More than ten days later
After Wang Qianduo finished off a squad of Demon Rats and used up the last of his fatigue, he finally had enough experience to reach level 10.
Old Wang didn't hesitate. He chose to level up right where he stood.
These past few days, he'd kept up a steady rotation of repeatable quests and had been running Nightmare Dungeons with the Yu Sisters, taking players along.
Then, every day, he would head underground on Demon Rat Star and use up all his fatigue. At last, he'd successfully reached level 10.
It was a path that took other people over a month to complete. He'd done it in half a month, mainly thanks to how rewarding the repeatable quests were.
At the same time, Old Wang had not only gained a lot of levels these past few days; his skills had also improved by leaps and bounds.
At the very least, thanks to his gear advantage, the players he took into dungeons would now respectfully call him a master instead of a rich guy.
Only he knew how hard he'd worked and how much sweat he'd spilled at the Training Ground.
Now that he'd reached level ten, Wang Qianduo had plenty to do. Fortunately, tomorrow was the weekend, so he could work late tonight.
As for his hair and all that, he was still young, wasn't he? It could grow back! Worst case, he could just buy the best hair-care products!
Now that he was level ten, all three of his evolvable pieces of equipment could evolve. But he was still short several hundred thousand experience, so he'd have to grind for a while.
Several hundred thousand experience was enough to level up a few more times. It would also take him many days of grinding.
"When you put it that way, I'm actually not that much faster than everyone else!
Sigh. It brings tears to my eyes!"
Isn't that just typical of a spoiled brat, never satisfied no matter how much he has?
Seriously!
After whining for a while, Wang Qianduo opened his system interface and checked out the various features the system had just notified him were now available.
Features like vehicles and Character Outfits weren't important, since he didn't have any of those things right now.
He did have outfits, but they were all in storage. As for vehicles, he really didn't have one.
Besides, he needed a license to drive a vehicle, and that would take time too.
What he was most interested in was the Game Shop, which was closely tied to his cheat. Other people got it at level 10 as well, but their shops only offered one kind of item: Character Outfits that didn't add any attributes.
Wang Qianduo's shop, however, was different. It had four sections.
Outfits were just one of them. There were also materials, items, and the Limited-Time Deals Shop.
Besides the attribute-free outfits available to ordinary players, the Character Outfit section also had some that added attributes, though they weren't as good as the ones given to VIP 15 members.
The Materials Shop and Items Shop were exactly what their names suggested. The highest-grade items in the Materials Shop were Legendary, and even those had purchase limits.
For example, the Earth Elemental Energy Crystal (Legendary), which Wang Qianduo knew very well, was one of the most precious materials in the shop. He could only buy one per month.
Gold Crystal was another material, and it wasn't expensive either. Like diamonds, it cost one yuan for ten, but purchases were limited to ten thousand a month.
The Items Shop had a more mixed assortment. It offered countless consumables with all kinds of functions, though potions made up the bulk of them.
The 30% full-recovery potion that Wang Qianduo had been longing for was just one of the more ordinary items.
Now he didn't need to worry about running out of potions. If he ran into trouble, he could just use one.
Finally, the Limited-Time Deals Shop had six items in stock. Once he'd bought them all, he could spend diamonds to refresh the selection.
VIP 15 members could refresh it up to fifty times a week. Each refresh cost two yuan, or twenty diamonds. The limit reset after a week, and the shop also refreshed for free once.
The items in this shop were more varied. Most were also available in the other three shops, but some were special.
For example, there were Blast Bombs, equipment blueprints of various grades, vehicles, and Epic-grade materials.
Any item that existed in the game could appear here. The rarer it was, the lower the chance of it showing up.
Like the items in his VIP gift packs, everything in these shops had to be bought with the diamonds he'd topped up.
He still had plenty of diamonds, so he didn't need to worry about running out anytime soon.
The shop was great, but there was one catch: everything he bought with diamonds was bound. Without that restriction, who would bother going to work?
What a shame! What a shame!
After looking over the shop's features for a while, Wang Qianduo took off and left the underground world.
His top priority now was evolving his mecha. Everything else could wait. He'd been looking forward to this moment for a long time.
Following the address his master, Old Luo, had left him, Wang Qianduo used the token Old Luo had given him to find an ordinary apartment building on the Homeworld.
This was his first time visiting the Homeworld. There wasn't anything particularly special about it. Its blue skies, white clouds, green mountains, and clear rivers were exactly like those on Earthstar, if anything a little more primitive.
There weren't many people left on the Homeworld in the game. After players began arriving in large numbers, the entire planet's population was still smaller than that of a single district in the Homeworld Base floating in the sky.
One reason was that players couldn't enter the place freely. But the bigger reason was that much of its population had left and never returned.
The planet that had once given rise to human civilization was now almost entirely devoid of valuable interstellar resources.
These days, its historical significance outweighed any other reason for its existence.
Its population was still shrinking, too, since most of the people who stayed were elderly folk who didn't want to leave their homeland.
Young people were a rare sight, so Wang Qianduo attracted plenty of looks as he made his way there.
After entering the apartment building, Wang Qianduo rang the doorbell. Old Luo invited him inside.
Old Luo's home was an ordinary residence, plain and simple.
He lived alone, with no one else in the house. It suited his world-weary expression perfectly.
"You got here a lot faster than I expected. Looks like you're quite talented," Old Luo said, looking at Wang Qianduo with satisfaction.
"No, General Huang pulled some strings for me," Wang Qianduo replied candidly.
Besides, the Elemental Crown was already bound to him. Even if Old Luo wanted him to give it up now, he couldn't. There was no point in lying.
Old Luo: "...You're damn honest, I'll give you that!"
"Thanks, Master!"
Was I even praising you?
Old Luo: "All right, enough talk. Here's the price list for the materials you'll need for this mecha evolution. Take a look.
If everything looks good, pay up, and then I'll take you to start the trial."
"Materials? Pay?" Wang Qianduo stared at the price list Old Luo handed him, worth twenty thousand Gold Crystals, and felt his whole world collapse.
Most rare mecha evolutions required a trial. Wang Qianduo hadn't been surprised by that.
And it wasn't that he couldn't afford twenty thousand Gold Crystals. It was just...
"I already have most of these materials. Can I use my own?" Wang Qianduo asked, looking at the bill.
"No!" Old Luo refused without a second thought.
Come on, the ten thousand Gold Crystals were one thing, but he'd spent a fortune gathering these evolution materials.
If Wang Qianduo didn't pay, Old Luo would have no use for them. They'd just be stuck in his hands.
He was hoping to make a profit! You couldn't screw over your master like that!
Still, hearing this, the kid really did seem extraordinary.
He already had most of all these materials. Looks like I'd gone too easy on him.
"Master, you aren't trying to rip me off, are you? Ten thousand Gold Crystals is way too much!
This is only my mecha's first evolution! Does it really need that much energy?" The more Wang Qianduo looked at the bill, the more suspicious he became. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Old Luo.
"Hey! That ten thousand Gold Crystals is nonnegotiable. You may not know what the Elemental Crown represents, but I absolutely haven't cheated you on that part!"
"So it's the materials you're overcharging me for, then. Master, give me a discount. Your apprentice isn't exactly rolling in money!"
"I can sense how much Gold Crystal you have on you."
"That's fake!" Wang Qianduo
"I had Old Huang pull some strings for you." Old Luo
Wang Qianduo: "...Master! You can't rip me off! Master!"
(;︵;`)
Old Luo: "...You win!"
After haggling for ages, Wang Qianduo tried every trick in the book, including crying and throwing a tantrum, before he got Old Luo to bring the price down to sixteen thousand Gold Crystals.
Old Luo still made a profit at that price. That showed just how ruthlessly he'd been trying to fleece him.
Wang Qianduo had wanted to bargain him down further, but Old Luo wouldn't budge no matter what. In the end, he had no choice but to pay.
"Good. That's more like it. Come on, let's go start the trial!" Old Luo said, then led Wang Qianduo out of his home.
The two of them drove Old Luo's car to a mountain. There was no road ahead, but Old Luo didn't slow down.
Wang Qianduo didn't panic. Sure enough, a flash of light later, they drove straight into the mountain.
The mountain had long since been hollowed out. The cliff face they'd just seen was only a holographic projection, there to hide the cave.
As for why Wang Qianduo wasn't worried, this trick might have fooled him, but it couldn't fool Zero, the artificial intelligence.
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