Chapter 39 It Hurts Like Hell

To be frank, seeing the players exhausted to the point of looking like they had bloodshot eyes, and with their hands trembling as they cast spells, Su Qingyue felt a twinge of heartache.
These were her own people, after all; naturally, one feels for their own.
Yet the players had been unexpectedly phenomenal, truly giving her a pleasant surprise.
It did not matter—even if two more fierce beasts appeared, so what? She could handle them.
Even if the damage from the gunpowder and fire bombs was not quite enough, it was fine. Those damned twin giant pythons would meet only one end—death!

Su Qingyue walked over, gazing at the corpses of the giant pythons in the slowly dying sea of fire, a murderous glint flashing in her eyes.
Damn it all, her players had worked themselves to the bone, practically collapsing onto the ground.
And you dare to wipe out her entire team with a single second-kill and send them all back to the resurrection point?!
Dead or not, they were all going to die!
That was right; she was just that fiercely protective of her people.

She clenched her back molars, walked over to the players, and looked at each and every one of them.
She put on a pleased and proud smile. "You were all amazing! I am proud of you!"

[System Announcement: Congratulations to the players for successfully slaying the Boss, the Foundation Establishment Realm Python King, and the bonus Bosses, Foundation Establishment Realm Giant Pythons *2. The difficulty of the quest was increased midway, and the rewards for all participating players have been increased accordingly.]
[Quest Rewards: 2,000 Experience Points, 200 Spirit Stones, 70 Su Qingyue Favorability, 50 Prestige, 50 Contribution Points, Purple Ultra-Rare Achievement Unlocked, Title "Beginning of a Legend" Acquired. Please equip it manually.]
[Note: Contribution Points and Prestige are rare reward values. Once the subsequent main quest is completed and you arrive at the Su family ancestral grounds, they can be used to exchange for land, homesteads, skills, titles, and more.]
[Achievement System and Title System unlocked. Players are requested to explore and obtain achievements on their own. All titles obtained from achievements can be equipped.]

A string of system prompts rang out, and the players were blissfully bathed in the glow of leveling up.
With the high amount of experience points rewarded, the leading professional players reached level seventeen, while the rest of the players reached level fifteen.
Do not underestimate a mere single level; the further one went, the more experience points were required to level up.
Each level required double the experience points of the previous one, so gaining this much now was already substantial.
If they had to grind monsters on their own, it probably would have taken them three days and three nights without being able to level up, and it could easily have worked them to death.
The gains were high, but the risks were equally immense.

The players cheered, "This is fantastic!"
"Let me check out this title!"
They eagerly equipped their titles. The purple characters for "Beginning of a Legend" hovered above the players' nicknames, glowing with a slightly dazzling purple light.
"Whoa, this is so cool!"
"I love purple the most! Especially knowing that future players won't be able to get this title—I love it even more! It looks dashing no matter how you look at it!"
"Who's to say otherwise? Titles in full-immersion holographic games are just different from those keyboard-and-mouse games; you can see the glowing purple font the moment you look up!"
"The rewards are simply amazing! My waifu's favorability is so high! Spirit stones doubled, plus prestige and contribution points!"
"I was pretty depressed about dying one extra time at first, but now I'm starting to thank those two sudden-attack Bosses!"
"Yeah, if it weren't for them, how long would we have had to grind to get these extra rewards? Praise nature's bounty!"
"Huge thanks to the two Bosses; they practically made me weep! Traveling all the way here with their own flesh and blood to gift us experience points and pocket change for materials—what a self-sacrificing spirit!"

Su Qingyue thought to herself: *Heh, if that Foundation Establishment Python weren't already dead, it would probably have died of anger by now!*

Funny Everyday Happy had a lovestruck expression: "Whoa, did everyone see that? My waifu's smile is super pretty!"
Xiao Mo wore the exact same lovestruck expression: "Daughter's smile is so sweet. Must protect the best daughter in the entire world!"

Su Qingyue pressed a hand to her forehead. The system chimed in: "Oh wow, Host, the players' fondness for the game just spiked significantly all of a sudden. We've scored a huge pile of points again."
Su Qingyue: "???"
She fell into deep thought. *Uh, should I smile more often? Though it's probably because they received generous quest rewards.*

The players were feeling an unprecedented surge of excitement and satisfaction.
A full five hours and more, with twists and turns and unexpected reversals, they had finally, through painstaking effort, killed the first Boss in the game and collected their quest rewards.
This sense of achievement was simply—magnificent! No other game had ever brought them this much joy before.
Perhaps it was because the game's art style was so realistic, making it feel as though they had truly saved a city full of people in an immortal cultivation world and slain ferocious monsters.
They felt deeply fulfilled. Although their bodies were exhausted, their minds were joyful and exhilarated.
It felt precisely like finishing seven days and seven nights of overtime, going home to eat your favorite food, and then drifting off into a wonderful, deep sleep.

For a fraction of a second, Su Qingyue's expression turned indescribable. That expression—
The players' expressions were far too subtle; it felt as if they were playing some improper game, hey! That expression was truly beyond her capacity to describe; she had to leave it to her own imagination.
They were simply too blissful, their faces flushed and covered in sweat.
They were even letting out mysterious gasps of satisfied breath, which looked rather lewd.
*Don't go panting and groaning, you guys! Anyone unaware would think our place here is some weird kind of outfit!*

The system spoke up quietly: "How about I mosaic their faces for you?"
Su Qingyue: "Thank you, I really need that."
Never in her life had she been so grateful to the system.
She really did not want to appreciate the strange expressions on the players' faces; it was too obscene!

Fortunately, this state did not last long. The battle had lasted far too long, and after resting for a brief moment, the players felt an unbearable wave of hunger spreading madly through them.
To summarize—they felt like ripping the grass up from the ground and eating it!
The high-intensity combat and vigorous physical exertion had lasted for over five hours straight; even an iron man wouldn't be able to take it.
Let alone the fact that their mental focus had been razor-sharp, constantly hovering on the edge of death.
It was fine as long as they didn't stop, but the moment they did, they felt starved out of their minds.
Their throats burned with thirst like smoking chimneys, and their aching hands and feet felt as though they were completely broken.

Funny Everyday Happy lay flat on the ground with dull, unblinking eyes:
"My legs hurt like hell. I feel like chopping them off. Ahhh, why does it hurt so much?!"

Xiao Mo and Lan Ling, two girls sitting on the grass, didn't even care about the dirt as they massaged each other's legs and sighed:
"Intense exercise over a long period is always like this; the leg muscles get super sore. We felt the same way when we went mountain climbing before."

Funny Everyday Happy was immensely surprised: "Huh? You guys actually go mountain climbing?"
"Don't you?"
"No way. I'm a hardcore shut-in streamer; usually, I'm either playing games or eating and sleeping. Who climbs that kind of crap?!"
"..."

The players lay scattered everywhere across the ground, groaning and limp as they shoved food into their mouths, half-wishing they could just pass out cold because their hands and feet genuinely hurt to the extreme.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo... I'm finally full! I feel like half my life is back, except my body hurts like crazy!"
"Is there any way to fix this? Are there any doctors among us players? Any traditional Chinese medicine practitioners willing to come and stick a few needles in us?"
"There seems to be one in the city."
"But I don't want to move. Damn it, it didn't feel like much when we were pulling the monsters, but now that I look at it, why is the road to the city so far? I feel like I'm going to hurt to death halfway there."

Lan Ling remained as reliable as ever: "Simple. Method one: turn the game's pain sensation down to the minimum and you'll be able to sleep; you'll feel much better when you wake up tomorrow."
"That won't work, right? This is outside the city, and there's a forest not far away. What if a wild beast comes by and treats us like takeout?"
"True. What wild beast wouldn't eat a big piece of meat that doesn't fight back? Big shot, do you have any other ideas?"