I became a martial arts saint while playing games.

We're already in the game?

Gu Yan was puzzled. According to his memory, the first thing players should have when logging into "Slaying Demons and Exorcising Monsters" was to create a new character, with a character customization and name selection process.

Let's see where the character panel is...

The moment the thought crossed his mind, a panel appeared in front of him, displaying his character information.

Upon seeing the character information in front of him, Gu Yan was immediately startled.

Character Name: Gu Yan

[Identity: Nobody]

Not only his name, but also the character illustration below it prominently features his own image.

You know what, the character art is pretty detailed; he even looks kind of handsome...

But that's not the point!

Could it be that I've somehow gotten myself involved and my original body has been transported into this game?

Gu Yan's heart tightened.

Having transmigrated into a high-martial arts world in the city, he may lack martial arts talent, but if he has no great ambitions and simply lives a peaceful life as an ordinary citizen, he will at least be safe in the modern city.

But what is the background of the game "Slaying Demons and Exorcising Monsters"?

Evil spirits roam the land, chaos reigns, and the lives of ordinary people are as worthless as grass, with everyone living in constant fear.

Fortunately, Gu Yan soon discovered that he didn't actually transmigrate into the game... at least not his original body.

He could still feel himself sitting cross-legged on his bed in his bedroom. Although the scene before him was realistic, and he could control his body in the game as if he were operating his real limbs, his brain could still distinguish that the environment he was in was the game world and not reality.

It felt amazing, a bit like playing a highly realistic VR motion-sensing game.

He could still call up the menu and exit the game at any time if he wanted, which made him feel a little more at ease.

But only a little; there will definitely still be some surprise and doubt.

The previous version of "Slaying Demons and Exorcising Monsters" also focused on the immersive experience of an open world. As long as you unlock 18+ content through real-name authentication, you can even marry and have children with NPCs in the game. All the necessary steps will be taken without exception, and all units will be infantry, with no cavalry used as substitutes.

But the so-called immersion doesn't mean that players should be truly "immersed"!

After all, no matter how well-made a game is, it's still just a game; players are merely interacting with it through a screen using a keyboard and mouse. But now, as Gu Yan logged into the game in his mind, it felt as if he had completely immersed himself in it. How could he not be astonished?

It was as if he had instantly upgraded from the keyboard and mouse game he was familiar with to a "fully immersive" virtual reality version that only existed in online game novels.

Oh, and the fact that the game character was directly replaced by his own real self instead of the original character creation process also made Gu Yan feel uneasy.

He then checked the martial arts skill panel and found that his character initially possessed two martial arts skills.

The first martial art is called "Zhenyue Changquan" (镇岳长拳). Gu Yan wasn't surprised by this; when creating a character at the start of the game, players randomly receive one of several initial martial arts. Zhenyue Changquan is one of those initial martial arts.

But the second martial arts technique surprised him again.

Basic Breathing Techniques

[Level]: First Glimpse of the Beginning

Basic breathing techniques? The breathing techniques you practice every day?

As a seasoned speedrunner of "Slaying Demons and Exorcising Monsters," Gu Yan knew the game inside and out. Therefore, he was absolutely certain that there was no such technique in the game's base game.

But at this moment, this martial art, which shouldn't exist in the game, appeared on him as his initial martial art...

Bold associations naturally arose in Gu Yan's mind.

Perhaps the martial arts techniques I learned in real life will be reflected in this game character as martial arts skills?

If the situation is reversed, and a character acquires skills and levels up in the game, can their real-life counterpart also improve their cultivation level?

This possibility made his breath quicken; he was nervous yet secretly hopeful.

He was intimately familiar with the martial arts system of slaying demons and monsters. In the later stages of the game, as the player's character's cultivation deepens, they can break through mortal limitations, achieve physical sainthood, and shatter all the constraints of heaven and earth with their own strength, their martial arts prowess enough to rival that of the gods.

If one can reach this level in the game, and be able to keep up with it in real life, then why worry about having inferior aptitude or being unable to learn martial arts?

Gu Yan, who had been questioning whether his cheat code was only good for offline play just a minute ago, immediately placed high hopes on his powerful cheat code.

Playing games straight to the level of martial arts mastery!

Of course, this is just his conjecture and needs further verification.

Gu Yan turned off the panel and examined the predicament he was facing at the start.

It was pitch black all around, as black as Qin Hui's heart, and you couldn't see anything at all.

Gu Yan then skillfully brought up the control panel, found the screen settings, and turned the brightness to the highest level.

The darkness suddenly cleared, allowing him to see the situation before him.

Gu Yan looked around and saw that the space around him was narrow and cramped, with cold, hard stone walls all around, as if he were in some kind of prison.

He immediately recognized the situation at the start.

The start of "Slaying Demons and Eliminating Evil" is quite unique. Each player's character creation, starting village, and beginner quests are all randomized.

Players can choose the difficulty level when creating a character. The easy difficulty is easy enough for anyone to play and is suitable for novice players, but the initial rewards are also the lowest.

At the highest difficulty, the initial start is fraught with danger, and newbies without any strategy are almost guaranteed to die. However, once you survive the initial phase, the rewards are the highest, and new accounts level up the fastest.

Although the game developers provided a large number of random starting scenarios, there is still a limit. Players quickly summarized and categorized all the starting scenarios for all difficulties, and various strategies for different starting scenarios were already available on the forums.

As a world-class speedrunning veteran, Gu Yan naturally chooses the highest difficulty level to start every time.

Starting with the highest difficulty yields the greatest rewards and allows for the fastest character development. Speedrunners aiming for world records will naturally choose the highest difficulty starting point.

That's why he was able to recognize at a glance that the prison he was in was the most difficult of all the random starting scenarios under the highest difficulty level in "Slaying Demons and Exorcising Monsters".

That's right, even at the highest difficulty level, this is the most difficult type.

His initial identity was that of a prisoner, abducted to this demon's lair, where he would soon be cooked and become food for the demons of this cave.

If the start of any other game on the highest difficulty is a near-death experience, then the start of this game can be described as a near-certain death.

Fortunately, he remembered the strategy guide.

From the darkness outside the cage, footsteps could be heard approaching.

The sound stopped in front of the cage, where a short, ugly rat demon stood. Its fur was rough and disheveled, its pointed ears twitched, and its small eyes were gleaming. It stopped in front of the cell door.

Before it could speak, Gu Yan had already stood up in the cage.

"Is it time to cook?" Gu Yan asked. "Lead the way."

The rat demon, who was about to speak, choked back his words before they even left his mouth.

Its sly little eyes stared at the prisoners in the cell for a long time, filled with doubt.

Wait a minute, why are the ingredients so proactive today?

Could it be that mature ingredients will cook themselves?