"[World-Breaker Excavation](The Past-Time Shovel seems to have formed a deeper connection with you. You can briefly summon it outside of instances.
Expend a large amount of stamina to augment one of your actions, granting it the Weakness Break effect. This is also effective against special incorporeal entities such as spirits and flames.)"
Zhang Anzai was quite moved. "It's an enchanted attack! I finally have a somewhat direct way to deal with enemies."
Although the skill's effect was straightforward, and it only augmented his attacks rather than letting him directly swing the shovel at people, Zhang Anzai was still very satisfied.
"I just don't know exactly how effective it is, or how much stamina this 'large amount' actually means... I'll find a chance to test it later." Thinking this, Zhang Anzai turned the Past-Time Shovel in his hand.
He wasn't planning to test his new skill on the River of the Past in the settlement space before him. At this point, though, only one last part of his settlement remained.
"What will I dig up this time?" Zhang Anzai thought, holding on to a faint hope. "I hope it's something related to Chen Xing."
In a sense, his wish came true. Whether player or monster, Chen Xing's ability was one of the strongest Zhang Anzai had ever seen.
Anything related to that ability couldn't be bad, no matter how he looked at it.
Thinking this over, Zhang Anzai dug his shovel into the river below.
Once again, the river parted like soil beneath his shovel. What appeared within wasn't an object, but a small clump of glowing black mist.
"This is..." It probably wasn't something related to Chen Xing. After all, he was all too familiar with the texture of that black mist. Wasn't it just like the mist that clung to the Road-Blocking Demon?
"Skill: [Ghost Wall-Building] (D)"
Though he'd already suspected as much, Zhang Anzai still couldn't hold back when he saw the name.
"Fuck, I figured it wouldn't be the monster's complete ability, but what the hell is Ghost Wall-Building? Was this guy a civil engineering student in life? What, did he get hit by a car on his way back from a foot massage?"
His ability was basically a giant mystery box at the moment. Even if it always produced at least a skill or an item, its results were far too unpredictable.
He supposed things would improve once the skill leveled up.
Of course, even if it only reliably produced low-grade skills, that was still pretty good. Learning a skill in the truest sense of the word inside an instance wasn't easy, especially when it came to skills belonging to monsters.
"[Ghost Wall-Building] (D): This is a technique that uses the part to obscure the whole, blinding you to what lies beyond. You can use an object as an image to conceal a small area of space, but it only hides what's there and can withstand only extremely weak impacts.
"Once its true nature is discovered, even a moderately powerful attack can break through it."
One glance was enough for Zhang Anzai to understand. It was an illusion skill: use a leaf to conceal a giant pit, or a brick to block an entire doorframe.
It was similar to the Ghost Wall phenomenon, but not nearly as powerful. It could be physically destroyed, and its actual effects would depend on how he used it.
Since the ability belonged to the monster category, he could also feed it to his legacy to upgrade it.
But skills and items were different from materials. He had to weigh whether it would be more useful to keep them or devour them. Materials were the only things they could consume without a second thought.
In the late game, an A-grade skill or item could increase a legacy's completion by quite a lot, but most players wouldn't do that. Powerful items and skills were no less valuable than half of a new legacy, so they were far more meaningful to keep.
Resources were hard to come by in the early game, so he couldn't afford to casually discard a single skill or item. Naturally, he decided to keep this one.
A quick glance at his player panel showed that it was already much more complete than before. He was finally starting to look like a proper player.
"Player: [Fate Controller]"
"Legacy: [Past-Time Shovel] (1.03 completion)."
"Old Dust: 780"
"Skill: Ghost Wall-Building (D)"
"Item: True-Form Scissors (D)"
"Talents: Two-World Walker (A), Dexterous (D), Literati (D), Indefatigable (D)."
"Remaining rest time: 9 days, 23:50."
"Phew..." After finishing his settlement here, Zhang Anzai's player body slowly vanished, returning to his real body.
The Ox-Horse Liver-Exploding Pill hadn't completely worn off yet, but because Zhang Anzai had used up so much stamina, the weakness was already creeping in.
Still, he had an employee settlement left to deal with, so he was full of energy for the time being.
There was nothing special about this one. Zhang Anzai sat at the computer looking as if he'd stayed up all night, clicked a few keys, and finished the settlement.
The reward was a plain 500 Employee Points and 10 days of rest time.
As administrators, they had to accompany players through instances, and while players could rest once they'd truly explored everything, administrators had to open instances every day.
But they only watched from the sidelines and faced no real danger, so naturally they didn't receive a lot of miscellaneous rewards.
"Still, it's not as if we get nothing. It's mainly because I haven't become a full-time employee yet..." Zhang Anzai muttered.
Becoming a full-time employee was a major milestone for company staff. The permissions were different, and the reward system seemed to improve. It was an upgrade in almost every respect.
Besides, after completing another above-average task, he didn't seem far from becoming a full-time employee.
"Last time, a medium rating was adjusted to high. Add this medium-high rating, and I'll need at most one more medium-high and one medium rating, or three medium ratings, to become a full-time employee..."
Muttering to himself, Zhang Anzai checked his employee panel.
"Employee information: Zhang Anzai."
"Administrator Department, 10086th cohort, Group 7, No. 01."
"Completed tasks: [Monster · Endless Night Road] (Medium-High), [Folk Taboo · Night-Shift Mountain Peddler] (Medium), [Dao Seeking · Stealing Pills from the Temple in the Tower] (Medium-Low)..."
"Employee Points: 770."
"Remaining work time: 19 days."
Nothing special—just a pleasing number of Employee Points and a reassuring amount of remaining work time.
He'd already used up some of it, but he'd handled a few other instances over the past two days. Add the ten days from this settlement, and he was up to nineteen days.
"A real sense of security..." As Zhang Anzai thought this, he suddenly sensed an unsettling gaze from beside him.
He turned his head and almost jumped.
It was still early, and the office lights weren't on yet. Lin Zhao had appeared at the workstation beside him at some point, staring at him sternly in the darkness.
Zhang Anzai met her gaze for several seconds, looking rather puzzled. "What's wrong, Xiao Zhao?"
Lin Zhao rolled her chair over and anxiously shook his shoulder.
"Anzai, wake up. You really haven't gone crazy, have you? It's 7:05 in the morning, and the office lights aren't even on. I only came back to pick something up, and I found you alone on the whole floor, staring at the screen and grinning with dark circles under your eyes. Do you know how scary that was?
"Are you short on Employee Points again? I can lend you some. Or are you worried about your performance review?"
Lin Zhao was afraid her friend had driven himself insane over his performance review, even though it hadn't gotten him killed. "Company, you're turning people into ghosts!"
Zhang Anzai calmly pressed down on her hand and said, "I forgot the beginning, and I forgot the middle. Anyway, how did you know I'd just completed another medium-high-rated task?"
Before you continue