The journey back to the Abandoned Cooling Plant was even easier than Bai Fu had expected.
Her Spirit was 14 and her Inspiration was 16. Those two attributes had greatly enhanced her senses, allowing her to detect the movements of the mutated insects from far away.
Thanks to this ability, she deliberately avoided the larger swarms of mutated insects. By the time she saw the fence at the edge of the Abandoned Cooling Plant, she had only been through four battles.
Those four battles were little more than a warm-up for her now. She hadn't even used [Power Surge] to temporarily boost her strength, yet she'd easily turned those mutated insects into experience points.
Including the mutated insects she'd killed while driving earlier, she'd earned another 13,038 experience points on this trip. Her experience reserve had reached 14,007, bringing her close to having enough to advance her class once she completed [Insect Tide Invasion].
The only problem was that she still hadn't found an Advanced Class knowledge book.
"Maybe there's some good stuff in the Wildfire Gang's library, which only the Wildfire Gang Boss can enter. Even if there isn't, the Lynn settlement should have some."
Bai Fu was in a pretty good mood.
After browsing the livestreams opened by the players at the Abandoned Cooling Plant, her mood improved even more.
First, she'd stirred up the players' emotions by bravely standing her ground at the Abandoned Cooling Plant, making them think she was doomed. Then, through her performance on the road, she'd given them a glimmer of hope in their despair, making them think she might still survive. Finally, just when success seemed within reach, she'd sacrificed herself without hesitation to clear a path for the players to reach tomorrow.
After those three emotional swings, she'd pushed the players' feelings to the breaking point. They were practically begging for an outlet.
Grief, pain, unforgettable sorrow...
Every livestream she watched was full of players venting those three emotions. Digging Princess was easily the most worked up of them all.
As her emotions swung up and down, Digging Princess vividly acted out the changing mindset of Bai Fu's supporters for everyone in the livestream.
First she flopped down and gave up completely, then pulled herself together, then fainted on the spot, and finally sprang back to her feet after hearing that there was still a chance Bai Fu might be alive. The show was on par with the classic "big promises at the start, incoherent babbling in the middle, and silence at the end." The players who loved a good laugh dubbed her the master of emotional sit-ups, and even turned her into a meme. It looked like the whole thing was about to become a running joke.
Bai Fu burst out laughing.
Memes were easier to spread. It was like the classic "Krillin's sacrifice brings boundless power" from Dragon Ball. It was a little dark, but as soon as someone brought it up, everyone was reminded of the iconic scene that went with it.
That would do wonders for cementing her popularity and raising her profile among the players.
"The mood's just right. Now I'll let the emotions simmer for a while."
Her plan was to wait half a day before showing herself to the players.
If she showed up too soon, the emotions wouldn't have built up enough, and the payoff wouldn't be as satisfying. But showing up too late wouldn't be good either. Who knew what might happen by then?
A little over ten minutes later, Bai Fu arrived at the Wildfire Gang without a hitch.
Since only three hours had passed since she discovered the enhancement serum, she headed to the library that only the Wildfire Gang Boss could freely enter, not the lab.
There was no one around, so she shot the lock off the door and went inside.
The library wasn't large, and it took her only a little over ten minutes to search the whole place.
To Bai Fu's disappointment, there were no Spiritual Energy School Advanced Class knowledge books. Still, she hadn't come away empty-handed. She found three knowledge books for other classes on the shelves—
Sharpshooter Training Manual 2.0, Advanced Studies in Muscle and Force Generation, and Introduction to Qi
She couldn't use these Advanced Class knowledge books for now, but she could give them to the players as rewards and earn another wave of Favorability.
After leaving the library, Bai Fu set her sights on the Wildfire Gang's vault and supply depot.
It took her a full hour and a half to dig out everything in the vault and supply depot that could be useful to her.
She had to admit, she'd struck it rich this time. She'd gotten more than 170,000 Credit Coins alone. Adding in what she'd saved up before, she now had over 200,000 in savings. She could definitely be called a little rich girl.
Besides the Credit Coins, she'd also gotten more than twenty guns, a Grenade Launcher, a bag of military rations that could quickly restore stamina, three brand-new protective undersuits, more than a dozen military binoculars, and some miscellaneous odds and ends, like bullets.
If it hadn't been so conspicuous, she would've liked to drive off in the Wildfire Gang Boss's personal vehicle, too.
Bai Fu packed everything into boxes before heading into the lab.
By then, the progress bar for the enhancement serum had filled up. She carefully opened the cultivation pod. There were two bottles of serum inside, but she took only one.
She didn't take both partly because one was enough for her, and partly because she had a keen sense that the enhancement serum Yulia had made might be tied to the main quest on Zu Yuan Star.
She thought it would be best to let the Gene Primordial people take the serum back for analysis and see what the Truth Society was really up to.
After closing the cultivation pod again, Bai Fu dragged her spoils of war and hurried home.
From the players' livestreams, she'd seen that most of the mutated insects that had invaded the Abandoned Cooling Plant had already been killed. The Insect Tide would probably be completely suppressed soon. People were sure to come to the Wildfire Gang after that, and she didn't want to run into them.
Just as she'd expected, she'd barely dragged the boxes to the vacant lot by her house, which was piled high with construction debris, when she received a game notification.
[You have completed the quest [Insect Tide Invasion]. Contribution Points: 23.6%. Rewards: 40,000 experience points, 3 attribute points, Spiritual Energy Knowledge Chain (4)]
"Hm?"
Since [Insect Tide Invasion] wasn't a Faction Quest, even with Contribution Points as high as 23.6%, Bai Fu didn't receive an extra title reward like she had the last time she attacked the players' stronghold. But the rewards from the quest itself were enough to surprise her.
She'd thought she'd be lucky to get 10,000 experience points for completing it. She hadn't expected the quest to give her 40,000 outright. Was this the appeal of a high-difficulty quest?
With all that experience, she could raise her Advanced Class to Lv. 2 in one go.
There was no need to say how sweet the 3 attribute points were. Bai Fu immediately put all three into Constitution, raising it to 29.
But of the three rewards, the most valuable was actually [Spiritual Energy Knowledge Chain (4)].
The class system in Above the Stars was a little different from the class systems in ordinary online games. It was more like the tech trees in certain farming games—
To unlock an advanced class, you had to learn the prerequisite knowledge first!
To learn an initial class or an Advanced Class, players only needed the corresponding class knowledge book and enough experience. But to advance from an Advanced Class to a High Class, a class knowledge book and experience weren't enough. They first had to master at least five knowledge chains.
That was what they meant by knowledge is power!
Of course, these knowledge chains weren't for nothing. Every additional chain a player mastered granted a corresponding bonus.
Bai Fu tapped the [Spiritual Energy Knowledge Chain (4)] she'd just received, and the enhancement effects immediately appeared.
[All Spiritual Energy active skill effects +20%, Spiritual Energy resistance +20%] [Note: Unlock a new knowledge chain. All Spiritual Energy active skill effects +20%, Spiritual Energy resistance +20%, Spiritual Energy recovery speed +2/minute]
Including the 10% bonus from Basic Spiritual Energy Mastery, her skill effects would be boosted by 30% from now on. The gap between her and ordinary Spiritual Apprentices had widened all at once.
"I'm finally starting to look like an elite monster."
Bai Fu stared excitedly at the bottle of enhancement serum in her pocket. If she could successfully absorb it and then got dropped into Novice Village, the pressure she brought to bear would probably surpass even Yulia's avatar.
But how was she supposed to absorb the enhancement serum?
When she saw the line in the serum's description that read, "10% chance of causing the target to undergo mutation," Bai Fu felt a headache coming on.
She'd wait a little longer. She didn't dare risk it right now.
"An Ya."
Bai Fu called An Ya out of the basement.
An Ya had been stuck in the basement for almost half a day, and she was already sweating with anxiety. The moment she saw Bai Fu return safe and sound, she rushed over.
"Boss, I was about to go out and look for you."
Bai Fu smiled and led her over to the big box. "Open it and take a look."
An Ya opened the box with a suspicious look. She'd expected it might contain something valuable, but when she saw a pile of Credit Coins taller than she was, she was so stunned that she couldn't speak.
"Boss, this..."
An Ya looked from side to side, at a loss.
Bai Fu said, "It's all real money. All right, take it down to the basement."
An Ya hurried to do as she was told. She grinned as she hauled the money away. They'd never have to go hungry again!
Bai Fu smiled as she watched An Ya's delighted back.
After all that work, she'd finally escaped the desperate straits she'd been in when she first crossed over. She was still far from safe, of course, since she'd only just made an enemy of the Truth Society. But things were different now. She had at least some ability to protect herself, and she was on the Gene Primordial's turf. No matter how arrogant the Truth Society was, they wouldn't dare make a big, public move.
After carrying the other things from the boxes into the basement, Bai Fu gulped down two big glasses of cool boiled water, then wandered around the community to kill time.
She only wanted to see how the players were reacting, but as soon as she opened the community page, the first thing she saw was an official announcement pinned to the top.
[Above the Stars Update Announcement] [Dear Interstellar Adventurers: Above the Stars has been warmly received by players since its official open beta. To ensure stable server operations and quality service, the game will go offline for maintenance in 1 hour. Maintenance is expected to take 4 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. [Update Announcement] 1. Expand the servers to allow more players to join the adventure. 2. Enable the [Guild] feature. Adventurers are welcome to create their own guilds. 3. ... ... After maintenance, Above the Stars will bring you a brand-new promotional video. Stay tuned.]
The announcement listed all sorts of things, most of which had nothing to do with the game itself. They were mainly quality-of-life upgrades for the game's peripheral features.
Bai Fu was only concerned with the maintenance shutdown.
The game would go offline for four hours. Considering that time in the game flowed differently from time outside it, the players would actually be gone for much longer than four hours. As for exactly how long, that depended on what the developers had planned.
"If the players don't log back in for two or three days, how am I supposed to put on a grand return-from-the-dead show and set off all the emotions they've been bottling up?"
Bai Fu was speechless.
The players who were searching for her were just as speechless when they saw the update announcement.
[Holy crap, I just want to know if Bai Fu is dead or not, and this is what you hit me with?]
[You bastards, don't show up with a cliffhanger right now! If you're going to update, at least tell me how Fu Fu's story ends first!]
[Is the official team asking to get flamed?]
[Could it be—I'm just asking, is it possible—that the reason for the sudden maintenance isn't server expansion at all, but a chance to fix the "bug" where Bai Fu died?]
[Honestly, that could be it.]
No matter how impatient the players were, how much they complained, or how unwilling they were to leave, when the scheduled time came, they were still forced offline.
"They're dead. They're all dead. For Bai Fu, for the Abandoned Cooling Plant, they..."
At dawn, beside the ruins piled with mutated insect corpses, Xia Shi let out a long, grief-stricken sigh.
Even though Bai Fu had successfully used the lure bait to draw the Insect Tide away, a great battle had still been unavoidable to wipe out the mutated insects that had already reached the Abandoned Cooling Plant.
The mutated insects had all been eliminated, but the Outsiders had fallen one after another. By the end, out of a hundred Outsiders, at most four or five were still standing.
What a brutal battle!
Even Xia Shi, who was used to blood and fire, had nearly thrown up at the sight.
She wanted to go comfort the surviving Outsiders, but she couldn't think of anything to say. In the end, all she could do was watch them limp away until they disappeared from sight.
"Try to look on the bright side. Don't make yourself depressed," Yago said, trying to comfort her.
Xia Shi nodded. "I know. I'll feel better in a few days... Wait, Yago, look over there!"
Over there?
Yago followed her gaze.
Through the thin morning mist, he saw a lone figure walking toward them.
One step, two steps, three steps... At last, the figure passed through the mist and came closer.
This time, Yago could see clearly.
"Bai Fu!"
Bai Fu had made it back alive!
Yago's eyes widened. A thousand joys surged through his heart. On this chilly morning, at last something good had happened.
If the Outsiders who'd died in battle knew Bai Fu was still alive, they'd feel a lot better even in the afterlife, wouldn't they?
After reuniting with Yago and Xia Shi, Bai Fu shared the story she'd just made up.
It was simple. After getting out of the vehicle, she'd been attacked by a large number of mutated insects. To hold them back more effectively, she'd led them far away. She'd thought she was done for, but after chasing her for a while, the mutated insects had turned around and left. At that moment, she'd realized the plan had worked. She'd wanted to go back and find Patrick Star, but she'd gotten lost in the dark and wandered around all night before finally making it back to the Abandoned Cooling Plant without incident.
"So the situation is that I survived, but they died?" Bai Fu asked, her expression blank.
Yago and Xia Shi comforted her. "Yes."
"Ah..."
Bai Fu sighed and sat quietly beside the ruins, as if waiting for someone. She sat there for a long time, all the way until the afternoon, then finally stood up as if she'd accepted the truth. She walked over to a player corpse that hadn't disappeared yet and gently nudged it with her shoe.
"Didn't you say you couldn't die? Then what's this? Hurry up and revive. Show me you can!"
Xia Shi suspected that grief had addled Bai Fu's mind. "Bai Fu, the dead can't come back to life. You..."
Bai Fu opened her mouth. She wanted to say something, but in the end, she swallowed the words she'd been about to say.
"They saved the Abandoned Cooling Plant. I want to build a monument for them."
Yago and Xia Shi were moved. "I'll help."
"Thank you."
Watching the two of them get right to work, Bai Fu couldn't help smiling to herself.
Building a monument for the players was the solution she'd come up with to deal with their sudden disappearance!
As long as the players knew she was still alive, their suppressed emotions were bound to burst out sooner or later. So why obsess over appearing in front of them herself?
Actually, Bai Fu was rather grateful for the developers' move this time. It had pushed the players' emotions even lower. What was more, the official team's announcement had sent interest in whether Bai Fu was dead or alive through the roof. Even plenty of people who hadn't cared about her fate had been drawn in and started making bets on the community page.
When the game came back online and the players saw the monument, how would they react?
Bai Fu could hardly wait to find out.
Come on, bring it on already. She couldn't wait any longer!
P.S. Thanks to dudududu for the tip. Please consider adding this to your reading list.
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