This was Liao Zixuan's first time visiting Vivian's home.
The moment his front foot crossed the threshold, his back foot caught the heavy, damp, moldy smell of the room.
After only a few steps, they had already reached the end. Vivian's home was not large, consisting of only two rooms. Clearly, the little girl did not have a bedroom of her own; she shared one with her young brother.
Ever since her brother had fallen ill, judging by the bedding spread across the floor, the older sister had been sleeping on the floor while her brother slept on the bed.
"Sister... Sister..." A weak moan came from the unconscious little boy lying on the bed.
The Wolf Cub leaped onto the bed and moved closer to listen carefully. It turned out he was calling for Vivian.
Hmm?
Apprentice Mage, Fire God Follower Lv1?
Liao Zixuan glanced over the status panel of Vivian's seriously ill younger brother, Andy, and was instantly rather surprised.
Good grief.
How was everyone in this family so incredibly talented?
The elder sister had a hidden cheat-like personality, while the younger brother had obtained the Spellcaster profession directly through faith without even having a mentor guide him through the door?
No wonder he had fallen ill.
And so seriously, too.
Liao Zixuan finally understood how this remote little village had contracted the "Abyssal Fire Poison."
The fact that the Abyssal Fall now dared to cause trouble openly meant that, even during the Beta Testing Phase, Fire God Alice's condition was probably even worse than he had imagined.
Therefore, the deeper one's faith in the God of Fire, the higher the chance of infection. After all, Alice was now a massive source of infection herself.
Liao Zixuan was certain that during the original beta test, no player had ever triggered an SS-Class Emergency Mission, much less encountered the "Seed of Corruption."
That was right. In the Claw Nest, even Witch Bella, who was reputed to have clones spread throughout the nine nations, had failed to identify what those Black Hands that had suddenly emerged from the Magic Tyrannosaurus were.
But Liao Zixuan knew very well that this was the Abyssal Fall's classic method: planting a Seed of Corruption in someone or some monster. This secret technique would cause the host's power to surge, at the cost of consuming its potential and sanity.
Then, once the host's mind gradually weakened to a certain point, the Seed of Corruption would sprout, devour the soul, and seize control of the body. Those Black Hands were essentially its sprouts.
When he had seen the letter from Luo Er, the Fire God Cult mage, Liao Zixuan should have realized what could have rapidly nurtured a monster to accomplish the purpose of planting Purple Crystal Grass.
Liao Zixuan could almost guess what had happened now. Bella must have come into contact with the Abyssal Fall's forces and obtained the so-called secret technique from them to cultivate Purple Crystal Grass. Originally, the Magic Tyrannosaurus had been the Seed of Corruption's host, but because he and Vivian had intervened and weakened Bella's soul power considerably, the Seed of Corruption inside the Magic Tyrannosaurus had found an opportunity and immediately transferred to a more suitable host.
Had they ended up screwing Bella over instead?
But it should not be a major problem. That had only been one of Bella's Soul Fragments. Losing one would at most make her vomit blood for a few days. An epic-grade witch was not so easy to send off.
On the other hand, the now-mature "Abyss Seed" was a major headache.
Judging from its scale, only the corruption effect had appeared, without any further monster like the Chimera Beast. So it should merely be the lowest-grade Abyss Seed.
Actually, if Liao Zixuan had done his utmost to stop it in the Claw Nest back then, he should have been able to kill the Abyss Seed during its budding stage, denying it the chance to devour Bella's soul and enter its mature phase as it had now.
But Liao Zixuan had not done that. In a sense, he had even chosen to stand by and watch.
Because sometimes, a disaster was not necessarily a bad thing.
It was like a person who had fallen ill.
Only after feeling pain would they go see a doctor. The earlier they went, the easier it was to cure them.
Liao Zixuan shook his head and decided not to think about it anymore. He would save the little girl's foolish younger brother first.
Liao Zixuan took a stalk of Purple Crystal Grass from the game's built-in inventory space.
Incidentally,
Don't think they had done so much this time only to gain nothing. That might have happened if they were some foolish girl, but how could the black-hearted Wolf Cub possibly fail to profit?
Had no one noticed the "99+" displayed beside the Purple Crystal Grass in his inventory?
That was money!
According to Liao Zixuan's memories, a single stalk of Purple Crystal Grass could sell for at least two or three gold coins. More than a hundred stalks would be worth over two hundred gold coins!
Ten copper coins equaled one silver coin, and one hundred silver coins equaled one gold coin.
Not to mention the expenses of country folk—even in a small village like Nuoqi Village, they probably could not spend more than a few gold coins in a year.
Even in Huodian City, four or five gold coins would let one person and one wolf eat and drink without worry for a month, living quite comfortably with money left over to buy Vivian several pretty little dresses.
Liao Zixuan had long been dissatisfied with the ragged clothes Vivian wore.
Although his heart ached a little, since each stalk was worth several gold coins, this was still Vivian's younger brother. Besides, he seemed to have quite a lot of potential.
Liao Zixuan extended his little wolf paw, pried open the unconscious Andy's mouth, and rudely stuffed the Purple Crystal Grass inside. Worried that the medicinal effect would not be enough, he even took out three or four more stalks and crammed them all in at once.
The Purple Crystal Grass melted as soon as it entered his mouth, transforming into a stream of pure magic power that instantly flowed through Andy's entire body.
Normally, no one would consume Purple Crystal Grass like this. First, it was too wasteful. Second, the magic power it contained was too abundant and could instead damage the body.
But now, the moment the Purple Crystal Grass went down, the pain on Andy's face visibly eased.
That was because the Abyssal Fire Poison corroded magic power. Once a large amount of external magic power entered his body, the magic power within him would no longer be corroded.
Done.
Mission complete.
After resolving Vivian's most important request, Liao Zixuan began preparing to carry out a plan he had named "Vivian's Debut."
One had to know that, as an NPC with a player system, the little girl could not only accept SS emergency missions and defend Huodian City, but could also create her own NPC faction and let players join it.
To attract more leek—er, players, a promotional video was naturally indispensable. This brought him to his second major gain in Claw Forest.
That was—the precious leaked battle footage of Miss Vivian!
As long as he edited it a little and uploaded it to the player forum, those bumpkin players still in the beta test who had seen nothing would absolutely cry and howl as they fought to come be the little girl's lapdogs!
Of course, he definitely could not handle this kind of work himself. He needed to find a professional. What was that person's name again? It should have been "Luo Chen." He had used Advanced Detection to spy on him before, and he seemed to be an expert player. All Liao Zixuan had to do was pretend to reveal the footage to him by accident. Surely anyone with even a little business sense would not pass up such a precious first-hand video resource.
Hiss.
No, no, no!
Liao Zixuan suddenly felt that he had been thinking too narrowly.
How could he give away such precious footage for free? He obviously had to sell it!
Besides, he would be passing through several villages afterward and encountering plenty of players. If he sold it to each one he met—
The Wolf Cub's eyes immediately lit up.
At that moment, Liao Zixuan felt that he was practically a business genius.
Until—
When he hurried off to extort wealth—er, evacuate the villagers from the other villages to safety, he heard the following exchange just before leaving.
"Lord Robert, you... what's wrong?"
"Did you see clearly what kind of herb that little wolf just took out?" The nobleman's steward's voice trembled. He had probably never shaken this badly, not even when he had been surrounded by the mutated villagers.
"I saw it. What was it?"
"That was Purple Crystal Grass. A single stalk is selling for thirty or forty gold coins on the black market in Huodian City!"
Liao Zixuan's body had just leaped down from Andy's bed when it instantly turned to stone.
Then—
Spit it out, you bastard!
Spit it out!!
The Wolf Cub frantically shook poor Andy's little head.
Before you continue