He was none other than the man in the baseball cap who had earlier reported Lin Xia's whereabouts through his Bluetooth earpiece while standing among the crowd at the edge of the secret realm.
As the treatment continued, the man gradually regained consciousness.
Seeing this, the bald woman with a scar across her face, who was standing nearby, immediately asked, "What happened? Who beat you up like this?"
"The person who attacked me was a student from the Imperial University. He had a samurai haircut and was nearly two meters tall..."
The man coughed a few times before continuing, "I followed your orders and kept an eye on Lin Xia. But as soon as I got to the dormitory, that brat came out, dragged me around the corner, and beat the hell out of me. He said he'd known all along that I was following him..."
"What did you tell him?"
The bald woman's expression darkened. She showed no concern whatsoever for the man's injuries.
She shoved the healer aside, cutting off the treatment, then stepped forward and jabbed hard at his wounds, which had yet to heal. "Did you betray me?!"
"N-no!" The man screamed in pain and begged frantically. "I didn't say anything! I just insisted I happened to be passing by..."
"Is that so?"
The bald woman sneered, suspicion written all over her face. She ordered the people beside her, "Burn him."
At her command, a burly man immediately hoisted the wounded man up and carried him toward the incinerator.
The man begged for mercy in a tearful voice.
But no one cared.
"Strange. We've already carried out [Lord of Slaughter]'s plan..."
The bald woman frowned. "But why is [Lord of Slaughter], reborn after possessing Lin Xia, acting as if he doesn't even know us?"
"Were we used... and then discarded?"
Someone asked uneasily.
"No, that's impossible. We've been so loyal..."
The bald woman trailed off before finishing her sentence. Judging from the unease on her face, she didn't seem entirely confident either.
Early the next morning, while his roommates were still asleep, Lin Xia headed for the city center.
In the world he'd come from, a city center was usually packed with commercial buildings, entertainment venues, and crowds of people.
But in this world, cities were built around Reinforcement Pillars.
The pillars emitted radiation that was deadly to ordinary people. As a result, the city center was sparsely populated and extremely bare.
Aside from a few shelters around the Reinforcement Pillar, there wasn't a single man-made structure in sight.
After all, no one would come here for fun unless they were an Awakener looking to reinforce a Card.
And since only a small number of Awakeners chose to reinforce their Cards, there were only thirteen people on the field, which was about the size of two soccer fields, including Lin Xia.
"Damn, the odds have been awful today! I tried going from +2 to +3, and it failed four times in a row... I'm right back where I started!"
A young man with short hair stood there dejectedly, watching his Card in the Reinforcement Pillar gradually turn gray and disappear. He looked ready to cry.
"Forget it. I'm done. I'll never touch a Reinforcement Pillar again!"
Another man, apparently the young man's friend, patted him on the shoulder. "At least our Main Cards are all bottom-tier junk. Otherwise, I'd have killed myself today. Can you believe it? I tried going from +1 to +2, with a 99 percent success rate, and it still blew up!"
"Put it another way: hitting the 1 percent failure rate is like winning a huge prize, isn't it?"
Hearing that someone had even worse luck than he did, the short-haired young man's mood immediately improved.
But when his companion invited him to leave, he shook his head. "I want to see how many times it'll fail in a row today. If someone succeeds, I'll be sick with envy. But if everyone's Cards blow up... heh, then I'll feel a lot better!"
His companion agreed. "Seriously, what's gotten into this Reinforcement Pillar today? Including the Main Cards of those unlucky people before us, it's already failed sixteen times in a row... Tsk, you'd think they were just using the Cards to build up the odds!"
"..."
Lin Xia heard their conversation and furrowed his brows. He couldn't believe that even a +1 to +2 reinforcement could fail...
But these two were complete strangers. They had no reason to lie to him.
Lin Xia looked up at the [?] floating above the Reinforcement Pillar.
Should he use his Eye of Insight?
His Main Card was an SSR Card with an OVR of 89.
If it blew up, it wouldn't be a minor setback like it was for these people. It would be a total disaster!
Better to be cautious. I've stored up two uses of Eye of Insight. If I really run into a long streak of failures... I can't afford to let a small risk turn into a major loss!
After thinking it over, Lin Xia fixed his gaze on the Reinforcement Pillar.
[Use Eye of Insight to view the next successful reinforcement point for this Reinforcement Pillar?] [Yes/No] [Current uses: 2.]
"Yes."
At Lin Xia's thought, the golden question mark instantly burst apart, then gradually reformed into the number [1].
That meant the next reinforcement was guaranteed to succeed.
Although this meant Lin Xia had indeed wasted one use, he didn't regret it. Caution was always worthwhile.
The next moment, Lin Xia walked up to the Reinforcement Pillar and took out his Buou Card.
When the short-haired young man and his companion saw the SSR Card, they instinctively gaped.
"You can't judge someone by their looks. He's so young, yet he has a Card of such a high rank... If it blows up, that'll be something to see."
"Yeah, I hope it blows up too!"
The two whispered to each other.
At the same time, five Material Cards floated and spun around the Main Card.
Lin Xia activated the reinforcement process.
The next second, the dim light in the Reinforcement Pillar's patterns gradually brightened.
The five Material Cards, which had been relatively still, also began spinning rapidly around the Main Card.
Soon, the Material Cards turned into particles and streamed into the Main Card.
A dazzling golden light enveloped it.
"Boom—!"
The golden light burst open.
The Main Card appeared.
A streak of light swept from the bottom of the Card's face to the top.
[Reinforcement successful!] [Card upgraded to +2!] [OVR +2!] [Current OVR: 91!] [Form evolved into Thin Buu (Evil)!]
Lin Xia saw that the chubby, simple-minded Fat Buu on the Card had disappeared.
In his place was a gray-skinned Buou, thin as a rake and wearing a blue cape.
The expression on Thin Buu's face seemed to spell out the word [evil], making it immediately clear just how dangerous he was.
However, each successful reinforcement only granted one of two things: an evolved form or a new skill.
So Lin Xia couldn't check whether Buou had gained a new ability.
He put the Card away and prepared to leave.
School happened to be canceled that day, so Lin Xia planned to head to a wild secret realm to level up and see how powerful +2 Thin Buu was.
But just then, two people suddenly appeared, making Lin Xia stop in his tracks and turn solemn.
Before you continue