Han Mingxiao handed a wooden pomegranate pendant to Jiaoma.
The girl took it in surprise, never expecting such a wondrous encounter tonight. It lifted her spirits a little from the grievances she had suffered earlier, bringing some comfort to her lonely night.
“Is this your personal item?”
The girl, her eyes sparkling, gazed at this uniquely charismatic man. She thought to herself that if her father had not left, he would probably be around this age too.
“It’s called a Dream Synchronization Device. It allows me to enter your dreams or share the same mental field. Do you still feel happy about it now?”
“This?” Jiaoma suddenly tensed up.
With something like this, a slightest carelessness could allow another to glimpse into her spiritual sea.
“I’m sorry, I can’t accept it. It’s dangerous.”
Jiaoma was quite direct, with no hint of wanting to deceive the other party. Yet she thought that this gentleman before her was also quite candid.
“In that case, I’ll give you the other one too.”
Han Mingxiao handed her the second pendant as well.
“Now, you have a complete set. You can give it to your beloved later, so you can meet each other and stay alert in dreams and mental fields. At the same time, you can perform long-distance Mental Link with each other in the same world.”
Having said that, without waiting for Jiaoma to refuse, Han Mingxiao smiled, turned around, and walked away from the bookshelf into the distance.
Jiaoma wanted to speak but feared her voice would break the silence of the archives room. She looked down silently at the “wood grain” pendants in her hand—one slightly darker in color, the other a shade lighter—her heart pounding in her chest.
The first person she thought of was Yang Zicang.
“Although I won’t give it to you,” Jiaoma mused to herself, then let out a soft chuckle. “Yet I still accepted it like this, and even started thinking about such things.”
In the small house, the man opened his eyes and first looked down at his chest. The pendant hanging around his neck was gone.
He slightly lifted his robe, reached his hand into the inner pocket of his clothing, and pulled out a handful of wood grain pendants of varying shades. He picked one and put it around his neck, then closed the data book in his hand and casually flipped open a thinner one.
——”Red Rabbit Kingdom” was merely a derogatory name used by other countries to refer to the Somen Republic. This originated because their kings, Solos III and Solos IV, were both madly fond of red-haired women with rabbit ears and remained deeply obsessed with them.
——This even fostered a noble trend, spanning over two hundred years during the Mutao Era, where marrying a rabbit woman as a concubine was used as a symbol of status. The longer the ears, the more sought-after they were.
A folded beam was shot over.
{Your Excellency, the individual you previously noted as capable of resonating with high-frequency thought fields has entered this area.}
[Oh? How did he manage to get to your place?]
{A group leader from the First Purification Department invited him to join her group. Today, he chose to patrol the purification tasks in this zone.}
[Hmph, it seems Heaven’s will wants me to figure out exactly what level of thing was stuffed into that mental frequency field. Put on the mind synchronization devices.]
{Yes, sir.}
After saying this, Han Mingxiao stood up, casually tossing the book aside. He strode out the door in just a few steps, checked outside, and immediately closed the door tightly.
……
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
In the dim light, rubble cascaded down the slope like a tide of stone.
Even with Trajectory Dispatch, the accumulated momentum of such large boulders and their overwhelming numbers on such a long slope still left the trio struggling to keep up.
Yang Zicang coordinated the trajectories of the three, swiftly weaving between the rocks.
“I feel like our speed has doubled. Yang Zicang, is this your ability?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow, any team that has you would have a much stronger main combat unit. And with your combat power being this formidable, if we join the Elite Team together, we’ll definitely grow fast. Maybe someday we could even become group leaders and lead our own squads!”
Here lay a bare slope just past the large city. Three figures darted amid the chaotic stones, gradually getting accustomed to the rhythm of dodging.
Qiong An, light on her feet and quite gossipy, said to Yang Zicang, “Hey, which group were you assigned to before? What was your group leader’s name?”
“Jiaoma.”
Qiong An thought for a moment and immediately remembered who it was. “Oh, her. I know that little Jiaoma. She came in when she was very young, I hear it’s been about twelve or thirteen years. Her father brought her in. He has been above the Fate Track for several years now.”
“She’s Group Leader Jiaoma.” Wang Dingshan was somewhat surprised. “You actually got into her group.”
*Bang!* Yang Zicang was nearly hit by a rock.
“Is there something significant about getting into her group?”
He thought to himself that Jiaoma wasn’t all that old yet was already a group leader. He didn’t know whether to call her lucky or pitiful—not having seen the outside world for so many years. The memories of Earth were probably just alien legends to her by now.
Wang Dingshan chuckled and said, “Her group is all middle-aged people with great tempers. Having a young man who’s both strong and handsome suddenly dropped into the mix is quite suspicious.”
Yang Zicang was startled.
Just as he was about to say something, a broken line shot towards them, and a phantom image of Yu Yusheng appeared before the three of them.
{So there really are a lot of those monsters on your side. I’ve been walking to the area thick with the Death Mist for half a day without seeing any sign of the “Excellent Review 50,” which means I’m going in the wrong direction.}
“Wow, you little punk came to spy on where we are?” Wang Dingshan bellowed.
{There was only a one-third chance at first, but since you have so many tough monsters on your side, it’s now eighty percent likely that the “Bound Spirit” in Zone 11 City is in that direction. Wait for me.}
The image disappeared.
“Keep going, Yang Zicang, don’t wait for him! Let’s hurry up there—destroy that thing first, and we win!”
Amid the flickering Graviton Arc, the spear appeared and vanished unpredictably, dismantling the monsters perched atop this slope into pieces.
{Yang Zicang gains 48 points, total 132 points.}
{Qiong An gains 20 points, total 66 points; Wang Dingshan gains 18 points, total 74 points.}
It sounds like a lot, but sadly, these are only the contribution points from a single task.
“Damn it, Wang Dingshan, next time turn off that crappy force field of yours. Blocking dust and explosion noise for points is just lazy freeloading.”
“I’m not arguing with you. The second one to enter the elite squad will definitely be me.”
“Ah, I’m going to kick you to death.”
Climbing up the rubble-strewn peak, there were still many twisted sludge monsters half-buried in the mud ahead, some of them slowly swallowing rocks to increase their size.
“This puddle?” Yang Zicang looked over.
In a pit, a mass of turbid liquid filled it, with a foul odor mixed with a strange fragrance wafting out.
Wang Dingshan quickly activated his force field again, but it couldn’t block much of the smell—it wasn’t, after all, completely enclosing him.
“Can this water spawn rock monsters?”
“How strange.”
As the three reached this point, the Scratch Card (Special Evil) inside Wang Dingshan’s chest suddenly spoke:
{I sense it—an aura that attracts me.}
“Attracts you?”
He took out the Scratch Card (Special Evil), and its diamond-shaped eyes swept everywhere, finally looking beneath the water’s surface.
“Is it in here?”
The three of them looked at the sewage-like water.
{Congratulations, you found the location of the Bound Spirit in less than ten hours. I initially thought it would take at least two days for someone to discover it; it seems your strategy was correct. However, this Bound Spirit cannot be ambushed with your gun. Here’s a hint: Vitality.}
The water surface began to churn, and the silhouette of a large energy being, bound from below, emerged in the center of this pool.
“Great. Even Group Leader Fu said we found it.”
“Quick, if we kill it, we’ll get fifty Favorable Reviews. Experienced players leading newcomers sure pay off handsomely.” Wang Dingshan was so delighted he almost stuck his tongue out and wagged it a few times.
“But there are three of us here, how do we split it?”
Qiong An looked at Yang Zicang and said dominantly and recklessly, “Brother, with this many points, I can definitely make it into the Elite Group. Let me have this monster.”
“But I’m about to quit. If I become an elite employee, I can choose a reward to take with me before I leave, right?”
“Ah!” Qiong An scratched her head, “Sigh, I forgot that. Damn it.”
Wang Dingshan stepped closer, gagged, and said as if about to vomit:
“Let’s not talk about how to split the Bound Spirit yet. This water is a problem; it might be hard just for us to wade in.”
“The water here has the ability to breed monsters, our Mirage Company is also researching it.”
Fu Qiyong’s phantom figure, lounging on a deck chair, appeared on the water’s surface. He pointed downward and said:
“Based on data analysis, it should contain remnants of certain Bloodline Secret Energy. However, because it’s too diluted and impure, we haven’t yet…”
“Haven’t what?” Qiong An asked.
“Haven’t…”
Suddenly, Group Leader Fu’s figure flickered like an unstable signal. He abruptly stood up.
“There’s… leave…”
Behind the trio, a black cube spread open with a whoosh.
Yang Zicang’s eyes sharpened: “Something’s wrong, get out of here!”
“We already have such a big lead.”
Wang Dingshan felt reluctant, but the cube quickly became unstable.
Since Group Leader Fu was telling them to leave, something must have gone wrong. Having survived numerous life-and-death crises, Yang Zicang started to retreat immediately, turning without hesitation to dash towards the black cubic channel.
Just as the trio approached, the three black sub-aether channels exploded simultaneously. Countless dull energy lines scattered like torn rags, shattering in unison like a torn net.
“Who dares to hinder me!”
Group Leader Fu’s angry voice rang out.
His projection flickered all around, as black cubes of various sizes appeared one after another, only to break apart in an instant.
“Ah, what have we run into?” Qiong An asked, looking somewhat nervously at this eerie image.
Wang Dingshan’s eyes darted left and right as he watched their surroundings with serious intent.
Suddenly, he felt a tremor in his mind and turned to see a giant white phantom monster appear behind Yang Zicang, resembling a massive centipede.
“A Psychic Body?!”
Wang Dingshan stared at this in disbelief—this kid beside him was no slouch! But now was not the time to dwell on it.
Spotting another fleeting black cube that had reappeared, Yang Zicang swiftly grabbed the woman’s arm and waist, spinning and hurling her out. “Close your eyes, I’m sending you out!”
But the cubic Cruxspace had already vanished.
“Ah!”
Qiong An felt herself flying through the air. She knew the sub-ether channel wouldn’t open while under scrutiny, so she resigned herself to closing her eyes.
The next second, she felt her descending body suddenly lurch upwards with a second acceleration.
Just as she was about to plummet downhill, a flickering black cube miraculously appeared before her, exploding in an instant as she followed a parabolic arc.
Leave a Reply