Chapter 127: Level 6
After posting her announcement, Lin Huai switched to Old Wang’s private chat window and sent him the extra intermediate crafting bench.
Old Wang didn’t stand on ceremony at all. He accepted the transfer with a wide grin, sending over a hefty crate of rare building components in return.
As for the spare component printer, Lin Huai took a quick screenshot of its stat screen and posted it into the Elite Squad channel.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Who needs this?
[AAA Building Materials Old Wang]: Boss! Boss, I want it!
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Name your price, Boss! I’ll outbid anyone here!
[AAA Building Materials Old Wang]: Wuuu… clever, beautiful, generous Young Miss, please show mercy! As our district’s primary building materials dealer, this machine is my lifeline!
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: It’s not entirely out of the question. Whatever the final price tag is, give me a three percent cut.
[AAA Building Materials Old Wang]: …I knew it. The capitalists are setting me up again.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Hehe. So, do you want it or not? If you pass, I’ll take it off her hands myself—either way, capital never loses.
[AAA Building Materials Old Wang]: Three percent is pure highway robbery… Fine, I’ll trade you a batch of rare crafting ingredients you’ve been hunting for.
[Jiangzhehu Inheritor]: Deal.
[Milk Tea Seven Parts Sugar]: Aww… looks like there’s nothing left for the rest of us.
[Dragon Emerging from the Sea]: I was eyeing it too, but competing against those two wallets is impossible. Count me out.
[Fastest Hand at SF Express]: Damn it! My typing was two seconds too slow!
Watching Old Wang and the young heiress banter in the chat, Lin Huai couldn’t hold back a fond smile. The two were like a pair of bickering sweethearts.
Whenever danger threatened the team, they locked shields without hesitation, showing seamless coordination and never a hint of division. Yet during ordinary downtime, they couldn’t go five minutes without squabbling, seizing every opening to tease or outmaneuver each other.
Even so, their mutual scheming felt remarkably harmonious—one loved to exploit, and the other seemed entirely happy to be squeezed. Sometimes, Lin Huai couldn’t help but root for them.
Letting the heiress take her cut from their friend, Lin Huai finalized the printer sale to Old Wang at a solid price. After all, the target of the hustle was practically beaming, so she saw no reason to step in.
Lin Huai had no real need for underworld currency. She had reliable income streams, and the young heiress was an absolute genius at generating cash. She only cared about gathering energy crystals and top-tier components.
Old Wang knew her priorities well. Alongside a mountain of high-grade upgrade materials, he tossed in a rare defensive treasure: an ancient turtle carapace capable of soaking three direct hits from a golden light cannon.
Lin Huai’s offensive power was unmatched, but outside of her hearse’s armor plating and the coffin’s spiritual barrier, she had very few dedicated defensive trinkets. This shell would serve as a dependable backup.
While the others traded supplies across the group, Lin Huai brought up her character sheet and poured the required catalysts into her [Time Reversal] skill card, advancing it to Level 2.
Sorting inventory and trading items made the four-hour upgrade window fly by.
When the vehicle’s structural transformation finally settled, Lin Huai looked up, her heart thumping with anticipation.
Old Hei’s server broadcast didn’t keep her waiting. His sharp, scornful synthesized voice blasted through the channel the very instant the timers completed:
[Server Announcement! Congratulations to Player Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice from Zone 444, District 44, for achieving the server’s first Level 6 vehicle upgrade! Reward granted: Profound Stone Chest x1.]
[As for the rest of you rookies, I’m too tired to waste breath mocking you. Those still crawling around in Level 2 tin cans are absolute dead weight, so you’d better start praying.]
[And a certain someone shouldn’t get too smug just yet; the road ahead is long and brutal.]
Lin Huai let out an amused chuckle. “Understood. Thanks for the friendly warning, Old Hei.”
[Tch!]
With that parting click, Old Hei cut the feed. Lin Huai patted Dong Xiaobao’s soft cheek as the infant floated beside her, then stepped closer to inspect the changes.
The Level 6 upgrade hadn’t drastically altered the hearse’s exterior silhouette, focusing instead on structural refinements and heavy combat enhancements.
The vehicle’s frontal and rear firepower had doubled. Two pairs of heavy golden light cannons now sat flush against both sides of the front bumper and rear tailgate, their dark barrels extending from reinforced firing ports to project lethal stopping power.
The surveillance arrays had advanced as well. The floating psionic cameras circled the vehicle in a synchronized quartet instead of a pair, significantly widening their scan radius and feeding crystal-clear visual telemetry back to the driver’s dash.
Stepping inside the cabin, the layout felt familiar, though the customization settings had expanded. The standard matte black carbon fiber panels, trimmed with golden nanmu wood and carved jade accents matching the coffin, could now be changed.
The interface offered playful pastel color schemes, alternative rare hardwoods like ancient bog oak, and blood-jade inlays to reflect the coffin’s current rank.
Lin Huai kept things simple, swapping only the jade accents to matching blood jade while leaving the rest untouched.
The interior square footage remained steady, but the defensive readouts told a different story. Beyond the physical thickness of the composite armor, a faint electromagnetic barrier now hummed across the hull. Even without the coffin’s Yin aura deployed, the vehicle could independently shrug off heavy physical shelling.
Satisfied with the cabin, Lin Huai triggered the teleportation link into the coffin above.
Dong Xiaobao adored the interior space. The moment they phased inside, the little spirit floated happily through the dim, soothing air.
The vessel had fully transformed into crimson blood jade, now officially designated on the status panel as the [Blood Jade Reversal Coffin].
Along with enhanced passive regeneration, a new function had unlocked: [Memory Extraction], allowing partial memories to be drawn from corpses and spirits laid inside the chamber.
Seeing the tooltip, Lin Huai finally understood why the upgrade recipe had called for so many Memory Crystal Orbs.
While useless in regular skirmishes, the ability was invaluable for an undertaker. It offered a direct way to uncover lingering mortal regrets, decipher forgotten secrets, or fulfill a spirit’s final wish.
Lin Huai lay back in the soothing coolness for several minutes until her spiritual reserves were topped off, then prepared to step back out to the cabin.
Dong Xiaobao, however, shook her small head, clearly wanting to stay.
Lin Huai smiled softly. “All right, you can stay inside.”
Just as she turned to leave, small hands clamped tightly onto her sleeve. Dong Xiaobao tugged urgently at her arm, her chubby face pinched with anxiety as she pulled Lin Huai toward the back of the vessel.
The internal dimensional space of the coffin had expanded to sixty cubic meters, large enough to stand and walk freely. Curious, Lin Huai followed the tugging baby toward a shadowed, quiet corner of the chamber.
