Chapter 3 : Look, an Airplane
The combat-weak little white tiger walked several circles in place, starting to adapt to walking on four legs. However, having been human for so long, suddenly changing from two legs to four legs meant that despite her efforts to adapt, sometimes she would still accidentally trip and fall.
The system watched from the side, excited yet anxious, unconsciously calling out: "Left-right-left, left-right-left..."
These cadence calls sounded like military training. Jiang Mo initially didn't want to respond, but later unconsciously fell into the system's rhythm—move left paw, move right paw, move left paw, move right paw, move left paw... Very good. Following the system's cadence, walking at a steady pace, she indeed no longer experienced the misery of tripping and falling face-first into the dirt.
Just as Jiang Mo was beginning to feel pleased, the system's cadence calls suddenly stopped, disrupting her habitual stride. But before Jiang Mo could get annoyed, the system's puzzled voice came through: "Host, have you noticed something odd?"
Hearing this, Jiang Mo became instantly alert, but after carefully observing her surroundings, she couldn't detect any problems.
The system probably realized she had misunderstood and said: "Don't worry, host. System scanning is activated; this area is very safe. I meant, when you're walking, have you noticed anything strange?"
Jiang Mo was confused and asked back: "What's strange?"
The system pondered for a moment, then said: "Host, take a few more steps."
Jiang Mo obediently walked a few steps. Since following the system's cadence had worked well before, this time she didn't wait for the system to speak but mentally recited the "left-right-left" rhythm herself, stepping forward in time with it.
As she walked, she heard a "slap" sound near her ear, similar to someone hitting their thigh, followed immediately by the system's excited mechanical voice: "Ah, I know now! Host, as you were walking, you started pacing!"
Jiang Mo froze, her movement instinctively halting. Looking down at herself, she discovered her two left legs were stepping forward while her two right legs were stretching backward—wasn't this exactly how cats pace? She had never had this habit before. After standing stunned for a moment, she took two more steps forward and gradually realized why she had suddenly started pacing.
The system light orb was slapped away again, accompanied by Jiang Mo's milky tiger roar: "I'm learning to walk—can you stop interfering? You kept calling 'left-right-left, left-right-left,' so of course I moved my legs 'left-right-left, left-right-left'!"
The slapped-away system light orb quickly flew back, utterly dejected: "Alright, host, I'll be quiet."
The system was true to its word and maintained silence afterward. Without the system's interference, Jiang Mo settled down to relearn walking.
This process wasn't particularly difficult, since white tigers are divine beasts and should naturally possess imposing power from birth. Jiang Mo was simply unfortunate that the small white tiger she had possessed was congenitally deficient, which was why it had been so weak it couldn't even walk. But then again, if the white tiger cub had been naturally strong and healthy, possessing a divine beast's power, the system wouldn't have had the opportunity to bring her to possess it.
Setting aside the white tiger's divine beast halo, Jiang Mo was like a child learning to walk for the first time, taking careful, deliberate steps. She had a plan in mind, and her steps followed a methodical pattern. It took less than fifteen minutes to progress from falling every three steps to walking steadily.
Having finally learned to walk, Jiang Mo genuinely breathed a sigh of relief—the first step to survival was being able to move freely. Although she had just leveled up, improving her physical condition significantly, that congenital weakness debuff still hung over her. Only those who experience it truly understand its impact. Just the fifteen minutes of walking practice had caused her energy to decline, generating fatigue.
With this physical condition, Jiang Mo felt that without leveling up, she probably wouldn't survive.
Seemingly detecting Jiang Mo's thoughts, the system, which had been keeping quiet, appeared again, its light orb wavering before her eyes.
Jiang Mo immediately knew her thoughts had been snooped on by the system again, and annoyance instantly arose—she wasn't a particularly magnanimous person. The only reason she hadn't pursued the matter of the system causing her death and confusedly turning into this form was because of the pressure to survive. But the system not only showed no remorse but continued to peek at her thoughts. How could she not be annoyed?
This feeling of irritation was naturally transmitted to the system, and the initially eager system light orb instantly deflated. It cautiously retreated a bit, even its brightness dimming several degrees, while projecting a line of text: Host, may I speak?
Jiang Mo gave a cold laugh, waiting to see how it would act.
The system seemed to sense her unfriendliness and carefully explained: "Host, don't misunderstand. The system cannot peek into your thoughts. It's just that when your emotions are intense, I collect and analyze your emotional changes, then make reasonable deductions."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Mo became increasingly calm, as if unmoved.
The system also fell silent because it couldn't analyze Jiang Mo's current emotions and didn't know how to respond—they had been getting along harmoniously before: when the host needed to level up, it had opened a backdoor; when the host was learning to walk, it had called cadence. But why had things suddenly changed? For a system baby only one day out of production, human thoughts were truly too difficult to guess!
The silence stretched on for a long while. Suddenly, the dimmed system light orb flickered again, and then the circular light orb materialized into the shape of a hand, its finger pointing in a direction: "Host, host, there's a small stream over there. Do you want to go wash your paws?"
Jiang Mo had never imagined that the deadlock between her and the system would be broken like this. Although the system's tone was a bit servile, and the topic change was rather abrupt, but... having just crushed a beetle earlier, with no shoes to wear and bare paws stepping on bugs, she really did need to find a place to wash her paws!
When she wasn't thinking about it, it was fine, but once she remembered, she felt uncomfortable all over.
Jiang Mo maintained a stern expression, trying to resist, but ultimately couldn't. She began walking composedly in the direction the system had indicated.
Half an hour later, after scrubbing her paws a hundred or so times, Jiang Mo finally withdrew her small, wet paws from the stream. She shook her hands, flicking off water droplets from her fur, and instinctively brought them to her mouth, about to lick them.
Fortunately, before she could act on this impulse, she came to her senses. The little white tiger holding up her paws suddenly felt entirely uncomfortable—feline animals all have the habit of licking their paws, but paws are so dirty! They're used for walking, hunting, and even burying waste after using the bathroom! The thought alone made her want to vomit, yet this innate habit had nearly affected her.
Sensing that the host was about to become depressed again, the system also felt completely miserable, its heart practically breaking with worry. It carefully changed the subject, suggesting: "Host, since we're just idle anyway, why not go kill another monster and level up?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Mo immediately thought of those seven poisonous spiders, eleven beetles, twenty-seven caterpillars... Looking at her freshly washed paws, she firmly refused: "As for stepping on bugs, that won't be necessary."
The system seemed to pause for a moment, then asked: "Then what does the host want to do?"
Jiang Mo recalled the killable targets she had found earlier and said: "Aren't there rabbits and mice too?"
The system corrected: "Host, they're spirit rabbits and rock mice." After a pause, it added: "But I don't think that will work."
Jiang Mo was immediately dissatisfied and retorted: "Why won't it work? Killing one beetle only gave 0.1 experience, and I need 5 experience points to reach level 2—that would mean stepping on 50 bugs! Those spirit rabbits and rock mice must give more experience than that, right?"
The system then began to reason: "Host, what I meant is that you probably can't handle it. This isn't your original world; this is the cultivation world. You likely can't defeat spirit rabbits or rock mice right now. If you get kicked to death by a rabbit's leg or bitten to death by rodent teeth, we'd have nowhere to cry. The system has added a game template, but the resurrection module hasn't been activated yet."
Oh, right, she had forgotten she was still a combat weakling.
Jiang Mo instantly lost her will to live, glancing listlessly at the system, ready to lie down in despair. But then she suddenly thought of something and eagerly asked: "System, I remember that games usually have daily quests to help with leveling in the early stages. Why don't you have any?"
The system froze for a moment, then looked at her with pity: "I'm sorry, host, but daily quests also require specific targets, and look around you... Could you help spirit rabbits collect spirit fruits? Or help rock mice dig for stones? Even if you really could collect spirit fruits or dig stones, spirit rabbits and rock mice would run away at the sight of you. Who would you turn the quests in to?"
"Oh." Jiang Mo completely gave up, feeling she was a useless tiger.
Just as the atmosphere sank into depression, the system's excited voice suddenly came through: "Host, look, an airplane!"
Jiang Mo instinctively looked up, then remembered there couldn't possibly be airplanes in this cultivation world. However, when she did look up, she indeed saw a black dot passing through the sky, not quite resembling a bird.