Sharp Edge

"300,000 bits?"

Lin Qi frowned slightly, his expression turning somewhat grim.

Three hundred thousand bits was neither too much nor too little to him now.

He still had around a ton of Crocodile Fang Rhinoceros meat in hand. Selling it outright would easily net him 600,000 bits, but dumping a whole ton at once would draw the Phosphor Fire Gang's attention too easily. Even selling half of it would get him noticed.

The quantity was simply too staggering. It was not something an individual could possibly handle.

"I told you, you should just pretend she doesn't exist." The three-eyed young man spoke with considerable sympathy. "Luo Qi really is a good person, but once someone gets dragged into conflicts between wilderness gangs, ordinary people like us can't do anything."

Three hundred thousand bits might be something the Azure Crystal Weapon Shop could pay casually, but for residents of the City of Light Chasing, it was an astronomical sum.

"Gangs?" Lin Qi took a deep breath, his gaze becoming firmer. "If ordinary people can't do it, then I just won't be an ordinary person."

Even if it exposed the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, then so be it.

He was absolutely going to save her. Luo Qi was the first friend in this High Martial world with whom he had shared a life-and-death bond. As for actually paying the money, that was impossible—unless the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall did not want to survive the winter, and was not afraid of the White Feather Gang tracing the ransom's source and coming straight to their door.

It had to be said that the White Feather Gang truly clashed with his fate. They opened their mouths and demanded 300,000 from the very target they had put a bounty on. Weren't they afraid of choking to death?

There was only one choice left to him now.

Fight!

He refused to believe that, with the Fourth Natural Disaster at his side, he could not grind a wilderness gang to death!

"I need you to do me a favor."

"What favor?"

"Since you know about this, I assume you can contact the White Feather Gang. Tell them that in three days, we trade money for the person, hand to hand. If anything happens to her, they can forget about getting their money!"

"Can you really come up with 300,000?"

The three-eyed young man stared at Lin Qi's clothes, which had several patches on them, his face full of astonishment. He could not understand how Lin Qi could scrape together 300,000 bits.

"Please pass on the message. If you don't want to, you can give me the contact information for the White Feather Gang, and I'll talk to them myself." Lin Qi had no intention of explaining. His gaze swept toward Outlander Gunslinger and Peerless One Shot, who stood dumbfounded beside the Big Three-Wheeler. "Why are you still standing there? Get moving!"

"Yes!"

Only then did the two come back to their senses, their faces overflowing with excitement and wild joy.

Big news!

Truly huge news!

"Coming out this time was absolutely the right call." Outlander Gunslinger carried ore while his hands could not stop trembling. "I never expected to hear news like this. Is this the rhythm of going to war with the White Feather Gang?"

"Just like we guessed, the next step should be opening a combat instance through the Hall Master's storyline!" Peerless One Shot was equally excited. "I wonder if we'll get a chance to participate this time."

"No idea whether we'll have a chance, but I remember when Brother Zhen and the others went to the new map last time, the mission had clear physical fitness requirements. The upcoming combat instance will probably be the same." Outlander Gunslinger thought for a moment, then said anxiously, "After we get back from this mission, we have to step up our breathing technique training and raise our physical fitness as fast as possible."

"If that's the case, then I won't log off until the instance opens. I'll just keep training the breathing technique." Peerless One Shot gritted his teeth.

While Outlander Gunslinger and Peerless One Shot frantically moved the ore, the three-eyed young man took out a slip of paper.

"My name is Kro. This is my contact information." The three-eyed youth, Kro, looked at Lin Qi, who intended to save someone, with no small amount of envy. "I'll contact the White Feather Gang. I'm sure they don't want to offend the Azure Crystal Weapon Shop either. Once they know there's ransom money, they probably won't do anything to Luo Qi."

"I truly didn't expect Luo Qi to know a friend like you. That's her good fortune."

"Thank you." Lin Qi accepted the slip of paper and gave Kro a rather surprised look.

At a time like this, everyone else would have fled as far away as possible. Yet Kro was willing to step forward and even contact the White Feather Gang. He seemed to be a decent person.

In less than an hour, Lin Qi delivered all the transported ore to the Azure Crystal Weapon Shop and received 600 bits.

At the same time, he bought food and water for twenty people, along with twenty alloy shovels, spending a full 2,000 bits. It could be said that he had spent nearly all the money he had, leaving himself with less than a thousand bits.

"There are less than three days left. During this time, I have to raise the martial arts hall's strength like mad."

The moment Lin Qi returned to the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, he had the system begin bringing in players. All twenty slots were filled without a single one left over.

For a time, the official review section for High Martial Descent exploded.

"What's going on? Why did so many slots suddenly appear?"

"Twenty slots released all at once? Is the developer planning to bleed money?"

"Nearly a hundred thousand people fighting over twenty slots. Developer, can't you just make more money? For example, open a VIP channel—then the top ten spenders could enter the game directly?"

"Developers, I beg you! I'm a professional miner with thirty years of hole-digging experience. Let me in, and I'll definitely dig you an underground great world. I don't even want points."

"Dear developers! I'm a martial arts genius. As long as you let me in, test me however you want. Satisfaction guaranteed!"

"Brother above, can you do the splits?"

"I'm ready! I preordered High Martial Descent on the accounts of my parents and siblings, and even sold a house I barely lived in, all just to get into the game. Dear developers, please see how sincere I am and let me in!"

As the system notification announced twenty slots, the official review section for High Martial Descent became more active than ever, even though it was already very late.

"What is going on with this game?"

Li Ranxing opened the review section for High Martial Descent and was briefly bewildered. How was this a game review section? It was clearly a game forum. Every player was treating reviews as posts. He had never seen anything like this in all his years of gaming.

And these players were constantly talking about selling houses, or begging the developers to open payment channels. It made Li Ranxing wonder whether they were all shills hired by the game company to deliberately create hunger marketing.

"One game cost 4,999, and reviving once during a test assessment costs 198?" Li Ranxing looked at the game introduction and suddenly wondered whether Fang Zhen was a shill for this game, deliberately luring him over to play.

Still, after thinking it over, Li Ranxing decided to give it a try. He had been stuck at a bottleneck, while Fang Zhen had advanced by leaps and bounds. Trying could not make things worse, and besides, he was not short on money.

While the preorder players descended into madness, Lin Qi, far away in the High Martial world, brought Luo Wu Shang and five other players whose physical fitness had reached Quasi-Apprentice level to the Phosphor Fire Trading Market in the Big Three-Wheeler.

Xia Ling watched the six players in matching uniforms carry in a huge metal case. Her gaze could not help drifting toward Lin Qi at the side, and an unprecedented smile and warmth appeared on her face.

"Mr. Lin, I didn't expect you to come again so soon."

"Our last business deal was very pleasant, Miss Xia. Now that I have something good, naturally you were the first person I thought of."

Lin Qi looked at Xia Ling as she approached of her own accord and returned her enthusiasm with equal warmth, neither servile nor overbearing.

This time, in order to deal with the White Feather Gang, he had no choice but to take a risk and sell all of the Crocodile Fang Rhinoceros meat in one go. That was why he had brought every player he could put forward.

Although none of these players were Martial Apprentices, they could at least indirectly prove that he was not alone—that there was a force behind him.

As for how large that force was, Xia Ling could guess for herself.

If she guessed big, it benefited him. If she guessed small, then at worst he would merely be a wilderness gang, and he would lose nothing either. After all, any random wilderness gang had more than two hundred members, usually with Apprentices holding the fort. The Phosphor Fire Gang would not directly deal with a wilderness gang over some Crocodile Fang Rhinoceros meat.

Xia Ling would never imagine that he was merely the master of a tiny martial arts hall without even a single Apprentice. Altogether, they only had eleven people, and their strongest group was already standing right here.

"Is this transaction the same as before?" Xia Ling became even happier upon hearing this and could not resist confirming it once more.

"Of course." Lin Qi nodded.

"Good! Please come with me." Xia Ling clapped her hands, then personally led Lin Qi into the trading room.

After Xia Ling clapped, one of the two Half-Scale Race men in armor who had been following her led the other Half-Scale Race guards away. The other followed them into the trading room and stood guard at its door, forbidding anyone else from entering.

"How much does Mr. Lin plan to sell this time?" Xia Ling glanced at the huge metal case. She did not intend to have anyone weigh it and said with a smile, "If Mr. Lin is selling a large quantity, I can raise the price on my end."

"1,282.6 kilograms." Lin Qi reported the total weight without hesitation.

The Crocodile Fang Rhinoceros was indeed heavy. Even after other monsters had eaten most of it, the small portion left behind had already exceeded his expectations.

"So much?" A look of surprise appeared on Xia Ling's charming face.

"Can Miss Xia swallow it?" Lin Qi looked at Xia Ling and teased, "If you can't, I can discuss it with someone else."

"The quantity may be large, but it isn't a problem for me." Xia Ling flicked her tail and smiled faintly. "Since Mr. Lin is selling so much at once, I'll make sure you are satisfied. Six hundred and seventy bits per kilogram comes to 859,342 bits. I said before that I would raise the price for a large quantity, so how about 860,000 bits?"

"Good! Miss Xia truly is straightforward!" Lin Qi nodded, then said, "Besides selling this meat, I also hope to purchase a Signal Jamming Device. A secondhand one will do."

Last time, he had been lucky because the six White Feather Gang members had turned off their Smart Watches. Now that he was going up against the White Feather Gang, he needed a Signal Jamming Device. Otherwise, if the White Feather Gang called for reinforcements, his handful of people would not even be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth.

"That's easy. What range of jamming device does Mr. Lin need?" Xia Ling was not surprised that Lin Qi needed a jamming device. Every gang in the City of Light Chasing needed one; otherwise, many things were difficult to do. "A device with a one-kilometer range costs 200,000 from me. A three-kilometer device costs 500,000. If you want one with a ten-kilometer range, it will be four million. None of these jamming devices are negotiable."