Daily Mission

"Commander, the defensive environment here isn't very good." Machine Gun Guy checked the hardness of the nearby walls and shook his head.

"Even a nine-millimeter pistol could easily penetrate two or three of these walls. Even bows from the primitive era could shoot through an entire wall."

"Can't be helped. This is the slums, after all. Besides, we don't have any hostile targets here for the time being." Zhuang Xiaolin did not even raise his head, focusing intently on the system panel before him.

[Daily Mission: New Business]

[Having just entered this city, you currently lack influence and wealth. You need to accumulate them as quickly as possible in exchange for more options in the future.]

[Hint: This is a series mission. If it is not completed today, it will continue into the next day and will not refresh until it is completed.]

[Today's Objective: Sell medicine with a minor effect in treating Oripathy. Mission Progress: 0/5]

[Reward: Illusion Field]

This mission looked pretty high-end.

Zhuang Xiaolin thought to himself as he examined the reward listed by the mission. Things called "Fields" were usually not low-grade items. At worst, they were still quite useful. It was like causality—when least expected, such things could always bring sudden surprises.

With a flick of his right hand, Zhuang Xiaolin pulled five tiny test tubes out of thin air.

Looking at the orange-blue liquid inside, Zhuang Xiaolin wondered whether this stuff could really treat that so-called disease.

"GLAZ, did you find anything?" Zhuang Xiaolin asked Glaz, who had just returned from outside.

"I found some information. One of the hostages we rescued earlier was named Texas. She works for Penguin Logistics, a company nearly everyone in Lungmen knows. Apparently, whenever they deliver goods for clients, they always make quite a commotion."

"Very good. Anything else?" Zhuang Xiaolin nodded in satisfaction, then asked, "We know far too little about the basics of this world."

"Many people in the slums suffer from a disease called Oripathy. Once contracted, it cannot be cured. According to the information I investigated, there is not a single medicine in the entire world that can cure it. The most any medicine can do is suppress its outbreaks and further spread." Glaz handed Zhuang Xiaolin a stack of the latest issues of the Terra Medical Academic Forum Journal that he had bought.

"So this stuff is pretty valuable?" Zhuang Xiaolin picked up the stack of newspapers and began reading.

"Holy shit, could this be..." After studying the publications more closely, Zhuang Xiaolin discovered in shock that the things in his hands seemed rather extraordinary.

"My current recommendation is that you do not reveal this medicine." Glaz looked at the commander, who had only just realized it, and spoke calmly.

"So what, I'm supposed to trick children? Use a few hundred Lungmen Dollars to buy a good Oripathy treatment potion that could sell for who knows how many millions of Lungmen Dollars?" Zhuang Xiaolin felt somewhat dejected.

He understood what the consequences would be if people discovered he possessed such a thing, but when he thought about it carefully, that was tens of thousands of dollars. Who did not love money? As the saying went, money could make the devil turn millstones. Money might not be able to do everything, but without money, you could do nothing at all.

"Doc, I'm entrusting this arduous mission to you." Zhuang Xiaolin glanced at the sunny young man standing nearby and leisurely reading a book.

"Me? Commander, I may know a little about medicine, but if you want me to sell this kind of thing, you should find a professional." Doc shook his head and continued reading. Zhuang Xiaolin had no way to force him.

After all, they were on the same side. Forcing him to handle such a trivial matter would be making a mountain out of a molehill.

Did he really have to go fool some children?

The investigations over the past few days had given Zhuang Xiaolin a better understanding of Lungmen. They were located in Lungmen's slums, where the lower-class population and the number of Oripathy-infected were the greatest. Local gangs and foreign gangs were everywhere, so ordinary people did not dare enter this place casually.

"I have a very good suggestion." Mozzie raised his hand. No expression could be seen on his face beneath his helmet and goggles.

"Go ahead."

"How about we make a big move? Draw some attention so people will have more faith in what we say."

"Faith... That's a good idea, but making too big a move isn't good either. We still know too little about this city." Zhuang Xiaolin pondered as he began considering the feasibility of the plan.

"If that's what you want, wouldn't I attract even more people by going out on the street and showing off recoil-less recoil control?" Machine Gun Guy, who was leisurely grilling some kind of animal meat nearby, spoke up.

"We are figures who operate in the shadows. Before we formally reveal ourselves, we should hide our strength as much as possible. We should make outsiders fear us, drive them to suspect one another, and cause chaos among them, thereby gaining the greatest benefits." Based on the way Glaz spoke, this conclusion likely came from his many years of battlefield experience.

"So none of you have brains?" Frost looked at everyone present in disbelief.

"Use your clever little heads and think about it. What does it take to sell five bottles of medicine? If there were no cost restrictions, couldn't you sell them for practically nothing?"

!

Zhuang Xiaolin suddenly understood. Although he was short on money right now, completing the mission was more important than getting money. If he could complete the mission and still make money, that would be even better.

Zhuang Xiaolin decided to try fooling some children first. If he could get children to buy his medicine, he would not need to use the later method. If nobody bought it by the end of the day, he would have no choice but to insist that someone buy his medicine at the lowest price.

That lowest price was not even enough to buy a meat bun. Most people would probably just go through the motions in such a situation, since that little money barely counted as anything. Deposited in a bank, it would be nothing more than digits after the decimal point.

"Big Sister, it hurts so much..." In a secluded corner of the slums, A-Lin leaned weakly against a wall, her face twisted in pain as she clutched the dark Originium crystals on her body.

"A-Lin, don't be afraid. A-Lin, don't be afraid... A-Lin... wait for Big Sister to come back. Big Sister... A-Lin will keep waiting for you." A-Lin spoke softly as blood flowed from her abdomen, nearly staining the ground red.

As infected refugees who had fled into Lungmen from outside the city, A-Lin and her sister had lived in this secluded corner ever since entering Lungmen. Until a few days ago, several masked men had clashed with A-Ling. In order to deal with them, A-Lin's sister lured them away. Yet she later returned here, was cornered, and nearly killed. A-Lin had exhausted all her strength to help her sister escape, while she herself fell to the ground severely wounded.

As an Oripathy-infected person, A-Lin did not have much time left to begin with. Now, because of her severe injuries, the signs of her fading life were becoming more and more apparent.

Her vision blurred. The wind in her ears sounded like a storm, as though it would tear apart her eardrums and skull. Her senses became sluggish, and the pain throughout her body began to fade, replaced by a bone-piercing chill.

"Looks like I won't need to fool any children." As A-Lin trembled where she lay, a firm male voice rang out from nearby.

"Doc."

"Treating the wounded is part of my job, Commander." Tugging at the white gloves on his hands, Doc pulled out a hormone pistol and gave A-Lin an injection.

After the injection, Doc took out medical tools, came before A-Lin, crouched down, and carefully treated her wounds.

"Did you come to help A-Lin?" A-Lin was pulled back from the haze of unconsciousness. The figures standing before her were unfamiliar, but their upright posture gave her an inexplicable sense of security.

"Yes, we helped you. Your name is A-Lin, right?" Zhuang Xiaolin walked over to the little girl.

"Yes." A-Lin looked at the person before her and could not help feeling timid.

"Don't be afraid. I want to ask you for a favor. Could you buy this bottle of medicine for one dollar? This medicine has a very good therapeutic effect and works on all kinds of illnesses." Zhuang Xiaolin took out five bottles of orange-blue medicine and waved them before the little girl.

"One dollar for a bottle of medicine?" A-Lin was at a loss over the terms of the deal. Everyone knew that a bottle of medicine generally cost more than ten times its production cost, or at least around five times. There was practically no one who sold medicine at cost price.

Even though A-Lin was very young, she understood that much. She was confused about what these people wanted.

However, after symbolically wondering about it for a while, A-Lin remembered that these people had just helped her. She owed them a favor, so she might as well use the little money she had left to buy these things. Her Oripathy was already very serious. Even if she survived now, she probably did not have more than a few months left to live.

A-Lin took out ten 1,000-Lungmen Dollar bills.

"Big Brother, I'll buy all your medicine at 2,000 per bottle. Consider it my thanks for saving me." As she spoke, A-Lin handed over the banknotes, casually took one of the bottles from Zhuang Xiaolin's hand, opened it, and drank it in one gulp.

The orange-blue liquid poured down her throat. A-Lin had not thought much of it at first, but her eyes suddenly widened.

The raised, granular black growths in her throat slowly began to shrink after the clear-colored liquid entered it. Her throat, which had hurt even when she breathed before, now felt incomparably refreshed.

A-Lin seemed to understand something. She looked at the big brother before her, who was smiling at her.

"Then could you do us one more favor? Help us spread the word about this medicine, but don't make too much of a fuss." Zhuang Xiaolin returned all the bills to her, keeping only one.

After all, he still needed to complete the mission.

The instant Zhuang Xiaolin finished doing this, the system panel appeared.

[Today's Objective: Sell medicine with a minor effect in treating Oripathy. Mission Progress: 5/5]

[Reward: Illusion Field]

After receiving the reward, Zhuang Xiaolin said goodbye to A-Lin and turned to leave.

A-Lin stared blankly at the four bottles of medicine remaining in her hands, then could not help smiling foolishly.

Big Sister's illness could be cured.