Chapter 1:Mao Miaomiao
Chapter 1 – Mao Miaomiao
'Damn system! Why is it so hard to kill an MC!?'
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'But you barely taught me anything! I did most of the work!'
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'Wait! I need some hints! How do I kill Xie Tian!?'
A toned young swordsman with a black katana was kneeling, panting in exhaustion while he was bickering with the system in his mind. He spat several mouthfuls of blood while he clenched his chest, where the broken rib cage piece punctured his lung.
Brown dust covered the barren wasteland, which made it hard for the black katana cultivator to breathe. Brown soil dirtied his white robes, arms, and face, but the unyielding eyes of the young man focused on his opponent.
Moonlight from the full moon shone upon him and his opponent. On this sub-dimension plane under the dark sky, two men aimed to kill each other.
10 Meters before the young muscular swordsman with a system, another handsome cultivator with a similar uniform and body statue stood before him with a flame saber. He was not in good shape as he was bleeding from all the cut wounds on his arms, legs, and chest. Yet, the opponent of the black katana samurai didn't seem to feel the pain.
"XU MIAO, YOU DEMON. DIE!!"
The wounded flame swordsman yelled and charged at the white robe cultivator.
The latter snapped to his senses. He bellowed back, "SCREW YOU, XIE TIAN!!"
Xu Miao, the samurai cultivator, dashed forward and circulated all his life essence into his black katana. The cursed weapon laughed in a high-pitched voice and released white flame, the demonic flame.
Xie Tian, the protagonist, also injected all his yang essence into his flame saber. He slashed down, planning to cleave Xu Miao in half.
The crimson flame from Xie Tian's saber and the white flame from Xu Miao's katana collided, creating another explosion, which engulfed both of them.
Yet, they braced the flame and pressed forward.
"RETURN TO ZERO!!"
Xie Tian activated his trump card, which reversed space and time.
"THAT GOLDEN EXPERIENCE KNOCK-OFF AGAIN!? NOT A CHANCE, KILLER QUEEN!!"
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= Several Months Earlier =
A muscular man in his 60s was sitting in front of a computer, staring at the bright monitor, reading the details of the new PC MMORPG game. His right amputated leg jerked as the phantom pain hit him once every few seconds. Yet, the guy ignored the pain and continued reading the form.
Mao Miaomiao sighed and closed his eyes. He glanced at a framed picture on his PC desk, which was his picture when he won a UFC belt for the first time.
Decades had passed since that glorious day. But for Mao Miaomiao, this event was like yesterday. Unfortunately, he was too old to compete, and his right leg was no longer with him.
"Haiz. I still want to fight some more," Mao Miaomiao lamented.
"Uncle Cat Meow-Meow, have you registered yet? Stop reading those webnovels and register already! The close-beta will begin tomorrow, so you should hurry! We can't play together if you can't play in this close-beta!"
Miaomiao was sharing his house with his younger brother's family. It was a three-story single house with six bedrooms, which was too large for him to live alone. Of course, he bought this house when he was still an MMA fighter in the UFC.
As Miaomiao was being sentimental, a 12-year-old son of his kid brother yelled from another room. The brat was being disrespectful, calling Mao Miaomiao as Cat Meow-Meow.
"I'm filling the form, Greg!"
"Hurry up! You won't be able to join if the quota is filled!"
"I know, I know."
Miaomiao returned his focus on the monitor. He typed his details into a registration form of a new PC MMORPG game.
Then, he pressed the [Next] button to proceed.
The screen changed. The webpage directed to a questionnaire website instead of a common registration form.
Normally, any gamer would have closed this popup site and gone back to the registration page. However, Mao Miaomiao was a curious old man. He read the questionnaires and answered them anyway without caring if the site contained a virus or not.
[If you can reincarnate or transmigrate into a cultivation novel world, would you prefer to be a protagonist, an antagonist, a side character, or a mob character?]
"Heroes suck. Their lives are miserable throughout the stories I've read. They usually won in the end, but I don't like the hardship that they have to go through. Hell, some of them are downright mass-murderers! I prefer living a slow-life with moderate struggles. A side-character will do."
[Why did you choose a side-character?]
"As I said, heroes suck dick! Side characters are more carefree!"
[What kind of side-character do you want to be?]
"A neutral one! No F is given to MCs or villains!"
[Aren't you afraid of being killed by protagonists or antagonists?]
"Screw you! I was once a UFC champion! I can ground-and-pound those Kang-Fools that can only do flashy moves to oblivion!"
The questionnaire was entertaining and interesting. Miaomiao had fun answering each question with trolling answers.
But after a while, the open questions turned into a multiple-choice question.
[If you were to be transmigrated as a side-character in a cultivation world, which skill, item, or cheats would you prefer to have with you?]
A hundred choices and a time limit appeared. Mao Miaomiao only had a minute to answer this question.
He got frustrated that he couldn't read through all the selectable answers since the time limit was too short, "Damn, you freaking stupid questionnaire providers! You're supposed to give me unlimited time to decide!"
Although Mao Miaomiao complained, his eyes skimmed through the answers with determination as if he was answering the TOEIC official test.
'A smartphone with cheat apps? Too materialism. What if someone steals it from me? Not interested.'
'Level max with a million status points? Boring. What if I sleep-walking and destroy the goddamn world by an accident? What if I run into someone stronger than me? I can't raise my level anymore, right?'
'Necromancy? I don't want to play with corpses and skeletons. Too depressing!'
'Taming Arts? Too subordinate reliance! If I can't find or tame a strong beast, won't I be shitty forever?'
'Save and Load feature? Not gonna lie, it's tempting. But my gaming experience taught me the hard way. I often overwrote my save files and screwed up royally in the late game, which was irreversible. Then, I had to start a new game or load a save file with 200 hours less playtime. I don't want to mess up like that again since there is only one slot file for the save. Regrettably, I can't pick this.'
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"Ugh!"
The pressure was real. Miaomiao got panicked, and his decision making got influenced.
Still, he was an experienced fighter who had faced many worse crises. He paced his breath and concentrated.
'I had read a bunch of wuxia novels during my free time. If I could answer it freely, I would have answered "I don't need any special skill. I just won't mess with the MC or villains." instead of picking skills to survive.'
Since they gave Miaomiao multiple choices, he read the answer choices carefully.
[Demonic Yin Yang System – This cultivation assistance system can help you increase your cultivation strength by copulating with opposite sex cultivators. Furthermore, it contains a built-in shop system that you can buy various goodies with your essence.]
That was a brief description of one of the choices that caught Miaomiao's attention.
Among all items and perks, the dual-cultivation choice was the most attractive since nobody hated sex. Even though it sounded evil, Miaomiao couldn't help imagine himself doing it with many women and got stronger in the process.
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'Ah, screw this. There's a time limit and I can only pick one. If I were to live my next life in a cultivation world, I should go with something that I can enjoy. This stupid thing, [Demonic Yin Yang System], will do.'
Miaomiao picked the choice and moved on to the next questions. However, he didn't remember everything after he had pressed the [Next] button.
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"Uncle Cat Meow Meow, are you done!?"
The 12-year-old boy slammed the door open to look for his uncle, but he found no one. He tilted his head in confusion.
"Who is uncle cat meow meow?"
He forgot about Mao Miaomiao's existence. He didn't even know why he came to this room in the first place.
The boy didn't notice the webpage that the monitor was showing. He closed the door and ran to his dad.
"Dad, since when do we have an empty room on the third floor?"
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The monitor and the PC turned off by itself. The history, registry files, and all records about Mao Miaomiao were erased automatically. Even the framed picture on his table faded away.
No one remembered about him, including his brother. It was as if he never existed in this world.
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