Since the system became my girlfriend

Having learned from yesterday's experience, Su Rui and his companion encountered no troublemakers today, whether they were killing monsters or returning to the starting village. The two quickly returned to Gai Nie's side.

"I knew I hadn't misjudged you. You've returned from your training so quickly!" Gai Nie said with a smile upon seeing the two of them.

"Ding! Mission complete!"

"Ding! You have gained 800 experience points!"

The experience points from the mission arrived in his account, and Su Rui's experience bar was now one-fifth full. This leveling efficiency was unmatched by other players. And this was without him exchanging for the puppet cores. If he had exchanged for those cores, even if he split the experience with Feng Lixi, Su Rui would still have received more than 16,000 experience points!

However, Su Rui had no intention of exchanging for the puppet core at this moment, because once he did, he would be very close to level nine. If he accidentally reached level nine, he would not be able to complete Gai Nie's mission at the same time.

"Young people, your performance has exceeded my expectations. In that case, I have an even more difficult challenge for you to complete!" Gai Nie, who had been smiling, suddenly became serious.

"Lord Gai Nie, please rest assured, we will certainly live up to your expectations!" Su Rui immediately perked up, because from the implication in Gai Nie's words, it seemed that a hidden quest was about to be issued!

"Is it because I'm killing monsters too fast?" Su Rui wondered to himself. In fact, even if he thought about it for a second, he couldn't possibly be the fastest person to complete Gai Nie's quest in the newbie village. Not to mention that some people accepted the quest earlier than him, even if you calculate it by the time it takes to complete the quest, other people can kill monsters of the same level much faster than he can kill level 8 rock golems!

At this moment, Su Rui obviously didn't think in that direction, and even if he had, he couldn't possibly have guessed that it was all the work of the cute girl next to him!

"Young man, are you ready to begin the trial I have prepared for you?" At this moment, Gai Nie's voice interrupted Su Rui's thoughts.

"Yes!" Su Rui answered without the slightest hesitation.

“Very good! Young man, if you want to become a qualified mercenary, you need to have extraordinary courage. Take this map, it will tell you what to do!” Gai Nie handed over a map.

"Thank you, Lord Gai Nie!" Su Rui received the map and the mission notification at the same time.

"Ding! Mission Update: Trial of Courage!"

Trial of Courage: Battle mentor Gai Nie gives you an important map. Do what is written on the map!

Mission objective: Complete the tasks indicated on the map!

Quest Level: 7

Risk level: Medium

Task Reward: 400 Experience Points!

Special reward: Unlocks the recruit trial mission chain.

"It's actually a quest chain!" Su Rui was overjoyed. A quest chain meant that after completing this quest, there would be a lot of follow-up quests, and the rewards for the quests would increase with the number of quests completed.

This is somewhat similar to the monster-killing quests that Gai Nie released before. That was also a simple quest chain, but the content was rather monotonous. It was just about constantly killing monsters, killing higher-level monsters, and killing more difficult monsters.

However, this quest chain called "New Recruit Trial" is clearly not open to all players; it is a hidden quest chain.

"Xiao Xi, have you received your mission?" Su Rui asked, turning around.

"No!" Feng Lixi shrugged. This task was a "little surprise" she had specially prepared for Su Rui. She didn't want to try it herself, so from the beginning, she had distanced herself from it.

"It's okay, I'll give you more puppet cores when the time comes, and we can still leave the newbie village together!" Su Rui smiled. Although he was a little disappointed that Feng Lixi hadn't received the mission, it was common for these hidden missions not to be shared.

"Okay!" Feng Lixi nodded, then smiled and urged Su Rui, "Let's go, let's do your quest chain first, and then we'll go grind monsters when we get back!"

"Alright!" Su Rui nodded. Little did he know that the girl in front of him wasn't trying to help him with the task at all; she was just there to watch the show.

Afterwards, Su Rui and Feng Lixi bid farewell to their combat mentor, Gai Nie, and left the beginner village following the map's directions.

The location of this mission was not far from the valley where Su Rui and Feng Lixi were farming rock golems. It was also in the mountainous area north of the village. When they passed through the valley, the two of them glanced inside. There were hardly any players left in the valley at this time. After all, those who were supposed to do the mission had already finished it. Without Su Rui and Feng Lixi, the gold miners' mining efficiency here was very low. So, when they didn't see Su Rui, these people went to other places to get materials.

After bypassing the valley, Su Rui and Feng Lixi began to climb the mountain according to the map. The mountain path was very rugged, and the simulation of the game "Source" was very high. So later on, Su Rui even had to bend over and climb up using both hands and feet.

The higher Su Rui climbed, the more cautious he became. At this point, he could hardly care about Feng Lixi behind him anymore. He could only give her a verbal warning and couldn't even turn around to help her up.

If Su Rui were to take a step into the air at this moment and roll down the mountain, he would almost certainly die from the fall.

"Damn it, this is a real test of courage!" Su Rui glanced down as he climbed the mountain. There was almost a sheer cliff below. Before, he was just climbing a mountain, but now it was practically rock climbing.

Looking down at the sheer cliff dozens of meters high, Su Rui's heart pounded. If Feng Lixi hadn't been with him, he might have given up.

But how could Su Rui, a guy who was obsessed with bringing girls along and had an overwhelming sense of male chauvinism, possibly lower himself in front of a pretty girl? So he was really gritting his teeth and climbing up the ladder.

Looking up, Su Rui realized that he was farther from the top of the cliff than from the ground. He felt a pang of bitterness. It seemed that being too proud would only lead to suffering.

Having no other choice, Su Rui, unwilling to lose face in front of Feng Lixi, could only grit his teeth and climb up.

Step by step, Su Rui climbed for nearly an hour. He felt like he was about to collapse. At this moment, his left hand finally gripped the rock at the top of the cliff!

"Huff!" Su Rui, who had climbed halfway up the cliff, was panting heavily.

"Whoosh!" Just then, a lithe figure leaped up from behind Su Rui and stood in front of him.

"Hey! Don't you exercise normally? How come you're exhausted like a dead dog after climbing just a small hill?" Feng Lixi looked down at Su Rui. Su Rui looked up and saw that the girl's face was calm and her heart was not racing. Even her hairstyle was not messed up. As for himself, he was covered in sweat, and his arms and calves were twitching. He had obviously reached his limit.