Chapter 7 | Fantasy Descends, I Start as a Magical Girl

It had to be said that the advantage of flying in the early stages was truly massive.

Clutching her staff, Mo Shao flew straight out of the large pit. Looking down at the three-in-one unit wandering aimlessly in the magma pit, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

She had placed the lava right before she flew up.

She had wondered if this creature’s intelligence had increased enough to stop it from jumping in, so she had prepared a backup plan.

As it turned out, she had overthought it. The backup plan wasn’t needed at all.

Under her watch, the three monsters were gradually burned to death by the lava amidst agonizing wails.

Mo Shao went back down to scoop the lava back up. There were only two buckets of the stuff in the blacksmith’s shop, so it was a precious resource.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t absorb the experience orbs that dropped; only those from Minecraft could absorb them.

Not that it mattered; those were only used for enchanting within the Minecraft system anyway, not for leveling up by killing mobs.

In a few days, once these monsters were no longer in an idling state, the survivors would be able to perform similar operations.

However, it only looked like leveling up on the surface. In reality, it was feedback given by [Order] to those who resisted [Chaos].

There was none of it now primarily because neither of those two cosmic forces had fully “woken up” yet.

This was another piece of information she had gleaned from the Skyscreen in her previous life. At the time, she only knew it happened, not why.

...

So, while it was true that the early stage was the Golden Development Period, it was the Golden Development Period for obtaining bound items, not for increasing one’s Life Rank.

By the way, she had already gotten her hands on the Snake Talisman.

She just hadn’t used it yet because she needed both of her Live-binding slots for travel.

She had mentioned earlier that the Snake Talisman was nearby, and its specific location was inside a car. The trunk of that car was filled with stacks of US dollars.

Its origin was likely from that one incident.

—The Dark Hand had stuffed the Snake Talisman into the car while fleeing, and as a result, the car turned invisible while the people and the money didn’t. It was hilarious.

In her previous life, she had seen the sight from a distance and investigated it for a bit before discovering the Snake Talisman.

This time was no different; it was just a matter of convenience. There were no obstacles or dangers to speak of.

One could only say that the Golden Development Period was wonderful. Not only were the monsters and creatures stupid, but there were also a ton of “freebies” waiting to be picked up.

By the late stage, these early-game “freebies” dropped in the Phantom Realms would have been picked up by Phantom Realm inhabitants or fused with monsters long ago. There would be no chance to get them for free.

Mo Shao knew that the “freebies” in this area’s Phantom Realms were mostly mediocre, aside from the Snake Talisman and the motorcycle.

Otherwise, she would have turned back and scoured the nearby Phantom Realms to take all the rewards!

...

Mo Shao finished packing her things and quickly rode her donkey through the Minecraft desert biome, picking up some cacti along the way.

These things were quite good as a defensive measure for buildings. They grew fast, dealt damage, and could serve as walls themselves.

Upon leaving the desert, she could faintly see the school in the distance through the gaps between the hills... and it was already in ruins.

Many buildings had been blown to pieces, and one had completely collapsed—the destructive power of Creepers on structures was simply too fierce.

Moreover, Minecraft monsters weren’t the only ones present.

With a casual glance, Mo Shao spotted two other major types of monsters. One was the Object-type monsters from Arknights.

As for the specific type...

—They were a bunch of creatures that would drop pots and pans when hit and required a certain number of attacks to be defeated.

However, there were no “Blue Gates” in reality, so she didn’t care about the cookware; she could just focus on fighting the monsters.

The other type was Tacet Discords from Wuthering Waves, which were life-forms composed of residual chaotic frequency energy, also known as Echoes.

They seemed to be Tacet Discords from the Rinascita map, and the strongest among them should be... Good lord, it was Lord Gulpuff!

—The people here were in for some real suffering.

...

Even for a regressor like her, the strong monsters here would take quite a bit of effort to deal with—and that was in a one-on-one fight.

Not to mention that these monsters included a lot of “flyers,” making them extremely difficult to guard against.

The only silver lining was that there were no infectious monsters here.

Otherwise, not only would the human population decrease significantly, but the monster count would also explode, and internal strife would become even more severe.

This could be considered a blessing in disguise.

Furthermore, these monsters had their own habits; they weren’t like zombies that would hunt humans down no matter what.

So, after the sun rose and daylight arrived, they were influenced by the mystery of the day and were currently in a “resting state.”

As long as humans didn’t actively appear within their detection range, they wouldn’t go out of their way to attack.

“Hmm...” After doing some mental calculations, Mo Shao quickly reached a decision. “I still have to go take a look.”

...

However, she couldn’t just walk straight in.

She first used her pickaxe to dig a hole to hide her chest and donkey, making sure to leave a mark.

—Lest she fail to find them when she returned.

Then, she would use the Snake Talisman to scout the school and see exactly what the situation was.

Mo Shao put her things away and swapped her Live-binding to the Snake Talisman. Prepared with a stack of Ender Pearls, an iron pickaxe, and an iron shovel as escape methods, she set off with peace of mind.

“Sss—” She circulated her energy to lighten her body, passing by monster after monster with extreme care, making almost no sound with her footsteps.

—After all, she had spent so much time in Phantom Realms in her previous life that she had naturally mastered a series of survival skills.

In her previous life, she could walk without making a sound even in a motorcycle’s body, let alone in her much lighter girl’s body now.

The only drawback was that she couldn’t maintain a single posture for as long as a motorcycle could.

However, after she had obtained the Rooster Talisman in her previous life, she had rarely moved on the ground.

There was no helping it; with so many types of monsters, it was inevitable that some would have exceptional hearing or perception.

In such cases, only being both flying and invisible could provide a good hiding place. As for why she wasn’t flying now?

—Well, her current energy wasn’t exactly abundant, so it was better to save it in case she needed to run later.

Regardless, for these monsters, invisibility alone was enough.

After a tense but successful infiltration into a still-intact teaching building and some searching, Mo Shao finally saw living survivors on the upper floors of the cafeteria.