Chapter 214 - 213: A Debriefing

Chapter 214: Chapter 213: A Debriefing

Han Xu requisitioned an underground pool hall to serve as Feng Ling’s accommodations.

While it lacked the amenities of a luxury hotel, its main advantage was being spacious enough to accommodate both people and Pollution Bodies.

After rushing about for the better part of the night, everyone was exhausted. They practically passed out the moment they arrived, only managing to wash up after waking the next day.

Xu Yiming and Huangfu Miaomiao went out to buy breakfast, returning with more than twenty boxes of steamed dumplings, Baozi, and rice noodle rolls.

Ye Zheng could no longer taste human food; he simply ate a packet of nutritional Jelly.

The Cat Owl hadn’t eaten in days, either, and was limp with hunger.

The Cat Spider, however, was in excellent shape. With its large abdomen, it could last a long time after a full meal.

The group gathered around a pool table for breakfast, chatting as they ate.

Feng Ling, of course, had to recap her incredible experience from the previous night.

"...The patrol boat wasn’t due for another five minutes. I couldn’t wait, so I jumped in the water to give chase myself. It was a gamble, but it paid off! Thanks to the buoyancy, my second form became incredibly light and agile in the water. All I had to do was flick my tail a little, and I’d shoot super far. Hahaha~"

Li Qing could understand how Feng Ling felt. She had always complained about being too slow, so she was naturally overjoyed to suddenly discover she had a speed advantage in the water.

In any case, as long as Feng Ling was happy, the whole team’s atmosphere was more relaxed and cheerful.

While feeding the Green Weasel in his arms a piece of Little Jelly, Li Qing said, "Actually, you’re not slow on land, either. You’re just at a disadvantage when compared to Cards that grant a speed bonus."

Feng Ling said, "That Alien Species last night definitely had a Card with a speed bonus. It ran so fast! I looked away for a split second, and it was already at the docks and had even gotten itself a yacht. But no matter how fast it was, all of its Cards belong to me now~"

She swallowed a shrimp dumpling and looked at Li Qing. "Later, I’ll draw the art on the Cards for you so you can see what they are. One is definitely a Gu Insect Master Card, but I’m not sure about the other."

Li Qing nodded. "Okay."

Recalling the previous night’s events, Feng Ling couldn’t help but grin. "After I caught up to the yacht, I knocked it unconscious with a single tail slap. I wonder if it regretted it before it died. If it had just consciously logged off like Xing Guang, I never would have been able to kill it."

"It was probably just hoping to get lucky," Li Qing said mildly. "Logging off costs an enormous amount of points, and everything in your backpack slots gets wiped. Only your Cards are preserved. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, players generally won’t abandon their accounts."

Feng Ling heard this and asked, confused, "Then doesn’t that mean players can’t ever log off? When can you log off normally?"

Li Qing and Huangfu Miaomiao exchanged a glance.

"Actually..." Li Qing began slowly, "Miao Miao currently has enough points to cover the log-off fee. She could log off normally."

"I don’t want to!" Huangfu Miaomiao pouted. "I’m not logging off. I want to keep earning points."

’Earning points while sticking with Feng Ling is just too easy. How could I possibly log off when I have such a golden opportunity!’

Feng Ling glanced at her with a smile. "You definitely can’t log off yet. All my stuff is in your backpack slots."

After some consideration, Li Qing said to Feng Ling, "I can’t explain the details about logging off too clearly, or the system will censor it. But I can give you a rough analogy. For instance, imagine there’s a gold mine in front of you. You can go in and dig for gold, and you can use the gold you find to trade for all sorts of tools to dig more efficiently. You toil away for a month and manage to dig up 101 gold pieces. Finally, you’re ready to leave. To get out, you have to take a special mine cart, and the fare is 100 gold pieces. On top of that, you can’t take any of the tools you acquired inside the mine out with you. So, you pay the 100 gold pieces as required, leave all your tools behind, and exit the mine. That single remaining gold piece is your profit for the entire month’s work."

Feng Ling was silent for a long time after he finished.

She replied, "Thanks for leaving me the one piece."

Li Qing: "..."

Feng Ling was amazed by how exploitative the game was. After a moment’s thought, she said, "A gold mine in a game can respawn gold indefinitely, but the real world doesn’t have that feature. If they want to have an unlimited supply of Pollution Bodies, they must periodically release Cards into this world."

"That’s right." Li Qing nodded. "The current number of Pollution Bodies is nowhere near enough to satisfy the players’ demand. The fastest way to increase their numbers is to open a Maze, allowing the genes inside to spread to the outside world—what you call ’pollution spread.’ Therefore, I believe this is the Star Association’s main objective."

Feng Ling joked, "Wow, those guys at the Star Association really have their work cut out for them. There are 122 Mazes, after all."

"Fifty-three, to be exact," Li Qing said with a perfectly straight face. "In the past six months, players have conquered twenty-seven Mazes. Among the remaining ones, we know that forty-one administrators have been killed. In other words, forty-one Mazes are currently in a state of spreading pollution. That leaves fifty-three Mazes that are still safe."

Beside them, Xu Yiming couldn’t help but do the math in his head. ’...Shouldn’t it be fifty-four Mazes? One hundred twenty-two, minus twenty-seven that have been conquered, minus another forty-one that are polluted... that equals fifty-four, right?’

Li Qing turned his head to remind him, "Feng Ling conquered one."

Xu Yiming’s eyes widened in realization. "Ohhh..."

Feng Ling ate a few bites of her steamed dumpling, but it tasted bland. Her appetite was suffering. "That thing on the yacht said this world would belong to the players sooner or later. I thought it was just spouting nonsense, but from the sound of things, the Star Association’s ’grand’ mission is already about halfway complete. No wonder they’re so arrogant."

Li Qing’s expression grew somber. He said in a low voice, "I’m sorry... I don’t know why they’re like this, either. From my perspective, their actions are completely meaningless."

Xu Yiming glanced from Li Qing to Feng Ling and asked hesitantly, "They killed forty-one administrators in just the six months since they logged in. So... if they kill another forty or fifty in the next six months, won’t all the Mazes be spreading pollution?"

Li Qing quickly reassured him, "No, it won’t come to that. They were able to kill forty-one administrators so quickly in the beginning because we administrators were completely unprepared for players. Now, all the administrators are in hiding; they’re not so easy to find. Besides, the drop rate for Maze clues will continue to decrease, so the situation isn’t as bad as it sounds."

Xu Yiming breathed a small sigh of relief at Li Qing’s words.

Xu Yiming had been to Daling Forest and witnessed firsthand the catastrophe that Maze pollution inflicted upon ordinary people. He couldn’t bear to imagine that pollution was happening in other places around the world as well.

Xu Yiming couldn’t resist asking, "Do other countries know about the Maze pollution?"

Ye Zheng, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly spoke. "They know."

All eyes turned to him.

With a blank expression, Ye Zheng said, "The nation’s Alien Species research institutes have been cooperating with the World Defense Organization all along, sharing technology. The tech and equipment for detecting Mazes have become increasingly sophisticated. The only thing they lack now is a way to control the spread of the pollution."