First Tutorial Quest (5)

Chapter 6 – First Tutorial Quest (5)

Miaomiao paused. He peered at the waiter with the corner of his eyes, "What?"

"Nothing, sir. Go ahead. Enjoy the beer."

"You didn't mix poison in the beer, do you?"

"Please. Stop with the baseless accusation. I'm just an honest worker here. Poisoning a customer will ruin my career! Why should I do that?" Despite saying that, the waiter still had the smug grin and the laughing eyes.

Miaomiao turned around and glared at the waiter, "What's your cultivation base?"

"Pardon?"

"What's your strength? Muscle tampering?"

"Err, I'm just a 1st stage cultivator like you, sir…"

"What level?"

"Level … err … five, sir."

Miaomiao's face twitched. He didn't know if the waiter lied, or the guy was really stronger than him.

"You drink it."

"Err, pardon, sir?"

"I said, you drink it!"

The waiter hesitated. He dragged his feet a couple steps backward and shook his head, "No, sir. I can't drink that."

"Why not?"

"That's … er. I just can't, sir!"

"Oh? But I insist!"

The waiter's face changed. His gentle expression distorted, "Please don't push your luck, sir! You can't just force me to drink that."

"Then, why is it that you can't drink my beer?"

"That's none of your business, sir," The waiter finally lost his temper.

"Oho?"

Miaomiao stood up and walked toward the waiter, but the latter suddenly drew a short knife and pointed at the former.

"Now, give me all your money, and we'll spare your life… SIR."

Instead of getting intimidated, Miaomiao chuckled.

'Ah, he's really a villain mob. These people usually have impaired intelligence in novels, but they can be extra stupid when they are getting too greedy.'

Miaomiao liked what he saw. Just like when he conversed with Qing Yong and their friends, his eyes curved up while his smiling mouth became crescent. It was an evil smile, "So, you've revealed your true color. What's in the beer, then?"

"I see that you're a newbie in this town. Spirit drinks can only be taken by 2nd stage cultivators or above. A weakling like you will just simply die upon drinking it. Since you're stupid enough to order an overpriced beer, you should be obedient and give us your money, so you won't get robbed by other cruel bastards, sir. Well, I should be calling you a SLAVE instead of SIR, now."

Five meters next to Miaomiao's table, ten cultivators with ragged clothes had been eyeing Miaomiao's gold for a while. They stood up and abandoned their long table to encircle Miaomiao. One of them closed the entrance door and locked it, trapping the transmigrator inside the building. However, there was another cultivator customer who was in the tavern bar as well.

.

The chairs and table set in this tavern were no ordinary. The tables are sculpted tree stumps with a smooth surface and a hollowed area for leg space. The chairs were also tree stumps with cushions, but they were smaller and shorter.

Customers could move them around, but they were still heavy for ordinary people. The lightest table in this tavern weighed 80kg while each chair was 30kg on average.

Yet, one man had relocated one set of table and chair to the corner of the tavern, so he could sit by himself. He had been there since morning, before Miaomiao's arrival.

A lone short elderly man with silver hair and braided full beard was enjoying several bottles of middle-grade whiskey. His rough skin, short stature, big hands, and messy body hair looked like a dwarf from a western fantasy novel more than a Chinese cultivator, but he wore white robe uniform of the Mountain Goose Sect.

Luo Cheng, the dwarf elder, glanced at the commotion and scoffed in annoyance.

"A bunch of 2nd stage gangsters bullying a 1st stage rookie. These losers always appear every year. Time to clean up some parasites."

Luo Cheng stood up and pulled his giant smith hammer from his spatial ring, planning to rescue Miaomiao. But when the dwarf saw a glimpse of sinister light within Miaomiao's eyes, he raised his eyebrows in amusement.

The dwarf sat down and picked another whiskey bottle to chug it.

"Hohoho! They've run into a psychopath this time. Go ahead, boy. Show me what you can do. Their heads are yours."

.

'A broad daylight robbery in the freaking city. They don't give a crap about laws and order at all, do they?'

Miaomiao sighed. He wasn't worried about the knife, but he worried about the ten men. Fighting an armed man was already difficult, but fighting ten men at once was an impossible task even for an ex-professional MMA fighter like him.

At first, Miaomiao wanted to beat the hell out of the waiter but the situation changed when many men got involved.

Miaomiao grabbed the beer bottle, planning to smash it with the corner of the table to make a sharp-edge melee weapon and fight to the death.

As soon as Miaomiao picked up the beer, the system interrupted him.

<<Ding >>

<<You have obtained a low-grade spirit beer.>>

<<You 40 can drink this beer and obtain yang qi.>>

Miaomiao paused.

'Huh? Won't I be poisoned?'

<<You cannot be poisoned by ordinary qi.>>

'Hmm. So, what's the use of yang qi?'

<<You will need them to cultivate in the future. However, as you are under grace of first month protection period, can exchange your collected yang qi for emergency service.>>

<<Current service – Two Minutes of Super Perception Boost: 1,000 Yang Qi.>>

'Just one service?'

<<Please complete more quests to unlock perks and services.>>

The service fee was expensive, but it might be useful against 11 people in the tavern. Miaomiao sighed in regret that he had to spend the newly acquired energy so soon.

'Easy comes, easy goes. Use it, system. Give me the buff!'

<<Affirmative! >>

<<You have spent 1,000 strands of yang qi.>>

<<You 300 currently have strands of yang qi.>>

<<Your 1 2 overall strength and power output has been increased to 2nd stage level for minutes.>>

<<Tutorial Hint: This skill can be learned if you practice the Demonic Body Strengthening Technique. You buy this technique manual after you've completed more tutorial quests.>>

Miaomiao could sense burning energy circulating throughout his body as if hot water was flowing inside him. Time flow around Miaomiao became slower, and his perception range expanded.

Looking around him, Miaomiao laughed in his mind, 'This feels like I'm a spiderman. Hell, I can even see a fly from far away!'

Exhilarated by the system's buff, he chugged the cold beer.

<<You 20 have acquired strands of life qi.>>

<<Unable to store life qi in the host's dantian. Proceeding convert into yang qi.>>

<<You 40 have acquired strands of yang qi.>>

As soon as the waiter and the 10 gangsters saw that Miaomiao drank the beer, their jaws dropped in astonishment. A few seconds later, they sneered and laughed.

"Hey, he's committing suicide!"

"Oh, since you can't fight, you decide to kill yourself. How considerate of you!"

The waiter also lowered his knife and waited to see how Miaomiao would die by qi deviation or qi poisoning.

But when the last drop of beer entered Miaomiao's throat, he swung the empty bottle at the waiter's head.

*PLANK*

The glass bottle shattered! Miaomiao rotated the broken bottle grip and thrust the sharp edge into the waiter's neck. The broken glass severed the latter's artery

'Nothing personal. If I don't kill you, I'll die.'

Like a cornered dog, he decided to kill for his survival. Yet, he couldn't stop his evil smile.

While Miaomiao's eyes curved up, he glanced at the ten burly men, who were surrounding him by all sides. He marked their current positions in his mind.

Then, Miaomiao pulled the broken bottle from the waiter's neck. Blood gushed out from the severed artery and splashed on his face.

The waiter was still staring at Miaomiao in shock while his body lost strength. He fell on the floor and dropped the short knife.

"BASTARD!"

The ten thugs drew their weapons and charged at Miaomiao!

Miaomiao picked the waiter's knife by the edge and threw it towards one of the thugs.

*FWOOSH*

*POEK*

The knife got stuck into a thug's left eye, "AAAAHHHH!!"

As soon as Miaomiao finished throwing the knife, he grabbed the stump chair that he had sat with his available hand and lifted it.

Normally, his weak arm and untrained muscle shouldn't be able to lift a 30kg chair with one hand. The system boosted his physical strength burst output, which enabled him to pick it up. Still, Miaomiao could feel the weight.

Miaomiao threw the tree stump toward two thugs, who stood next to each other.

One thug reacted to the flying chair. He leaped to the left and dodged the oncoming tree stump, but the other one failed to avoid it.

The stump slammed on his face, broke his nose, and cracked his skull. He was crushed under the weight of the dried wood and fell on the floor, losing his consciousness.

Two thugs were out of commission. Eight remained.

One of the gangsters was faster than the others. They reached Miaomiao and raised a saber up high, planning to cut the latter into two.

Miaomiao detected the incoming strike from the corner of his eyes. From his perspective, the slash was as slow as a YouTube clip in 0.25x speed.

He took one step backward and rotated his shoulder, moving away from the motion path. The strike missed Miaomiao and landed where he had stood.

Now, the saber thug revealed an opening. He showed his back to Miaomiao.

The broken bottle edge in Miaomiao's hand found its way into the back of the saber thug's neck.

*SWUA*

Miaomiao didn't pull out the broken beer bottle this time. Behind him, three thugs with thin swords pincered him.

Three swords went for Miaomiao's chest and neck!

This was the hard part of fighting many people at once. One could get surrounded and attacked by many opponents at the same time.

"Tsk!"

Miaomiao dragged the saber guy and turned around, using him as his shield. Two thin swords stabbed into the injured thug's chest, but the other one missed Miaomiao's face by half a centimeter.

Two more thugs caught up with the other three. They raised their sabers and tried to chop Miaomiao.

Miaomiao snatched the dead thug's saber that he had just used as a shield and threw him to the three swordsmen. He disengaged and kicked the ground, rushing at the two new enemies with sabers.

Before the two sabers could come down and hack him, Miaomiao's shoulder tackled one of the saber users and knocked him off balance. The latter fell on the floor on his butt.

Miaomiao gripped his saber hilt with two hands as if he was holding a baseball bat. He turned away from the tackled man and swung his saber, aiming at his next target's abdomen.

*SWUA*

The saber user's belly was sliced open, and his intestines slipped out of his stomach. The guy dropped his saber in panic and tried to shove them back inside.

But Miaomiao was merciless. He turned around and sent a thrust kick toward the saber user's chest.

*PEOK*

The opened belly man got kicked away. He failed to recover his innards and fell unconscious from the shock.

Miaomiao's hands were not idle. They swung his saber at the guy who he had just tackled and fell on the floor.

*SWUA*

A head was lopped off from the owner's neck, and a fountain of blood splashed on Miaomiao's face and body again.

After killing three saber users, five thugs remained.

Miaomiao turned around and faced the remaining enemies. His back was now clear from danger.

The evil smile and the blood on Miaomiao's face sent chills to the survivors' spines. His eyes always curved upward while his smile distorted into a crescent shape.

Moreover, the sinister dark light in Miaomiao's eyes didn't belong to someone who had never killed a person. It was the face of a lunatic who got addicted to killings and combats.

"Who's next?"