Chapter 1464: Sparring Partner
"The King of Moon City gave it to me," Yan Jiayu said. "They were probably terrified of this thing. Once they found out the gem had been with the King of Gem City all along, they handed it over to me. If the 'Most Beautiful Gem' is gone from the instance, there probably won't be this clearance task in the later stages either."
"Maybe the game will modify the clearance task," Xu Huo said. "And the result?"
"It's just an ordinary C-grade gem, exceptionally beautiful," Tu Xiaoxiao answered on her behalf. "A collector might offer a high price for it."
Xu Huo nodded. The next step was figuring out how to handle this batch of ore.
"I have a good channel. If you trust me, leave it to me," Tu Xiaoxiao said.
Yan Jiayu shook her head. "This batch of ore is a bit dangerous. We can't just buy and sell it casually."
"Sell it to the Game Government," Xu Huo suggested. "The Game Government probably won't scatter this ore around carelessly. If it's used as raw material for items, it won't be easy to trace the source."
Yan Jiayu had no objections. "I'll try the bounty platform first. If the bounty platform doesn't take it, then I'll sell it to the District Government."
She took charge of the matter, saying that if Xu Huo wasn't in a hurry for money, he could wait until she sold it before splitting the proceeds.
Then she brought up the rewards from this clearance. They hadn't taken many risks this time, but the gains were still decent. Besides the clearance rewards, each of them had obtained a few items in the instance. Xu Huo had a B-grade feather quill, while Yan Jiayu had used her B-grade item to trade for another B-grade item during the performance. Their gains were about the same, so there was no need to split further.
Seeing her interest in puppets, Xu Huo gave her a C-grade item from the instance rewards.
"A puppet?" Yan Jiayu was surprised. "You like puppets too?"
Sometimes the game gave rewards based on a player's daily habits or hobbies. She hadn't gotten a puppet this time, which meant Xu Huo wasn't dealing with puppets for the first time.
"Not just that—the game even gave me a puppet-making manual," Xu Huo said, having already read the book. "But puppets are a bit unlucky for me. If you like them, take them. Otherwise, I'll sell them later."
Yan Jiayu was very interested. She also borrowed the book from him and said enthusiastically, "Buying robots is too expensive. If I can make them myself, I can save a huge amount on labor costs. I've wanted a robot for transportation for a long time!"
Xu Huo's three robots—one was a game reward, and two were acquired from others—hadn't cost him anything. Actually buying these high-cost machines that weren't as useful as items was something most players were reluctant to do.
"Materials are expensive too," Tu Xiaoxiao chimed in. "At least half of the Artificers quit because they were broke."
"You're already pretty broke."
Yan Jiayu sat on the Most Beautiful Gem and patted the pile of black ore beside her. "Once I sell this, I won't be broke anymore."
Tu Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes. "So are you still working?"
Yan Jiayu waved her hand generously. "Who works when they have money? Don't set up your stall either. Let's go have some fun for a couple of days."
Then she enthusiastically invited Xu Huo.
Xu Huo had other matters to attend to, so the three of them parted ways after leaving the warehouse.
Old Lady Lu's item wouldn't be ready so quickly, so he first went to the Mechanical Castle.
Part of the Mechanical Castle was open for public exhibition, while the inner castle was the mayor's residence. Bai Kou had been staying there for the past few days, and today he planned to try his luck there as well.
This time, he came for an open visit, so he directly approached the players stationed inside.
When an outside guest arrived, whether to receive them was up to the house's owner. The security players were only responsible for reporting the visit information and didn't deliberately cause trouble or interrogate.
After waiting half a minute, a player came out and led him into the inner castle. "Please wait in the lounge. Someone will come to get you shortly."
After politely seeing him in, the person left. But Xu Huo wasn't the only one waiting in the lounge.
A young man, only about twenty years old, was standing with his back to him, admiring an oil painting on the wall. He seemed not to notice anyone entering and didn't turn around.
Xu Huo found a seat facing the door and sat down.
Two minutes later, the young man finally turned around. He glanced at Xu Huo, his chin lifting at a subtle angle. On someone not particularly tall, this gave an impression of looking down from a height.
But the man wasn't targeting him specifically—his gaze merely swept over Xu Huo before moving away. He then sat down nearby in the same posture, maintaining his silence.
After waiting a bit longer, the door opened. Bai Kou entered first, followed by a tall man who bore some resemblance to the young man. He appeared to be around thirty, with more striking features and a more mature demeanor.
Xu Huo noticed that as soon as the man entered, his gaze first landed on him and lingered meaningfully for a moment. Xu Huo smiled and nodded in greeting.
The man ignored him and turned to Bai Kou instead. "I'll take my leave today. I'll invite you out for a meal another time."
Bai Kou didn't respond, but a slight change in her eyes showed impatience.
The man was perceptive enough not to say more and left with his brother.
The lounge door closed again, but Bai Kou's expression didn't relax with their departure.
Xu Huo felt he had come at a bad time.
"You've been to see Teacher Lu?" Bai Kou turned back to ask.
Xu Huo nodded. "Making the item will take some time. Do you have any free time recently?"
Bai Kou studied him. "Want to test the effects of Super Evolution?"
"Do you have time?" Xu Huo asked. Although he occasionally encountered individual Mental Super Evolvers in the game, most couldn't communicate on equal terms. And those like Old Zheng from Fresh Flower City and the magician Moth Art were life-and-death struggles, leaving no room for study and progress. To understand the limits of evolution, he needed someone to cooperate with.
"Alright." Bai Kou didn't refuse. Instead, she smiled. "You came at just the right time."
Then she led him to a specially designed testing room.
"I'm the only one who uses this place. All the equipment here is calibrated to my data." Bai Kou pointed through the glass window at a metal clock in the room that had only a single hand. "If your Spiritual Power can't make that hand move after materializing, then you can leave."
As soon as she finished speaking, the hand on the dial moved from the starting position to "6."
"Is this acceptable?" Xu Huo lowered his head slightly, looking at the person beside him.
"I can see you've made considerable progress—your confidence has swelled..." Bai Kou walked into the adjacent room first. "Come in."
To avoid interfering with the Evolvers, the instruments recording data were placed in the next room. As soon as the two entered the room, two sets of values on the holographic projection began to climb rapidly. One of them neared the peak for a moment but quickly fell back, staying in the middle range. The other value was very stable, showing almost no fluctuation in the first ten minutes. But after ten minutes, this data began to spike and plummet sharply, once even disappearing...
"Bang!" Xu Huo hit the wall with considerable force and lowered his head to spit out blood.