During the gathering, monsters occasionally wandered in to harass them, but none posed much of a threat.
With so many experts working together to hold the line, not a single person’s belongings were knocked over.
For everyone present, this feast was an undeniably beneficial occasion.
They sampled one another’s premium dishes, and with the stacking effects of the various foods, everyone’s attributes increased considerably.
Bai Qiu was no exception.
His overall abilities received a modest boost as well.
However, the most important part of this gathering for him was the opportunity to learn a wide variety of culinary techniques.
He carefully memorized every movement they made while preparing their dishes.
Later, he would be able to imitate their methods and recreate the recipes himself.
Everyone here had met purely by chance.
They shared their delicacies freely, and if someone found a particular dish irresistible, they could simply purchase it from its creator.
That was the true purpose of this banquet.
Food quickly helped everyone become acquainted with one another, making it easy to begin trading items or bartering goods without reservation.
Bai Qiu’s Fruit Tea & Truffle Sea Urchin Soup received unanimous praise.
Aside from the Drunkard—who genuinely refused to drink anything except alcohol—everyone else wanted to exchange transcendent ingredients or materials for it.
The problem was that he didn’t have any stock left.
He could only decline politely.
Instead, he displayed the raw ingredients—Fragrant Gathering Fruit, Mistsea Tea, and Supremely Rich Black Truffles—while explaining their flavors and uses to the crowd.
In the end, everyone exchanged for a portion of his ingredients, with the Supremely Rich Black Truffles proving to be the most popular.
Although the Fragrant Gathering Fruit tasted excellent as well, truffles, being ingredients that could serve as versatile seasonings, were clearly the more cost-effective choice.
Time passed quickly.
By the time dawn began to brighten the sky, everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, acquired the items they wanted through trade, packed up their belongings, and gradually dispersed.
Bai Qiu stretched lazily before returning to his room in high spirits.
Seeing that not a single argument had broken out before everyone departed, he came to a realization.
Among truly powerful people, as long as fundamental interests weren’t involved, becoming friends was surprisingly easy.
Their cruise ship was repeatedly attacked by super-class monsters along the way, so by the time they finally reached their destination, it was already noon.
“Ding! You have entered a restricted region. The Emperor-tier Pressure granted by the achievement skill Potential of an Emperor exceeds the area’s permitted equipment grade and has been temporarily disabled.”
Bai Qiu blinked in surprise.
They were practically at the shore already, and the system chose this moment to pull something like this.
Still, he didn’t mind.
The skill hadn’t been particularly useful to begin with.
Once the cruise ship docked, players poured out of their cabins and headed toward the exit.
Some looked completely normal, while others wore pale faces and appeared utterly exhausted.
Whether they were seasick or simply traumatized by the relentless monster attacks was hard to tell.
Among the crowd, however, one person walked in the opposite direction—not toward the exit, but toward the deck.
It was Bai Qiu.
Clad in the Skyward Battle Armor and Concealment Cloak, he stood at the edge of the deck, gazing down at the sea of people below.
Just as he had expected, many players had already begun hunting monsters throughout the wilderness to level up.
From the cruise ship, over five hundred meters above the ground, Bai Qiu leaped into the air.
The Concealment Cloak activated, hiding his figure.
Spreading his arms and legs wide, he allowed the wind to carry him in a glide for nearly a kilometer before landing in a secluded location.
The instant he touched the ground, a new system notification appeared.
You have successfully arrived in the Shattered Celestial Realm — the Aminos Archipelago.
A new regional map has been issued.
Bai Qiu took out the new map device.
It looked almost identical to the one he had received at the very start of the game a month earlier.
With practiced familiarity, he opened the map and discovered that the Kalehua Divine Temple, which had been mentioned in the preview, was nowhere to be found within this so-called Shattered Celestial Realm.
Even so, the map was remarkably convenient.
It labeled all the surrounding islands with their names and clearly marked their boundaries.
“1.62 million hectares… This…”
Bai Qiu finally understood why this place could accommodate players from all over the world.
The Aminos Archipelago alone covered such an enormous area, and there were eight other archipelagos of comparable size.
The world’s design was fairly conventional.
There were no fixed level zones, but higher-grade resources tended to be located deeper within each archipelago, naturally attracting more powerful monster species to inhabit those inner regions.
Putting away the map, Bai Qiu saw that all unexplored areas remained shrouded in darkness.
Only the rough outlines of the terrain were visible—mountains, rivers, and other major landforms.
Ordinarily, he should have been searching for high-level monsters as quickly as possible to gain experience and level up.
But for now, he wanted to investigate the region’s resource distribution and determine the strength of the monsters that lived here.
Back on Earth, because geomantic treasure lands formed at an astonishing speed, monsters fortunate enough to receive their blessings often hadn’t grown powerful enough to match the quality of the treasures they guarded.
For example, a Two-Legged Wyvern might only be a King-tier monster, while the Storm Stone it protected was an transcendent material on par with Monarch-tier treasures.
…………
“Just as I thought…”
After killing a giant tiger, Bai Qiu silently confirmed his hypothesis.
This place was the complete opposite of Earth.
For instance, the region he was currently in was rich in C-rank resources, while the giant tiger’s attributes had, for the most part, already reached the C-rank level.
Living for extended periods in a resource-rich environment allowed monsters to develop beyond the level of their habitat, ultimately growing one tier stronger than the resources surrounding them.
Just as Bai Qiu was about to leave the area, a fierce gust of wind suddenly slashed toward his neck!
He remained standing where he was.
One hand supported his chin in a thoughtful pose, while the other casually extended two fingers and pinched at the empty air beside him.
In the next instant, a figure materialized.
It was an Assassin-class player attempting to ambush him, launching a lethal attack without so much as a word.
“Why is it that ever since leaving Earth, people keep coming to cause me trouble?”
Bai Qiu spoke calmly, as if asking a question, yet sounding more like he was talking to himself.
Crack!
As soon as he finished speaking, Bai Qiu tightened the two fingers gripping the blade.
The assassin couldn’t even pull the dagger back.
Instead, with a sharp crack, the weapon shattered on the spot.
The assassin instantly broke out in a cold sweat.
He immediately realized he had kicked an iron plate.
Without the slightest hesitation—or even attempting to say anything—he turned and fled.
Yet after only a few steps, it felt as though his wrist had been caught by a pair of iron pincers.
He was violently yanked backward.
After pulling him back, Bai Qiu wasted no time.
He drew back his arm slightly before driving his elbow forward in a devastating Iron Mountain Lean.
Boom!
His elbow smashed squarely into the player’s chest.
The assassin was sent flying instantly.
A massive crater caved into his chest while his back bulged outward like a turtle’s shell.
His neck swelled grotesquely for an instant before blood and fragments of his internal organs erupted from his mouth, scattering across the ground along his flight path.
After crashing onto the ground, he twitched for only a few moments before dying on the spot, his body immediately dismantled by the system.
“Seriously? Are Assassins really this fragile? He was already level 28, too.”
Even Bai Qiu found it hard to believe.
Still, he had no reason to show mercy to someone who had come intending to kill him.
Even if that elbow strike hadn’t finished the assassin off, what awaited him next would have been the sniping of Crystal Iron Arrows fired from the Heaven-Earth Shattering Bow.
— The end of the Chapter–
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