Ten minutes later.
Huixin Clinic, in the slums.
A pungent smell of herbs and disinfectant filled the clinic.
Lin Chuchu lay unconscious on an old hospital bed, breathing faintly, her little face pale and utterly bloodless.
Beside the bed stood a female doctor in a white coat, who looked to be around thirty.
Her hair was tied in a neat ponytail, and an owl perched on her shoulder with its eyes closed, apparently fast asleep. It was clearly her Contract Spirit.
Lin Luoluo rode atop Bai Chen's head.
Looking at her younger sister on the bed, she asked in a trembling voice:
"Doctor Tang, has my sister fallen ill again? We have money this time. Please give her the best medicine!"
As she spoke, Lin Luoluo held out the card with a balance of over two hundred Silver Coins to the doctor without hesitation.
Doctor Tang couldn't help widening her eyes when she saw the balance displayed on the card.
Lin Luoluo was a regular here, and Doctor Tang knew the girl's family circumstances all too well.
Even when buying a bottle of the cheapest medicine, the girl would usually hesitate for a long time, trying every way she could to save every coin.
Where had she gotten so much money?
Her gaze fell on the enormous Slime beneath the girl.
He must have been the Contract Spirit the girl had just contracted.
Could it be...
Doctor Tang had no time to dwell on it. Saving her patient came first.
She pushed up the half-rimmed glasses on her nose and looked at the girl, who was nearly in tears. In the gentlest voice she could manage, she reassured her:
"Luoluo, don't panic. Let me check Chuchu's condition first."
With that, she raised a hand and gently patted the owl on her shoulder.
The owl woke with a start and tilted its head groggily. Then, as if sensing its master's will, it instantly became alert.
"Life Skill, Detection Ray!"
The next second, the owl's eyes flew open, shooting out two beams of bluish-purple light.
The beams slowly swept over Lin Chuchu from head to toe.
This was Doctor Tang's Contract Spirit, Panopus, an extremely rare A-Rank Contract Spirit.
Although it was purely a healing and support type, with all its marks related to healing and examination and no combat ability whatsoever, that did not mean it was weak. On the contrary, it made it all the more precious.
Throughout the vast slums, the Jiang Family collected exorbitant protection fees from almost every shop.
But Doctor Tang's clinic alone was the exception. Not only did they not collect a single coin from her, they even offered her free protection.
Such was the value and status of a healing-type Contract Spirit Master.
A moment later, the light faded from Panopus's eyes, and the scan ended.
A detailed stream of physical data flooded into Doctor Tang's mind.
Her expression immediately grew somewhat grave.
Doctor Tang hesitated as she looked at the anxious Lin Luoluo.
She sighed and finally spoke. "Luoluo, things are rather bad."
Lin Luoluo's heart sank, and the pitch of her voice changed.
"Bad? How bad? Is the medicine not good enough? If we don't have enough money, I'll find a way to get more!"
"It's not a matter of money."
Doctor Tang shook her head and explained gravely.
"Chuchu's Hypersomnia is fundamentally caused by her naturally weak mental power.
Her Heart Disease further drains her mental power. As she's gotten older, the two conditions have continued to affect each other and worsen."
"In principle, even if we gave her the best medicine, the kind you can only buy in the Upper City, it would only relieve her symptoms. Neither condition can be cured completely, unless..."
"Unless what?" Lin Luoluo pressed anxiously.
Doctor Tang looked at her.
"Unless your sister can contract a Contract Spirit of her own.
As a Contract Spirit grows, it nourishes its master in return, strengthening the master's mental power.
As long as her mental power grows strong enough, her Hypersomnia will naturally be cured."
"But that's where the problem lies."
"With mental power as weak as hers is now, under normal circumstances, she couldn't possibly contract any Contract Spirit.
And... it isn't the time designated by the Federation for everyone to summon Contract Spirits."
Her words were like a bucket of ice water poured over Lin Luoluo from head to toe.
Her little face visibly paled, and she swayed. Fortunately, Bai Chen's tentacle caught her in time.
Bai Chen, who was already bound to Lin Luoluo, could clearly sense the violent upheaval in the girl's heart as she plunged from the peak of hope into the abyss of despair.
He immediately extended a soft tentacle and gently squeezed the girl's icy little hand.
The warm, smooth touch against her palm steadied Lin Luoluo's troubled thoughts a little.
"Don't worry too much, Xiao Luoluo. Heaven never seals off every path. There's bound to be a way."
"Let's listen to the doctor first and get Chuchu the best medicine to stabilize her condition. It's just a Contract Spirit, isn't it?
She can't publicly summon and contract one, but there are some in the Mine Tunnel!
We'll go down into the mine tomorrow and catch one to bring back. If that Contract Spirit won't make a contract with Chuchu, I'll beat it until it agrees!"
Bai Chen declared domineeringly.
At that moment, Bai Chen couldn't help recalling how, back in the Slime Forest on the Demon Continent, when he was still the Slime King, he'd had a genuine Mutant Slime under him.
She was a pink Slime who had mutated and gained the extremely rare Space Attribute.
Because of her mutation, that pink Slime had been bullied terribly by the rest of the group, just like Bai Chen, and she was the only Slime he didn't dislike.
Later, after Bai Chen devoured over ten thousand Slimes and became the overlord of the Slime Forest, the pink Slime became his second-in-command.
Her loyalty to Bai Chen could be said to have maxed out.
Bai Chen couldn't help feeling some regret. If he'd known, he should have taken his little sister along when he jumped into that Teleportation Array.
Hearing Bai Chen's reassurance and his simple, brute-force plan, Lin Luoluo felt as though her jumbled thoughts had found an anchor, and her emotions steadied considerably.
She clasped Bai Chen's tentacle in return and nodded firmly.
"Yes! Thank you, Xiao Bai. I understand."
Her voice still trembled a little, but her gaze had grown resolute again.
"I have to get stronger! Strong enough to cure Chuchu!"
In the end, Lin Chuchu stayed at the clinic for observation and treatment.
With Doctor Tang, a professional healing-type Contract Spirit Master, watching over her, she was far safer than she would have been at home.
Still, when Lin Luoluo and Bai Chen left the clinic, their hearts were heavy.
The bank card they had only just gotten their hands on that day, before they'd even had time to warm it, now had a balance of only twenty-odd coins.
The medicine they had just bought for Chuchu had cost a full two hundred Silver Coins.
At first, when Bai Chen saw that a single box of medicine had cost two hundred Silver Coins, he thought the female doctor was black-hearted and taking advantage of their plight to fleece them!
Only after hearing Lin Luoluo's explanation did Bai Chen learn that medicine in this world was outrageously expensive.
Doctor Tang had always given Lin Luoluo this medicine, which could stabilize and nourish mental power, at cost.
Most medicines in this world were made from spirit materials, and these so-called spirit materials were obtained from Demons.
The raw materials for medicine that treated mental power in particular were already extremely rare, and most of them were taken by the powers at the top and made into expensive potions that could directly increase mental power.
Even this medicine, at two hundred Silver Coins a box, was being sold to them at cost by Doctor Tang because they knew each other.
But Bai Chen also knew very well that no matter how rare the stuff was, it couldn't possibly warrant such a high price.
In the end, wasn't it all because the great families and powerful factions entrenched in the Upper City controlled every source and channel? The price was entirely theirs to decide with a word.
With things that saved lives and healed the wounded sold at such high prices, how many people in the Underground City were deterred by the cost of medicine, able only to watch helplessly as their loved ones died in agony?
The surface of Bai Chen's body involuntarily swelled a little with anger.
"Maybe the Jiang Family is behind the medicine trade. Who knows how many times the price gets marked up along the way?"
"Sooner or later, I'll have to uproot the whole Jiang Family and see just how much money they've scraped together!"
The next day.
Bai Chen and Lin Luoluo got up early in the morning.
Today was their first time going down into a mine.
Experience could only be gained by hunting Demons.
For Bai Chen, this was also the first time since coming to this world that he could truly throw off all restraints and hunt Demons to his heart's content.
It was an excellent chance to farm experience and break through in combat power!
He looked forward to raising his strength several levels today.
Of course, they couldn't neglect their other two goals: earning money and finding a Contract Spirit Lin Chuchu could contract!
At that moment, Bai Chen was extending several tentacles to help Lin Luoluo change into the combat suit they had bought the day before.
It was a form-fitting white and purple combat suit, made from a special memory-fiber material. It was waterproof, stain-resistant, wear-resistant, and tear-resistant, and it also showed off the girl's budding figure very well.
The reason Bai Chen was helping Lin Luoluo put it on was simple.
Combat suits like this were designed for a close fit and protection, so their zippers were placed at the back. Lin Luoluo couldn't reach it on her own.
"All done."
With the tip of a tentacle, Bai Chen deftly fitted the zipper pull into its slot and zipped it all the way up.
After getting dressed, Lin Luoluo's cheeks were a little red.
However, after spending this time together, she and Bai Chen had already shared quite a few intimate moments, so she wasn't quite as shy anymore.
After all, Lin Chuchu had been admitted to the clinic yesterday, so Bai Chen had been the one to help Lin Luoluo bathe and get dressed that night...
"Let's go, Xiao Bai!" Lin Luoluo clenched her fists, cheering herself on.
"Hold on tight."
Bai Chen answered and came up with a new way to travel.
He extended several thick tentacles, grabbed onto fixtures on the surrounding buildings of varying heights, and swung like a pendulum, carrying Lin Luoluo swiftly between the buildings of the slums. He was just like Spider-Man.
In fact, Bai Chen could now attach himself directly to Lin Luoluo like a piece of clothing, perhaps making it look as though she were wearing a Venom suit.
But clearly, the girl's 1.5-meter frame wasn't suited to being Spider-Man, and her legs couldn't move on their own, so Bai Chen had to provide all the power.
Since both of them wanted to get into the Mine Tunnel as soon as possible, Bai Chen traveled at full speed today.
Before long, they reached the edge of the Underground City.
This was a newly developed area, and the air was filled with the mixed smell of damp earth and metallic dust.
A vast area had been cordoned off with high wire fencing and warning tape, and temporary guard posts and registration points had been set up at the entrance.
This was their destination: the Forest Grotto.
It was a new Mine Tunnel detected just a week ago by the Federation's Mining Team and then hastily developed.
The reason for its name was simple: most of the Demons coming through the Rift were forest-type creatures.
This Rift was also rather unusual, belonging to a type where the two worlds overlapped to a greater degree.
In the South Mountain Third Mine Cave used for the mock assessment, the Demons had all poured out of a fixed Rift at the end of the Mine Tunnel.
The Forest Grotto was different. It was itself part of the Demon Continent's terrain, overlapping with the Mine Tunnel environment of this world.
This made it more dangerous, but it also meant there was a chance to obtain spirit materials from another world.
Recently, many Mining Teams had made this place a prime target for exploration.
Quite a few people had already gathered outside the Mine Tunnel in groups of three or five, some wearing matching team uniforms.
After waiting in line for a while, it was finally Lin Luoluo's turn.
At the entrance sat a uniformed staff member, handling entry and exit registrations with some impatience. He was responsible for checking the qualifications of teams entering the Mine Tunnel and collecting the entrance fees.
Lin Luoluo took the First Tier Contract Spirit Master certificate she had just received yesterday from her pocket and handed it over along with the entrance fee of ten Silver Coins.
The uniformed staff member took the certificate and card without looking up. His gaze swept over the information on the certificate, and his movements suddenly stopped.
He saw yesterday's date, written in ink that had barely dried, and the glaring word "none" in the team affiliation field.
The staff member couldn't help looking up, meeting Lin Luoluo's fair, soft little face.
"You only passed the assessment yesterday, and you're already going into this Mine Tunnel alone?!" The staff member's voice was full of surprise.
His stare made Lin Luoluo a little uneasy, but she nodded earnestly all the same.
When the girl confirmed it, the surprise on the staff member's face deepened.
A newly detected Mine Tunnel was a deadly meat grinder until it had been fully explored. Never mind a newly certified rookie—even experienced veteran teams had met their end inside in considerable numbers.
But he was just a ticket collector. Whether the girl lived or died had nothing to do with him; who knew how many people disappeared inside Mine Tunnels every day?
He shook his head and offered no further persuasion, merely adding a warning: "Newly opened Mine Tunnels are more dangerous. Don't go too deep."
Then he took a black wristband from a box beside him and handed it to Lin Luoluo.
"Put this on. It's mandatory. It doesn't do anything else; it just records your location and helps the Federation fill in the map of the Mine Tunnel."
"Of course, if you die inside, there'll also be a record, so your family can find out where you died."
Half an hour later.
"Wow, Xiao Bai, is this the deepest part of the Forest Grotto?!"
"It's so beautiful!"
At the sight before her, the girl couldn't help exclaiming again and again!