When Golden Finger Meets Salted Fish

Yun Qingyu stayed on the spirit boat with the little white tiger for ten days. During this time, the tiger used every trick in the book to act cute and cuddly, depleting her stock of Nurturing Essence Pills. For Yun Qingyu, these pills were insignificant; having long since reached the Golden Core stage, she had no interest in consuming such “candy.” The only reason she kept a bottle in her storage ring was because the celestial cranes in her sect enjoyed them.

Although she never had the chance to feed them, she had kept them around, and now they finally found a use.

As midday approached, the little white tiger came seeking food, following its thrice-daily routine. It walked straight to Yun Qingyu, who was sitting cross-legged, and expertly flopped into her lap.

Yun Qingyu quickly opened her eyes, looking helplessly at the little tiger cub in her arms. Her jade-like fingertips hovered near the tiger’s fluffy ears, as if afraid to actually touch them: “Your coy act won’t work. The Nurturing Essence Pills are gone. I showed you the empty bottle yesterday.”

Jiang Mo knew this, of course, and wasn’t really expecting more. But that didn’t stop her from cuddling up to the beauty. So she let out a milky “aow” and nuzzled her fluffy head against Yun Qingyu’s hand, maintaining her affectionate demeanor.

This was quite a lovely scene, until the system suddenly spoke up: “Host, are you taking advantage of your caretaker?”

The little white tiger’s body suddenly stiffened, then glared fiercely at the floating system orb: “Aren’t you supposed to be a newborn system baby? When did your mind get filled with such nonsense? Can’t you see I’m just trying to curry favor? Even if she’s out of Nurturing Essence Pills now, don’t you think she can afford to buy more once we leave this place?”

The system felt the host was in denial, as her emotions clearly showed embarrassed anger. However, as an assistant system, it decided not to expose the host and simply wobbled without further comment.

Yun Qingyu, of course, couldn’t see the system. In fact, in this world of different cultivation systems, no one could detect the system’s existence. So all she saw was the little white tiger suddenly making a few sounds, looking inexplicably embarrassed and angry, yet adorably milk-voiced, making her hand itch to pet it.

Before Yun Qingyu could react, the transmission jade pendant at her waist suddenly lit up, followed by a panicked cry: “Senior Sister, help!”

Yun Qingyu recognized the voice as one of the disciples training in the secret realm, but she couldn’t imagine what danger in this small realm could prompt someone to call for her help. Her thin lips pressed tightly together as she moved the little white tiger from her lap with one hand and grasped the frost-blue sword at her side with the other: “Wait here for me. Don’t leave the spirit boat.”

Before her words faded, she had already transformed into a streak of light, flying away on her sword.

Jiang Mo stood dumbfounded on the deck, not yet having processed what happened. Was Yun Qingyu’s departure really that fast? So fast that not only had her mind not caught up, but her eyes hadn’t even reacted – in the blink of an eye, the person was gone.

“Of course it’s fast. Your caretaker has reached the peak of the Golden Core realm, equivalent to level 40 in game terms. How could it not be fast?” The system’s voice chimed in timely, as Jiang Mo had unconsciously spoken her thoughts aloud.

This time, Jiang Mo wasn’t annoyed. Her tiger eyes sparkled with interest as she looked at the system: “Is level 40 really that powerful?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “By the way, I’ve never asked, what’s the maximum level in this game system? And about leveling up, you said earlier there were no targets for daily quests. What about now? Can you issue quests now?”

Since being picked up by Yun Qingyu and starting to consume pills, the host had stopped caring about leveling up. Fortunately, the system was a mechanical entity without a full range of emotions, otherwise it might have been too lazy to respond.

Seeing her actively inquire for once, the system was forthcoming: “Host, actually level 40 is only considered mid to low-tier. The current max level in the game system is 100, with every 10 levels corresponding to the cultivation realms from mortal, Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Divided Soul, Unity, Great Achievement, to Tribulation Transcendence – ten realms in total. Each realm is further divided into three sub-stages of early, middle, and late, with level 10 being the peak. If the host needs, you can activate the character level viewing function in the future… though it costs 100 points.”

The useless little tiger immediately rolled her eyes upon hearing this, pawing impatiently at the deck: “You want me to level up but ask for points. What about daily quests? Don’t tell me there’s no other way to gain experience and points besides fighting monsters?”

The system seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying: “Ding, daily quests will automatically unlock when the host reaches level 10.”

With the system’s precise answer, Jiang Mo didn’t press for more. After all, many games don’t have daily quests available from the start. It’s just that those games level up quickly, while her real-life version was slower. Thinking this, she casually opened her character panel to see how far she was from level 10:

[Host: Jiang Mo

Race: White Tiger

Class: Divine Beast

Level: 6

Combat Power: 160

Experience: 107/160

Points: 0

Potential: ∞

Skills: Bloodline Inheritance (Not Activated)]

Leveling up through pill consumption was indeed fast. In just a few days, Jiang Mo had depleted Yun Qingyu’s stock of Nurturing Essence Pills and successfully reached level 6. However, the combat power gained from pill-popping felt rather hollow, still just a basic value so far.

Looking at the combat power of 160, and recalling her initial combat power of 5, Jiang Mo momentarily had the illusion that she had become quite formidable.

But this pride lasted only seconds. Remembering Yun Qingyu’s level 40, the little tiger that had just started to feel cocky was immediately slapped back into reality. She raised a paw to rub her face and directly asked the system: “How much experience do I need for the remaining 4 levels?”

The system knew she wanted to know how many more “little sugar pills” she needed to consume, so it calculated for her: “Host, the experience required for each level doubles. Currently, to reach level 10, you still need 4,853 experience points. Calculating at 5 experience points per Nurturing Essence Pill, you’ll need to consume 970.6 pills… about the size of a basketball.”

Jiang Mo had been quite happy leveling up through pill consumption before, determined to rely on her powerful backer for pay-to-win leveling. But seeing the system’s calculations now, even if they were truly candy, the thought of consuming over a thousand pills in a short time made her teeth ache.

The little white tiger couldn’t help but mutter, “Won’t I get cavities after eating all that?”

The system responded matter-of-factly: “No, actually Nurturing Essence Pills aren’t sweet and don’t contain sugar.”

Jiang Mo felt the system was making a bad joke. She looked away, ignoring it, and mentally calculated how many pills she’d need to go from level 10 to 11. Arriving at a figure of over a thousand pills, she suddenly felt pressure… not on her caretaker’s wallet, but on her own dental health.

She wondered if her backer had any higher-grade experience pills besides the Nurturing Essence Pills.

As she was lost in these thoughts, Yun Qingyu, who had just left, returned on her sword. In her hands, she held two people, one on each side. Both were covered in wounds and blood, looking utterly miserable.

Jiang Mo was startled by the sight, but the cold Yun Qingyu showed no pity for the injured. She casually tossed them onto the spirit boat’s deck. The two, who had been unconscious, were jolted awake by the impact. Groggily opening their eyes to find themselves back on the spirit boat, they first felt relief, then guilt upon seeing the hem of the cyan robe.

After a while, they mustered the courage to take out some medicine from their storage bags and consume it. Once they had caught their breath, they hurriedly apologized to Yun Qingyu: “We were reckless. Thank you for saving us, Senior Sister. Please punish us as you see fit.”

Yun Qingyu glanced at the two but didn’t say much, only coldly remarking: “Life and death are matters of fate. What does it have to do with me?”

With that, she turned and left, scooping up the little white tiger into her arms as she passed by. The two disciples didn’t even get a clear look before they had brushed past the legendary white tiger divine beast.

Over the next two days, the disciples who had entered the secret realm for training gradually returned, and the little white tiger’s supply of “little sugar pills” was quickly replenished.

“Ding, congratulations host, experience +5…”

“Ding, congratulations host…”

“Ding…”

“System, can you turn off the notification sound?!”