Chapter 9: I Am a Farmer, This Is Sugar Beet!

"Cough, cough, cough… No… that's not right!"

On the balcony of the seaside villa.

The hanging hammock was already empty; instead, the originally pristine, expensive floor tiles were stained with a thick pool of blood, and the slender, strange woman lay on the ground in agony.

Her face was twisted as if enduring immense pain, mumbling only the words "not right" from her lips.

Roughly half an hour later, a layer of blood scabs had formed all over her body before she finally recovered enough to brace her trembling hands against the floor, forcing herself through the pain of feeling as if her whole body was about to explode as she struggled to her feet.

She picked up the phone beside her and typed—

"Put a bounty on Li Guoqiang, captain of the Criminal Investigation Division of Mingyang City! Alive or dead, I want him found!"

"Find out exactly what happened to him!"

"Set the bounty at ten million! U. S. dollars!"

The strange woman's typing fingers stabbed at the phone until it clicked and clacked, and by the time the message was sent, the originally smooth screen was already covered in cracks.

She was furious! She was bewildered!

That supreme being was fond of death and fresh blood.

This sacrifice used fifty lives merely to let the aura clinging to that piece of clothing gain a wisp of activity.

Yet when she transferred her consciousness through the special spirit token, she actually saw that being's projection!

Why would He personally send down a projection?

The dungeon was something she had pieced and stitched together with her own hands.

She knew better than anyone what was inside it.

It was as absurd as Jack Ma personally taking a private jet to some remote mountain village, to the home of a little cowherd boy, just to snatch the cow dung he had picked up that morning.

If the thing itself had no problem, then the problem could only lie with the person!

"Why wasn't that bastard sacrificed?" The strange woman gasped violently for air, her striking figure trembling somewhat pathetically.

The scene she had seen when her consciousness entered the spirit token echoed through her mind—

She clearly saw a certain shell whose body had already deformed into a monster, unyieldingly raising its head to stare at the red sun in the sky.

Even though it would shatter into a spray of blood the next second, the monster's wild laughter still made the strange woman's heart tremble.

"Could this lunatic have been sent by some organization to destroy the 【Descending Object】?"

"The Calamity Cult? The Tarot Club? Or the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs?"

Now the strange woman's mind was a bit of a mess.

The bastard who cleared the dungeon held the spirit token that should have been carried by Li Guoqiang, and used some method to ignore the sacrifice and even attracted that being's projection, causing the 【Descending Object】 to vanish without a trace, thoroughly scrambling the plan she had prepared for so long.

Not only that, her only resurrection item was also gone.

The number of players in the entire Spirit Disaster Game who possessed such an item couldn't be counted on more than a few fingers!

The terror of that being far exceeded imagination—even separated by the chasm between the dungeon and the real world, even though what descended was merely a projection, and even though the target of its gaze was not herself, it still killed her once.

"No matter who you are…"

"I will dismember you into a thousand pieces!"

It was the first time the strange woman had hated a person so much.

It was also the first time she had been so disgusted by the livestream restrictions of Spirit Disaster Game.

That was a protection mechanism for newcomers—

Players watching the livestream could not remember any newcomer's appearance, voice, or other personal characteristics from the broadcast.

So she had no way to directly lock down who the final clearer was.

Fortunately, she could narrow the scope of the investigation.

That person held Li Guoqiang's spirit token, so their location must also be in Mingyang City!

"Ethan, book a ticket back to the country."

"This old lady is going back to dig three feet into the ground and pull him out with her own hands!"

————

"Achoo!!"

Wu Wang, who still didn't know his head was now worth ten million, sneezed.

Rubbing his nose, he wondered aloud: "Who's cursing me?"

"Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!" Another triple sneeze.

"Damn, cursing me pretty harshly, huh? You think I won't put a curse on you after I finish eating?" Wu Wang grumbled as he picked up the instant noodles, which had nearly clumped into a lump, with a plastic fork and slurped them down without the slightest complaint.

He had just returned to reality.

Based on the deviation of the clock hanging on the wall and the soggy state of the instant noodles, he easily judged how long he had been gone—thirty minutes.

That was the time he had spent in the dark space studying his personal panel.

In other words, speaking only of the dungeon world, no matter how long one experienced inside, only an instant would have passed in the real world upon returning.

"Is Uncle Wang cursing me? Did he find out I swapped his square-dancing speaker's USB drive for a socially-dead moaning track?"

"It can't be that Aunt Li still holds a grudge after all this time about me shaving her house cat's fur to knit a sweater, right?"

"Meow~"

While Wu Wang was still wondering whether to put a curse on Uncle Wang or Aunt Li, a flattering meow came from the bedroom door.

One listen and you could tell it was a little fake-voiced old green tea.

Slanting a glance over, he saw the black-and-white tuxedo cat raised by his second sister walk in with light steps.

This fellow had a patch of white fur near its nose shaped in an unusually abstract way.

So Wu Wang had always called it "Dick Cat."

Watching it slowly approach, Wu Wang pulled a tube of cat treat from the drawer.

"Meow~~"

The calico cat's voice grew even more whiny, staring fixedly at the cat treat strip, drool about to drip onto the floor.

But Wu Wang wouldn't buy it.

He just stared sternly at the calico cat and scolded, "What the hell, cat! Did you forget what I taught you!"

Hearing his low voice, the calico cat's steps immediately halted.

It tentatively meowed at Wu Wang a few more times.

Finding it utterly useless,

it compromised.

Hoo—plop—

The calico cat skillfully pushed off with its front limbs, the whole cat leaping into the air like a black-and-white windmill, executing a spectacular backflip before landing perfectly.

After finishing this acrobatic performance, it saw a smile on Wu Wang's face.

"That's right! Just like that!"

"My house doesn't raise useless things; one harvest for one ploughing; only a valuable cat gets food!"

"From now on, every time I come home, I want to see you do a flip before you get cat food. Understood?"

With that, he put the cat treat strip back into the drawer.

He hadn't said this performance would be rewarded with cat treats.

"I can even tame a cat; I'm truly a damn genius."

He paid no attention to the cat's dissatisfied low growl.

After praising himself, Wu Wang picked it up, tossed it into the living room, returned to his room, and locked the door.

He turned on the computer.

The dim light reflected on his face, making him look unusually pale.

About 23 hours remained until the mission time.

He needed to review knowledge regarding the supernatural.

He opened the browser and clicked on a folder in his bookmarks called "Metaphysics"—

"Encyclopedia of Mysticism," "Use of Witchcraft," "Collection of Taoist Incantations," "..."

Moreover, the contents of more folders on the side revealed his terrifying knowledge reserve.

From the smelting of chemical materials to the analysis of architectural design; from literature and poetry to advanced mathematical theory; from fitness and diet combinations to the breakdown of martial arts techniques; from astronomy and constellations to geography and geology research; from wilderness survival skills to financial investment; from human medicine to criminal cases...

All sorts of chaotic yet comprehensive knowledge had been categorized and organized by him.

The most crucial thing was—he had learned it all.

A normal person would mostly be unable to cover every aspect due to limited energy.

But Wu Wang was slightly special...

"Truly, when the belly is full, lust arises; after eating, sleepiness strikes." Not long after completing his knowledge review, Wu Wang felt his eyelids ready to fight, waves of drowsiness surging into his heart.

Subconsciously, he took a fruit knife from the drawer and skillfully aimed it at his heart.

Then he stabbed down hard.

Pfft—

He died.

In the blink of an eye, the lost blood vanished into thin air and returned to his body.

Opening his eyes, the feeling of fatigue was completely gone.

After resurrection, the body returns to its current healthiest state!

With the aid of this method, he could maintain a high-intensity learning state without rest; whenever he got sleepy, he just gave himself a stab.

Not just learning, but also physical exercise and practicing combat skills worked the same way.

Whenever his muscles reached their limit due to massive exercise, he only needed to resurrect once to continue, and the training effects would be retained, equivalent to skipping the muscle recovery process and directly obtaining the results.

Wu Wang hadn't slept for five consecutive years.

Just as he had said moments ago—

"I'm truly a damn genius!"