Ding, Congratulation on discovering new area : Dragon’s den

Description : The sleeping place of a powerful true dragon, its mana fluctuations will disturb the Qi flow of cultivators, killing anyone who hasn’t attained immortality.

Danger rating : 5 stars

Reward : 1000pts

  Avery was brought back to reality by the system's notification, and he looked around to take in his surroundings. He was at the bottom of a dark ravine, with huge walls over a dozen meters high towering ominously on either side. The ravine was deep, narrow, and impossibly long, going on for as far as the eye could see in a perfectly straight line.

  The cliff faces looked eerie too, pitch black and made out of unnaturally smooth and shiny material. The chasm could not possibly be natural, but it wasn't man-made either. It looked organic like scales. The scales of a huge lizard with wrinkles the size of a mountain. After taking into account the name the system had given to this place, Avery shivered at the thought of being stranded on the back of a gargantuan dragon.

  Pushing aside his existential terror, Avery picked a direction, and started walking. There was nothing to be gained by staying at an empty spot. He wandered around hoping to find a way out of this silent abyss, desperately hoping his conjecture was false. Very little sunlight reached the bottom of the crevasse, but he could hardly get lost with only two directions to go in.

  At first he was carefully scrutinizing the surroundings for any hopes of escape, but gradually the dead silent atmosphere and the unchanging scenery made him numb.  

  He didn't know how long he had been walking in this noiseless land, each step exactly the same as the previous one, mindlessly walking, hypnotized by the stillness and serenity of this quiet void. He fell deeper and deeper into a trance, all his worries and fears fading to the back of his mind, as there was only one thing to do. Walking, walking, and walking, one step at a time, repeated again and again.

  It was his stomach that reminded him of the time that had passed. In all this time he was roaming around, he hadn't seen a single living thing, be it plant or animal. He had not seen any variation in the terrain, not even a boulder or some loose rocks. There was nothing to eat, and the dead and still surroundings were so uniform he doubted he would find anything new in the limited time he had before he grew too weak from lack of food and water.

  It was this threat of dehydration that snapped him out of his reverie. The world suddenly snapped back into focus, feeling more real than ever. With it, came all of his suppressed worries and regrets, along with a mounting panic. He was in an absolute wasteland, on the verge of death, and the only thing he had though to do was walking aimlessly? Stupid! None of this would have happened if he was using his brain!

  Confirming with his now-woken brain there was no chance to find food from the environment, he could only turn his hopes to the system. He knew there was a shopping tab, but despite having a catalogue of thousands of spiritual treasures, the system did not offer a single mortal item.

  The cheapest food he could find was a low-tier spiritual flower, probably meant to be used in a alchemical concoction of some kind, priced at 250 points. He was fortunate the system had awarded him 1000 points for discovering this territory, but that would only last four plants, and he didn't know how nourishing they would be. Besides, the cheapest water he could find was called “heavy water”, and it cost 5500 points, way outside of his price range, not to mention it probably wasn’t drinkable.

  Reminding himself of the novels he had read, he searched for Bigu pills, alchemy products that could feed cultivators for multiple days each. It existed, but was once again too expensive, at 1500 points.

  Growing worried again, he grit his teeth and bought the spiritual flower, knowing he had no choice.

  As soon as he clicked the icon, a small herb appeared in front of him, hovering about a meter off the ground. After cautiously examining it and finding nothing special, he raised his hand to take it, when the plant suddenly twisted, withered and exploded into a cloud of ash.

  Surprised and fearing it was somehow poisonous, Avery jumped, trying to avoid the falling dust and yelling out.

  “What was that? Are you trying to kill me?”

  The system stayed silent, lacking the intelligence to respond.

  After panicking for a second, Avery understood what had happened. The system had warned him that the power of the dragon was deadly to nearby cultivators, and obviously a magical plant couldn’t bear it either. He shuddered when he imagined what would have happened if he had been fast enough to eat it.

  Not taking into account the consequences of a plant exploding in his body, what would have happened if he had absorbed some spiritual energy eating it? He had heard of cultivators accelerating their Qi circulations this way, but here the dragon's power was extremely hostile to Qi.

  Avery stopped at this point, realising he absolutely couldn't cultivate here. He was fortunate he was still a mortal, and his vague idea of purchasing a cultivation technique with his remaining points and cultivating until he could fly and escape had to be discarded.

  Of course, this would not matter anyways if he could not feed himself and stay alive long enough to practice, but this meant he was stuck in the weakest possible state until he escaped this highly dangerous situation.

  Pushing his ruined plans for an uncertain future aside, Avery refocused on the system. While confirming it wasn’t malicious quelled his paranoia, it also changed his views on the situation.

  When he was mysteriously transported to this world or when he was stranded in this somber place, Avery didn’t freak out. This wasn’t because he was extraordinarily strong willed or had an unwaveringly optimistic view on life. Rather, he subconsciously believed his system to be infallible. When he saw the top tier magical exercises in the system mall, he felt that he only needed to go through the motions to eventually achieve invincibility.

  It was only now, when he needed it the most, that Avery realised the system was just a tool. There was no denying it was an incredibly powerful one, and it was probably his only chance out of this predicament, but it was still just a tool, and it was Avery’s job to use it properly.

  Avery warned himself not to expect everything would magically go his way, and that he needed to fight for survival. Gritting his teeth, he sat down, did his best to ignore the terror he felt, and began to properly study the system. Instead of getting discouraged by the crazy prices of items or getting overly excited and rushing to complete a quest like he had done in the sect, he took the time to slowly comb through all available options.

  It took a few hours during which his hunger got worse, but when he was certain he hadn't missed anything, he became solemn.

  If he was understanding the system’s notification correctly, if he wanted to buy an item to help his escape, it needed to be at least an immortal item to withstand the dragon's power. However, the highest level item of the system was Mahayana, and even then it showed a locked symbol, with no price tag attached to it. For now he could only hope that higher level items would show themselves if he had enough points, and that it was not tied to quests or his cultivation realm.

  At least he had found a way to survive. Although eating the system's product or finding food in the area wasn't possible, he found he could buy time warps, a consumable that could perfectly restore his body to the state it was one hour ago. This was without a doubt meant to be used to heal crippling wounds, but he saw no reason it would not also resolve his thirst and hunger.

  The item was obviously meant to be absurdly expensive, with its price rising exponentially in accordance with the pricing formula (2^small cultivation level). This meant that at the ninth layer of qi gathering it would cost 2^9=512 points, which was half the reward he got for discovering this highly dangerous place meant for immortals.

  Fortunately, Avery was still mortal, so the item cost 2^0, or 1 pt. This meant he could buy 750 of them, and survive 31 days without worrying about food and water.

  Avery was tempted to spend those 31 days searching for an unlikely way out, but if his theory was correct and he truly was standing on the back of a giant dragon, he doubted a month would be enough to escape. He would most likely be better off investing a portion of his points into kickstarting a point-making venture.