What had originally been a cooperative arrangement had now turned into a business transaction.
The Suture Saint was not one to be polite about money.
“At the going market rate, one point in all attributes is worth 100 gold coins. Ten attribute points would be 1,000 gold coins. Since there are so many of you, I’ll charge a flat rate of 100 million gold. Do you agree?”
“Oh, and that includes the resurrection fee. Two hundred million gold coins. If you agree, pay immediately. If not, I’m leaving.”
“And don’t waste time. You don’t seriously think this place is safe, do you? The lich here is dead, but the liches and undead legions in the other rifts are still alive. For all you know, the divine envoys in the central region could be sending bone dragons over. You have ten minutes to decide. Once the time is up, I’m gone!”
The Suture Saint made her ultimatum.
Jack sent Duke Morgan a private message.
“Let’s have the guilds pool their money and clear this Origin-tier dungeon. The undead are all carrying level-30 Dark Gold equipment, and the bosses can drop diamonds. We won’t be losing money.
“Besides, what if we improve our talents? Even improving a talent just once would be more profitable than grinding contribution points.”
Duke Morgan agreed that it made sense. He then said, “We can’t be the only ones paying. Every player has to contribute.”
“Is this really the time to argue about that? She’s only giving us ten minutes.”
“Fine!”
The veteran guilds were indeed wealthy. The five major guilds pooled their resources and eventually scraped together 200.03 million gold coins, which they handed over to the Suture Saint.
Only then did the Suture Saint revive them. This time, she did not use the Holy Healing Angel. When the Holy Healing Angel had resurrected them the first time, their flesh and blood had already been completely restored.
The Suture Saint’s skill was quite impressive. It left only small wounds, killed people quickly, and made resurrection relatively painless.
Afterward, the Suture Saint took the Holy Healing Angel with her and piloted her mecha. In less than a minute, they reached the central region.
The enemy they encountered was a headless knight divine envoy.
Of course, as divine envoys went, an unnamed one was nothing to fear. It was only level 30, though it did possess a World Boss template.
The Suture Saint and the Holy Healing Angel launched a relentless barrage of attacks. It took only thirty-three seconds to kill the boss.
The Suture Saint also cleared out the bosses in the other areas while she was at it.
Then she took out a vacuum cleaner and began sucking up the equipment.
Shen Chi was a mechanic, and machinery existed to serve people.
At first, mechanical wings had become popular among the masses. Later came mechas. Now even vacuum cleaners were beginning to see widespread civilian use.
The thing really was convenient.
The Suture Saint sucked up everything.
The dungeon was over. The two of them piloted their mecha out of the Origin-tier dungeon from the location of the final wave of monsters—the western part of the city.
They then used the mecha’s spatial-jump function to return to Thorn City.
When the others heard that the Suture Saint had raked in 200 million gold coins, they were stunned.
“We thought 3 million gold coins was already a lot. You two really know how to make money!”
The Suture Saint said, “That only proves they’re wealthy. The gold has already been handed over to the guild. Remember to give us our bonus.”
This mission had originally been accepted by the guild. If Chu Fu had not sent the two of them, she could just as easily have sent Little Sister Wu or Dr. Chen, the orthopedics director.
Still, the two of them had been sent out on field duty, so they were entitled to a 5% bonus!
Two hundred million gold coins had netted them 10 million directly.
The Suture Saint did not care much. After all, she owned shares in the guild. Now that there were 1,000 Origin-tier dungeons, and each one provided the guild with a 50% share of the profits, she could receive dividends from those earnings as well. She had long since achieved absolute financial freedom.
The Holy Healing Angel, on the other hand, was a worker who had abandoned the darkness for the light. Receiving 10 million gold coins was practically a fortune to her.
No one paid much attention to the money. After all, they all knew that one day, when the game descended upon reality, the thing that would give them a sense of security would never be real-world currency or in-game gold.
It would be their own strength.
…
Meanwhile, after being resurrected, Jack and Duke Morgan discovered that the dungeon had ended. Naturally unwilling to give up, they hurried into the dungeon to search for equipment, only to find that not a single item had been left behind.
“Are their spatial bags really that huge? They took everything? They even took the corpses?”
“Fuck! Dismantle this place. Take everything that can be carried. We’ll recover whatever we can.”
They began moving things out piece by piece.
Unfortunately, these people had far too little experience with Origin-tier dungeons.
They had entered the dungeon only after the ninth wave of monsters had died.
Then they had fought to hold the line, died, and finally found the Thorn Guild.
By the time the Suture Saint arrived, five hours had already passed.
Only two hours remained, and those two hours slipped away unnoticed while they were busy looting.
These people knew too little about Origin-tier dungeons. They assumed that once the dungeon timer ran out and the spatial rift closed, they would still be able to use a Return Scroll to go back.
They had no idea that once the rift closed, they would be trapped there permanently and hunted by every undead creature in the dungeon.
Logging out was impossible as well.
If they logged out, they would be unable to log back in, because the server for the Origin-tier dungeon—the plane itself—was not located on the side of the Primordial Gate. A connection could be established only while the rift was open.
As time passed, the deadline finally arrived.
The rift closed completely.
The players were trapped inside the dungeon, unable to escape.
Fortunately, the siege of Freedom City had ultimately been successfully defended. At least no city had been lost.
Otherwise, when the game invaded reality, the United States would have been overrun by monsters, and countless American civilians would have been forced from their homes.
As for the players who had died in the dungeon, they naturally began making a fuss as well.
“Boycott the Thorn Guild for making outrageous demands and concealing information, causing one hundred thousand players to be stranded in an Origin-tier dungeon!”
“You’re the ones who were insatiably greedy! They had already cleared the dungeon and left, but you stayed behind to loot it!”
“Do you know that Gao Qiang used to protect the people of China—not you? Otherwise, we could have drowned you in spit with a single mouthful! How dare you still make a scene?”
“The Thorn Guild went out of its way to save you, and you still bit them in return. You’re nothing but rabid dogs.”
“Ban all further cooperation with the United States!”
At the same time, Feng Huimin posted three messages in succession.
[The Truth Behind the Freedom City Origin-tier Dungeon]
[Specific Requirements for Requests for Assistance in Clearing Origin-tier Dungeons: Full Payment Must Be Made in Advance. The Thorn Guild Guarantees a 100% Dungeon Clear Rate.]
[Statement from Thorn Group Refusing Cooperation with All Guilds in the United States]
A guild from a game actually dared to challenge an entire country?
Although the Thorn Guild’s statement was directed only at guilds within the United States, those guilds were effectively controlled by financial conglomerates.
It was much like the four major corporations of Linjiang City before this—they dominated their server.
And now, they had finally encountered someone capable of imposing sanctions on them.
Moreover, after the statement was released, it did not make players from other countries hate the Thorn Guild. Instead, even more people sought to cooperate with them.
Everyone had realized that without cooperation, no one could obtain the divine power to improve their attributes and talents.
As a result, requests for cooperation came pouring in like snowflakes.
Time continued to pass.
Only two days remained before the full-scale siege battles began!
All of China’s servers had already completed their defensive battles.
Chu Fu had begun making arrangements for the sieges in other countries. If they could take a little more, they would take a little more.
One day left on the countdown!
The countdown reaches zero!
