Given the difficulty of fighting through the core zone, Hua Jian felt she could still play the role of a good little mouse helping to pull the switch.
In any case, she would first try to sneak in. If they were willing to let her leave, then everyone would be fine—they could fight their fight, and she would pull her switch.
If they weren’t willing, then this mouse also knew a little bit of martial arts.
At worst, she would blow up with them, and see who lost more.
“Watch closely, I’ll only show this once. Let me show you what the social skills of the Ten Thousand Flowers Saintess are like.”
With that, Hua Jian flipped out of her hiding spot and charged straight toward the silent battlefield.
She didn’t conceal her aura. Soon, everyone in the secret realm sensed a weak, low-level Ling King aura boldly charging into the resource zone.
At that moment, everyone was dumbfounded. How dare she? With this strength, she dares to come into the secret realm to fight?
Look at their lineup: mid-stage Ling King peak was the low end, late-stage Ling Kings were shouting loudly, and the strongest was already at the peak of Ling King, nearing breakthrough.
To them, seeing Hua Jian was like a pack of hungry wolves glaring at their enemies, ready to tear each other apart, suddenly seeing a frog hopping through their midst.
Confused, baffled, then slightly annoyed. We’re fighting seriously here, and you just barge into our battlefield so carelessly? Do you have no regard for your life?
Fine, we’ll make you an appetizer!
The three demonic cultivators hiding at the outermost edge exchanged glances and launched an attack at Hua Jian.
A pitch-black stream of air streaked across the sky, heading straight for Hua Jian. If Hua Jian dodged, the stream would still hit her head and kill her on the spot.
But such an attack couldn’t hit Hua Jian.
Just before the stream was about to hit her, she very realistically pretended to be scared by the attack, then threw herself into a clumsy dive to avoid the stream.
At that moment, she really acted like a weak low-level Ling King cultivator.
Even the demonic cultivator who launched the sneak attack believed her act, thinking she was just a weakling.
“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me! I’m just here to pull the switch!” After dodging the attack, Hua Jian quickly covered her head and shouted loudly.
She didn’t seem to have noticed where the sneak attack came from; she was shouting in a direction far off from the attackers.
With strength like this, she was practically a joke.
The demonic cultivator who attacked curled his lip and was about to strike again, but the cultivator beside him grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t rush, maybe we can use this little one,” the demonic cultivator who stopped the attack said softly.
The resource point was now like a powder keg stuffed with gunpowder, but no one wanted to light it, afraid that once it exploded, they would be blown to pieces.
No matter how confident the demonic cultivators were, they wouldn’t be confident enough to think they could take on four full-strength teams at once.
If they really had that strength, they would have acted long ago.
If this stalemate continued, who knew how long it would last.
Now a clueless fool had come wanting to enter the powder keg, so they would let her in.
If she could directly ignite the powder keg, so much the better. If not, they wouldn’t lose anything.
After all, in this stalemate at the resource point, they held the initiative.
They could advance or retreat, unlike the three teams trapped inside who could neither advance nor retreat.
If she could stir up a fight inside, that would be great. If not, they would deal with her later.
This demonic cultivator’s calculations were very clear. After all, Hua Jian was just an absurdly weak lone wolf, and her life was already in their hands.
If letting Hua Jian in could break the current situation, they had the biggest advantage from the outside.
If Hua Jian failed to break the situation and came back out, they would kill her as she left.
As for whether doing this would put them in danger? Ha, a lone wolf not even at middle-stage Ling King? Could she turn the tables under the hands of three high-stage Ling Kings?
Dealing with such a lone wolf would cost little effort. From the start of the fight to the end, it would probably take only ten moves.
In that short time, the others wouldn’t react in time, and even if they did, they wouldn’t make a move.
Because they weren’t facing evenly matched enemies; they were surrounding a weak lone wolf.
This wouldn’t affect their condition much. If others came to mediate, they could immediately turn their guns on them, and the stalemate would continue.
So this demonic cultivator wasn’t afraid at all.
After hearing his thoughts, his two companions also found it reasonable. The awkward standoff did need a little variable to break.
Since someone was volunteering to be that variable, they would graciously let this clueless one in.
……
Hua Jian waited for a while. No more attacks came at her, which meant her negotiation had worked.
The team at the outermost edge was willing to let her into the resource point.
Of course, it wasn’t out of kindness but ulterior motives. But Hua Jian didn’t care about that.
She was just a kind and pure little mouse now. What the demonic cultivators thought wasn’t her concern.
She just needed to pull the switch here.
This resource point was a dilapidated camp, once the residence of cultivators from the Qian Family exploring the secret realm.
After Hua Jian proposed the secret realm’s renovation plan, Wanhuagu had been upgraded to its current state.
In terms of size, this place was much larger than a camp, more like a small town, with many half-collapsed buildings scattered around.
Originally, Hua Jian wanted the demonic cultivators to fight a street battle, but looking at the current situation, that goal hadn’t been achieved. Cultivators’ mobility and lethality were too strong.
These buildings couldn’t withstand their attacks at all. If this powder keg exploded, the small town would soon be razed to the ground.
But for now, the buildings still served to block some lines of sight, allowing the three teams trapped in the resource point to hide.
Hua Jian knew exactly where these people were hiding, but with her current identity, she shouldn’t know that.
So she pretended to be completely clueless and started rushing through the artificial town.
“Rushing” meant she ran straight along the main road, heading directly for the switch point.
This commotion startled the three teams inside the resource point. They wondered who this was.
Could it be some big shot? But when they sensed the lone wolf’s aura, they were almost amused.
A big shot? This was just a little noob. With such strength, charging around here? Are you tired of living?
Instinctively, they wanted to kill this inexplicably intruding little mouse.
But after raising their hands, they all thought of the same question: if they killed the little mouse, would the others in the resource point seize the chance to ambush them?
This little one was almost no threat. Even if she ran wild in the resource point, she wouldn’t cause much impact.
But once they made a move, the consequences were unpredictable. Maybe nothing would happen, or maybe another faction would suddenly attack. The risk was a bit too high.
At this point, if the cultivators were more easygoing, they might just watch Hua Jian go to the center of the resource point and pull the switch. Unfortunately, the demonic cultivators weren’t easygoing.
Although they didn’t dare to go all out against Hua Jian, they could still use some small tricks. Hitting the little mouse a bit without hurting their fundamentals wasn’t a big deal.
Whoosh!
Boom!
Sure enough, Hua Jian narrowly dodged a sneak attack from afar. The attacker used an arrow, aimed directly at her forehead.
Clearly, this wasn’t a warning; they really wanted her dead.
Not only that, but malicious gazes came from other directions too, telling Hua Jian that the road ahead couldn’t be passed by just pretending to be weak.
“Then let me see how many resources you’re willing to waste on me.”
Hua Jian took a deep breath and started to speed up.
As she ran, she loudly shouted words of weakness, telling her attackers that she meant no harm and was just there to pull the switch.
“You guys fight your fight, I just need to open a mechanism. Don’t hit me!”
Hua Jian twisted and turned through the alleys, looking extremely clumsy.
But the cultivators attacking her noticed a very strange point: their attacks were all completely dodged by Hua Jian.
Not only that, but Hua Jian was slowly approaching her destination—the mechanism at the core of the resource point.
She had some skills. She looked small and weak, but her movement technique was quite impressive. All three teams inside the resource point had the same thought.
Although the attacks on Hua Jian didn’t cost much, they still consumed some of their spiritual power.
Yet Hua Jian was completely unharmed. This made these cultivators start to think: should they continue fighting her?
If they didn’t get serious, relying on these probing attacks, it seemed they couldn’t catch this little mouse.
But if they got serious, the loss of their condition would be far greater than the probing attacks.
For example, the attacks they had used on Hua Jian so far were like borrowing guns and bullets from a dummy—they didn’t feel the loss.
If they got serious, they would have to use their main weapons. If they couldn’t kill her with a single burst, the loss would be huge.
They might also be rushed by enemies during the reload window. The risk was much higher than probing.
“She said she’s going to unlock the mechanism, so let her unlock it. She can’t move when unlocking the mechanism, right?”
But some demonic cultivators with strong killing intent were still unwilling to let Hua Jian go.
“You dared to come in here without caring about your life. How can we let you achieve your goal so easily? If we, the fierce attackers, let you leave alive, where will we put our faces?”
Just as Hua Jian was about to pull the switch, and pulling the switch means being hard-stunned (unable to move), once she started pulling, they could easily kill her.
“Let’s stop first. Let her think we’ve given up attacking. Then when she gets to the mechanism, we strike.”
“Good!”
These people didn’t know that Hua Jian had overheard their conversation. But hearing or not didn’t matter. Hua Jian wouldn’t be foolish enough to think that after their probing failed, they would let her pull the switch.
They were demonic cultivators. Strong killing intent was normal. Their goal in coming into the secret realm was to kill everyone and be the last survivor.
So letting a mouse go was impossible here. Even if they let her in now, it was only to use her for something.
For example, the three demonic cultivators outside wanted her to stir up the fight inside the resource point so they could reap the benefits.
The demonic cultivators inside the resource point had a purer idea: they just wanted Hua Jian dead, nothing more.
If Hua Jian were an ordinary cultivator, she would have no way out in this situation. Once she started pulling the switch, she would be hit by firepower from all three sides and die on the spot.
Even if the attacks weren’t serious, the late-stage Ling King attacks weren’t something a little cutie who hadn’t even reached mid-stage could withstand.
Fortunately, Hua Jian had her own way to solve this problem.
Taking advantage of the cease-fire, she rushed to the mechanism at the center of the resource point without stopping.
She took out the token from her storage pouch and pressed it against the mechanism.
The mechanism that had hard-stunned Linglong for over half an hour clicked open instantly.
That’s the difference between having a permission card and not. Without this card, you had to slowly figure it out.
As the beast-head mechanism appeared, the demonic cultivators hiding in the shadows gathered their power, waiting for Hua Jian to reach into the mechanism.
But Hua Jian’s next move shocked these cultivators who wanted to strike.
She actually took out a wooden stick with the tip carved into the shape of a hand, then shoved the stick into the beast’s mouth. The mechanism started charging.
This scene really stunned the demonic cultivators. They never thought Hua Jian would have this trick up her sleeve.
Hard-stunned? What hard-stunned? Hua Jian shoved the stick in and ran off.
No, not running away—she seemed to be heading for the treasure vault!
The key room and the switch point in this resource point were almost next to each other.
While pulling the switch, one could conveniently open the key room as well.
And naturally, Hua Jian wouldn’t miss this golden opportunity.
While the three factions in the resource point were all unwilling to show themselves first, she directly used her token to unlock the door of the key room.
Seeing this, the demonic cultivators who had bought permission tokens were furious. Hua Jian opening the door meant their tokens had completely lost their effect.
“These tokens cost a lot of spirit stones! And they’re useless just like that?”
Note: Here it’s not like a game where if your key room is opened, you can try again next round since the key doesn’t expire. Here, once the key room is opened, your key completely loses its effect—expired, unusable!
Wanhuagu couldn’t refund the money either, so their funds simply evaporated into thin air.
“I’ll tear her limb from limb!” A demonic cultivator who had purchased a token was furious, itching to charge out and kill Hua Jian right then and there.