"Attack!" Wang Rongxun gritted his back teeth so hard they nearly cracked.
If they didn't attack, wouldn't all their previous efforts have been for nothing?
Only by attacking could they squeeze out one more piece of gold equipment. Regardless of whose equipment it was, it still counted as an improvement.
Once they'd beaten it once, they could beat it countless times.
They had to take it down.
Besides, did he even dare to leave right now?
If he went out, wouldn't Chu Fu just kill him?
He chickened out.
What Wang Rongxun didn't know was that Chu Fu and her group had no intention of attacking the Rongxun Guild at all.
...
Inside the dungeon instance.
The group erupted in cheers.
Another 8 attribute points secured — of course they were thrilled.
Chu Fu's communicator buzzed.
It was Feng Huimin.
"Boss, I already saw that you guys took the first kill."
Feng Huimin was equally astonished.
The first-kill announcement could also be looked up on the forums.
It was automatically updated by the officials.
And from the moment Chu Fu logged in to taking the first kill, it had taken only a little over 2 hours.
That was way too fast.
Feng Huimin reminded her: "Boss, Zone 025 has only been merged for 6 days. They don't even farm the Level 25 boss daily because raid wipes are way too severe — Wang Rongxun can't afford the losses.
You guys can take down the Level 25 boss first, then head for Linjiang City next.
There's a large auction house in Linjiang City where global goods circulate. You can buy dark gold-grade equipment and gold-grade equipment there.
You can stock up on a batch, then go sell them in other servers.
Right now, Zone 017 and Zone 025 are definitely desperate for gold equipment. You can sell to them at high prices. Sure, it might be arming the enemy, but it could also be... fattening the pigs!"
Chu Fu immediately grasped the key point.
Zone 017 is the home base of the Huan Yu studio, but after they got slaughtered, they naturally had no gold equipment left.
Not just no gold equipment — they probably didn't even have more than a few pieces of silver equipment.
Player combat power had tanked.
If they wanted to recover their strength, their only option was to buy gold equipment to replenish.
Otherwise, they couldn't even clear nightmare-grade dungeons.
As for Zone 025, that was even easier to understand — they still hadn't cleared the hell-grade dungeon. They only took down the Level 25 boss through human wave tactics, but after the first kill, they never touched it again.
The losses were too severe.
Perfect timing — Chu Fu would bring her people over to finish that boss off.
"Alright, I understand!"
"Then I wish the boss a triumphant victory!"
Feng Huimin hung up.
Chu Fu shared Feng Huimin's advice with the group, and everyone unanimously agreed.
"Open the treasure chest first, let's see if there's any upgrade. If not, we'll head to the Level 25 boss next."
Chu Fu brought out the new gold treasure chest, gave it a shake, and opened it.
A moment later, a ring appeared in her hand.
[Spirit Medium Ring (Gold): Magic Attack +50, Spirit +40. Special Effect: 20% of your attack is converted to soul damage, ignoring the target's defense.]
The stats seemed more suited for Bitter Gourd King.
But on second thought, Bitter Gourd King already specialized in soul attacks, so it wouldn't need the conversion.
That 20% defense-ignoring effect was still pretty sweet though.
Chu Fu naturally swapped out one of her silver rings for it.
That counted as a small improvement.
On Shen Chi's side, he also drew something good.
[War-Grade Ducted Turbine Blueprint (Gold Blueprint): Allows the creation of a ducted turbine. Once installed, greatly increases speed.]
"Perfect — I was just worried our movement speed was too slow. This turbine came at just the right time! Let's find somewhere to craft this."
There wasn't enough space here. Shen Chi left the dungeon, then summoned the mech, the bus, the turbines, and all the leftover equipment that the players had sorted through from the vacuum cleaner, piling it all into a small mountain.
Then Shen Chi started hand-crafting the turbines.
One turbine was a full 4 meters long and half a meter in diameter.
The previous mech couldn't have supported it at all.
But this time, Shen Chi crafted two of them.
Next came assembling and reinforcing the mech.
To the shock of the people watching,
the original 8-meter mech, upgraded with countless plain, iron, bronze, and black-tier parts, grew even larger.
It now stood a full 20 meters tall, with turbines installed at the back of both legs.
There was also a control cabin in the chest, roughly 4 by 3 meters in size — enough to hold all 10 people.
Now that was a real behemoth!
"Get on the mech!"
Shen Chi jumped aboard first.
The others all had flight wings, so they could easily fly up into the mech.
Looking at the tech-styled interior, everyone let out "ooh" and "aah" sounds.
"Thank heavens, thank the earth — I finally don't have to stand in the wind anymore!"
Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao, who had been stuck in the foot seat the whole time, harbored a deep hatred for the wind.
Chu Fu, however, felt the mech overhaul was a bit wasteful.
"Wheelchair Brother, this mech is way too big now. We won't have any room when we go into cave-type or palace-type dungeons!"
Shen Chi piloted the mech as it took off, answering Chu Fu gently: "It doesn't matter. This time we're heading into the city, and there's an auction house. I can buy more materials — and the mech's core energy source should be for sale as well."
"Then I'll build a dark gold mech! Or maybe a small mech."
"Besides, assuming we can keep taking this quest, we waste too much time traveling every day. We need a mode of transportation!"
Since Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao had triggered the Great Benefactor quest, that meant others could too — it was just a matter of spending money to exchange with the NPC for medals.
But that also meant that from now on, they could farm hell-grade dungeons at other towns every single day.
The grain donated to the NPCs totaled 50 million catties. At the lowest-tier grain price, that was 50 gold for a single gold medal.
But if they could clear 4 extra hell-grade dungeons and snag an extra boss or two on top of that, they'd make it back easily.
And if you counted the experience, it was a straight profit!
"Man, you're a saint, Wheelchair. In that case, you can't foot the bill alone — the guild will chip in too!" Jiao Jiao Bu Jiao said.
Chu Fu raised both hands in agreement.
Without Shen Chi, even with Chu Fu's quest, they would waste far too much time on the road — it just wouldn't be worth it.
"Alright then, my class is a bit of a money pit. I'll be counting on all of you!"
With that,
they boarded the mech and went to take down the Level 25 field boss, picking up another piece of gold equipment.
Then the mech went full speed ahead.
Its top speed rivaled a fighter jet — 2,000 kilometers per hour.
Even so, it took a full hour and a half to reach Linjiang City.
So if they had to travel on foot, the distance from Fengdu to Linjiang was simply far too long.
Teleportation arrays would only open once players pushed the story forward.
Just like expanding the newbie village, expanding towns and cities required large numbers of players to complete quests or meet certain conditions.
Chu Fu looked down at the city below with curiosity.
From a high altitude, she could see Linjiang City's majestic gate towers and the 50-meter-tall city walls.
These were walls built to withstand titans and dragons.
Linjiang City covered an area of only 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers — 25 times larger than Fengdu Town.
But even that wasn't enough.
In the real world, Linjiang City stretched at least 30 kilometers from the city center to its outskirts.
When the game descended into reality, if Linjiang City wasn't expanded, more than half its population would end up stuck outside safe zones.
It might even happen that, as the land expands, one could get lost out in the wilderness.
