Chapter 144: Sliding on Knees
[Congratulations to Player Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice from Zone 444, District 44, for achieving server-wide Rank One in the ‘Spooky Apartment’ trial!]
[Congratulations to Player Flash Delivery Yellow Knight from Zone 444, District 44, for achieving Rank Two in the ‘Spooky Apartment’ trial!]
[The trial has concluded. Teleportation sequence initiated. Rewards will be delivered to your inboxes within ten minutes. All players, please check your mail!]
“Wow, Little Yellow! You actually took second place!” Cute and Sparkling cried out in delight, clapping her hands.
Flash Delivery Yellow Knight stood frozen in disbelief, scratching his head. “I barely did anything… How did I end up in second place? This is the first time I’ve ever reached the top three!”
The young heiress chuckled, tossing her hair. “You barely did anything? You literally gave your life to buy time for the rest of us! What more did you want to do?”
Peace and Violence pushed up his spectacles, nodding in agreement. “Perhaps your loyalty and courage moved the wicked Sphinx, and she gave you extra credit out of pure shame.”
Hearing herself called wicked, the Sphinx bristled with fury behind the system veil. But right as her avatar opened its mouth to screech, the golden teleportation circle flared to life, whisking the entire squad away in an instant.
Left with nothing but empty air, she could only grind her teeth in frustration. Stamping her foot, she returned to District 85 in Zone 275 and immediately barged into the private system administrator channel to tear into Old Hei.
If she couldn’t punish Old Hei’s players, screaming at Old Hei himself was the next best thing.
Naturally, after taking an earful from the Sphinx, Old Hei turned straight around and vented all his rage onto Lin Huai.
[You useless troublemaker! Can’t you go one day without picking fights with other system handlers?! Now I’m the one taking the blame! I don’t care—you owe me for mental distress!]
[And my performance bonus for this month is gone again! Gone! Now I have to do unpaid maintenance on the network core!]
The whole team had mocked the Sphinx together, yet Lin Huai was the only one taking the heat. She shook her head with a wry smile. Such was the burden of leadership.
Remembering Little Yellow’s desperate stand in the lobby, she pulled out a pouch of one hundred Yin energy crystals and passed them over to Old Hei. “Old Hei, during the next district merger, could you help me secure a tailored special reward? I’ll pay for it out of pocket.”
Old Hei snatched the bag of crystals, his mechanical voice dipping into sharp suspicion. [Secure what? Let me make one thing clear: don’t get any wild ideas about high-tier artifacts. These one hundred crystals are compensation for my hurt feelings, not your personal shopping fund!]
Lin Huai let out an easy laugh. “Just pick something suitable for Little Yellow. If the price goes over, come back to me and I’ll make up the difference, alright?”
She added in a warm, coaxing tone, “We rise and fall together. Helping me source a piece of gear under the table shouldn’t break any rules, right?”
Old Hei let out a conceited scoff. [Hmph! Rules? I have the highest clearance and performance marks among all the sector handlers. Who would dare touch me? A bunch of pathetic amateurs!]
With that parting boast, the connection went quiet.
Lin Huai chuckled to herself. Old Hei truly was fair in his contempt; he treated every single creature across the server like an incompetent amateur. Hearing his sharp tongue actually felt strangely comforting.
Putting the handler out of her mind, she opened her trial rewards.
The payout followed the usual pattern: a mountain of basic survival materials, accompanied by a handful of high-tier blueprints and catalysts.
Her special rewards included:
- High-Tier Pill Recipe Fragment: Nine Revolutions Soul Returning Pill
- Spirit Gathering Stones x2
- High-Tier Talisman Paper Blueprints x2
- Intermediate Magic Tool Blueprint x1
Without hesitation, Lin Huai forwarded the fragmented pill recipe directly to Milk Tea Seven Parts Sugar. It was an unspoken rule within the Elite Squad that all botanical and medicinal formulas went straight to their primary alchemist.
As for the Spirit Gathering Stones, they were the key catalyst required to push the blood jade coffin to Level 7. The structural blueprint itself wasn’t complicated, but the overall cost was staggering.
To advance the coffin to its next stage, the system demanded one hundred Spirit Gathering Stones and ten thousand pure Yin energy crystals. Even with Lin Huai’s steady income, gathering ten thousand crystals at once was far out of reach. Holding only two stones, she set the project aside for the moment.
Her overall roadmap remained clear. Top contenders like Master Cloud Cliff and Old Mo of Western Hunan had abandoned the race for vehicle upgrade milestones, choosing instead to focus their resources on maxing out skill cards and combat talismans.
That was the reason Lin Huai had faced such a close call during their previous clash—her raw card levels and talisman grades lagged slightly behind theirs.
Yet for Lin Huai, the coffin was her ultimate anchor. As long as the coffin advanced, its defensive barriers and spiritual resonance could easily bridge the gap. Upgrading the vehicle remained her top priority, followed closely by leveling her personal skill cards. Secondary tools like the Yellow Springs Road Guide and the crafting station could wait.
A few days after the apartment trial, the scheduled district merger arrived.
To Lin Huai’s complete surprise, the process was painless. Her player handle, Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, had sat atop the global leaderboards for so long that the top player in the matched zone simply threw up their hands. The moment they saw who was leading Zone 444, they abandoned all resistance and offered to surrender their territory wholesale.
Lin Huai had spent hours drawing up tactical formations for a bloody street battle, but there was no fighting at all.
The instant her hearse rolled past the outskirts of the border town, a direct transmission popped up in the public feed:
[Sichuan Road Mountain (Female), Zone 390, District 26]: @Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, Zone 444, District 44. Respected Boss Bone Ash, can we skip the bloodshed? All 3,892 survivors under my command will merge peacefully into Zone 444. Zero resistance.
[Sichuan Road Mountain (Female), Zone 390, District 26]: On behalf of our 3,892 members, I swear that we will follow Boss Bone Ash’s orders to the letter and obey all Zone 444 regulations. Should I wait for you beneath the Bell Tower to sign the handover?
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, Zone 444, District 44]: …
[Dragon Emerging from the Sea, Zone 444, District 44]: …
[AAA Building Materials Old Wang, Zone 444, District 44]: …
[Sister Cai, Zone 444, District 44]: …Wait, really? You’re not even going to put up a little fight? I just finished stretching my legs…
[Other Survivors]: …
[Sichuan Road Mountain (Female), Zone 390, District 26]: …We can’t fight you at all! Rather than getting beaten half to death before surrendering, why not just slide over on our knees and join the winning side? Is that acceptable, Boss?!
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, Zone 444, District 44]: …Sure… I suppose that works…
Lin Huai sat in her driver’s seat, thoroughly stunned. She had never dealt with a territory that surrendered on sight before. How was she supposed to organize several thousand newcomers who joined without firing a single shot?
Before she could post an official set of instructions, the public channel exploded with chatter from the incoming refugees:
[Pork Belly, Zone 390, District 26]: Ahhh! We made it! Big Shot Bone Ash accepted us! We’re officially part of the number one zone on the entire server!
[Crispy Sausage, Zone 390, District 26]: This is incredible! We’re under the top boss’s wing now! Living the good life is just around the corner, hehehe!
[Dragon Soul Young Master, Zone 390, District 26]: Don’t celebrate too early. Sichuan Road Mountain was completely hands-off, which is the only reason you slackers had so much freedom. A top-ranked powerhouse like Zone 444 will have ruthless rules. They’ll probably bleed us dry through taxes!
