Chapter 50: The Merged Instance World

Chapter 50: The Merged Instance World

Perhaps the system simply could not bear to watch A-zi continually miss out on relevant plot characters despite her own efforts. Therefore, the moment she entered the world of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils for the second time, it directly issued two main quests to her:

First, she must continue to evade the pursuit of the Xingshuai Sect for a duration of 30 days!

Second, she must search for her family. The baseline requirement was to find at least one close blood relative; the more relatives she found, the higher the quest reward would be.

Regarding the first main quest, A-zi naturally anticipated it long ago. After all, during her previous return, she was still being hunted down by Zhaixingzi. Until the issue was resolved, the Xingshuai Sect would never easily give up on pursuing her, especially with the Divine Wood Wang Ding at stake.

However, when she saw the second main quest, she was left utterly dumbfounded.

Search for family?

Did A-zi even have any family?

As a reincarnator who had inherited A-zi's identity, she searched through all of A-zi's memories, yet failed to find a single image related to any family members.

With the world so vast, where on earth was she supposed to look for relatives?

Soon, however, she recovered from her dazed state. As a reincarnator, A-zi firmly believed that the Reincarnation Pagoda would not deliberately issue an absolutely impossible quest just to make things difficult for a weak, pitiful, helpless—yet exceptionally voracious—young woman like herself.

And so, she began searching for clues nearby.

Hearing this, Zhang Fang couldn't help but curl his lips in a silent sneer. If you had possessed this kind of awareness when you first entered the Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils world, you probably would have known seven or eight relatives by now.

Of course, had that been the case, the Reincarnation Pagoda would never have issued such a main quest to her in her second world.

Shaking his head, Zhang Fang offered no comments and simply listened quietly.

Naturally, A-zi could not perceive the micro-expressions beneath Zhang Fang's mask, and continued recounting her miserable ordeal on her own.

This time, A-zi had materialized in a wilderness forest. According to plot deduction results, A-zi had fled all the way to this vicinity while being pursued by Zhaixingzi.

After searching the forest for a while without finding any useful clues, she ventured outward and quickly discovered a courtyard named the "Ma Residence." Sneaking inside stealthily, she discovered to her surprise that the courtyard belonged to the late Ma Dayuan, the former deputy chief of the Beggar Sect.

According to her reasoning, since this "Ma Residence" was located so close to where she had appeared, there should be clues related to her identity here. Just as she was debating whether or not to contact the owner of the courtyard, she overheard a conversation between two men and a woman from outside a bedroom window, sounding as though they were scheming some kind of conspiracy.

A-zi did not catch the specifics of the conversation in full.

The general gist of it, however, was that "Elder Quan" was going to go all out to incite several sub-sect leaders to oppose the core leadership of the main sect, performing a double act in coordination with "Elder Yan," after which "Elder Yan" would use absolute martial prowess to defeat You Tanzhi and seize the throne of the Beggar Sect leader.

Once that happened, the two of them could join forces and monopolize absolute authority within the Beggar Sect.

And this was merely the first step of their plan.

Following that, they intended to use the opportunity of the Martial Arts Convention a month later to issue a challenge to Shaolin, with Elder Yan stepping forward to defeat Abbot Xuanci of Shaolin Temple, thereby creating momentum to propel "Elder Yan" into the position of Wulin Alliance Leader.

When that time came, whether it was "Elder Quan" or "Madam Ma," their status in the pugilistic world would rise to unprecedented heights...

After these matters were discussed, the sounds coming from inside the room began to take on a strange character. Instantly, giggles, gasps, and roars filled the air, interspersed with martial arts terminology such as "Dog-Beating Staff Technique," "Black Dragon Enters the Cave," and "Swords Intertwined," alongside expressions whose connection to martial arts remained questionable, such as "Time Flies Like an Arrow" and "Rooster and Monkey."

Listening from outside the window, A-zi understood little of the deeper implications, her face flushing crimson. Just as she was preparing to quickly flee this filthy place, excessive nervousness caused her to accidentally knock over a vase on the windowsill.

A crisp, shattering sound thoroughly startled the three pugilistic masters who were currently practicing the third form of the "Plashing Cloud Palm," titled "Rolling Clouds and Raining." Two of the men rushed out bare-chested.

How could A-zi have the courage to confront martial arts experts who dared harbor ambitions of becoming the Wulin Alliance Leader? The moment she knocked over the vase, she immediately executed her lightness skill and leapt onto the courtyard wall.

Before leaving, however, she subconsciously glanced back, managing to imprint a rough impression of the two men's facial features in her mind.

Having overheard secrets she shouldn't have, A-zi naturally dared not linger in the vicinity. Fleeing blindly for a certain distance and making sure the enemy was not giving chase, she felt her stomach growling with hunger and skewered seven or eight fish by the river, preparing to roast them to appease her hunger.

To her astonishment, before the fish were even cooked, she happened to cross paths with Elder Wu, Elder Chen, and others passing by. A-zi had just been hunted down by the Beggar Sect, so the sight of beggars naturally aroused her vigilance. To make matters worse, among the group led by the two elders were a couple of unlucky fellows who wanted to show off a unique Beggar Sect technique and beg for a roasted fish to satisfy their hunger—an action that further triggered A-zi's already tightly strung nerves.

What followed was much the same as what Elder Chen had described earlier.

After breaking out of the encirclement, A-zi's crisis awareness heightened once more, and she quickly located an uninhabited cave to hide in. To further enhance her own strength, she used the Divine Wood Wang Ding to refine and purify a candle made from Seven-Heart Begonia.

The entire process took her nearly six full days.

Once the "Seven-Heart Begonia Candle" upgrade was complete, her previously stockpiled food was completely exhausted. A-zi had no choice but to temporarily leave her hiding cave, purchase some easily storable provisions in a nearby town, and prepare to elevate her strength further before venturing out again.

According to her plan, she intended to use the upgraded "Seven-Star Begonia Candle" to accelerate the progression of her "Life-Draining Technique." To her surprise, the toxicity of the candle after the upgrade far exceeded her expectations; even with the unique toxin-evasion methods native to the "Life-Draining Technique," she was utterly unable to neutralize the trace amounts of poison she had inhaled into her body.

In her anxiety, A-zi had no choice but to immediately swallow the antidote.

Yet before the effects of the antidote could manifest, Elder Chen appeared. As it turned out, when she had gone to the town to replenish her provisions earlier, her movements had been discovered by Beggar Sect disciples; by the time Elder Chen rushed to the scene upon receiving the news, he happened to catch her in her vulnerable period before the toxin was neutralized.

And so, bound hand and foot, she was delivered right before Zhang Fang.

Having heard A-zi's account, Zhang Fang instinctively reached out to stroke the chin area of his mask, involuntarily sinking into deep thought.

The plot had completely unraveled; he needed to sort things out carefully!

First of all, when A-zi was at Mirror Lake, since she had conversed happily with Azhu, she naturally would have told the other girl her name. Yet Azhu had not recognized her, nor had she even inquired about the characters tattooed on her shoulder or the golden lock. This proved that the first instance world she had experienced was also an independent existence, rather than a continuation developing from the "Guxian Villa" storyline that he had heavily modded.

Viewed in this light, it was quite logical.

It was impossible that he had entered a pristine, clean instance world while everyone else entered instance worlds where the plot had been drastically altered and modded by his influence.

That would simply be too unfair!

Extrapolating from this, does it mean that the other two reincarnators had also each previously experienced an instance world within the "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" plot, and then, in this multiplayer instance, the four worlds were merged together to form an entirely new instance world?

At least judging from the intelligence gathered so far, the situations of himself, A-zi, and the reincarnator belonging to the Gusu Murong faction all completely aligned with this hypothesis.

As for the final remaining reincarnator, the situation presumably wouldn't deviate too wildly from this pattern.

Through such integration by the reincarnators, the plot within this instance world had become completely unrecognizable.

Just among the known changes: Madam Ma, Bai Shijing, and Elder Xu—three plot characters who should have died two years ago—were still exceptionally active right up to the present moment.

Madam Ma, in particular, had even joined forces with Quan Qingyun to plot how to push Murong Fu onto the throne of the Wulin Alliance Leader!

What about the unknown variables?

Shaking his head, Zhang Fang decisively abandoned pondering this question that was destined to have no answer.

The different worlds individually influenced by the four reincarnators had been forcibly fused together by the Reincarnation Pagoda; the sheer number of variables that could occur during this process was simply astronomical.

Zhang Fang couldn't even fully identify who all four reincarnators were at present, so how could he possibly complete such a massive calculation?

Rather than wasting time on such meaningless contemplation, it was far better to focus on the present, handle the matters concerning himself one by one, and secure the maximum possible quest rewards—that was what truly mattered!