Chapter 76: Involution and Price-Hiking

Group members currently only receive the chat group's cross-world talisman each month, so what permissions and gift packs the administrator has is very much worth looking forward to.

Lu Mingfei: "Are you going to take out the stock in your treasure pouch and give everyone red packets?"

Lu Mingfei: "Then I'm the first to support Su Lin becoming administrator!"

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "It's... not like we can't, hehe, I'm counting on you, little Dora!"

Su Lin: "【Image】"

Ye Fan: "Bah."

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "Ugh, I don't want to experience that taste."

Those were three fruits with strange patterns on them.

Lu Mingfei: "I refuse!"

A group of Ghost-Tooth Vipers glowing with an eerie blue light were near the submersible where Lu Mingfei was; he was currently deep in the ocean, so eating a Devil Fruit would definitely be a negative buff.

They were slender little fish, their whole bodies covered in beautiful silver-blue scales, with a long, slender tentacle on top of their heads like a lantern fish, emitting an eerie blue glow.

It looked like a beautiful painting, but in fact these little things' teeth could bite through steel.

If they so much as bit a crack in the submersible, the three Kassel elites would have to say goodbye to this world.

'Hmm? This world?'

He could take his senior brother and Caesar and flee to another world, or find some outside help.

Right, what am I afraid of?!

Only then did Lu Mingfei react—he was no longer the Lu Mingfei of before.

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "Your sincerity isn't enough!"

Ye Fan: "This is an administrator, mind you, the administrator of the All-Heavens Chat Group."

Ye Fan: "You've got to add money, get it?"

Su Lin: "Cut it out, the administrator position is voted on every year, it can rotate, sooner or later it'll be my turn."

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "But who's going to take the first bite of the cake? To be honest, I'm about to go collect some Earth Core Body-Tempering Milk, and when the time comes, everyone gets a share."

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "So this administrator position, ahem, everyone."

Ye Fan: "Fifty thousand jin of Origin per person!"

Arms and medicine—the two fastest money-making industries—he had dabbled in both. Although the weapons he sold were counterfeits, that represented his love of peace. Thanks to these two hugely profitable industries, he had quite a lot of Divine Origin in his pocket now.

Han Li: "Actually there's no need for that. One person per year, everyone can enjoy the administrator's benefits."

Like Su Lin said, one person per turn, rotating, it's just a matter of order. Even if new people join later, it's just a few more years of waiting.

Moreover, there are too few people right now. If one wanted to bribe group friends' votes with goods, no one could really drive the price up against each other. After all, everyone's realm isn't that high, except for Su Lin who might have some strange and unusual good stuff.

Thinking of this, Han Li spoke again in the group.

Han Li: "But just as Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan said, if someone really wants to be the first administrator and try out the administrator's benefits, they still have to show some sincerity."

Han Li: "@Su Lin."

Compared to Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan and Ye Fan's bidding war, he preferred that Su Lin would take the initiative to participate.

Su Lin: "Oh you thick-browed, honest-looking one, you want to fleece me too?"

Han Li: "What are you saying, Daoist Su? Li merely has quite some expectations for your line about 'reporting to all realms as peach blossoms bloom.'"

At a dock resupplying and dining, Miss Kelaien, while eating in the cold, stern image of Gehrman, watched the messages in the group.

The black bread really didn't taste that great, but the meat soup at this restaurant was quite good—some potato-like herbaceous plant mashed up, stewed together with meat and vegetables, mixed together, smeared on the black bread it could cover the bitterness; this combination was quite nice.

Thinking of Su Lin's little gadgets, he was also a bit tempted. Han Li wasn't wrong—hadn't someone in the group made a grand vow, saying things like "if I become administrator, then..."?

Miss Kelaien: "If that's the case... hmm, if I transfer Luffy's vote to you, do I get two red packets?"

Of course, the joking component accounted for over ninety percent.

Ye Fan: "6"

Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan: "6"

Lu Mingfei: "You really are a genius."

Miss Kelaien: "I was just kidding."

Su Lin hailed a taxi. The driver spoke in a typical Beijing accent, and hearing that Su Lin's accent was from out of town, he got chatty—ranging from Tiannandibei and Su Xiaoxiang to the current trends among some young people, how the world was going to the dogs and people weren't what they used to be.

Su Lin nodded and replied: "Indeed, the world is going to the dogs."

Inside the chat group

Su Lin: "The world is going to the dogs."

Su Lin: "I've got something to do, going offline first."

Excluding himself, there were currently eight people in the chat group in total. If he really had to send red packets, he'd have to send eight.

What to put inside the red packets—looking at the situation, he couldn't just brush it off.

Because two guys had already pulled out Divine Origin and Earth Core Body-Tempering Milk; he really wanted to report these two for malicious involution.

Su Lin suddenly thought of his previous life, the first two years after starting work. Every New Year, when he returned to his hometown, half of his year-end bonus went to New Year's money for the kids of various aunts and grandmas.

The current situation... couldn't say it was exactly the same, only that it was very similar.

A message arrived in the private chat.

Lu Mingfei: "Old Su, I'm voting for you."

No other reason—Lu Mingfei always felt he'd taken a lot of advantage from Su Lin, so on matters like this, even without red packets he'd be willing to vote for Su Lin.

Su Lin: "Which color fruit do you want? Shit-yellow? Green? Or white?"

Lu Mingfei: "Keep them for yourself!"

He had asked Su Lin before what those fruits were, and Su Lin said he didn't know either. The moment Lu Mingfei thought of those strange appearances after eating animal fruits, he felt some resistance—strong was strong, but it didn't match his aesthetic.

Su Lin: "Thanks."

Lu Mingfei: "Don't mention it. I'll go down first."

The scenery at the bottom of the sea had to be admitted was quite beautiful. No longer worried about the risk of the ship sinking, Lu Mingfei began to openly appreciate the underwater view through the observation window.

Below was a long river of lava, the golden-red magma spreading out, forming a boundary with the black seawater. Near the magma, dark-red small shrimp were swimming, along with some dark-purple creatures living in symbiosis with the small shrimp.

Around them, rolling thunder seemed to rumble — that was the sound of steam explosions caused by seawater vaporizing on contact with the magma.

In this environment that should have been dim and tranquil, such a scene appeared.

One could only marvel at the miracle and grandeur of nature, and at the tenacity and diversity of life.

Before long, Lu Mingfei began to feel sweat gradually breaking out over his body. He was still doing somewhat better — Caesar and Chu Zihang had already taken off their clothes, revealing muscles and lines on their bodies as sharply defined as a sculptor's work.

The two were rather surprised to see Lu Mingfei able to endure it so well.

"We're all men here, no need to be reserved."

"No..." Lu Mingfei very much wanted to say that he was a cultivation practitioner, and this level of heat was still bearable.

Before long, the group saw a tower — a structure that humans could never possibly have built here.

That tower stood on the gentle slope of a fissure in the earth, the endlessly surging and ebbing magma tides rising and falling not far from it, its jet-black body illuminated by the glow of the magma...

Only after personally witnessing this towering black tower could Lu Mingfei truly grasp the sense of awe it inspired.

He knew...

Ahead lay the city of dragons.