Chapter 76: Astonishment
The intense pain numbed the bucket-headed man's scalp. Just as he tried to leap backward with all his strength, his brain successfully issued the command, but his body had no reaction at all, as if he had been completely anesthetized.
[You are being eroded by an unknown energy. You will be immobilized for 2.3 seconds.]
At this moment, the bucket-headed man's feelings were beyond what a simple "what the hell" could describe. This kind of hard crowd control ability didn't even give a chance for a judgment check. Wasn't that a bit too reckless?
"Body... can't move, what the hell!"
The reason the bucket-headed man shouted "what the hell" was because a large, crisscrossing net of blades was slashing toward him, filling his entire field of vision. One slash was already enough for him to handle, but as for this net of blades, the bucket-headed man could only laugh bitterly. He didn't even bother using his life-saving abilities.
When the bucket-headed man regained consciousness, he was already inside the rest cabin, completely dumbfounded.
In the audience stands, Xia's red lips parted slightly. She hadn't even seen the fight clearly, only a terrifying flash of blade net, and then one side on the arena platform had already turned into countless specks of light and vanished.
"This..."
The black-haired, straight-haired girl stared blankly.
"Xia, I think I'm in love. Strong, ferocious, this is a god-tier man."
Beside her, Xia let out a bitter laugh.
"Wake up, silly girl. No, you'd better go back, wash up, and go to sleep."
"Tch, just kidding. Based on my judgment, this must be a cold and aloof man. If I run into him in a derivative world, I'll just be trembling in fear. Let's go."
The black-haired, straight-haired girl and Xia left the arena. Watching a match within the top 200 of the second rank was not cheap. For two workers, watching one match was already quite extravagant.
Of course, if they had an invitation from a participant in the match, they could watch for free, with a limit of five spots. But Su Xiao didn't know this. His only purpose in coming to the arena was to fight.
Inside the rest cabin, Su Xiao checked his ranking. It had risen from 105th to 101st, a slow progress.
He continued waiting for a match opponent. With nothing else to do, Su Xiao took out his tablet.
...
Two days later, in the trading market, Su Xiao sat behind a stall. On the stall were intermediate alchemy bombs for sale.
Su Xiao's mana value was a full 2410 points. The production cost for each intermediate alchemy bomb was 30 mana points + 100 paradise coins. That meant, if he consumed all his mana, he could produce a total of 80 intermediate alchemy bombs.
Due to insufficient paradise coins, Su Xiao could only make a few to sell first. At 300 paradise coins each, given how popular intermediate alchemy bombs were, they would sell out quickly.
Su Xiao had been at the stall for about an hour. The current batch was his second production run, and there were only 5 left.
Soon, a contractor passing by the stall bought the alchemy bombs. Su Xiao's savings returned to five digits: 23,860 paradise coins.
Su Xiao yawned. For the past two days, he had either been in the arena or in his exclusive room practicing his blade, occasionally visiting Xia's restaurant.
His arena ranking had reached 56th, with a winning streak of 256 matches. It wasn't that his strength had plateaued, but that matching opponents was too slow.
One strange thing happened during these two days. Xia seemed to have been stimulated by something and started asking him about combat knowledge. His relationship with Xia was good, so he naturally didn't skimp on sharing some combat techniques.
With his mana completely depleted, Su Xiao couldn't fight in the arena. With nothing to do, he sat behind the stall and observed the passing contractors.
"Bubu, have you noticed? The atmosphere in reincarnation paradise has been a bit off these past two days."
"Woof."
Bubu Wang's dog face looked confused.
"Forget it. Asking you is like asking a wall."
Su Xiao had a bad feeling. It wasn't just the atmosphere; prices had also risen slightly over the past two days, giving the impression of a storm brewing.
Just as Su Xiao was pondering the changes within reincarnation paradise, a prompt to return to the real world appeared.
[Hunter has reached the maximum stay limit in reincarnation paradise.]
...
[Teleportation begins. Location: real world.]
[Warning: Due to special circumstances, the stay time in the real world is extended. Duration: 7 to 15 days.]
"As expected. Something is about to happen."
After a solid, roundhouse "muffled blow," Su Xiao passed out.
Ring, ring, ring~
The alarm clock rang in his ear. Su Xiao sat up with a gasp. A sharp pain came from the back of his head, and he instinctively reached back to cover it.
"This is too exaggerated."
Su Xiao shook his head. The sharp pain in the back of his head disappeared. Although the feeling of being teleported was never pleasant, this time the force was at least a dozen times stronger than before.
What was even more unusual was that Su Xiao had already converted part of his real world stay time into reincarnation paradise stay time. Even so, he would still have to stay in the real world for at least 7 days, and at most 15 days.
This time, he was certain that something was about to happen.
Turning off the alarm clock that wouldn't stop ringing on the table, Su Xiao pulled open the curtains on the second floor and saw that it was morning in the real world. He glanced at the alarm clock; it was around 6 o'clock.
Su Xiao went downstairs and pulled up the rolling shutter door of the jewelry store. The jewelry store, which basically had no customers, was open for business.
"Yo, Su Xiao?"
With an exclamation, a middle-aged fat man with a beer belly walked over. This was the owner of the neighboring funeral supply shop, "Feng Shui Master" Fatty Ma.
"When did you get back? You've been in the news, haha. Need to go hide out in my hometown? It wouldn't be the first time."
Although Fatty Ma was a Feng Shui fraud, this guy was very loyal. Once, the "rat" old man from the antique shop across the street was beaten up by a group of thugs. Without a word, Fatty Ma grabbed a big chopping knife and went to get revenge on those thugs. The result was that he was hospitalized for three months. He had courage but no strategy, but he was loyal.
When Su Xiao visited him in the hospital with fruit, Fatty Ma shivered and said two words: "Get revenge."
Su Xiao had a good relationship with the two eccentric shops next door, but rarely interacted with the rat from the antique shop. During his revenge period, some of his weapons were provided for free by Fatty Ma's younger brother, the owner of the flower, bird, fish, and insect shop.
Once, when Su Xiao made a mistake during an assassination and was chased by the police, it was Fatty Ma who stepped up and provided the address of a remote village in his hometown for Su Xiao to take refuge.
During that hospitalization, Fatty Ma had three ribs broken, a severe concussion, and a fractured leg bone. Su Xiao went to find those thugs. They had intended to kill Fatty Ma, so those thugs subsequently vanished from the face of the earth. In reality, they were already at the bottom of the East City Ring River.
"Just got back a few days ago."
Su Xiao had indeed only reopened the store a few days ago.
"Had breakfast yet?"
"Not yet."
"Then let's go to the usual place... No, you're a fugitive now."
Fatty Ma looked thoughtful. He still had some leftover noodles from last night's dinner, but being a proud man, he would never invite Su Xiao to eat leftover noodles.
"It's fine now. It was a misunderstanding."
Su Xiao was now a law-abiding citizen. The police wouldn't come looking for him, unless the people from the scavengers had water in their brains.
"A misunderstanding? A wanted criminal... can be a misunderstanding?"
Fatty Ma clearly didn't believe it.
"Experts also say breathing air is harmful to your health. Don't worry, I'm a law-abiding citizen now."
Su Xiao's words left Fatty Ma stunned.
"You? A law-abiding citizen? Be honest with your brother, how many days has it been since you killed someone? Has it been a month? I doubt it."
"Cough."
Su Xiao cleared his throat. It had been about four days. He couldn't say that to Fatty Ma.
"Has the warrant really been lifted?"
"Is there any need to lie to you?"
"Alright then, the usual place. Get in the car."
Fatty Ma walked toward his fifth-hand, beat-up Jetta. It wasn't that this guy was broke, but his car often got vandalized, after all, he was a "Feng Shui Master."
In the car, Fatty Ma took a deep breath, and the veins on his fat right hand bulged. Don't get the wrong idea; he was just shifting gears in this fifth-hand, beat-up Jetta.
Crack, crack.
The harsh sound of grinding gears came, and the Jetta slowly started.
"Need to change the oil. Haven't done it in a while. By the way, is it okay to leave a dog to watch the store? And it's a Husky. Won't it tear the place apart?"
Fatty Ma looked at the jewelry store from the rearview mirror. Bubu Wang was lying on the sofa at the entrance of the jewelry store. Fatty Ma couldn't understand how a killer like Su Xiao could keep a Husky.
"Should... be fine... probably."
The car slowly started. Fatty Ma, with his belly as big as a ten-month pregnancy, had very little space between the steering wheel and his gut.
"Su Xiao, I don't know if you've heard, but there was a major murder case in our city. They say five people died, and it was brutal. I heard one of them was a local official."
"Haven't heard about it."
Su Xiao wasn't interested in this kind of thing. He had seen too many dead people.
"There are rumors going around that the killer was a professional assassin with a scorpion tattoo on his arm. Don't know if it's true."
"An assassin... with a scorpion on his arm..."
Su Xiao frowned and asked, "Where did you hear this?"
"From my brother. You interested?"
"A bit..."
Su Xiao knew an assassin who had a scorpion tattoo on his arm. He had a life-and-death bond with that person, and that person had helped him kill someone before.
If it was that person making a move, they shouldn't have caused such a big commotion.