Chapter 15 – The Growing Team

“You… you have Remnant Souls?”

It had only been one day since this batch of newcomers arrived. Most didn’t even dare to leave their territories, let alone obtain Remnant Souls. Low-level, low-tier monsters couldn’t drop Remnant Souls.

This kid’s got some skills.

“Just lucky, just lucky.”

Mu Yuan clasped his hands in a modest gesture.

Frog-Selling Bro stared at Mu Yuan, eyes wide: Weren’t we supposed to be struggling together? Turns out you’re actually a pro? I misjudged you… Pro, please carry me!

…

Mu Yuan hadn’t been carrying the Remnant Souls with him earlier, but that wasn’t a problem. As long as his character was in front of the Altar, he could extract items from the game at any time.

The association had even built many private rooms for players to use—commonly known as internet cafe private booths.

Mu Yuan entered one, tapped on his phone a few times, and extracted all three Random Remnant Souls.

Rounding up, this was basically like having a spatial backpack with him.

It’s just that the cross-border fee was ridiculously expensive—they deserve to be hung from streetlights!

…

Carrying the Remnant Souls, Mu Yuan quickly returned to the stall.

The Boss had been waiting eagerly. Seeing the handsome young man actually holding Remnant Souls, he broke into a smile.

This newcomer has potential.

In that case, I shouldn’t scam him too hard. A moderate profit will do.

Wait, it seems there’s more than one Remnant Soul.

“You… how many Remnant Souls do you have?”

“Three Remnant Souls, all Random Remnant Souls.”

Mu Yuan showed an embarrassed smile.

Stall Boss: “…”

This newcomer definitely has the makings of a Lord! Forget it, forget it, I can’t scam him. It’s just a small deal anyway. Whether I earn more or less doesn’t matter. Consider it building good karma.

Mu Yuan then said, “Boss, you should know that Random Remnant Souls are more valuable than Little Skeleton Remnant Souls, right?”

…

After some back-and-forth haggling reminiscent of a vegetable market, Mu Yuan eventually exchanged his three Random Remnant Souls for five Little Skeleton Remnant Souls from Boss Zhang.

Both parties were pleased.

Boss Zhang: Forget it, forget it. Making money isn’t important. What matters is building good karma.

“Boss, it seems you also purchase goods here, right?”

“That’s right.” Boss Zhang was a merchant player who made a little money by buying low and selling high. “But I don’t buy just anything. Things like Random Remnant Souls, cultivation Materials, and advancement Materials—I buy those quite often.”

“Wait, don’t tell me you still have…”

“Just this last drop… this bottle of Energy Potion. Boss, I heard this kind of Energy Potion can let you go seven times in one night…”

A long while later,

Boss Zhang stared in the direction where Mu Yuan had long disappeared from view, lost in thought.

“Did I just lose out?”

But looking at the orange potion in his hand, Boss Zhang tightened his grip, unwilling to let go.

…

After the transaction, Mu Yuan quickly made his escape. After several transfers using different modes of transport, he finally returned home.

Though he was just being paranoid and fighting imaginary enemies.

“After all, the things I sold aren’t worth much in the eyes of veteran players, even if the price were multiplied several times.”

As a pure newbie who’d only been practicing for one day, how much wealth could he possibly have?

Risking breaking the law and becoming a public enemy just to rob a poor guy—Mu Yuan didn’t think it was worth it.

However,

“If I get any Advanced Treasures in the future and want to sell them, I can’t be this blatant about it.”

Back home, Mu Yuan glanced at the game’s situation, rubbed his hands together, and opened the Taixuan Forum.”Notification: Your identity has been verified. The Taixuan Forum is now officially open to you. We wish you a pleasant experience.”

“Notification: Trading Zone has been unlocked. Bounty Zone (Novice) has been unlocked.”

The Bounty Zone contained tasks such as capturing wanted criminals, hunting roaming monsters, and clearing monster camps. However, these tasks were too advanced for newcomers, and novice players weren’t qualified to accept them anyway.

Rather than being actual bounties, it was more like a warning for new players – indicating which cities had wanted criminal players operating, which mountains and forests had powerful monsters roaming about, advising them to steer clear.

Mu Yuan scanned through the list. Fortunately, there were no wanted criminals or roaming monsters in Baijiang City.

As for the Trading Zone,

“This is what a real trading platform looks like. That small trading market in Baijiang City… let’s not even mention it.”

But after browsing through it, Mu Yuan had only one thought – he was really broke!

Moreover, buying and selling on this trading platform required paying substantial shipping fees and deposits.

This trading platform wasn’t worth looking at!

……

Mu Yuan closed the platform, browsed the forum for a while, ordered lunch delivery, and then began today’s conquest.

“The forum is accessible, and the subsidies have arrived. From now until the resource assessment begins… this will be the real grind period.”

As long as it doesn’t kill your liver, grind until you die!

He checked the game records.

The entire morning had passed peacefully in the territory, with no monster disturbances… which disappointed Mu Yuan somewhat.

Humans are never satisfied.

When he was weak, he feared monster attacks. Now that he wasn’t weak, he complained that monsters wouldn’t package themselves up and deliver themselves to him.

This generation of monsters really doesn’t know how to behave.

He checked each skeleton’s status one by one.

「Skeleton Soldier ‘Deadbone’ has reached Tier 0 Level 3.」

「Skeleton Soldier ‘Bone Two’ has reached Tier 0 Level 2.”Skeleton Soldier”

“Little Skeleton”

From last night until now, not only had Deadbone reached level three first, but Little Skeleton and the lone falcon had collectively advanced to level two. The cost was that the Soul Sand obtained from yesterday’s battles had been almost completely depleted.

Leveling up required it! Materializing Treasures required it! All sorts of things required it.

Such a small amount of Soul Sand simply wasn’t enough.

“Relying solely on monster drops for Soul Sand isn’t enough to train Deadbone and the other skeletons to Professional Tier. I still need to purchase from other players.”

Among veteran players, there were those specialized in ‘gold farming’. These were naturally ranger players who had lost their Lord status, with tiers not high enough, only able to earn some hard-earned money to make ends meet.

But Mu Yuan was also earning hard money.

He needed to sell the Treasures he obtained in exchange for pitiful amounts of Soul Sand. And a single Remnant Soul could only fetch a few dozen grams of Soul Sand. Indeed, making money was really difficult.

……

Today was Mu Yuan’s second day since obtaining the game qualification. He wanted to play safe, but proper external development was necessary to survive more steadily on the Eternal Continent.

Before heading out, Mu Yuan prepared to recruit 5 newbie little skeletons.

“Recruitment requires 5 Remnant Souls and 25g of Soul Sand. Fortunately, I sold the Energy Potion earlier, otherwise I’d be stuck without Soul Sand now.”

“But sending the Soul Sand to the Eternal Continent means another cross-border fee expense.”

Mu Yuan’s heart was bleeding.

He felt that the Eternal Continent was the biggest black-hearted Boss, with players constantly moving resources back and forth – how much toll fees must they be paying?

After consuming his limited Soul Sand, soon, several more little skeletons came stumbling down from the Lord Altar.They looked as dull-witted as ever, staggering along with steps so unsteady they seemed about to collapse at any moment, making it impossible to hold any expectations for the little skeletons.

However,

the Undead General stepped forward. He strode directly in front of several skeleton juniors and rattled off a stream of skeleton speech with clattering sounds.

“Remain steadfast in following the Lord’s footsteps, work hard moving bricks… Learn to deceive, to ambush those monsters… No need to talk about martial virtue with monsters—throw lime when you should, slide tackle when it’s called for…”

Mu Yuan vaguely grasped the general meaning of Deadbone’s words, but whether these dull-witted little skeletons could understand was another matter.

“Very good, full of spirit.”

After Deadbone inspected the newly joined skeletons, Mu Yuan also examined Deadbone and the two other skeleton soldiers.

Leaving aside Bone Two and Bone Three, Deadbone’s progress extended far beyond just his Rank.

Not only had he grown increasingly proficient with Cleave, now capable of executing three consecutive Cleaves, but he had also independently developed numerous combat techniques and tactics.

Such as Donkey Roll, Eye Gouging, Fatal Groin Strike, and so on.

Mu Yuan fell silent for a moment.

Something felt off about this development. Why would his Deadbone, who possessed the bearing of an Emperor, come up with these techniques? Oh, wait—it might have something to do with his own teachings? Yes, indeed, these moves were quite practical. For Deadbone to extrapolate so creatively truly demonstrated his Emperor-quality potential. He certainly lived up to having been taught by Mu Yuan.

“But to be fair, the combat power difference between skeleton soldiers with combat techniques and those who only charge straight ahead is enormous, and Deadbone is clearly still in a period of rapid improvement.”

“Are all units that have undergone Awakening of self-awareness this outrageous?”

“Or is Deadbone just a bit more outrageous than other outrageous units?”

“I wonder what kind of scene it will be when Deadbone undergoes evolution again.”

「Skeleton Evolution Points: 2.52」

If things went smoothly, he would be able to evolve his first rare-tier unit tonight.

(End of Chapter)