Chapter Fifteen: "Come, Try to Take It from Me Again"

Achievement progress increased—a pleasant surprise indeed.

Yu Ge traveled eastward, the distant outline of the town gradually emerging at the horizon. Yet, just as he hurried homeward with anxious anticipation, a figure suddenly sprang out from the roadside, blocking his path.

"This is a robbery! Hand over your knife!"

A man leapt from a nearby grove, brandishing a steel blade at Yu Ge.

Without thinking, Yu Ge reflexively raised his own knife to parry, and with a sharp clang, his blade struck the robber’s weapon.

A crisp snap rang out—the steel knife broke clean in two!

The man stared in disbelief as the broken blade fell from his hand, still clutching the empty hilt, stunned. Before he could recover, Yu Ge, without a word, struck him on the head with the sheathed knife.

The blow sent the robber flying, leaving him sprawled on the ground, dazed and buzzing, watching helplessly as Yu Ge strode away with calm nonchalance.

Why didn’t this guy follow the script? And how could he be so strong? The would-be robber stared at the sky, his face full of frustrated grief.

All those so-called tricks in the "Thirty-Six Stratagems of Robbery"—the element of surprise and attacking the unprepared—what nonsense!

Rustling footsteps faded into the distance, then grew louder again.

To his astonishment, the strong young man returned.

Yu Ge had no intention of coming back, but another achievement had just been triggered, compelling him to turn around.

"Do you enjoy robbing people?" Yu Ge asked.

The robber was caught off guard by the bluntness of the question, unsure how to respond. Should he say yes, or no?

After a long pause, he stammered, "Y-yes."

He felt utterly humiliated by his own answer, like a bullied daughter-in-law from the village, thoroughly pathetic!

"Do you have a gang name?"

"Huh?"

"What do you mean, ‘huh’? I’m asking if you have one!"

"N-no, I don’t."

"Good. From now on, you’re with the Heaven-Shattering Gang. Come on, rob me again!"

The robber was dumbfounded, suspecting he’d misheard.

All his life, he’d never encountered such a bizarre request.

And that name—Heaven-Shattering Gang—was downright terrible!

Yet the young man before him looked grim, the tip of his glittering knife pointed straight at him, leaving the robber no choice but to comply.

He scrambled to the roadside, then awkwardly leapt before Yu Ge. "Heaven-Shattering Gang is here! Hand over your copper coins!"

Yu Ge nodded with satisfaction and tossed him a coin.

The man gazed at the solitary copper coin in his palm, feeling a wave of sorrow. Making a living was so hard—he suddenly wished he could find a fierce lady boss to marry!

"Once more. Change the gang name—let’s say, Azure Dragon Gang this time."

Is this guy crazy? the robber screamed inside, his face twisted in indignation, but he followed orders and repeated the act.

A third time.

At last, the robber couldn’t bear it anymore. With a grave expression, he looked righteously at Yu Ge. "I may be a bandit, but a man can be killed, not humiliated!"

"A man can be killed, not humiliated?"

Yu Ge unsheathed his knife and pressed it against the bandit’s throat, then smacked his face with the flat of the sheath.

"I can be humiliated, I can be humiliated! Please don’t hit my face, big brother—I haven’t married yet!"

"You’re still worried about your face? Still dreaming of marriage?"

Yu Ge was honestly shocked by the bandit’s hope for the future. He felt inferior by comparison. Clearly, the man needed a harsh lesson from society.

He whipped the bandit across the face with the sheath, each blow shaking the man’s very sense of self.

Finally, cowed by force, the bandit obeyed every command, shouting out one humiliating slogan after another.

After the tenth time, the bandit sat numbly on the grass, his eyes lifeless as he clutched ten copper coins. He felt as though he’d become a heartless, emotionless bandit.

He remembered Old Wang’s words: a true, formidable bandit must kill without blinking, must have no feelings at all.

But was this what it meant to have no feelings?

"Ah, that was refreshing!"

Yu Ge stretched, then casually scooped the ten copper coins from the robber’s hands and stuffed them back into his own pocket before swaggering away.

The bandit stared at his empty hands, feeling a profound sense of desolation. He trembled with rage and humiliation, on the verge of tears.

All he wanted was to be a hardworking bandit—what crime had he committed?

Clenching his fists, he watched Yu Ge’s receding figure and seethed, “Thirteen years at the head of the village, thirteen years at the tail—never bully a poor youth, never bully a poor man in his prime!”

Compared to the bandit, now questioning the meaning of life, Yu Ge felt utterly at ease.

He hadn’t expected to complete achievements so easily—ten times over, no less—earning an extra three percent strength. Such a reward was almost too good to be true.

He even began hoping for more bandits like this to appear along the way.

But all the way back to town, not a single further mishap occurred, leaving him rather disappointed. He sighed deeply—bandits these days just weren’t up to scratch.

In the following days, little of note happened in town. But as he’d been gone for two days, Zhao Ziming nearly sent people out to search for him.

After this experience, Yu Ge understood more than ever the importance of strength. The simplest of mountain spirits had nearly overwhelmed him—he owed his success to the blessing of the Qilin Arm.

This world was truly dangerous.

He resolved not to leave the novice village until he’d completed a few more achievements.

...

With a soft squelch, Yu Ge dispatched the mutated toad before him with a single slash, then wiped his blade clean with a cloth strip.

After being cleansed with blood, the Severing Nether Blade’s intricate patterns seemed to come alive, exuding a chilling aura and a sense of dread—Yu Ge, now familiar with the weapon, knew this was its natural state.

Scanning the wilderness with sharp eyes, he found no other mutated toads and reluctantly gave up the hunt.

For several days, he’d been hunting ordinary game while searching for mutated toads, but these plains were so barren that he’d only managed to bag a single one after several trips.

He knew there must be more of these creatures in Great Black Mountain, but there were plenty of other dangers there as well—no reason to throw his life away.

Just a few more, and he would complete the grandest achievement. Yu Ge longed for the stellar reward.

He slung the Severing Nether Blade over his shoulder, gathered his other prey, and started back. The mutated toad, lacking a Nether Pearl and being inedible, he simply discarded.

As he crossed a hillside, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Focusing, he saw a dark form leap from the grass—a green-skinned, repulsive creature: another mutated toad.

They were rare out here in the wild—he couldn’t let this opportunity slip by.

He glanced at the sky—the sun was still high.

He set down his prey, drew his blade, and crept forward.

The mutated toad wasn’t moving fast, hopping ahead unaware of the danger behind it.

He closed the distance—just a few steps away—then suddenly burst forward, swinging his blade in a powerful arc, intent on ending the fight in a single stroke.

But just then, a strange sound brushed his ear. Sensing danger, Yu Ge instantly sheathed his blade and rolled to the right, just as a gust of wind whistled past his head.

Once again!

Yu Ge sprang to his feet, only to see a brownish-green mutated toad now crouching exactly where he’d just stood.

But it wasn’t over.

As he rose, faint rustlings came from the grass beside him, and one after another, identical green figures emerged.

In an instant, more than a dozen mutated toads had surrounded him, blocking any way forward.

Yu Ge frowned—how had these toads grown so intelligent, even staging an ambush? He’d never heard of such a thing before.

The situation was not in his favor.

A handful of mutated toads he could have dealt with easily, as long as he watched for their venomous tongues. But this many—things were getting tricky.

The Qilin Arm’s enhancement wouldn’t last forever, and taking them down one by one would be exhausting.

He didn’t want to take such a risk.

But now there was no choice. Glancing back, he saw several more mutated toads hopping into view behind him.