“Whoosh—”
A small snowball exploded on the head of a Dragonfang General, bursting into countless tiny ice crystals that seeped into its body.
“Crack!”
Almost instantly afterward, an icicle followed, and with the sound of shattering frost, the Dragonfang General’s entire head exploded, leaving behind a headless corpse that began to fall slowly—though before it could hit the ground, the body dissolved into particles of white light and vanished.
Frost Staff quest completed.
Bai Qiu turned and left…
Three minutes later, a group of players rushed up from below to the rooftop.
The leader quickly gave orders:
“A-Qiang! Draw aggro and raise your shield!”
“Everyone else—focus fire the target once you see it! I’ll prepare to chant my Noble Phantasm!”
“Uh… Boss, it looks like… there’s no Dragonfang General here.”
“What? Impossible! I saw it through my telescope just five minutes ago—it was right on top of this building! Check the map, quick—see if the marker’s still there. Did it run off early?” the leader said urgently.
“Uh… it’s really gone. The map marker’s disappeared too, which means someone else must have—”
“Damn it! Stolen again!”
…………………
“Uuuh… mmph!” Zhang Shiyao woke up and stretched lazily.
She checked the chat channel to confirm the time, then wandered sleepily to the bathroom to wash up.
After last night’s all-nighter, her reputation was now completely established.
Her private messages were overflowing—there was no need to worry about losing customers or being outcompeted anymore.
There were two reasons for that:
Most of her customers were night owls; they were probably just waking up now.
She only needed to browse the Trading Post to see the current market prices—so long as she kept her prices below average, her strong reputation guaranteed steady sales.
“Ha, just as I thought. Everyone’s selling this stuff now—competition’s so fierce there’s barely any profit left…” Zhang Shiyao smiled as she browsed the Trading Post.
Fortunately, her foresight had let her cash in big earlier.
“Hmm… let’s see if Brother Bai Qiu’s selling anything…”
She searched Bai Qiu’s shop number, but found it completely empty—the only transaction record was the healing potion he’d sold her yesterday.
“Emm… really nothing, huh? How strange. He even reminded me yesterday… he must’ve realized it too. Why isn’t he trying to make a profit?” she muttered, resting her chin in her hands.
She knew Bai Qiu, with his ocular technique, could see perfectly well in the dark—and she knew that right now, he was the only person capable of moving freely between different safe zones to hunt monsters.
If anyone could make money off this, it was him—he had both the strength and the brains.
“Well, whatever! It’s done. Time for breakfast.”
But what she didn’t know was that Bai Qiu had already marked all the items he wanted from the shop, and he was confident he could earn enough Dragonfang currency just by grinding monsters.
Rather than fighting over scraps with everyone else, it was better to focus on improving his own power.
By evening, Bai Qiu finished his monster-hunting routine for the day.
Both his Thorn Staff and Stone Staff quest progress for regular monsters were now full—only the elite monsters remained.
Unfortunately, since many players had reached level 10 and started competing for their region-exclusive skills by hunting Dragonfang Generals, the elite monsters on the map had begun disappearing one after another.
Even Bai Qiu couldn’t find any left to complete his progress.
As for the final one, the Tidal Staff, Bai Qiu had tried several times but found it extremely difficult to kill Dragonfang Soldiers with it.
The water currents it generated lacked the ice element’s penetrative properties and had no real destructive force—it was nearly impossible to kill through direct hits.
So he decided to stop experimenting for now.
He’d finish the Thorn and Stone Staff quests first—then focus all his effort on solving the Tidal Staff’s problem.
Since there were no more elite monsters showing up on the map, he might as well try the Domain dungeons instead!
Bai Qiu wanted to explore a new approach — after all, weren’t there elite monsters inside the Crimson Feather Domain too?
But his luck stat was honestly miserable.
Despite killing so many monsters, he hadn’t gotten a single Domain Dungeon Card drop.
In his experience, the more “useful” something was to the system, the harder it was for him to get it — or it simply never dropped at all.
Based on drop frequency, the order went like this: Materials (guaranteed drop) < Sanctum Coins < Item Cards < Equipment < Weapons < Skill Books < Domain Blueprints.
So, if he wanted to farm elite monsters inside a dungeon, he had two options — either find some people from other area channels to form a party, or go with Zhang Shiyao.
But for her, it was clearly more profitable right now to farm Dragonfang Soldiers and trade Dragonfangs with the Magic Merchant, so Bai Qiu didn’t plan to ask her to join him.
As for buying dungeon cards?
Out of the question.
At this stage, the rarer something was, the more expensive it got.
Even an E-rank Dungeon Card cost 100,000 Sanctum Coins — Bai Qiu immediately gave up on that idea.
He glanced at his map — today alone, he had crossed 2239 → 2241 → 2242 → 2244 → 2245, five Safe Zones in total.
Including his own 2233 and yesterday’s 2240, he had unlocked seven teleport devices altogether.
Then he opened the chat channel — a storm of public messages and pinned ads filled the screen, all with the same purpose: selling goods and collecting Dragonfangs.
But most of these random spammers… were actually from his own 2233 Zone.
Bai Qiu scratched his head.
At this hour, it probably wouldn’t be easy to find a party.
He reluctantly toggled his profile settings, deciding what to hide or show.
After all, he had never spoken in public chat before — best to keep some information private.
For instance, the fact that he was from Zone 2233.
Nearby players had noticed that many elite monsters along the border regions were mysteriously disappearing.
Naturally, their suspicions fell on the only person from Zone 2233 who had completed the second stage mission.
In the end, Bai Qiu decided to only make his nickname, level, and Trading Post shop ID public.
Bai Qiu: “Anyone up for a Domain dungeon run? Take me along — I’m fine with anything from Zone 2230 to 2250.”
BigResentment: “Who’s still running Domains right now? That’s suicide! The teams that went in two days ago still haven’t come back — they’re probably all wiped out.”
I’llPatchYourEgg: “Exactly! You must be shining a lantern in the toilet — looking for crap, huh?”
AnOrangeCat: “Hey, maybe check his level before you talk.”
SheSaidIt’sATan: “Holy crap!! Level 16 boss!!”
“Boss, you’re insane!!”
“Insane!!”
“F***!!”
“@I’llPatchYourEgg bro, you’re done for.”
I’llPatchYourEgg: “Boss, I was just kidding, I’m deleting my message— damn it! Too late!”
FunnyGuy: “@Bai Qiu: Boss, he’s in Zone 2222 — go get him.”
I’llPatchYourEgg: “??? You mother****er, come say that to my face! You wanna go?!”
Bai Qiu had thought his message would sink unnoticed, but just revealing his level alone had set off a chain explosion of reactions…
Still, he wasn’t interested in the flood of nonsense messages on the Cross-Zone Chat.
Instead, he opened his private messages, hoping to find something useful.
Unsurprisingly, there were lots of DMs — most asking how he leveled up so fast.
After filtering through for about half a minute, he finally found one that mattered.
Ning Xingxue: “I’m in Zone 2243. I’ve got an E-rank Domain Dungeon Card.”
‘Wanna meet and talk?’
— The end of the Chapter–
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