The Strange Egg

It was no wonder Xin Jiu felt frustrated. The Tibetan fox she had encountered during the open beta hadn't been vicious at all; it had just been very fast at running away.

She hadn't boosted her speed back then, so she hadn't managed to catch it in the end.

She sighed, stamped out the fire, and continued deeper into the forest.

Over the next few days, Xin Jiu kept searching for Tibetan foxes. Thanks to the powder White Bear had given her, she slept well at night.

With enough sleep, she was in good spirits, and she dispatched NPCs with swift strokes of her blade.

But the other players weren't so lucky.

Xin Jiu's fans also visited the livestreams of the top five hundred players on the leaderboard. In just a few days, nine of those five hundred had died, so this dungeon wasn't as easy as everyone had imagined.

[Hash Brown and Heartless Dao Dabao are both doing really well.]

[What do I do? The more I watch, the more I think Hash Brown is Ao Lin.]

[You could try camping out in his stream until he takes off his mask. Then you'll know whether he's Ao Lin.]

[Has anyone visited Antenna Short-Circuited's stream? She's a super pretty girl, and her skills look like a healer's.]

[I know her. She's sixteenth on the individual points leaderboard.]

[I'll go take a peek.]

Xin Jiu continued forward. After a few hundred meters, she noticed that her surroundings had changed.

At some point, the emerald-green bamboo around her had turned purple. A purple bamboo grove... was she going to run into a snake spirit here?

If she encountered a snake spirit, should she subdue it or not?

But she didn't have Fahai's golden alms bowl.

"Wakaka, gugu, jilabalu..."

After walking a little farther, she heard something that sounded like chanting. She pushed aside the bamboo in front of her and looked out.

A large group of green creatures stood ahead. Although they were all green, they weren't goblins. They were short, carried turtle shells on their backs, and had bald patches in the middle of their heads. They looked more like kappa from Japan.

...Even uglier than goblins.

They held hands and circled an entirely purple egg, muttering the same words she had just heard.

On a raised platform a little farther ahead, a somewhat larger "kappa" waved something resembling a scepter, jabbering and occasionally raising both hands toward the sky.

Was that the tribe's high priest?

Were they performing a sacrificial ritual?

In that case... that egg had to be something good!

Xin Jiu took out her military bayonet and gripped it, slowly approaching them. There were only a dozen or so, so killing them shouldn't be difficult.

A few steps farther forward, she accidentally stepped on a twig.

Crack.

The "kappa" immediately grew alert, pricking up their ears and looking toward Xin Jiu. Upon discovering a human, they became very excited. The one holding the scepter pointed toward her, and at its command, all the "kappa" charged with a chorus of cries.

Xin Jiu could smell them from over ten meters away.

How could she describe that smell? It was like fish left baking in the sun for days, foul and fishy.

Xin Jiu suddenly didn't want to kill them anymore.

She felt that touching them would dirty her bayonet, so she took out her inspector's badge instead, hoping to scare them off.

The instant the "kappa" saw the badge, they all stopped.

One turned back toward the priest, jabbering.

Although she couldn't understand it, she figured it was asking whether they should attack or retreat.

But unexpectedly, these kappa were actually hesitating over an inspector's identity, something even a flood dragon feared?

The priest waved its scepter, and the "kappa" charged without hesitation, while the priest picked up the egg and ran in the opposite direction.

This made Xin Jiu even more certain that the egg was something important.

She tightened her grip on her bayonet and dealt with the kappa before her.

Their attack power wasn't high, so Xin Jiu finished them off easily. Each kill earned her 800 points, while killing the priest earned her 2,000.

After wiping her military bayonet clean and returning it to its sheath, Xin Jiu crouched down to examine the egg before her.

It was only the size of a watermelon, purple all over.

"Huh? Why is it cracked? Did it get dropped just now?"

She spotted a crack in the shell, with an even brighter purple shining through.

The priest had fallen twice while fleeing. Had it been damaged then?

What use could an egg have?

Roast it and eat it... or just smash it open to see what was inside?

In the end, Xin Jiu decided to smash it. Just as she touched the egg, the system suddenly popped up.

[Congratulations to player Xin Jiu for finding the "Purple Lightning Dragon Hatchling," unlocking a hidden achievement and earning 50,000 points.]

Xin Jiu nearly jumped.

Finding an egg actually earned fifty thousand points???

What kind of egg was this!!

[Notice: This baby Purple Lightning Dragon seems to be injured. Please find Dragon Fodder Grass to heal it. You may trigger a fortuitous encounter.]

So it really was injured.

[Wow, what a pretty egg. What's inside?]

[In novels, when you find something like this, it's usually either a dragon or a phoenix. I think it's probably a dragon.]

[Hash Brown was in this place too. How come he didn't find the egg?]

Just picking up the egg had earned her fifty thousand points. Xin Jiu didn't dare imagine what would happen if she hatched it.

Besides, the name Purple Lightning Dragon sounded incredibly badass.

Save it. She had to save it!

But where would Dragon Fodder Grass be?

The egg seemed to share her thoughts, because Xin Jiu saw a purple arrow suddenly appear in midair, bouncing up and down.

Was it showing her the way?

"Seriously, if you can give directions yourself, can't you just roll over and find that grass?"

The egg didn't respond.

"..."

[I'm dying of laughter. This is one lazy baby dragon.]

[Why is this egg giving Jiujiu directions? Don't you guys find that strange?]

Holding the egg, Xin Jiu walked in the direction the arrow pointed.

An hour later, she reached the depths of the forest.

She had encountered quite a few NPCs along the way, but their levels were all very low, posing no threat to her now.

Perhaps because they were nearing the Dragon Fodder Grass, the egg in her arms grew hotter and hotter. She could even faintly hear a thump-thump like a heartbeat.

After another two hundred meters, the arrow disappeared.

This must be the place.

Xin Jiu pushed aside the weeds towering above her and saw a grotto ahead. A faint foul odor mingled with a faint smell of blood in the air.

...It was human blood.

The system had only said that the NPCs inside the maze had skill cards, and players could choose to kill them or head straight for the exit. It hadn't said that the NPCs would hunt players.

But Xin Jiu felt that they definitely would.

Because the NPC in this grotto had hunted players. She saw torn player clothing, so tattered that a single glance revealed how gruesome the scene must have been.

Rustling came from inside the grotto.

Then a pitch-black animal resembling a saber-toothed tiger emerged from the entrance and walked over to lie beside a small, silvery-white plant.

It seemed that little plant was the Dragon Fodder Grass the Purple Lightning Dragon hatchling needed.