Growing Team

"You... you have a remnant soul?"

This batch of newcomers had only started a day ago. The vast majority hadn't even dared to step outside their territory, let alone hunt down a remnant soul. Low-level, low-rank monsters couldn't drop them.

This kid had something going on.

"Pure luck, pure luck."

Mu Yuan clasped his hands.

The Frog Seller Bro stared at Mu Yuan, eyes wide: We agreed to be failures together, and you turn out to be a big shot? I misjudged you... Big shot, take me with you!

Mu Yuan hadn't been carrying the remnant souls on him before, but that wasn't a problem. As long as his character stood before the altar, items in the game could be retrieved at any time.

Within the Association, plenty of quiet single rooms were built for players—commonly known as internet cafe booths.

Mu Yuan walked into one, fiddled with his phone, and extracted all three random remnant souls.

Rounding it off, this was basically like carrying a space backpack on him.

It was just that the cross-dimensional fee was ridiculously expensive—those bastards deserved to be hung from a lamppost!

Mu Yuan carried a few remnant souls and quickly returned to his stall.

The boss was craning his neck in anticipation. Seeing that the handsome young man really had remnant souls in hand, he broke into a smile.

This was a promising newcomer.

That being the case, he shouldn't screw the kid over too badly—just make a decent profit and call it a day.

Wait, it seemed like there was more than one remnant soul.

"You... how many remnant souls?"

"Three remnant souls, all random ones."

Mu Yuan showed a shy smile.

The stall boss: "..."

This newcomer definitely had the Lord's Posture! Forget it, forget it, I can't rip him off. It's just a small trade anyway—profit size doesn't matter. Consider it building good karma.

Mu Yuan then spoke up, "Boss, you should know that random remnant souls are worth more than Little Skeleton Remnant Souls, right?"

After a back-and-forth like haggling at a vegetable market, Mu Yuan finally exchanged three random remnant souls for the five Little Skeleton Remnant Souls in Zhang Boss's hands.

Both sides were delighted.

Zhang Boss: Forget it, forget it, profit isn't important—what matters is building good karma.

"Boss, it looks like you're also buying up goods here?"

"That's right." Zhang Boss was a Merchant Player, making a bit of money through buying low and selling high. "But I don't take everything. Things like random remnant souls, Cultivation Materials, and Promotion Materials—I buy those in larger quantities.

"Wait, don't tell me you still have..."

"Just this last drop left. This bottle of Energy Potion. Boss, I heard this kind of Energy Potion can go seven rounds in one night..."

A long while later, Zhang Boss stared at Mu Yuan, who had long since disappeared from sight, and sank into thought.

"Did I lose out?"

But looking at the Orange Potion in his hand, Zhang Boss tightened his grip, unwilling to let go.

The trade done, Mu Yuan quickly slipped away. After several transfers between vehicles, he finally made it back home.

Even though he was just fighting shadows in his own head.

"After all, the stuff I sold, in the eyes of Old Players, isn't worth much even if you multiply the value a few times over."

How much wealth could a pure newcomer with one day of practice have?

Risking breaking the law and becoming a rat on the street just to rob a broke nobody—Mu Yuan didn't think it was worth it.

Still, "If I ever get some high-tier treasure in the future, I can't be so blatant when selling it."

Back home, Mu Yuan glanced at the game situation, then rubbed his hands together and opened the Tai Xuan Forum.

"Notice: Your identity has passed verification. The Tai Xuan Forum is now officially open to you. Wishing you a pleasant experience."

"Notice: The Trading Area has been opened. The Bounty Area (Newcomer) has been opened."

In the Bounty Area, there were tasks like capturing Wanted Players, hunting rogue monsters, and raiding monster camps. But these tasks were all too high-level for newcomers, and new players weren't even qualified to accept them.

Rather than calling it a bounty, it was more like a heads-up to newcomers: a Wanted Player is active in such-and-such city, a powerful rogue monster is roaming in such-and-such forest—watch out and steer clear.

Mu Yuan skimmed through it. Thankfully, Baijiang City had no Wanted Players or rogue monsters.

And the trading area—

"This is a real trading platform. Baijiang City's little market... I won't even mention it."

But after looking through it, Mu Yuan had only one thought—he was utterly broke!

Besides, buying and selling on the trading platform required paying hefty shipping fees and deposits.

This trading platform? Not worth looking at!

Mu Yuan closed the platform, browsed the forums for a bit, ordered lunch delivery, and then started today's grind.

"The forums are usable, the subsidy has arrived, and from now until the Resource Assessment begins... this is the real grind period."

If he didn't grind himself to death, he'd grind until he died!

He checked the game logs.

A whole morning had passed, and his territory was peaceful—no monster attacks at all... This left Mu Yuan a little disappointed.

People were just pathetic.

When he was weak, he feared monster attacks. Now that he wasn't so weak, he complained that the monsters didn't just wrap themselves up and deliver themselves to his doorstep.

This batch of monsters really didn't know how to behave.

He checked on each skeleton's status.

"Skeleton Soldier 'Undead Bone' has advanced to Tier 0, Level 3."

"Skeleton Soldier 'Bone Two' has advanced to Tier 0, Level 2."

"Skeleton Soldier..."

"Little Skeleton..."

From last night until now, not only had Undead Bone been the first to reach Level 3, but the Little Skeleton and the lone Falcon had all collectively advanced to Level 2. The price was that the Soul Sand they'd gathered yesterday was almost completely used up.

Leveling up required it! Manifesting treasures required it! Everything and anything required it.

This tiny amount of Soul Sand was nowhere near enough.

"Relying solely on monsters dropping Soul Sand won't be enough to train Undead Bone and the others to Professional Grade. I'll still need to buy from other players."

Among the Old Players, there were those who specialized in 'gold farming'—they were naturally Ranger Players who had lost their Lord identity. Their own ranks weren't high enough either, so they could only earn some hard-earned cash to get by.

But Mu Yuan was also earning hard-earned cash.

He needed to sell the treasures he'd gathered and exchange them for Soul Sand as fine as dust. A single Remnant Soul could only sell for a few dozen grams of Soul Sand. Sure enough, making money was just too hard.

Today was the second day since Mu Yuan had obtained game access. He wanted to lie low, but appropriate outward development was necessary to survive more steadily on the Eternal Continent.

Before heading out, Mu Yuan prepared to recruit the five Newbie Little Skeletons.

"Recruiting requires 5 Remnant Souls and 25g of Soul Sand. Luckily, I sold that Energy Potion earlier, or I'd be stuck on Soul Sand right now."

"But sending the Soul Sand into the Eternal Continent means another Cross-Dimensional Fee to pay."

Mu Yuan's heart was bleeding.

He felt that the Eternal Continent was the biggest black-hearted boss of all. Players had materials going in and out every day—how much toll money did they have to pay?

After consuming his meager supply of Soul Sand, a few Little Skeletons soon wobbled down from the Lord Altar.

They looked dull and stupid, walking with a staggering gait as if they might fall over at any moment, making it impossible as always to hold any expectations for Little Skeletons.

But—

The Undead Bone General stepped forward. He walked straight up to the few skeleton little brothers and rattled off a stream of skeleton language nonstop.

Stay firmly on the Lord's path, work hard at moving bricks... learn to deceive, to ambush those monsters... no need to talk about martial virtue with monsters—throw lime when you should, slide-tackle when you should...

Mu Yuan vaguely understood most of Undead Bone's meaning, but whether these dull, stupid Little Skeletons understood was another matter.

"Good, very spirited."

After Undead Bone had inspected the newly joined skeletons, Mu Yuan also checked on Undead Bone and the other two Skeleton Soldiers.

Bone Two and Bone Three aside, Undead Bone's progress went far beyond just levels.

Not only had he become more proficient with Cleave, able to execute three Cleaves in a row, but he had also figured out quite a few combat techniques and tactics on his own.

Things like donkey rolls, eye pokes, crippling strikes, and so on.

Mu Yuan was a little speechless.

Wasn't the tone a bit off here? His skeleton, who bore the Appearance of an Emperor—why was he figuring out stuff like this? Oh, maybe it had a little something to do with his own teaching? Yeah, that was right—these moves were pretty practical. Undead Bone was learning by analogy, truly the Appearance of an Emperor. No wonder he was his student.

"But to be fair, the combat power of a Skeleton Soldier with combat techniques and one that just charges in headfirst is vastly different. And Undead Bone is clearly still in a period of rapid improvement."

"Are all troops that awaken self-awareness this freakish?"

"Or is Undead Bone just a little freakier than other freakish troops?"

"I wonder what kind of scene it'll be when Undead Bone evolves again."

"Skeleton Evolution Points: 2.52"

If things went smoothly, tonight, he would evolve his first Rare Troop.