Opportunity

The man holding the iron bar looked to be in his early thirties. His hair was tousled like instant noodles that had not been fully soaked, and he wore a dirty shirt with overalls—a very typical workwear outfit.

The iron bar in his hand was not sharp. It looked like a piece of rebar he had picked up at random, clearly grabbed on the spur of the moment.

"Good grief, I almost thought my flag had summoned a Joestar!" Looking at the wiry man, Feng Xue relaxed slightly. Faced with the sudden attack, he had actually been a little flustered. After all, most of his strength lay in his Phantom Objects. His Main Body was just a three-yellow build Phantom Assassin (Note ①), and aside from having slightly higher evasion, he was even weaker than a super creep.

But since the other man did not look like some kind of super-assassin, Feng Xue felt somewhat reassured. While remaining on guard, he swept his surroundings with the corner of his eye, searching for a weapon he could use.

Although he had prepared himself for a fight to the death, he still spoke up:

"Why did you attack me?"

The man had no intention of answering. He merely moved his feet slowly, tightening his grip on the rebar.

However, thanks to his excellent observational skills, Feng Xue still noticed that the other man's eyes kept glancing toward that block of ice, intentionally or otherwise.

Could this ice block, which only has Garbled Code on it, be some kind of treasure? Or did he, like me, discover the thing beneath the ice block that contains the [Fate] element?

Feng Xue was pondering this when the other man moved first.

Although he looked somewhat disheveled, in Infinite City, appearance could be called the least trustworthy thing of all.

It was just like how Feng Xue still looked like a slightly skinny, unhealthy shut-in, yet who could have imagined that he was capable of lifting a grand piano with one hand?

The rebar was raised high without the slightest hesitation. The whoosh it made as the man stepped forward was enough to completely dispel any thought Feng Xue had of blocking it with his flesh and blood.

He immediately unleashed the assassin's footwork. Although it was not particularly effective, Feng Xue still activated Breath Concealment right in front of him. As his presence diminished slightly, he pressed both shoulders backward, causing the backpack filled with loot to slide off. Freed from its burden, Feng Xue sped up as well, reaching out and pulling a broken bicycle handlebar from the ground.

As his body rose and fell, he made extensive use of gravity's influence on his movements. In a single rise and fall, he seemed to Teleportation, appearing in front of the man in workwear.

The man was no master of the Long Weapon, and he had not expected Feng Xue's advance to be so swift. He tried to pull back the rebar to block, but how could he be faster than Feng Xue, who was carrying the momentum of his charge?

The bicycle handlebar swung around with the motion and slammed into the wrist gripping the rebar. Rust and broken edges tore through the flesh of the wrist with ease.

The man cried out in pain as his injured joint gave way, and the rebar fell from his hand. Feng Xue had already taken another step, abruptly closing the distance to one where even close-quarters combat was somewhat awkward.

The man instinctively tried to retreat, but it was already too late.

Almost instinctively, Feng Xue thrust his palm upward and exerted force. A crisp crack of breaking bone erupted together with a smooth, satisfying sensation. The man before him went limp at once. He did not die immediately, but judging from the twisted, sunken state of his throat, he clearly would not live long.

Only then did Feng Xue, who had unleashed a combo through conditioned reflex, realize what had happened. He yanked his hand back as though he had accidentally touched a poisonous snake, feeling completely dazed.

But Infinite City gave him no time to be dazed. The instant the man breathed his last, an element within the [Assassin] Tag became active as well.

A strange sensation spread through him, and Feng Xue immediately understood the name of the element whose feedback had arrived—

[Perception]

The feedback brought by this element was not as direct as [Transport]. It did not increase his physical attributes by even a little. Instead, it granted Feng Xue an entirely new "sense."

It was difficult to describe exactly what it was, but it truly existed within Feng Xue's body. It allowed him to accurately detect others' hostility and even killing intent toward him, while also helping him see through the openings in his enemies' defenses.

The feedback from the element greatly diluted the mental pressure of Feng Xue's first kill. After missing that initial peak of emotion, he found that he did not feel much of anything anymore.

Now, facing the corpse before him, Feng Xue felt no disgust whatsoever. He even had the urge to take out a knife and dissect it on the spot. That was probably the result of developing a strong stomach after working on cadavers every day during this period.

However, time in the Garbage Dump was ultimately precious. Feng Xue did not put the idea into practice. Instead, he casually dragged the corpse aside. Although he still did not know why the man had attacked him, that no longer seemed important.

Still, considering that the man had attempted to kill him without saying a word, Feng Xue did not simply discard the ice block. He picked up the rebar the man had used as a weapon and smashed it hard against the ice. As the block cracked apart, a flawless, eight-heart, eight-arrow diamond appeared before his eyes.

The only regrettable thing was that this diamond also contained nothing but a pile of Garbled Code.

"Smashing the ice block?" Feng Xue casually picked up the gemstone and finally understood the other man's purpose. He could not help feeling speechless. If the man had been more patient, he might have realized that Feng Xue simply had no idea the ice could be smashed.

Shaking his head and casting these irrelevant matters from his mind, Feng Xue brushed away all the ice shards, revealing the item containing the [Fate] element.

What left him speechless was that this was another card—

A card with a huge exclamation mark drawn on its back.

"Doesn't look like a trading card..." Feng Xue muttered as he picked it up. His expression immediately became extremely colorful, passing through the full sequence of "surprise, puzzlement, speechlessness, and understanding" in the span of just a few seconds.

The front of the card was also very simple. The card art showed a cartoon Little Figure standing at a fork in the road, while the text below offered a concise description—

"Opportunity: Encounter a fork in the road and draw one 'Fate' card."

Besides [Fate], this card also contained the [Opportunity] and [Adventure] elements.

"Well, damn. So it's Monopoly after all!"

At this moment, all the mysteries were finally solved. The motorcycles scattered everywhere, the Item Cards said to possess tremendous power by the newcomer guide, the UFO that had fallen earlier, and the ice block sealing away a gemstone before him were all connected by this keyword in an instant, becoming one reasonable explanation.

Feng Xue no longer found it strange that motorcycles had dropped out of the board-game world. At this point, he was even curious why so few airplanes had fallen—

Could this Garbage Dump not be connected to the Ludo world, meow?

(In fact, airplanes in Ludo are not set to crash.)

Note ①: "Yellow points" is a term from Dota. Since the button for adding attribute points in Dota is a yellow cross, adding attributes is called "putting points into yellow." Most of the time, yellow points are only taken after all skills have been maxed. Even in the early days, putting points into three yellow attributes in pairs was considered an unorthodox build: it meant giving up active skills with low early-game benefits in favor of investing in passives and attributes.