7 A Friendly Greeting

Fang Yue's stats were great, but the problem was the Wicked's speed—it was simply too fast.

During the fight with the Newborn Wicked, Fang Yue was forced into a passive stance, thus he could not do anything at first.

After he accidentally activated Block and caught the Newborn Wicked off guard, it was then that he got the chance to turn the tables around and killed it. Otherwise, he might not have escaped alive.

He calmed himself down, but a new problem popped up.

"What should I do now?"

The game did not even have a proper guide for beginners. Strictly speaking, it had two guides, which were the Wicked, and they had taught Fang Yue a heavy lesson.

It was unusual for games to have such a rookie guide. If Fang Yue had not been lucky enough, he would have kicked the bucket upon entering the game.

The only thing he understood after a harsh start was that killing a Wicked would grant him an increase in various stats and nothing else. He was in the dark from the very beginning.

He calmed his mind down and carefully thought of the situation. 

He first decided to check the temple.

The broken temple was not big by any means, so it only took him a few minutes to search the place.

He got a broken oil-paper umbrella, some sticks, and that was it.

Maybe because the temple was old and broken, it allowed the wind and rain to gush in through the holes on the walls and roofs. 

A chill enveloped him. Fang Yue instinctively rubbed his hands for some heat.

"I can't go on like this. Let's just start a fire…but how?"

The answer to starting the fire was the sticks. 

He could rub the sticks together to start a fire, and he had the oil-paper umbrella beside him. The oil paper was a great catalyst for combustion.

With that, he gathered the sticks into a small pile and put the umbrella beside it.

Fang Yue then put a more robust stick on the ground. He grabbed another stick and wanted to forcefully sharpen one end with his hand.

After killing the Newborn Wicked, his stats grew again. His Control had reached 32 which allowed him to crush the stick easily, but that was not what he wanted.

He tried again with several other sticks and managed to sharpen one in the end.

However, the stick was not sharpened properly. It had jagged edges instead of a smooth edge as if it had been chewed by a rat. 

Nevertheless, it was Fang Yue's masterpiece. He held his 'masterpiece' with both his hands and wanted to rub it against the robust stick on the ground.

Crack!

The moment he started spinning, the stick on the ground was split in half.

He tried the same with the other sticks, but he ultimately split every other stick in half. It seemed like he did not possess the necessary skills to start a fire.

"Strange. It looks so easy on TV, but I can't even start a spark with my superhuman strength."

Fang Yue did not give up though. He looked at the round pillar of the broken temple. The pillar was also wooden.

"Superhuman…strength?"

A dangerous thought appeared in his mind but was killed off quickly.

"I'd better not. What if the temple falls on me?"

With a sigh, he looked outside the broken temple. The storm seemed to have slowed down.

A quick thought later, Fang Yue decided to go out. The moment he got up though, his legs felt numb and almost caused him to trip.

They were not just numb. They even started to feel stuck, as though his legs were frozen in a freezer.

Fang Yue stretched and contracted his body to ease the stiffness. He also clearly felt the drop of temperature in the broken temple.

"I can't stay here anymore."

He believed if he spent the night in the broken temple, he would wake up an icicle in the morning.

He got up again and wanted to look around, eventually leaving the broken temple and going into the storm.

However, when the storm rained on him, his body froze and he was astonished.

The rain that pounded his body was so strong that it was considered damage by the game. 

Damage numbers popped up above his head rapidly.

[-1]

[-1]

[-1]

[-1]

[-1]

"What the F?! I can lose HP in the rain?!" Fang Yue was stupefied.

Fortunately, with [Night Breathing], his HP regeneration was fast enough to compensate for the loss of HP. His HP dropped and rose like a roller coaster ride.

Fang Yue looked at his fluctuating HP. His HP fell to 70 in an instant, but [Night Breathing] recovered his HP back to 97. The process repeated itself ceaselessly.

Fang Yue realized something. The raindrops from the storm did not fall from the sky at an even speed. Instead, there was a difference in the falling velocity of the rain.

He would lose more HP than normal at times and lesser in between, but [Night Breathing] was able to recover them all. However, he was still losing HP overall.

His HP dropped to 88 after a while. The roller coaster ride made his body a little weak, so he decided to return back to the broken temple. 

Without the rain falling on him, his HP recovered to 100.

"If I can get something to block the rain, my 'breathing regeneration' will enable me to explore outside."

Fang Yue looked at the broken oil-paper umbrella that he put beside the sticks. He was glad that he had not burnt it.

He originally planned to wait for the rain to stop before exploring, but since he failed to start a fire and it was getting colder inside the temple, he had to come up with another way.

There was a big hole on the oil-paper umbrella, and it was covered with black stains. It even smelled fishy.

Nevertheless, he opened the umbrella and walked outside again.

Swoosh!

The rain fell on the umbrella and landed on his body through the big hole. His body was wet in an instant and the damage numbers popped up above his head again.

[-1]

[-1]

[-1]

However, it was slower compared to before. [Night Breathing] was able to regenerate the HP in an instant.

He sighed a breath of relief and walked towards the exit.

A while later, he saw a crooked stone path that led downwards.

Fang Yue picked up a pebble on the path. The pebble was white and tough, and he had no idea what kind of stone it was.

Beside the stone path was a wooden signage.

On top of the signage was the name of the temple: Guyue Temple.

There were some smaller words beside Guyue Temple: Guyue Village.

It was a village!

Fang Yue was excited to see the village name. His eyes followed the stone path and tried to look beyond but it was so dark that he could not see anything.

Kakroom!

The rumbling thunder shed light over the stone path for a second.

Fang Yue caught a glimpse of his front. Following the stony mountain path, there was a village further at the end. However, there was no light in the village. That was the reason why it was hidden in the dark.

After the rumbling thunder faded, the path returned to darkness.

Fang Yue followed the stony path.

Both sides of the path were filled with towering willow trees.

The leaves of the trees blocked some of the moonlight, making the path look eerie.

Fang Yue mustered enough courage to press on. It got colder as he moved while his legs felt heavier as if they were infused with concrete.

He finally realized that something was not right.

It was not the temple that was cold—it was himself.

"Am I losing heat?!"

Before he realized it, he felt oil on his legs. He reached out to his legs with his hand, and when he had a look at his hand, he was stunned.

His right hand was covered with black gooey slime!.

Kakroom!

The thunder rumbled.

Fang Yue looked at his legs, but all he saw was black. His legs were covered with the black gooey slime.

As though startled by the rumbling thunder, the black slime crawled up Fang Yue's legs rapidly, terrifying him.

Panicked, he stomped his feet repeatedly, trying to shake the gooey slime off.

The pebbles on the path were crushed by his stomping, and the black gooey slime fell off. The slime slowly gathered and converged into a blob of something.

"What the hell?" Fang Yue reacted in fear. He dashed out and sprinted as fast as he could even though there was still some gooey residue on his legs.

As he ran, the black slime was flung off. However, the oil-paper umbrella was ruined in the wind as he sprinted.

Fang Yue felt terrible. All he could do now was run to a nearby tree for temporary shelter before continuing down the path. Fortunately, the rain was getting slower.

After running and stopping for a while, he finally arrived at the front of the village.

Meanwhile, the storm had slowed down.

The village looked like a normal village. It was surrounded by muddy walls as borders.

Outside the entrance of the village was a big shed.

It seemed like a modified pigsty. While it was simple and plain, it was able to act as shelter from the rain.

Inside the shed was a group of men in worn-out clothes. They looked thin and unhealthy, and they circled a tiny ember for heat, shivering as they tried to warm themselves up.

They seemed to be refugees of sorts. Some of them had fallen soundly asleep.

There was also another group of men at the village entrance patrolling. They had umbrellas in their right hands and extinguished torches in the other. Based on their attire, they seemed to be humans.

"D*mn! Finally, some real humans!"

Excited, Fang Yue ran faster to the village.

The patrolling men also noticed him and were stunned by his appearance. When they regained their senses, their yellowish scrawny faces turned as pale as paper. They were terrified, so they dropped their fireless torches and ran in panic.

"Shut the gate! Shut the gate! Danger!"

"Grave danger!"

"Rain-level Wicked! Rain-level Wicked! Grave danger!"

"Grave danger! Lord Han, please! Call Lord Han!"