awakening

WHOOSH

WHOOSH

WHOOSH

All yin slaves and Miaomiao self-resurrected after Xu Chu had killed Xie Tian's clone.

Despite coming back to life, none of them looked happy or delighted. They groaned and kicked the dirt in frustration.

It was a defeat that they shouldn't have lost.

The time-and-space ability shouldn't have existed. Moreover, how did a fourth-stage cultivator use a domain skill? Why was Xie Tian so hard to kill?

The whole fight wasn't fair.

"The clone cheated!" That was what the girls were thinking.

For the first time, the girls experienced the terror of a protagonist.

Ding

[You have been resurrected.]

[Due to unforeseen circumstances, the system failed to conclude the sparring match after your party had been wiped out.]

[Be warned, Xu Chu is a foreign being. She isn't a member of your party since she is neither your yin slave nor your familiar. Please convert her into your familiar before you use her against one of the clones.]

[The system will correct the sparring match result.]

Ding

[Your party has lost against Xie Tian.]

[You and your party will receive no reward.]

[The protagonist rematch mode will be disabled for 30 days in the real world.]

Ding

[A patch has been applied.]

[From now on, foreign beings will be excluded in both sparring mode and protagonist rematch mode. All clones will not attack foreign beings. Vice Versa, foreign beings can't attack clones.]

Only Miaomiao could see the notification messages.

"FUCK!!"

Miaomiao punched the ground. He blamed himself for dying so early that led to the party wipe.

He didn't know that Ju Shoufen, Jiang Lan, and Ju Chen had put up a good fight, but they lost to Xie Tian's time skill.

Now that he had failed to defeat Xie Tian, they had to wait for a month for another chance.

"Miaomiao," Ju Shoufen walked toward Miaomiao and sat next to him. "Tell me, what the hell is that guy? How can that thing be so strong? He wasn't this strong the last time."

Despite being vexed like others, Ju Shoufen worried about Miaomiao more. She patted his back to soothe him.

Miaomiao stopped punching the ground. He explained while he was gritting his teeth, "I guess I have to explain everything and how this space works. Well, let's gather everybody here..."

The girls gathered. Then, Miaomiao explained about the system sparring feature and the protagonist rematch feature.

Just now, they had experienced the terror of a protagonist with 400% of the original's potential. Even a 6th-stage cultivator like Ju Shoufen might not be a match against him in one-on-one combat.

Jiang Lan and Ma Xingjuan, who had met Xie Tian in the past, were astonished by the explanation and the power of the clone.

"That stupid guy could potentially become this strong?" Ma Xingjuan couldn't believe it.

Jiang Lan repeatedly stomped her feet, "This asshole should have just stayed in his village and die alone! Why in the history of fuckwits was he so strong!? Did he rob someone's fortune!?"

Hearing their complaints, Miaomiao's mood got better. Finally, he got to share his frustration with others.

"Now, you know why I hate that bastard when he was alive, right?"

"Yeah, I get it now," Jiang Lan paused for a moment. Then, she recalled something that he had been wanting to ask Miaomiao for a long time. "Say, how did you kill that asshole?"

"Haven't I told everybody here before?"

"Maybe you did, but I didn't pay attention. I know that you killed him, but you never told us how."

"Ah, this might take a while."

Miaomiao took his time and retold the story when he was in the dryad's realm in detail.

...

After listening to Miaomiao's story, everyone had a different reaction.

Ju Shoufen and some of the girls had listened to this story before, so they weren't surprised. Jiang Lan and some of the girls also remembered the old story, but the story of dryads piqued their attention. They continued bombarding Miaomiao with questions until he satisfied their curiosity.

On the other hand, Ma Xingjuan was dumbfounded. That was the first time she had heard about how the original Xie Tian had died.

"So, Miaomiao was the wanted guy... Damn, I should have known!"

Miaomiao laughed, "What? Wanna claim the bounty?"

"Why should I betray you when you're richer than Liu Bian? By the way, can I have 100,000 essence cores please?" Ma Xingjuan revealed a bashful smile while she opened her skirt, seducing Miaomiao.

"Nope. The funds are for the city development! Also, the storytime is over. Go back and train for 10 hours. Then, I'll start summoning the clones again, so you can use whatever you've learned in a practical fight!"

"Boooo!"

Miaomiao chased Ma Xingjuan and the others away, so they could resume practicing. As for the sparring part, he would summon more clones for the girls to fight eventually.

At the moment, the girls were still vexed by the defeat. He wanted them to turn the frustration into motivation. With the right motivation, they could progress faster than usual.

Miaomiao, too, needed to get stronger.

The campaign quest had hinted that Miaomiao was running out of time, and he needed to begin the hunt ASAP. However, in reality, he couldn't start the hunt right away.

Before Miaomiao could start the hunt, he needed to be strong enough to kill a 7th-stage cultivator alone. After all, Liu Bian's plot armor was still solid. He might have several 7th-stage cultivators as his bodyguards.

As such, Miaomiao needed to overcome the layer of bodyguard plot armor before he could reach Liu Bian.

The first step to get stronger - Miaomiao aimed to obtain the death point perception and whatever sword intent or one-with-the-sword state that Jia Shan had mentioned.

WHOOSH

Miaomiao stopped talking and began swinging a wooden sword in earnest.

Seeing that Miaomiao resumed practicing, the others picked their training spot and began training, too. Even Ju Shoufen joined them as she had nothing better to do.

Everyone was so absorbed in the training that none of them had noticed the crater with a sleeping succubus.

...

Miaomiao's special training course for the girls and himself was tough. Even the organizer himself wanted to quit after he had gone through 1,000 hours of Spartan training.

The training schedule consisted of three parts.

The first part was the 10 hours of self-practice. Everyone had to practice using their preferred weaponry - sword, spear, polearm, or whatever they wanted to use in the future.

As everybody had received the guideline from Jia Shan, nobody had a problem performing this task.

The second part was the practical training of their basic technique. Miaomiao summoned multiple meridian foundation realm clones to the space, and he set the difficulty as 200%. Everyone, including Miaomiao and Ju Shoufen, had to defeat these clones using only basic movements that they had practiced.

At first, Miaomiao was cautious as he only summoned 100 clones at once. However, Ju Shoufen, Ju Chen, and Jiang Lan killed all the clones in 30 seconds.

Thus, Miaomiao increased the difficulty. He asked the system to summon 1,000 3rd-stage clones at once!

Chaos ensued. The girls ran around and fought individually. Even though Ju Shoufen and 5th-stage girls were fine, the weaker ones were isolated and killed by the clones. Some of them even cheated by using their elemental Qi to survive.

Seeing how the girls lacked coordination and teamwork, he stopped the second part prematurely. Then, he ordered the next task.

The third part of the training was meditation and self-reflection. Miaomiao forced everyone to sit down and meditated, reviewing the previous fight against the clones and Xie Tian. They had to recreate the fight scene in their mind and find their mistakes. Then, they had to envision the correct movements or alternate solutions so that the mistake wouldn't happen again.

After that, everything repeated. However, Miaomiao secretly increased the difficulty of the second part every time.

For 500 hours in the space, everyone repeatedly trained using their weapons, kill the clones with basic moves, and self-reflected their mistakes during meditation. None of them had realized that Miaomiao had set the number of summoned clones to 2,000 per session.

At the 500th hour mark, Ju Shoufen was the only one who had never been killed by the 200% difficulty clones. Kang Yan and Ma Xingjuan were tied in second place as they were killed three times.

Miaomiao, Jiang Lan, Ju Chen, and Pan Xiaofan competed for fourth place. They had died four, five, six, and seven times respectively. The other yin slaves made more mistakes and died more than ten times.

Everyone was mentally exhausted. This training method drained their mental energy and physical strength than they had imagined.

However, their hard work began to bear fruits.

Kang Yan took off all her clothes and fought the clones with only a wooden sword. Yet, her body emitted a strange aura. Even though she only circulated Life Essence to enhance her physical strength, her current presence terrified all 3rd-stage clones.

Every time Kang Yan waved her sword, one clone was killed. No matter how the clones defended themselves, none of them could block or dodge her attack.

Projectile weapons and various Qi techniques rained upon her, but none of them grazed her skin. The girl simply skittered and hopped from one spot to another as if she was dancing. She also hummed an erratic tempo as she dodged all attacks and counterattacked at the same time.

Kang Yan's dance and her hopping reminded Miaomiao of Kyoukai from a historical manga series. With the right cosplay clothing, she could become a fine Shiyuu assassin.

Meanwhile, Ma Xingjuan grew the fastest among all yin slaves. Instead of using a wooden sword, she weaved a wooden pole and used it as her preferred weapon.

Yet, Ma Xingjuan's behavior was similar to Kang Yan. She jumped and danced in the field whenever clones were summoned.

Every time she thrust her spear, a large hole was created in a clone's body. Every time she hit someone with the pole, the victim's body was strangely sliced to two even though the pole had no edge.

Ma Xingjuan had awakened her perception. Her pupils gleamed in blue light while her breath leaked the white fume of processed Life Essence. She started tracing the red lines that she saw!

Miaomiao and others hadn't gotten their perception yet. However, their movements became sharp. They still had some wasted movements, but their precision visually improved.

Earlier, Miaomiao had to waste 10 moves to kill a 3rd-stage clone. But now, one or two moves was enough. Every movement had a purpose, and most of Miaomiao's attacks were meant for the kill.

On the second half of the night, Miaomiao increased the difficulty by another gear. During the practical sessions, he summoned 5,000 clones and ordered everyone to make a team of two or three. If one of their teammates was killed, that would be the team's defeat.

Everyone teamed up randomly. Miaomiao paired with Tang Ting, the Cleopatra vampire girl.

Tang Ting had the advantage of the vampire bloodline. She incorporated her basic movements with her racial ability by using her natural Life Essence to attract natural Qi and her opponent's Qi. As such, when her weapon cut through her foes, her wooden sword and her body absorbed their leaked Qi. Then, the energy replenished her stamina and lost Qi.

The other vampires showed similar growth. Their weapon techniques had the life-stealing attribute add-on, and they easily self-sustained in the prolonged practical training.

When Miaomiao and Tang Ting worked together, both of them started to pay attention to their teammate's condition and surroundings.

The previous 500 hours were for individual training and survival training. But now, things started to get complicated.

At the 800th hour mark, Miaomiao and yin slaves died more than 20 times as they paid too much attention to their partners. Ju Shoufen had to warn everyone to only pay attention to the positions of their partners, not pay attention to everything.

At the 1,000th hour mark, everyone was so exhausted that they couldn't stand anymore. They laid on the ground, unable to move.

The first day of training ended with everybody losing the will to continue training. Miaomiao ejected everyone out of his space and woke up.

...

The next day's morning, Jia Shan returned to the training field, so he could distract the girls and Miaomiao from having sex all day. He summoned everyone as usual.

Jia Shan had no idea what had happened yet.

Miaomiao and all girls walked out of their mansion, looking haggard. They had dark sags under their eyes as if they hadn't slept a wink.

Seeing everybody's condition, Jia Shan cringed.

"Did you idiots have sex all night that you all are exhausted!?"

The girls shook their head, "We just trained too hard last night."

Miaomiao collapsed on the ground. He popped a healing pill and a refreshment pill in his mouth. However, he still seemed exhausted.

"I was a good boy, master. I... no sex... but I'm tired."

"..."

Jia Shan sneered, thinking that Miaomiao and others were playing hooky. He tossed several wooden swords to the ground.

"Show me your swings a million times and you lots can rest!"

"... Okay."

Lifelessly, Miaomiao and the girls picked the swords. They walked to their usual spots and began swinging.

WHOOSH

Their swings were slower than usual. Their expression was as if they were about to fall to sleep while they were standing.

However, something had changed about them.

Jia Shan squinted his eyes for a moment. He examined the motion, the flow, the balance, the form, and the essence of Miaomiao's movements.

WHOOSH

The swing was soft and slow. Yet, it produced a strong gush of sharp wind.

Every time Miaomiao moved, he created a trace of sharp wind on the ground.

It was not the Wind Blade of Wind Cutter skill. Instead, it was a pure wind flow, which was produced by having a sword becoming one with his body. Then, the essence of each move became a hundred times more powerful!

This was the sign of someone stepping one foot in the realm of [One-with-the-Sword].

WHOOSH

WHOOSH

WHOOSH

Miaomiao wasn't the only one subconsciously using Wind Blade skill, the girls also sent several sharp Wind Cutter to the air. Fortunately, all of them faced the wall, so nobody got hurt.

"Hohoh?"

Jia Shan widened his eyes and smiled. He took out his phone and called Ma Ping.

"Senior Ma, you've got to see this. Come to Miaomiao's mansion."