"With all this rice, it's more than enough to complete the mission."
You make a good point, but is it really possible?
Jiang Yixing hesitated.
A guild member quickly said, "Xingxing, don't be scared. If you can't do it, have the non-guild players do the stealing, then trade it to you. The quest doesn't say you have to grow it yourself."
Only then did Jiang Yixing feel at ease.
Still, he put on a bit of an act and said, "Let's just do the quest for now, at least finish the prerequisite tasks."
"Great! Xingxing isn't afraid of hard work, let's do it!"
Everyone started clearing land, pulling weeds, and tilling the soil. Jiang Yixing soon regretted it, but luckily, once he completed the tutorial quest, all he'd need to do for the daily tasks afterward was turn in grain.
By then, even if nothing got stolen, someone would deliver the supplies just to help him finish his quests.
...
On the other side.
Inside Wangxi Village.
Wang Silu, with a hired crew of 200 players, squeezed her way into Wangxi Village and quickly carved out a spot for herself in the newbie zone.
Wangxi Village was indeed well developed. Equipment was cheap—just throw money at it and a level 1 player could wear a full set of Silver-tier gear and take on level 5-6 monsters.
Not only that, but high-level players could use level-balancing advantages to enter level 3 dungeons ahead of schedule.
You could even push it further: four level 10 players carrying one level 1 player into the Nightmare difficulty of the Beast Sanctuary.
After all, once Silver-tier gear became commonplace, even the Nightmare difficulty of the Beast Sanctuary would be completely steamrolled by the stats, making it far easier to clear.
At the dungeon entrance.
Lin Haowan was recording a video.
This time he wasn't streaming—he was a genuine player now.
"Hey everyone, I've made it to Wangxi Village. This place is amazing—tons of players, all super friendly. Even though my talent doesn't let me join the Thorn Guild, I can still pay a bit and get someone to carry me."
"If you're a whale who doesn't want to grind and wants to catch up, don't bother with the new servers. Just go straight to Wangxi Village."
"Alright, enough talking. Let's get into the fight!"
He didn't stop recording, since he wanted to capture everything for later editing and maybe grab some funny moments for his videos.
Just as he was thinking that, a disdainful snort rang out nearby.
"Sycophant!"
Wang Silu rolled her eyes so hard they nearly went out of her head.
Lin Haowan immediately glanced over and spotted the mage named Lulu.
His eyes went wide in an instant, and all the old grudges came flooding back.
"You dare insult me? What, is Shunmuyuan your family's turf? Is Rongxun Studio run by your brother? Second Miss of Shunmuyuan, huh? You're the one I'm hitting!"
Lin Haowan raised his bow and fired straight at Wang Silu.
Wang Silu, decked out in full Silver gear with high attack and heavy HP, barely felt the damage. But the insult cut deep.
She immediately raised her staff.
Fireball.
She was a fire mage.
A fireball the size of a washbasin hurtled toward Lin Haowan, but he dodged it at the last second.
He strafed left and right, loosing arrows, and somehow managed to chip away more than half of Wang Silu's health.
Wang Silu started to panic.
"What are you all standing there for? Heal me! You're my teammates, aren't you supposed to protect me?"
All four players in her party furrowed their brows.
"We only protect you inside the dungeon. That's a separate fee."
"Fine, you want money? I've got it. Heal me!"
Wang Silu immediately deposited 100 silver coins into the party treasury.
A hundred thousand! Definitely not chump change.
The healer in the party gave Wang Silu a quick heal.
But that wasn't enough.
Wang Silu quickly shouted, "Don't just heal—attack him too! Kill him! Make him quit the game! Let's see how smug he is then!"
"Every time he shows up, I'll kill him."
What she didn't expect was the party refusing.
"This is between the two of you. I can heal you, but I won't fight for you. That breaks the rules of Wangxi Village."
What rules?
No PKing out in the open, especially at the dungeon entrance. That area was sensitive.
Holding people up from entering the dungeon would get you ganged up on.
So only the priest healed Wang Silu, but no one attacked Lin Haowan.
Lin Haowan's eyes gleamed, and he pulled his bow even harder.
Even if he couldn't kill Wang Silu, he was going to make her suffer.
"Can't hit me! Drives you crazy, huh? I'll just dodge! How are you this bad? If you're this bad, why even bother playing?"
"Don't think I don't know—that 'car accident' three thousand years ago, the one that put people in comas? You corporates ran them over and put them in vegetative states, and now you're still bullying some poor young girl.
Shameless.
And you still dare to show your face in Wangxi Village?
Get out! Go far away, go back to your precious Rongxun Studio's new server!"
Lin Haowan hurled insults left and right.
The worst part? His mouth was foul, but he actually had skill.
He had Wang Silu howling in pain.
Then, suddenly, she heard a notification.
“You have been removed from the party!”
What?
The boosting players had kicked her out.
"What are you doing?! Heal me! I paid you!"
"Pah, I'd rather not earn your money. Your character is trash, and on top of that, you're bullying the big boss in the coma. Without him, we wouldn't even have jobs as boosters. We know who our real benefactor is."
"Besides, I'm not attacking you because I don't want anyone twisting it into me stealing a client's gear. Otherwise, I'd cut you down right now."
"That archer, keep going! If you kill her, her gear is yours!"
Lin Haowan sped up his firing.
"Lin Haowan, just you wait—I'll destroy you!" Wang Silu's eyes flashed with malice, and at that moment, the people she'd called in finally arrived.
A wave of over fifty level 1 players surged to the entrance of the Beast Sanctuary.
These were all people who had come to the game with Wang Silu.
"Get him!" Wang Silu commanded.
Lin Haowan knew he was in trouble.
But soon, a flash of healing light landed on him.
The players who had been boosting Wang Silu earlier were now healing Lin Haowan instead.
"Ha! You think we're just gonna stand by? Bullying our boss? Take them all out!"
Lin Haowan's boosters finally jumped in. They hadn't acted before because they figured a grudge between clients was none of their business.
But now that a mob was coming for Lin Haowan, they weren't having it.
A bunch of level 10 players took down Wang Silu's reinforcements in a few hits.
"Damn! My PK value hit 10,000! Anyone who kills the werewolf Turg at the Beast Sanctuary entrance gets a 100-copper red envelope!" Someone shouted, and no one cared about Wang Silu's corpse at all. All they cared about was the reward for killing the wolf boss.
After dying, Wang Silu had no choice but to crawl out of her gaming pod in fury.
She grabbed her phone and sent a message to Wan Huanyu.
"You said before you'd take care of that one in a coma. Make her disappear from the real world. Send me the contact info—I've got someone I need to handle too."
Wan Huanyu was speechless. Finally, he replied, "… The people I hired already got taken care of."
