"How so?" Peng Bahai asked.
"These two must have been below level 10 before clearing the Abyss, and since they're from Dafeng City, this greatly narrows down the scope of our Surveillance."
"Yesterday, there were 5,149 players below level 10 in the dungeon lobby. If we could find out their party composition, things would be much simpler."
"After all, there aren't many people who team up with another player to run dungeons."
"Unfortunately, we can't view team information and dungeon completion information through the Teleport beam."
The dungeon lobby wasn't created by humans, but by the Goddess of Luck — the Goddess of Luck who awakens newcomers.
Therefore, while human professionals can enter the dungeon lobby to farm dungeons, level up, and collect materials, they cannot view the dungeon records of other professionals.
Unless Goddess of Luck intervenes.
But the Goddess of Luck's job is only to help professionals awaken; she doesn't care about anything else and has never communicated with humans.
It's clearly impossible to get Goddess of Luck to intervene.
"Get to the point," Peng Bahai said impatiently.
"There are two methods. One is to test them one by one. Those who succeed will surely gain a lot, but when faced with life and death, they will inevitably reveal their true colors."
"It's too time-consuming, and it would be easy for those bastards to find fault with me. I don't know how many people are watching Laozi right now. It's not feasible."
"The second method is to hold a competition, limited to residents of Dafeng City, with participants restricted to level 25 or below after zero rebirth."
"According to our calculations, even if those two players cleared the Nightmare, Hell, Abyss dungeons in the Nether Forest, they won't exceed level 25 later."
Each level of a professional grants ten times the experience points of the previous level; above level 10, the experience points become astronomical.
The number of monsters in the Nether Forest is fixed, and it's easy to determine how much experience is gained at each difficulty level.
Are you sure the player who cleared the level will appear?
"That depends on how fragrant the bait is."
To put it another way, it depends on whether you, the market maker, are willing to invest your capital.
"What if those two don't show up?" Peng Bahai asked, frowning.
"Everyone who participates receives a guaranteed reward; the higher the ranking, the higher the reward. Whoever doesn't show up is the most suspicious."
"Their appearance will expose the anomaly; their absence will increase suspicion. In either case, it will greatly narrow down the target range."
How many professionals in Dafeng City are below level 25?
"220,000."
"Narrow down the scope of the competition."
Gao Cheng thought for a moment and said, "Then let's limit it to professionals who have awakened within the last year. Before clearing the dungeon, the other person was only level 10, so they must have become Awakened not long ago."
"By limiting Awakened to those within one year, most professional players can be eliminated, leaving approximately 50,000 who meet the criteria."
Peng Bahai tapped his fingers on the table, then gritted his teeth and said, "All participants will be rewarded with 10,000 gold coins, and the top 100 will receive 100,000 gold coins and a Rare Grade equipment."
"The top 50 will receive 200,000 gold coins and one epic piece of equipment; the top 10 will receive 500,000 gold coins and two epic pieces of equipment or a set of rare equipment."
"Third place: 1 million gold coins, one the Myth equipment piece; Second place: 2 million gold coins, one the Myth equipment piece, and one Universal Skill Book."
"As for the first place..." Peng Bahai paused.
"10 million gold coins, one the Myth item, and two universal skill books."
Gao Cheng was somewhat surprised; this reward was far too high. With such a set of rewards, even Mayor Peng Bahai would have to spend a lot of money.
"Since we're going to do it, let's make a big splash. Invite a TV station to broadcast it live. You know what to do, right?"
Gao Cheng nodded. "Understood!"
"Go and do it!"
Gao Cheng nodded, turned and walked out of the office.
"Wait, where's that bastard Ling Yi? What's he doing now?" Peng Bahai suddenly asked.
"According to my information, Ling Yi and Meng Yue the city this morning, probably to hunt monsters in the wild."
"Why not run dungeons instead of farming monsters outside the city?"
"The dungeon can only be run twice a day, and Zhou Jian has an 8-hour cooldown, so it's fine for them to go out of the city to farm monsters first."
" Ling Yi and Meng Yue are just ordinary people, and both are orphans. Their parents were killed by elite monsters while they were hunting monsters in the wild."
"Ask the people watching them where they are," Peng Bahai said, frowning.
"Yes!"
Gao Cheng took out his phone, but after a moment, he frowned and hung up.
"Lord Mayor, Ling Yi and Meng Yue have gone missing."
What does "disappeared" mean?
"Our people had been following them, watching them enter the 1101st strange area, but worried about being exposed, so they didn't follow too closely."
"However, three hours ago, Ling Yi and Meng Yue suddenly disappeared. Our people searched the entire 1101 Strange Zone, but couldn't find them."
"Damn it, why didn't you report such a big thing?" Peng Bahai roared.
"They suspect that Ling Yi and Meng Yue encountered a high-level monster, so..."
"So, Ling Yi and Meng Yue are dead? Do you know what would happen if Ling Yi and Meng Yue died now?"
What will happen? Some people will definitely make a big deal out of this, and may even believe that Ling Yi's death was secretly orchestrated by Peng Bahai.
Even if it isn't true, someone will make it seem so.
"Send men to search for him. I want to see him alive or dead."
Gao Cheng responded, then cautiously asked, "Mayor, is it possible that Ling Yi and Meng Yue are the two who cleared the level?"
"Ha, what are you talking about? Ling Yi is a blacksmith with F-rank talent, while Meng Yue, although talented, is only a Holy Healer."
"Even if they have an attack skill like Holy Fire Technique, do you think they can clear the Abyss with just Holy Fire Technique?" Peng Bahai simply didn't believe it.
This is absolutely unbelievable.
Peng Bahai didn't believe it, but Gao Cheng always felt that there was something seriously wrong with Ling Yi and Meng Yue.
Although he didn't quite believe that Ling Yi and Meng Yue were the ones who cleared the level, he had a feeling that these two little guys were probably not as simple as they seemed.
To protect himself, Ling Yi flipped the table—is that something a normal teenager would do?
Being able to stand up to the provincial and municipal leaders, and even daring to threaten and blackmail the municipal leader in front of so many powerful figures, is something that no ordinary teenager could do.
As for Meng Yue, something was even more off.
Despite possessing S Grade talent and being the most sought-after Holy Healer, he rejected all invitations to team up with Combat- type professions, and instead teamed up with the most useless F-rank Forging in history.
According to Gao Cheng's understanding, Ling Yi and Meng Yue did not interact much at school.
Ling Yi is a madman; he beat up almost everyone in the No. 1 Middle School who tried to cause him trouble.
Take Wu Ming for example. Within a month, he was beaten up by Ling Yi more than ten times, which drove him to the brink of mental collapse.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have sent their own professional fighters to kill Ling Yi.
Meng Yue is a recognized beauty at No. 1 Middle School, with excellent academic performance, but she's a bit cold.
If the two were dating, it would be understandable for them to team up, but they don't have much interaction.
But Meng Yue chose to team up with Ling Yi.
Is Meng Yue an idiot? Obviously not.
That is because Meng Yue discovered Ling Yi's extraordinary qualities, which is why she rejected other invitations and teamed up with Ling Yi.
Is there anything unusual about Ling Yi?
No Gao Cheng noticed it, or rather, no one noticed it.
The biggest problem is that they didn't realize it.
Taking all factors into account, Gao Cheng concluded that Ling Yi and Meng Yue were likely the ones who would clear the level.
However, since there was no evidence, he couldn't make any rash statements.
Just then, Gao Cheng's phone rang.
"Hmm? Ling Yi and Meng Yue have appeared? Where...? They headed south? Follow them, make sure they are safe no matter what."
"Don't be afraid of being exposed. If you are exposed, just say that the mayor sent you to protect them. Report any news immediately."
After hanging up the phone, Gao Cheng said to Peng Bahai, " Ling Yi and the others are still in District 1101."
"Then why did you disappear for three hours?"
Gao Cheng shook his head; how would he know why?
However, he had a guess in his mind that the reason why Ling Yi and the others disappeared for three hours was probably because they encountered a wilderness dungeon.
The outdoor dungeons are different from the dungeons in the dungeon lobby. The dungeons in the dungeon lobby are synchronized with the outside time.
However, the flow of time differs between some outdoor dungeons and the outside world. Regardless of how much time passes in the outdoor dungeon world, at most three hours will pass outside.
The fact that Ling Yi and his group disappeared for exactly three hours is too much of a coincidence.
If Ling Yi and his group did indeed encounter an open-world dungeon, and the 1101 monster zone remains Changes, then it means that Ling Yi and his group have cleared the open-world dungeon.
Something's not right, nothing seems right.
Wilderness dungeons are inherently more dangerous than those in the dungeon lobby, and are extremely difficult to clear. Moreover, wilderness dungeons come in all shapes and sizes.
If Ling Yi and his group really cleared the wilderness dungeon, then there would be a big problem.
Gao Cheng's suspicions grew stronger; he believed that Ling Yi and Meng Yue were the ones who had cleared the Abyss.
No, he didn't plan to tell Peng Bahai any of this.
He planned to meet Ling Yi and Meng Yue in person, perhaps...
Meanwhile, Ling Yi and Meng Yue were traveling quickly. They had already passed through the 1101st strange area and were now passing through the 1102nd strange area.
"What about those guys behind us? We can't let them keep following us," Meng Yue asked.
"The dungeon we're going to run is one of the very few repeatable open-world dungeons; it's extremely valuable and must not be discovered."
"Are there any outdoor dungeons that can be repeatedly run?"
"Yes, this is one of the very few PvP dungeons. You can repeatedly join different factions and participate in battles. The dungeon will refresh after each round."
"As long as the faction we join wins, we can re-enter and repeat the process."
Ling Yi said that he had really learned a lot.
"We can't just kill them all, can we?" Ling Yi said, glancing back at them.
Meng Yue opened her professional panel, rummaged through her system inventory, and then her eyes lit up as she took out three things that looked like watermelon seeds.
He casually tossed it on the ground.
What is this thing?
"The seed of the Locust Demon. The Locust Demon is a Source-level monster. Its seed can quickly grow into Little Locust Demon, which lasts for ten minutes. Its Combat is comparable to a ninth-level melee class."
As they spoke, the three seeds sprouted and grew into three large Big Head in the blink of an eye. The Big Head quickly shrank and Shapeshifting, turning directly into three green-skinned monsters.
"Wow, isn't that the Saibaman?"