The Cycle Mission

"Where are you at with your hidden quest?"

"Oh, that? It's already finished. I have to wait until I reach level ten for the next one. It's going to be a long wait!" Wang Qianduo answered honestly.

"I see." Lin Qimeng replied, then focused on her meal.

Wang Qianduo: "..."

Was she really that practical?!

~~~

"What's going on between you and that woman?"

After the three of them finished eating in an awkward atmosphere, Wang Jun asked Wang Qianduo as they headed back to the office.

"What do you mean, what's going on? You saw it yourself. She came to ask about my quest progress!" Wang Qianduo said.

"You really don't understand women. No wonder you're single!" Wang Jun laughed, then walked off.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? Explain yourself! You know I hate it when people leave things half-said!"

Wang Qianduo didn't dwell on Lin Qimeng. After having a cup of tea to help digest his food, he logged back in.

He still had a cycle mission to do. Women would only slow down his leveling.

The first stage of the cycle mission was to collect three kinds of ore from a mining planet.

It wasn't difficult at all, just a simple travel quest.

Since he didn't have any teammates, Wang Qianduo could fly the whole way. He could even activate his equipment skill to dash at top speed. The quest couldn't have been easier.

The second cycle mission was to kill thirty Star Beasts that had strayed into the space around Homeworld.

These Star Beasts were all ordinary monsters between levels five and ten. They were scattered through the space around Homeworld, creatures that roamed the void.

They could barely withstand one cast of Wang Qianduo's Chain Lightning, so the quest became a test of his flying ability.

The third stage of the cycle mission was to transport cargo from the Homeworld base to the Moonstar base.

There was too much cargo to use the teleportation array. Fortunately, he wasn't doing the quest alone; a large group of NPCs would accompany him. It was basically a delivery job.

He completed the first three quests quickly, but the fourth one was a problem. It required him to complete a dungeon.

Wang Qianduo couldn't enter a dungeon alone right now!

"Emmm..."

But just thinking about it wasn't going to help, so he decided to check out the dungeon entrance first.

It had only been two days since his first dungeon run, but the entrance was much livelier now than it had been back then.

A lot of players were reaching level five every day at this point, though the crowd was still manageable.

The bulk of the players hadn't arrived yet. Most of them were still level three or four, and it would take another three to five days for them to reach level five.

The gap between skilled players and ordinary players in this game was unprecedented.

"Can carry you through a Normal dungeon, five silver per person. All drops are mine. Need two more!"

In Mecha Era, when high-level players carried low-level players, their rewards were reduced by more than half.

But for quests and monster grinding—things players could handle in a party of their own level—it really wasn't worth having a high-level player carry them.

Dungeons were different. For some players, going in without a carry meant getting no rewards at all. With a carry, they could still get half the rewards.

Otherwise, their daily dungeon runs would just go to waste!

The players offering dungeon carries at the entrance only did Normal difficulty. It was simple: they couldn't clear anything harder.

The dungeon's level cap was twelve, and the players offering carries were all around that level.

With the stats they'd gained from evolving after level ten, they could manage Normal difficulty.

But on Hard mode, without teammates to help, they'd just wipe. Nightmare mode was completely out of the question.

Seeing those players offering carries gave Wang Qianduo an idea. He typed:

"Can carry you through a dungeon, one gold per person. One run only, limited spots, first come, first served. Pay before the final boss!"

Why was everyone else charging five silver while he wanted one gold? Don't ask. He was a player at their level too, so his rewards wouldn't be cut in half.

Wang Qianduo's unusual offer quickly attracted attention. But when everyone saw his level, they called him a scammer and left the party.

Then, before Wang Qianduo could even say anything, they promptly blocked him.

In fact, the players looking for dungeon carries weren't exactly poor. A single dungeon run cost five silver, and the current exchange rate was nearly one gold to three hundred in real-world currency.

Five runs would cost nearly eight hundred in real-world currency.

Finally, someone asked, "Hey, you're only level six. What makes you think you can carry people through a dungeon? Is it Jingru Liang?"

The words sounded like a challenge, but they came from a very young woman's voice.

"Wait, don't leave yet. You can't tell whether I'm any good without seeing me in the dungeon, right?

"How about this? Could you be patient and wait for one more person? Once we have three, we'll head straight in.

"If you think I can't handle it after we enter, you can leave then. At least you won't have wasted a run, right?"

Wang Qianduo had finally found someone willing to hear him out. Of course he wasn't going to let the chance slip away.

"Sure. Your voice sounds about my age, so you can drop the formalities. I'm Yu Xiaoyu. I'll be generous and let you call me Big Sis Yu!"

Wang Qianduo: "...Thanks, I guess!"

"You're welcome!"

"Let's not wait anymore. My cousin just reached level five, and she wants to run this dungeon too. I'll call her over!" After waiting several minutes without anyone showing up, Yu Xiaoyu couldn't take it anymore.

She contacted her cousin, and before long, a level-five agility-type mech hurried over.

"Why didn't you wait for me, Sis?" Yu Xiaoyu's cousin sounded like a sweet, soft-spoken girl.

"You're so slow! Even in an agility-type mech, you still leveled slower than me in my strength-type mech!"

The girl's in-game name was Yu Xiaoxin. It was obvious she and her cousin were cut from the same cloth.

After the three formed a party, Wang Qianduo called out a couple more times, still hoping someone else would join. But when no one came, he decided to enter the dungeon.

Since it was the two girls' first time in a dungeon, the difficulty was set back to Normal.

With Wang Qianduo's equipment, he could clear a Normal dungeon by himself without any trouble. It didn't take long for them to encounter their first pack of Dire Wolves.

"Don't move around. I'll take care of them. If you want to fight, focus on the ones I've already hit."

After saying that, Wang Qianduo drew the Minghong Blade and charged toward the pack of Dire Wolves.

Yu Xiaoyu didn't manage to stop him. She'd never seen anyone run a dungeon like this.

Just as she began to think she'd wasted her time, a silver arc of electricity started leaping back and forth among the wolves.

All seven Dire Wolves went down. Wang Qianduo swung his weapon rapidly, leaving each one badly injured with a single slash and finishing it off with the second.

If he used a skill, the Dire Wolves wouldn't even last long enough to take a second hit.

Their attacks barely hurt Wang Qianduo, but he still made a point of dodging them, even if it hardly mattered.

The Yu sisters' faces had turned into this:

(o)

Both of them stared at the utterly unreasonable scene with their mouths hanging open. They'd completely forgotten their earlier thoughts of leaving the party.

"Sis, we're all around level five or six. Why is his damage so high?"

"Maybe it's because of the saber he's using. It's obviously no ordinary weapon."

By the time they finished talking, Wang Qianduo had already taken care of all the monsters. He collected the drops, then said to the two of them, "Keep up!"

"Oh! Okay!"

The sisters quickly caught up with Wang Qianduo and watched him put on a show all the way through the dungeon.

It was especially impressive when they reached the final boss. Wang Qianduo activated Weak Point Break, a skill from the Flamegold Crystal. Each hit dealt nearly five thousand damage, which seemed downright unbelievable to the two girls.

The scene was beyond shocking.

"Do you want to buy any of this equipment?"

"Yes! We'll buy it!"

They seemed to be a pair of rich young ladies, too!

"Big shot, will you carry us through Hard mode?" Yu Xiaoyu asked after the two sisters bought the equipment Wang Qianduo didn't need but they could use.

"I need to finish a quest. I might be able to carry you tonight," Wang Qianduo said after thinking it over. He could earn some extra money and run a dungeon at the same time. Carrying people really was a good option.

"Then let's add each other as friends! We'll reserve two spots for tonight!" Yu Xiaoyu said.

After they added each other as friends, Wang Qianduo said goodbye to the two girls and continued working on his cycle mission.

The fifth cycle mission was a little unusual. It was a cleaning job.

He had to clean the plaza at Homeworld Base, and he couldn't just phone it in.

"Good thing they have street sweepers. How long would it take to sweep a plaza this big by hand?"

"Hey! If it isn't our company's star player. What are you doing sweeping the plaza?"

Wang Qianduo was driving the street sweeper, congratulating himself on his good fortune, when a nasal voice called out.

Since he was the only one driving a street sweeper here, Wang Qianduo followed the voice and soon spotted its owner.