Seed of Origin

Lu Li practically swaggered out of the prison. All he could say was that the Prison Guards here were seriously lacking in professionalism. Though even if they had tried their hardest to stop him, he was confident he could have left unharmed.

Killing someone and breaking out of prison had not been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Although End Space seemed to want him to obediently participate in the Kengan Death Tournament, he had no interest in that sort of climb-the-ranks gameplay.

Sadly, quite a few of the participating fighters simply wanted to find worthy opponents and have an exciting match.

But the nature of the Kengan Death Tournament ensured that their matches could never be pure. Behind the bloody fights was competition for the merchants' interests. To put it bluntly, the fighters were merely the merchants' toys.

The merchants sat neatly dressed in the stands, drinking tea and eating snacks as they watched the fighters slaughter one another with smiles, just like the nobles watching the ancient Roman gladiatorial arenas. Even their laughter carried the scent of blood.

This was not the fighting tournament Lu Li had envisioned. And with his strength, he had no interest in slowly fighting his way from the preliminaries to the finals.

He would go to the Kengan matches, but not as a challenger. Nor did he want to be some merchant's dog. He wanted to find someone to cooperate with as an equal.

Besides the reasons above, there was another important reason he had killed someone and escaped from prison: his mission.

Main Quest, Phase One: Ashura

Mission Objective: Win first place in the Kengan Death Tournament ten days from now and display the bearing of a true Ashura.

Mission Difficulty: Easy–Hard

Mission Reward: 10,000 Doomsday Coins

Failure Penalty: All attributes -1

There was only this one Main Quest. The rewards were generous, and the failure penalty was not too severe. Although its maximum difficulty rating was not low, Lu Li felt that this was not what he should be focusing on right now.

Hunting Mission: Hunt Violator 41213802

Mission Objective: Kill Violator 41213802 during your stay in this world. When the Violator enters within ten kilometers of the Pioneer, the Pioneer will obtain its exact location.

PS: Pioneer, please ensure that you kill the Violator before it comes into contact with the "Seed."

Mission Difficulty: Normal–Certain Death

Mission Reward: Bronze Pioneer Medal x1

Failure Penalty: All attributes -2

Lu Li had not expected work to come knocking so soon after he became a Pioneer.

According to the "contract," shouldn't this have been the Adjudicators' job? End Space sure knew how to put people to work. Just how much did it want him to do in this single mission world?

The reason he complained about it internally was that he also had a special mission.

Pioneer Mission: Seed of Origin

Mission Objective: Find the source responsible for this world's mutation, kill the current holder of the Seed of Origin, and transfer ownership of the Seed of Origin.

The holder of the Seed of Origin will receive a significant increase in strength. The Pioneer may use this to identify the holder of the Seed of Origin. When the Pioneer Mark comes into contact with the holder, a clear prompt will be received.

Mission Difficulty: Normal–Certain Death

Mission Reward: Seed of Origin

Failure Penalty: Erasure

Yes, this mission was the real pain in the ass. Not only was its maximum difficulty rating high, but failure meant erasure.

Based on the description, he could roughly understand the Seed of Origin as something that allowed people to grow stronger continuously. The longer he delayed, the more dangerous it would become. Even if he found it later, he might not be able to defeat its holder.

At the moment, he felt that if he could not settle this mission during the tournament, it would basically become extremely difficult, since everyone would scatter afterward and be harder to find.

He did not think the Seed of Origin would casually end up on some ordinary person. If that were the case, End Space could not possibly offer no hint or location at all. The mission would be absurd.

So he believed that the Seed of Origin should be on one of the fighters who had appeared in the original work, all targets he could reach and locate.

"Let's sort this out first. At a time like this, what would Sōsuke think...?"

Lu Li muttered to himself beneath the moonlight as he walked along the riverbank, intending to first figure out his exact location. After all, the original work had never said where the prison was located.

The next day, inside a ramen shop in Tokyo.

Under the waiter's astonished gaze, Lu Li finished the last bowl of extra-large ramen, then gulped down cola with great satisfaction.

This cola really was good stuff. Too bad drinks like this no longer existed in his era; there were only bizarre beverages produced by corporations.

He wiped his mouth and tossed several bills to the waiter.

Oh, the money had been generously donated by several street punks he encountered the previous night. They had clung to his hand with tears and snot running down their faces, insisting on giving it to him. He could hardly refuse, could he?

Full and satisfied, Lu Li opened a special interface with a thought.

This was the Public Channel function End Space had specially enabled for this world. It was only after reading the chat for a while that Lu Li understood why End Space had created a Public Channel.

"There's a Seed of Origin in this world. This thing actually exists for real, it isn't just a legend. Can you believe it?"

"Sounds pretty badass. I've got a mission telling me to find it too, but the reward's only average. It probably isn't anything special."

"What the hell do you know? I was fortunate enough to hear the leader of our Adventure Group tell a story once. Back then, he mentioned a legend about the Space, and it included the word 'Seed.'"

"Huh? What legend? Big bro, tell us about it. I won't compete with you for the Seed."

"Tch, compete for it? If it really is that Seed, getting it only means we're helping the Space recover it. Do you really think it'll belong to you?"

"What are you even talking about? Can you just say what the Seed does already? Is it the kind that lets you download porn?"

"Fuck off. All you know is jerking off. This is the Seed of Origin, one of the nine legendary Seeds. Even when our leader mentioned it, he treated it like some myth and didn't take it seriously. Who would've thought it actually existed, and had appeared in a first-tier world at that?"

No one replied below, evidently waiting for this Know-It-All to explain.

"According to the story our leader heard, there are supposedly nine unique Seeds in All Heavens and Myriad Realms. No one knows where they came from or what they do. All anyone knows is that those Seeds are extremely mysterious and may be connected to the origin of the Space."

"If the Seed in this world really is the thing from the legend, then it isn't hard to explain why they opened a Public Channel for us and issued everyone the same mission. It means the Space is panicking. If not for the restrictions of its rules, it might already have sent in high-tier big shots."

Lu Li lurked and read for a while longer, roughly understanding the situation. In short, the Seed of Origin was indeed extremely valuable. Whether for his future development or for the mission itself, he had to get his hands on it.

After being dropped into this world, the Explorers had all kinds of identities and had landed in different places. With a Public Channel allowing everyone to communicate, the speed at which information could be gathered had undoubtedly increased.

One question Lu Li was considering now was whether the Violator was also in this Public Channel.

He had once asked End Space about Violators. End Space had told him that Violators were people who exploited loopholes in the Space's rules. They had originally been Explorers as well, but after repeatedly violating rules and ignoring warnings, they were marked. Only then would people like him be sent to hunt them down.

So fundamentally, a Violator was still considered an Explorer. It existed under the greater rules, would be placed into mission worlds by the Space, and therefore could very likely see the Public Channel as well.

What puzzled Lu Li was this: why did the Space have to make things so complicated? If someone violated the rules, it could just erase them. Why did it need manpower?

It looked so high-end, yet its rules had so many loopholes. The Space had presumably been operating for many years, right? Had its rules never been optimized? Even constitutions changed every year...

In any case, Lu Li found both the existence of Violators and End Space's need for manpower to handle them rather strange.

Could this be part of the Space's ecosystem?

Lu Li shook his head and stopped dwelling on it. He felt that if he kept thinking, he would definitely kill off a lot of brain cells.

He typed into the Public Channel, "Does anyone know how to get to the Wu Clan?"

His nickname in the Space was Prison Demon. Only nicknames were displayed in the Public Channel as well, which served as a form of identity protection.