Mission Rewards

"Oh my God, that was so sudden! It really came out of nowhere!"

"Did everyone see that? He's also a skilled fighter! Under his control, the robot easily defeated the Lizard Monster!"

"I take back what I said earlier. Maybe he shouldn't be called merely a genius scientist. I think we can start picking out a cool title for him. I think 'Mechanical Expert' is a pretty good suggestion!"

As the situation suddenly changed and Lizard was left charred black and motionless in an instant, the whole scene erupted in an uproar. The reporters, thrilled to have landed another explosive scoop, shouted excitedly into their cameras.

Taking advantage of everyone's attention being fixed on him, Li Si deactivated Shadow Follow Mode. Then, without drawing attention, he signaled Bumblebee to extend its right index finger and fire a needle, injecting an entire vial of an unknown liquid into Lizard.

He'd made a small modification at the last minute the previous night. The liquid inside was an antidote to the Lizard Serum, which he'd hastily concocted using the knowledge Richard Parker had left behind.

It was more or less the same thing as the Restoration Serum mentioned by the system. It could remove the foreign, artificially spliced genes from Lizard's body. Some traces would remain, but the result would still be much better than in the original story.

Actually, there would have been no need to inject the Restoration Serum. The Lizard Self-Healing Serum created by Lizard was only a temporary means of harnessing a lizard's regenerative abilities. Even without an antidote, his metabolism would gradually eliminate the cells altered by the lizard genes.

And this process wouldn't take long. His enhanced healing also came with an enhanced metabolism. With Lizard's terrifying level of regenerative ability, it probably wouldn't even take a day for him to return to human form. As long as he didn't inject himself again, the lingering effects would gradually fade away.

But the big shot running the Earth OL game system had already issued a mission. One of the faction tasks was to inject the Restoration Serum, so for the sake of the mission rewards, Li Si had to go the extra mile.

Fortunately, Earth OL's game system didn't have a rigid judgment mechanism. Otherwise, he really wouldn't have known how to get the official Restoration Serum. Without the chaos caused by Lizard attacking Oscorp Tower, he wouldn't have been confident about sneaking in and making it himself.

[Notice: Side Mission Spider-Man—Battle of the Reptiles has ended. Winning side: Spider-Man faction. Calculating the contribution of all participating players...]

[Notice: You completed Faction Task 1: Assist Spider-Man in defeating Lizard. You defeated Lizard on your own. Mission contribution: 96%; mission rating: Perfect; you received 20,000 faction points.]

[Notice: You completed Faction Task 2: Assist Spider-Man in stopping Lizard's conspiracy. You defeated Lizard before he could carry out the Life Leap Project. Mission contribution: 98%; mission rating: Perfect; you received 20,000 faction points.]

[Notice: You completed Faction Task 3: Inject the Restoration Serum into Lizard. You successfully removed the foreign genes from Lizard's body. Mission contribution: 100%; mission rating: Perfect; you received 30,000 faction points.]

[Notice: The faction shop is now open. Complete your exchange within 48 hours. The faction shop will close after 48 hours!]

[Notice: You completed a hidden achievement, [Lizard Hunter]. You received 1 achievement point. Current achievement points: 2]

As the antidote gradually took effect inside Lizard's body, the faction missions began to settle. A flood of notifications immediately filled Li Si's system panel.

"What the hell? What's going on? Why did the faction mission suddenly end?"

At the same time, players all across New York erupted in an uproar when they saw the notice. At first, they were so bewildered that philosophical questions like "Who am I?", "Where am I?" and "What was I doing again?" sprang to mind. Once they came to their senses, they all blew their tops.

"What kind of lousy mission is this? I was giving it my full attention, waiting for the story to officially begin, and now it's already over? Did you people at Astral Gaming Company get your start performing painless abortions?"

Compared to the other players, Li Ritian and his friends were even more furious.

They'd always thought they were far ahead of everyone else before the system notice appeared.

Two nights earlier, while Spider-Man and Lizard were battling, they'd seized the chance to join the Spider-Man faction. Their battle suits had even let them pass themselves off as superheroes, and they'd officially made contact with that NPC.

And yesterday, that Spider-Man NPC had invited them to search the sewers for the Lizard Monster. They'd ultimately been forced to retreat, but they'd still completed a hidden faction side mission and earned a full thousand points.

They'd planned to head into the sewers together today and finish off the Lizard Monster once and for all. He'd even bought several Thunder King Battle Suits to equip his friends.

But look at how things had turned out. Not only had the NPC stood them up, someone else had completely finished the mission. They'd lost both their money and their chance.

Those suits had cost him a fortune. Since he couldn't find the hidden merchant, he'd bought them from other players. Now he hadn't gotten so much as a hair's worth of mission rewards. He'd lost big time.

"What do we do now?"

Li Ritian's friends Ye Lin and Wang Ze all turned to look at him.

"What else can we do? Let's go find Spider-Man and ask what the hell happened. We'll find out which bastard beat us to it!"

Li Ritian was livid, his face red and his neck bulging with anger. He led Ye Lin and the others out the door in a fury.

"Mr. Lee Stein! Mr. Lee Stein! I'm a reporter with CBS..."

"Mr. Lee Stein, I'm with ABC. Could we ask you a few questions?"

"Mr. Lee Stein, I'm a reporter with NBC..."

Li Si had only had time to skim the system notifications. Before he could even check the faction shop, he was surrounded by reporters, with microphones thrust toward him so close they nearly poked him in the nostrils.

"Please, one at a time. I'll pick out the questions and answer them all together!"

Li Si stepped back half a pace and smiled wryly. Now he finally understood how important a good assistant was.

But he'd brought this on himself, so he had to see it through, even if he had to grit his teeth. Since he was counting on these TV reporters to spread his fame, Li Si had no choice but to brace himself and face the interview.