Chapter 32: Monkey Wine

“How frustrating! Others become Registered Disciples, but I was sent by some unknown old geezer to do this task with unknown rewards and terrible punishment!”

Ye Rong did not dare to use Sword Flight, afraid that the Sword Light would alarm the Spiritual Monkeys and cause the mission to fail, so he could only tiptoe and follow behind them.

These Spiritual Monkeys were quite annoying; along the way, they chased each other, played around, and hung from branches doing acrobatic moves, taking their time without heading toward their nest.

Whenever Ye Rong thought about the mission failure penalty of dropping five Levels, his scalp tingled. He wished he could grab the Spiritual Monkey and make it lead the way faster.

“So high!”

After following the Spiritual Monkeys around for almost half an hour, he finally saw them dart toward a cliff. In a few leaps, they jumped up more than ten zhang high. On the cliff, there was a cave entrance, with dozens of Spiritual Monkeys cheerfully jumping in and out, having a great time.

If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the nest of the Spiritual Monkeys, and the Monkey Wine should be inside.

Just from the outside, he could see over a hundred Level 20 Spiritual Monkeys, including some extra strong ones with pure silver fur and no other colors, clearly of higher Levels. It was possible that there was even a Spiritual Monkey boss inside the cave. No matter how he looked at it, charging in would mean certain death.

Even if Ye Rong used his Flying Sword and rushed into the cave at top speed, he might not find the Monkey Wine, let alone get out safely after obtaining it. No matter how he thought about it, this seemed like an almost impossible mission, far beyond what a Level 17 Player could accomplish.

Ye Rong furrowed his brow, carefully examining every item in his Universe Pouch, racking his brains for an idea, a possible way to complete the wine-finding mission.

The punishment for this mission was so severe that he simply couldn’t give up. If he dropped back to Level 12, he wouldn’t even be able to equip the Taixuan Ice Soul Sword, which meant he couldn’t complete the Trial Mission either. The chain of consequences from this penalty was unbearable for Ye Rong; he absolutely couldn’t allow it to happen.

Thinking about the less than seven hundred balance left on his ID card, Ye Rong gritted his teeth, and his gaze grew more intense—

In black market transactions, the exchange rate for Far Shore game currency to RMB was still very unstable, but many Flying Swords and Magic Treasures had already been sold.

Flying Swords with attributes like Ye Rong’s Taixuan Ice Soul Sword, a Third-Rank Flying Sword, generally had prices above three thousand yuan on the black market, and even then, they were hard to come by.

The auction houses in the Main City were not running smoothly at the moment, mainly due to high fees and overpriced equipment listings. However, Ye Rong believed it wouldn’t be long before auction houses became wildly popular. The current lack of popularity was because there were too many newbies who set prices randomly, making buyers prefer to purchase through black market channels instead.

This lively offline trading was enough to prove the financial potential of the game Far Shore.

For the dream of returning to the central city district, he could only succeed, not fail!

Ye Rong activated his Sword Light and charged straight toward the cliff cave, taking advantage of a moment when a Spiritual Monkey leaped out, and dashed inside.

The cave was not dark; light shone through several openings, making it at least possible to see.

The intrusion of this uninvited guest made the Spiritual Monkeys screech wildly, waving their sharp claws as they lunged at him. He swallowed a Blood Restoration Pill and, ignoring them, scanned the entire cave as quickly as possible.

What a huge monkey!

Sitting cross-legged directly ahead was a golden-furred monkey as tall as a person, baring its sharp teeth with drool dripping down;

On the other side was a roughly polished stone slab with four or five fruit shells the size of watermelons placed on it, tied together with vines. Even from more than ten meters away, Ye Rong could catch a faint scent of wine wafting from them.

That was it, Monkey Wine!

In an instant! The Small Teleportation Cloud Talisman was used again, and after its charges were exhausted, it turned into fine powder and scattered.

Ye Rong leaped past more than ten Spiritual Monkeys and two strong silver monkeys, appearing in front of the stone slab. With a sweep of his arm, he grabbed the two closest fruit shells.

He stuffed one into his Universe Pouch, pried open the lid of the other, tilted his head back, and poured it down, letting the fine wine flow into his throat.

He paid no attention to the Spiritual Monkeys pouncing on him from all sides, allowing their sharp claws to strike, as he gulped down the Monkey Wine.

Ye Rong’s plan was to use the Small Teleportation Cloud Talisman to get the Monkey Wine, then die once if needed, but take the wine out with him—a desperate, all-or-nothing strategy.

Even if he died once and respawned in Chengdu City, Ye Rong would still return to the Qingcheng Mountain Gate, no matter the cost!

But just as the claws of more than ten Spiritual Monkeys were about to tear Ye Rong’s body apart, three small green Flying Swords suddenly emerged from where the old man with the staff had patted his shoulder, intertwining and spinning upward. The three green swords merged, and with a swirl of Sword Light, Ye Rong actually vanished from the spot.

He left behind a cave full of stunned Spiritual Monkeys and the furious golden monkey that was roaring and pounding its chest.

…

“I, I’m not dead… I didn’t die!”

The expected first death never came. Looking around, he found himself back on that small hill, with the old man with the staff right in front of him.

“Kid, I sent you to get some Monkey Wine, and you took forever, plus you spilled most of it! What a waste, what a waste!”

The old man with the staff snatched the fruit shell from Ye Rong’s hand and drank from it with great relish.

Ye Rong thought back carefully to what had just happened and realized that this old man must have done something to him, setting up an automatic teleport back when his life was in danger. But there was no hint of it in his Player Log, which was why Ye Rong hadn’t noticed at all.

“Senior, I have another jar here. Do you think it’s enough?”

As soon as Ye Rong took the Monkey Wine out of his Universe Pouch, his hand felt lighter—the fruit shell was already in the old man with the staff’s hand.

“Good, well done, kid!”

The old man with the staff beamed, nodded with satisfaction, and pointed at Ye Rong. A speck of green starlight flew out and landed on his wrist. The green starlight quickly faded, leaving no visible change except for a faint green star mark on his wrist.

After saying this, he transformed into an Azure Lotus and shot straight up into the clouds, disappearing to the edge of the sky in an instant.

“Senior, what about my reward!”

Ye Rong really wanted to shout this out loud, but after seeing the speed of that Azure Lotus Sword Light, he held the words back.

Comparing it to himself, he could tell that the old man with the staff’s Sword Flight speed was definitely over two thousand—covering thousands of miles in an instant, traversing the vast skies.

He glanced at his Player Log; the Monkey Wine mission was indeed completed, with no follow-up, but where was the reward?

The System is so unfair! He had risked his life, and this was how he was treated!

Ye Rong’s heart was roaring.