Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  When the bard told adventure stories, he liked to describe the adventurer and the evil monster in three hundred rounds of fierce fighting—both of them were badly hurt, and finally, both of them were exhausted. Then the adventurer thought of justice, honor, his companions, relatives in the distance and those people in need of help, and he let loose more energy to fight. He leaped forward and killed the monster with one sword under the nervous yet passionate background music.

  Of course, if it was a story about a knight, then the knight would always be graceful. No matter how powerful the monster was, he would be weak in front of a knight. When describing the battle, the bard also liked to play some relaxing music to prove how easy it was for the knight to win the fight.

  But these were just stories, and they were far from the truth.

  In real combat, adventurers, especially those at the mid and low levels, often fought fiercely and swiftly. On one hand, they did not have enough strength to support a long-term battle, and on the other hand, they had never met a very powerful enemy.

  So in the combat, they were usually cautious in action and spent a lot of time finding out what their rival wanted to do, and there would be a sudden outbreak at last to decide who the winner was.

  It was just like this time.

  The two sides had prepared and planned for the fight for a long time, and they also spent a lot of time tempting and deceiving each other, but the duration of the final combat was very little. Even if one counted from the moment when the evil spirit tried to trap the four adventurers with the illusion, the whole battle took less than one minute.

  If the counting started from the encounter between the evil spirit and Yue, it was just about twenty seconds.

  What happened in the last ten seconds was like this: the evil spirit met Yue, and Yue sent out Frozen Rays. The evil spirit was hit and rushed to her angrily, and Yue pulled out her swords to fight with him. She attracted the evil spirit’s attention with two wooden swords that were slightly attractive to both the negative energy and the dead, and she performed bright, flashing magic at the same time and hit the evil spirit all of a sudden. The evil spirit was frightened, so the power of illusion was greatly weakened. Then the priest escaped from the illusion and performed the Dispersal Spell, and that successfully hit the evil spirit one more time and the illusion completely collapsed. The knight, warrior, and paladin all escaped from the illusion. The knight and the warrior restrained the movement of the evil spirit and let Yue who had been tired after casting the spell have a rest. At last, the paladin rushed over and poured the only bottle of divine water on the evil spirit.

  “It takes more time to tell the story than to do it……” When they tried to conclude what they had done after the battle, the warrior couldn’t help laughing. “It’s almost the most successful battle I’ve ever fought.”

  “Yes, especially since the enemy was powerful,” the paladin laughed and said. “Faced with an evil spirit that was able to build an illusion, we finally won so easily, and no one got hurt. It is a miracle!”

  \r \r \r

  “That’s right. How great it would have been if we had you as our companion before……” The priest smiled and nodded. ……

  Yue looked around in a daze only to find that the figures of the warrior, paladin and priest were gradually blurred. The knight was getting old and eventually became a grey-haired old man, but had a better spirit.

  “What’s…… what’s going on?” she asked in surprise.

  “You’ve passed the test.” A figure suddenly appeared behind her. She turned back immediately in horror and saw a grey-haired transparent figure standing less than three steps away from her. With his transparent body and the fluctuation of negative energy on him, he was clearly a phantom.

  At this moment, she was really frightened and almost threw away all her wooden swords.

  “I’m glad to see that you are frightened by me,” the old phantom smiled and said. “You’ve behaved so well before. You weren’t like a little girl of this age, and that makes you unreal. Now it’s much better. You look like a normal person.”

  Yue didn’t know what reaction she should give now. She had defeated the evil spirit but was frightened by the old phantom that was obviously much weaker than the evil spirit.

  “Would you like to listen to an old man to tell stories?” the old knight asked. “My story, and the story of this castle.”

  “Of course.” Yue smiled and nodded. “But…… Are you real now? Or are you just an illusion?”

  “There is no difference between reality and illusion for our lord as long as he wishes,” the old knight answered. “But I am real now.”

  This was not a lie, of course. Just now, Sui Xiong found out that Yue was about to win, and so he had a new idea. He contacted one of his believers who had provided this experience in the game—the only survivor of the adventurers at that time, the knight.

  The knight was astonished to know that there was someone who could win that fight and asked Sui Xiong to let him talk to this outstanding girl.

  Sui Xiong was willing to let them meet each other, so the two of them were in a virtual environment now, but their conversation was real.

  The old knight praised Yue’s calm and rational mind as well as her accurate judgment. He admired her a lot and praised that she would have a successful career in the future and become a great person that was highly respected by others; Yue praised the old knight after she learned that he had spent 20 years to fulfill a promise to the phantom, and she also said that he was a role model for all the knights.

  “What happened to that castle later?” Yue asked curiously.

  “Maybe it’s still there,” the old knight said with some yearning. “It has been almost sixty years since I visited the castle with the descendants of the castle’s owner. If it was not well repaired and maintained, it may have collapsed. But at that time, there was a new hill lord, and perhaps he took good care of the castle.”

  “It’s a pity that the story doesn’t have a happy ending!” Yue said with a sigh.

  “Generally speaking, it’s not a bad ending.” The old knight had already let old things go with a smile. “The descendants of the castle’s owner lived a good life later. He was a believer of the Royal Crown (Goddess of Wealth). I had the privilege of meeting him in the exchanges between the two God’s Kingdoms, and I was glad that we all had a good place to go after death.”

  “But it was a pity that the castle fell into others’ hands!”

  “Indeed it was, but there was nothing wrong with that,” the old knight laughed and said. “After all, nearly a hundred years have passed. The hill lord who owned the land had waited for his heir for so long, so there was nothing pitiful.”

  “Is a hundred years long?” Yue said discontentedly. “He’s been waiting for a hundred years. Why couldn’t he wait a few more decades?”

  The old knight laughed heartily and said, “My little girl, when you grow up, you will understand that it is benevolent enough for the hill lord to spend a hundred years waiting for the heir of the castle to appear. The world of adults is not as simple as yours, and the hill lord has his pressure as well. What’s more, in 100 years, the hill lord has already passed his title on for several generations. Perhaps the first hill lord was determined, and his heir had to be determined as well for they cared for the hill lord’s feeling a lot. But a hundred years later, the hill lord, his sons, and even his grandchildren may all die. Who will worry about the feelings and ideas of an old man several generations ago?”

  Yue pouted unhappily.

  She was dissatisfied with such an ending.

  “Thus, you have to work hard to become an immortal. Then you will stand outside of the limit of time and watch the life and death of the mortals as well as the prosperity and decline of the country. At that time, you can take time for granted.” The old knight smiled kindly. Then his figure faded away, and the whole castle became transparent, turning into a pure white light that made people feel warm.

  Yue heard a gentle voice in the pure white light.

  “You did a good job. What kind of reward do you want?”