Could it be—
Meng Chao's scalp tingled.
Ignoring the world spinning around him, he lunged to the firing slit amid his family's cries and looked down.
Sure enough, the Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle had crashed heavily to the ground. Though golden fluid had spilled all over the floor, it was not quite dead.
It had merely played dead for a moment. As the golden fluid gradually congealed, its wounds squirmed shut, and its wings actually began to tremble faintly again.
"This is bad. My body is still too weak. My old injuries haven't healed, and I haven't mastered powerful Spiritual Energy.
"Although I have the awareness of 'Perfect Level' Basic Gunmanship and memories from my previous life about monster weaknesses, my brain and body aren't working together smoothly. That will take a long time to polish.
"There were slight flaws in my aim and timing with that shot. I actually failed to blow its head apart."
Despair rose in Meng Chao's heart.
Could it be that, just as his little sister was nine times out of ten still destined to turn dark, fate was like a rushing river, beyond the power of man to change?
"I refuse to accept that!"
Grinding his teeth until they cracked, blood welling in his eyes, he was about to climb downstairs and fight the super beast in close combat with the Wild Bull Technique.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning tore through the fog and stabbed straight down at the Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle.
Sizzle!
The Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle had only flown half a meter into the air before it was nailed firmly back to the ground.
Lightning surged like hundreds of gleaming military blades stabbing into the super beast's body at once, chopping every organ into a chaotic mess.
The super beast let out a mournful cry. Pieces of its carapace were jolted upright, and the flesh within burst apart one after another. It was finally dead beyond all doubt.
Only after the lightning dimmed did Meng Chao see what had pinned it down: a silver spear twelve feet long.
A coiling dragon wound around the silver spear. Its tail trembled incessantly, letting out a proud whinny.
A figure in white, like a celestial descending to the mortal world, drifted lightly onto the spear's tail.
A powerful presence instantly blanketed all of Tianfu Garden. Many low-level monsters were so intimidated that they did not even dare move.
"A Transcendent!"
All the residents were overjoyed, crying out in celebration after surviving a calamity.
Meng Chao had still shattered Tianfu Garden's nightmare.
He had stalled for the most critical five minutes, allowing the Transcendent to arrive before the super beast could wreak devastating destruction.
The information arrived belatedly:
Assisted a Transcendent in killing the Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle, played a crucial role, Contribution Points +758 Performed outstandingly in the defense of Tianfu Garden, made the greatest contribution in this residential compound, saved a large number of ordinary citizens, Dragon City has become stronger because of you, Contribution Points +436 The Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle far exceeded the level you could handle. Congratulations, Flamebearer, for charging forward without regard for your own safety and defeating the strong while weak. Once your deeds spread, they will inspire more ordinary citizens to follow your example and fight to the bitter end for civilization, additional Contribution Points +899 Special Citizen Bai Jiacao (Night Witch) darkening probability reduced by 1%, Dragon City's future level of chaos has decreased, Contribution Points +500 Current Contribution Points: 2478. You may awaken the new basic skill "Dragon Snake Force" and the auxiliary skill "Elementary Harvesting Technique"
Nearly two thousand five hundred Contribution Points kept flashing.
Several dim, gray new skills awaiting awakening also appeared.
Including the Basic Gunmanship that had been raised to "Perfect Level" in one breath, the harvest could not be called anything less than abundant.
Yet Meng Chao was somewhat dazed.
He sat against the corner of the wall for a long time, letting out an unwilling mutter:
"A Transcendent..."
With the Transcendent's appearance, there was no longer any suspense over victory or defeat. The battle ended within half an hour.
Apart from two residents accidentally breaking their arms, Tianfu Garden suffered no further casualties.
In the eyes of Dragon City residents, injuries like that could be solved with a few bandages.
"We won!"
"We finally butchered those bastards!"
"Transcendents are awesome!"
"Old Meng from Building Nineteen was awesome too. He was the one who seriously wounded the super beast first. Just as expected of the army's sharpshooter from twenty years ago."
"Stop arguing. In the end, Tianfu Garden is awesome, Dragon City is awesome, and us Earthlings are the most awesome!"
The shooting group and the Bayonet Squad praised each other extravagantly. The residents beamed with delight, and the residential compound overflowed with cheerful atmosphere.
Next came everyone's favorite harvest stage.
It was not much different from slaughtering pigs for the New Year in Earth Era villages.
The Crystal Loudspeaker played the cheerful tune of "Today Is a Good Day." Men young and old all joined the fray, sharpening their knives as they harvested monsters.
Ordinary monsters all belonged to Tianfu Garden.
Though Black Beetles looked ugly, the lumps of flesh inside their carapaces were exceptionally delicious. Steamed and dipped in ginger vinegar, they tasted exactly like the hairy crabs of the Earth Era.
Just imagining chunks of "imitation crab" the size of chicken legs was enough to make many residents drool.
Moreover, the rich mucus in their bodies was a high-quality fuel additive that could be sold for a great deal of money.
Then there was the newly evolved Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle. As it had appeared in Dragon City for the first time, it possessed high research value. Once the Transcendent delivered it to the Monster Research Institute, it would also be converted into a large amount of cash, weapons and ammunition, and cultivation resources to be returned to Tianfu Garden.
Meng Yishan wore a protective suit, corrosion-resistant gloves, and overshoes as he waved a butcher's cleaver and a scalpel.
He looked both like a savage butcher and a crazed witch doctor.
Not only was he one of Tianfu Garden's best marksmen, he was also its strongest harvester—without question.
In fact, he was a professional. Whenever the fog descended and monsters swarmed out in full force, he and a group of old brothers were hired by Resource Recycling companies to clean up the battlefield.
Meng Chao was too exhausted. He lay sprawled over the balcony, watching the bustling scene of labor below.
After injecting several tubes of highly concentrated nutrient solution and sweeping away all the emergency compressed food at home, he finally recovered a little.
But he was still hungry—hungry as if a Main Battle Tank had blasted his stomach with a shell.
The pain in his head had not eased much either. He pressed ice against it for half an hour until his teeth ached from the cold, yet he still felt groggy, with a faint throbbing pain.
Holding his head and rubbing his stomach, he recalled the battle just now and pondered his next development plan.
"Since the Ghost Eye Golden Winged Flame Beetle has appeared, it means the monsters are constantly evolving, and the war is about to spiral out of control.
"I must race against time and become stronger as quickly as possible."
After thinking for a long time, he first confirmed one thing.
The memories of his previous life were vague, which should have been a form of protection for his brain.
Matter determined consciousness. The number of human brain cells was limited, as was the capacity of memory cells. No one could remember every detail and every skill from several decades of life with perfect clarity.
If, at the instant of rebirth, all the information from several decades of his previous life had been crammed wholesale into the immature brain of a seventeen-year-old, the only result would have been his brain burning out and turning him into an idiot.
"It seems that only by constantly growing stronger through cultivation, gaining more powerful brain cells and a stronger central nervous system, can my memories from my previous life continue to be released?
"That makes sense. Every time I awaken a small fragment of memory and one skill, I feel like my head is splitting and my stomach is empty. If I instantly awakened decades of memories and hundreds of skills, either my head would explode or my vitality would be drained dry in an instant.
"It is like sealing my previous-life memories inside 'slow-release capsules.' Only by releasing them bit by bit can my brain and body absorb them safely. I wonder whether this is the law of rebirth, or the Fire Seed's protection?"
Besides that, Meng Chao also discovered that possessing a "Perfect Level" skill did not mean it was truly perfect.
Awakening memories from his previous life could only grant him perfect awareness.
The brain said, "I possess Perfect Level Gunmanship. I'm incredibly strong!"
The body said, "No, you don't."
It was probably something like that.
"Using Contribution Points to grind proficiency into 'perfection,' even if it reaches the nerve endings, still leaves countless flaws. I need to use it constantly in real combat to achieve a high degree of unity between awareness and body.
"But without cultivation resources, when I'm hungry all day like a weak-legged shrimp and need to pant for ages just to kill a Black Beetle, how am I supposed to gain real combat experience?"
After circling around and around, he returned to the old problem: his family was poor...
"I have the Fire Seed and memories from my previous life. My learning efficiency is far higher than everyone else's. Correspondingly, my consumption of cultivation resources is three to five times, or even more, than that of ordinary students. Where will those resources come from?
"Relying solely on study groups to earn resources from classmates is not a long-term solution. How much money could students have in their hands? If I make things too outrageous, the school will not permit it either.
"Should I open a training class in society and teach Super Raging Bull Force? Impossible. Opening such a class requires qualifications and fame. I would need to register a company, run advertisements, and hire strong people as brand ambassadors. Without a year or more to cultivate the market and promote it, no one would come based on me alone, a senior high school student. And it would waste too much time—how would I take the National College Entrance Examination?"
Meng Chao scratched his head in frustration.
Below, Black Beetles were chopped into eight pieces. The pungent smell of flammable mucus rose into the sky, suddenly striking him as somewhat familiar.
The sight of his father wielding a cleaver and chopping monsters into eight pieces made fragments of his previous-life memories gleam brightly again.
"Eh?"
Meng Chao discovered something.
Of the two newly appeared skills, the exchange price for Dragon Snake Force was quite normal, but Elementary Harvesting Technique was really cheap!
Whether it was Raging Bull Force, Dragon Snake Force, or Basic Gunmanship, each required two or three thousand Contribution Points to exchange—equivalent to instructing around a hundred ordinary citizens or slaughtering over a hundred monsters. That "price" was fairly reasonable.
But Elementary Harvesting Technique? It did not cost 3,000, nor 2,000, not even 1,000. It only cost 998!
"Is it especially cheap because it's an auxiliary skill? Wait, I remember now. In my previous life, I seem to have worked as a 'harvester' with Dad for ten years!"
Meng Chao closed his eyes, and fleeting images flashed through his mind.
In his previous life, his mother had been seriously injured by a super beast, and he had failed the National College Entrance Examination. To survive, to gather medical fees for his mother, and to earn tuition for his little sister, his father had brought him into the trade. During the Monster War, he had harvested who knew how many ferocious beasts, and his skills had become quite impressive.
"Harvesters... seemed to make quite a bit of money, didn't they?"
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