Chapter 55: Chapter 55 – White-Eyebrowed Ma Liang and The Goddess of the Luo River, Mi Fei

Realizing that Ren Ying and Ren Wuxie would only survive until the age of 20, Ren Suo felt that he would not be able to complete the mission successfully, and the current game save would be rendered useless again.

It was no exaggeration to say that the previous expedition was a massive failure. The three strongest members of the Ren family had been sent on the expedition to Yiling to eliminate the Fire Demons: Ren Ying, with the Formidable Shield and Lightning Axe; Ren Wuxie, with the Fiery Fist; and Ren Luoyang, with the Silverwolf Witch Bow. They could well have been the best and most formidable team in the Ren family’s entire history—although there were only a few of them who could be sent on expeditions.

However, Ren Wuxie landed himself on the brink of death twice and Ren Ying once. Had Ren Luoyang and Ren Ying not have sufficient [Recovery] points, Ren Wuxie would not have been able to survive the battle and return home.

But losing Ren Wuxie would not have been as heartbreaking for Ren Suo as Ren Ying, the current head of the family, losing one year of her life.

The character with the role of the head of the family could be equipped with abilities, and thus Ren Suo had always equipped them with the [Unlimited Energy] ability. Based on the rules of the game, the side-effect of [Unlimited Energy] was that her lifespan would be cut in half when she became the head of the family. In that case, her lifespan would only be 12 years long, instead of the usual 24 years of the Ren family members.

But in reality, because Ren Ying had not been equipped with the “Unlimited Energy” ability before she took on the role as the head of the family, she had a typical lifespan even until the age of 15. Even if she was equipped with the [Unlimited Energy] ability thereafter, Ren Suo would still take the trouble to unequip the ability from the main menu.

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This was because the [Unlimited Energy] ability had no effect during expeditions, and leaving it equipped would only waste one season of time in her life.

However, even by doing so, Ren Ying’s lifespan would still be cut short to 21 years long due to the doubled rate in her training. Although Ren Ying had already undergone a spiritual exchange once, Ren Suo still hoped that she could give birth to more pairs of twins to increase the population of the Ren family.

And when Ren Ying had her lifespan cut short by one year, 10 attribute points were also stripped off her, and she lost one chance to bear a pair of twins!

The Fire Demons stronghold in Yiling was truly scary.

It was not scary in the sense that the Fire Demons had a high DPS (damage per second). In fact, regardless of their Attack, they still stood no chance against the Defense of Ren Ying.

As long as the enemy’s Attack was lower than the Defense of Ren Ying, who was a Shield-type character, it was just a matter of time before successfully eliminating all the Fire Demons, if she managed to attract the attention of the enemy.

After all, it was a turn-based battle and Ren Suo could not control any of the other characters, apart from the head of the family, and hence there was not much difficulty in navigating the battle.

However, even with Ren Ying’s unbeatable Defense, the problem was that they could not escape from being surrounded by the attacking Fire Demons!

With the aid of the [Scout] ability of Ren Ying, Ren Luoyang, and Ren Wuxie, the attributes of an ordinary Fire Demon was gathered:

[Fire Demon]

[Attack 15, Defense 20, Movement 10]

[Elite: They had been a part of the Elite Forces when they were alive. After their death, they retain their military might as an elite. When there are more than 5 allies within a 5 tile radius, they gain an Attack boost +5 and Defense boost +5.]

[Blade of Flames: Their weapons have been cursed by the Flames of Fire, and their every attack would cause fire-type damage.]

[Radiating Vengeance: When the Emperors of the Han Dynasty regained the throne, the Fire Demons felt that they needed to help restore peace in the world instead. Their determination turned into an obsession, and you would be able to feel their compulsion from far away. They want you to feel their pain and their dissatisfaction. In each round, enemies within a 1 tile radius would receive a Defense damage of -1, but will not result in death.]

To be honest, the attributes of the Fire Demons were not unacceptable, even though their attributes basically doubled to tripled from that when they had still been alive. Even if they attacked in waves, the Ren family Practitioners were still able to defeat them.

However, their [Radiating Vengeance] ability completely destroyed the advantage Ren Ying had as a Shield-type warrior.

Although [Radiating Vengeance] was not an Attack ability and would not trigger her passive effects, but once the Fire Demons start to surround Ren Ying, her Defense would drop based on the number of Fire Demons directly around her!

Even though she had a Defense of 97.5 points, the large number of Fire Demons who would surround her was insurmountable! Furthermore, this was merely the effect of ordinary Fire Demons. There were also other stronger enemies like the Hungry Fire Demon Leader and the legendary General of the Shu-Han army, who had died in the historical battle of Yiling!

For example, the strongest three members of the Ren family had previously encountered “White-Eyebrowed Ma Liang”, and it was then when Ren Wuxie, who moved like the wind, was instantly dealt with by an almost fatal blow from Ma Liang!

[White-Eyebrowed Ma Liang]

[Attack 35, Defense 100, Movement 10]

[Palace Attendant of Han Dynasty: In the absence of the higher ranking General of the Shu-Han Army, Ma Liang can control the movement of any single ally.]

[“Authority of the White Eyebrows: When there are more than 5 allies in a 5 tile radius, Attack +10, Movement +5.]

[Fire-type Ability – Flaming Eyebrows: When Ma Liang was burnt to death, only his eyebrows remained unscathed with his ash-black body. The Reiki of Grievance revived him then, and he naturally acquired the ability of the Flaming Eyebrows. A middle-ranged fire-type attack on a single target.]

Such a famous historical figure like the General of the Shu-Han Army, paired with an extraordinarily high Defense, was essentially the boss of every battle.

The [Fire-type Ability – Flaming Eyebrows] was deceivingly harmless. Of course, the Flaming Eyebrows ability still paled in comparison with the abilities of the Ren family Practitioners.

However, the problem was that in the Central Plains, only the Ren family of Practitioners had a proper training system and a long history of such abilities. Most other people did not possess any such abilities, even if they were able to feel the presence of Reiki.

And even if they did possess such abilities, they would have been innate, naturally acquired ones, like that of Ma Liang. Such abilities seemed powerful but were naturally incomparable to those which had been passed down for numerous generations from ancestors to their descendants, and which had even been acknowledged as treasured abilities by Emperor Wu of Han!

Emperor Wu of Han had rightly believed that the descendants of those with the blood of the champion only needed to safe keep those abilities, and pass them on to the descendants of the Han Dynasty in times of crises to avert dangers.

Why had the Ren family of Practitioners always thought of killing the warlords to unite the kingdoms more quickly?

It was because none of the warlords would be able to defeat the Ren family of Practitioners!

Even if the great historical generals like Zhao Yun, Zhuge Liang, the Xiahou brothers, Zhang He, and Lu Meng, had now become Practitioners, but regardless of their talents, they would never be able to surpass the level of the Ren family of Practitioners who had the blood of the champion running through their veins!

No matter how powerful their naturally acquired abilities were, they would never be comparable to those possessed by the Ren family of Practitioners which had been passed down from ancestor generations to their descendants!

However, if the enemy possessed a far-ranged ability with a strong Attack, the fundamental weakness of the Ren family Practitioners would be exploited—

There were too few members in the Ren family.

At the current juncture, Ren Suo could not afford to let anyone of the members of the Ren family members die. If anyone of them were on the brink of death, he would immediately head back home and let them recover. Had there been more members in the Ren family, with at least seven to eight who were as strong as Ren Luoyang, Ren Suo would have been able to afford to lose a few of the Ren family members in the battle against the Fire Demons, even if there were barely twenty of them in total.

Furthermore, when they faced with over a hundred Fire Demons in each battle, and the Shield-type Practitioner Ren Ying was surrounded by eight Fire Demons in each round, she would receive Defense damage of -8 per round. After five to six rounds, Ren Ying would also have to face her death.

More importantly, in order to clear all the Fire Demons at their stronghold, they had to battle at least five times. And each time, the General of the Shu-Han Army would be different, and the number of Fire Demons spawning would increase.

Ren Suo laid down on the couch as he looked at the large and grand main hall of the Ren family house and sighed.

As the number of villagers in the Ren family village increased, the main hall of the Ren family house also became more beautiful. It was now the year 222 in the game and the population of Ren villagers had surpassed 1200, unlocking more advanced protective armor for the Ren family Practitioners to equip, as well as increasing the training rate of the Ren family Practitioners.

But Ren Suo did not feel any sense of pride or achievement. All he thought about was whether there was a better combination of Practitioners to send on the expeditions.

There were no restrictions on the number of people who could be sent on an expedition, except that each team could only have four people. However, the player could send multiple expedition teams in the “Start Expedition” menu.

The problem was then—

That there were only five people in the Ren family.

One of them was only 13 years old and was still in training; one of them was only five years old, who was one of the twins born between Ren Ying and a male elf during her first Spiritual Exchange. He was the fourth generation of Ren family Practitioners, Ren Xing.

At the young age of five, Ren Xing already wanted to advise the King of Hanzhong to withdraw his troops, aptly displaying the high level of political consciousness of the Ren family. Ren Suo suspected that Ren Xing would act recklessly the moment he turned 14 and could be sent on expeditions.

Although it was not mentioned in the game, Ren Suo suspected that after he read “The Three Kingdoms”, the head of the family in the game seemed to automatically acquire memories of the relevant knowledge, and would even impart the knowledge to the other Ren family members.

At this point, one may question, what happened to the other one of the twins? He had died earlier on.

It was actually a mistake on Ren Suo’s part—if none of the members who remained at home to look after the house were trained in [Recovery] when the population of the Ren villagers was moderately large, the children in the Ren family who were below eight years old were susceptible to deadly illnesses.

It was in the year 219 during the final period of the breakout of the epidemic in the Central Plains when he contracted a deadly illness and died, as none of the Ren family members remaining at home during one of the seasons had been trained in [Recovery].

Nonetheless, such incidents could have been avoided if there were more members in the Ren family.

And that would lead back to the problem of the lack of education…

The members of the Ren family would frequently be involved in the historical turmoil for all sorts of strange reasons and die very early on.

But no matter the outcome, Ren Suo had no choice but to try again…

Ren Suo sighed as he prepared to start another game. However, at this moment, he thought of the Jade Pendant of the Goddess of the Luo River that Cao Zhi had given to him.

He selected [Spiritual Exchange] and indeed he found the option “Mi Fei”.

At that juncture, Ren Suo was stunned.

[Mi Fei. A member of the family. Type: Water.]

Aren’t Reiki crystals used to exploit…no, trade with elves for Spiritual Exchange?

Why is the price for the Spiritual Exchange with Mi Fei a member of the family?