Paying this protection fee had naturally been part of the plan before entering the Inner World. Vinina was no fool; she understood the principle that possessing a treasure invited trouble. If she could borrow Tao Yuan's name, she would basically be able to leave the Lightning World safely.
As for Tao Yuan being only a Domain Lord?
That was enough.
A Domain Lord of the Virtual Universe Company was entirely different from an unaffiliated Domain Lord. Once they left the Lightning World, she could simply take out a little of her haul to placate a Domain Lord.
Time passed.
Vinina's daily gains remained fairly steady. After all, this was unlike the Original Work, where two million Star level ninth-rank adventurers had flooded in at once. There were only around ten thousand adventurers in total now, and most of them were single-mindedly digging for Cosmic Crystals. Even if they encountered robbers—
There were only tens of thousands of adventurers in total, and the vast majority were freelance adventurers. Of those from the four major organizations and two holy lands participating in the Apprentice Mercenary Exam, each organization struggled to field even a thousand people. With those few thousand scattered across this enormous Inner World, how many could any single team have?
And how many of them were Star level ninth-rank?
At worst, Vinina's kill count would merely grow larger.
And so, it was not until the fourteenth day that Vinina began heading toward the core region of the Inner World. The core region had a great many freelance adventurers, so the four major organizations and two holy lands were desperately recruiting them. However, Three Axe Mountain, one of the four major organizations, did not cultivate young talent. Its minimum recruitment threshold was Universe level. Even those participating in the Apprentice Mercenary