Chapter 373: Rules Fate City, A Brief Appearance

Returning to the Colorful Mist Coast, Brother Ming Hou opened his spatial pouch and took a look.

The originally empty spatial compartments were now stuffed full of all manner of spiritual resources.

During this period, in order to fit even more inside, he had also expanded and upgraded the spatial pouch.

He tripled the spatial capacity, and only then was he able to fit in the resources and wealth given by Ming An and the others.

Looking over, the topmost spatial compartments were stacked with dense energy crystals, ranging from fist-sized to as thick as a human head, piled layer upon layer into small dividing mountains.

Next came a chest of deep-blue soul crystals, bearing the brand marks left behind when Ming An and the others had refined them.

Brother Ming Hou casually took one out; a chill touched his fingertip, and he could clearly sense the pure spiritual power flowing within.

These had originally been the wealth his fellow villagers had accumulated, but now they had all become his for the taking.

After all, the heaven-reaching opportunity he offered was something Ming An and his clansmen simply could not refuse.

At this moment he summoned the "Sacrifice Panel," and used his consciousness to drag batches of resources from the spatial pouch into the sacrifice page.

Immediately, the sacrifice-revenue figure at the bottom of the interface began climbing rapidly.

The corner of Brother Ming Hou's mouth couldn't help but curl upward.

This round completely emptied out Ming An and the others' family fortunes; even the burning jade at Ming An's waist, which represented the status of a Grand Fate Envoy, had been "borrowed" by him.

"The Lamp-Lighting Lineage's family fortune really is thick."

In the end, the figure that surfaced on the sacrifice interface froze at 13.9 million Shou Shou Jili.

For resource types without a crafting bonus, the formula for calculating value is roughly around 3 to 10 times.

After roughly estimating the value of this batch of resources, Brother Ming Hou closed the sacrifice interface and gave Beneath Di Zhao a feint.

This is also one of the pricing methods players commonly use.

Show it to Beneath Di Zhao, but don't click confirm.

If he really clicked "Confirm Sacrifice," he'd definitely take a massive loss; the quote Beneath Di Zhao gives is barely different from robbery.

It still has to be sold through the Trading Post to maximize the efficiency of converting resources into Shou Shou Jili.

Brother Ming Hou felt that, if this batch of resources could be stockpiled for a while, and once the player faction's overall combat power saw a new breakthrough, driving up demand for high-end resources, the value of this batch could rise another notch.

Like the early Void Stones—as players' strength and Shou Shou Jili income grew, their value kept rising too.

But right now was precisely the time he needed money; if it had to be sold, then sell it.

Converting resources into strength lets him hunt stronger monsters and reap greater hunting rewards.

Converting resources into the construction of the Fate Casino would also continuously bring returns to the Fate Clan in the future.

This is more like an investment.

Whether investing in himself or investing in future returns, both are more reliable than a "hoard and wait for the price to rise" strategy.

With his thinking clear, he began listing resources in bulk.

Unlike Xiao Xiao Fa, who bulk-sells below market price in pursuit of the ultimate resource-conversion efficiency, Brother Ming Hou wasn't in a rush to sell the resources he listed; he priced them all at the current market rate.

After listing all the resources, it took a total of 14 minutes.

The "Pending Sales" figure in the lower-right corner reached 53.92 million.

Nearly every second, the figure would drop, and the challenger notification of a successful sale would chime in his mind.

Glancing at his rapidly growing Shou Shou Jili balance, Brother Ming Hou leaned against a reef near the Colorful Mist Coast, letting the salty, humid sea breeze brush his face, feeling thoroughly content.

A pending-sales figure of 53.92 million—perhaps this sum wouldn't last long, but at the current stage it was enough for expenses.

The feeling of watching wealth flow toward him of its own accord was truly delightful.

Distant waves battered the reef, the splashing droplets refracting rainbow colors in the sunlight; Brother Ming Hou gazed at the surging colorful mist, the smile at his lips impossible to hide.

He simply closed his eyes, and without muting the successful-sale notifications, he let the ever-growing Shou Shou Jili figure spin through his mind, like listening to a pleasant song of wealth.

Earnings made through strength, wisdom, and a touch of "going with the flow"—the money comes in fast.

Although the resources were given by Ming An and the others, so what.

Without his insight at the time into the small world's opportunity, without demonstrating his rule-compatible strength, without sketching out a blueprint for transcending fate, why would Ming An and the others willingly empty out their family fortunes?

Put plainly, this was exchanging future possibilities for present resources—a trade so fair it couldn't be fairer.

What they bet on was the qualification to step onto the heaven-reaching path; what he gave up was the chance to lead the way; neither side lost out.

Perhaps when Ming An and the others became players, they would think back on these resources.

At that time they might reach out and ask him for the money back, hoping to use the resources they had once given him to invest in their rookie-stage selves.

But he would absolutely not give back a single cent.

After all, he wasn't using this money entirely for himself; the returns produced by the Fate Casino built with this investment would be shared with every Fate Clan player.

To help them grow quickly.

So this money should be considered Ming An and the others' investment in themselves.

As for giving it back—nonexistent.

Forum players have a saying: investment carries risk, enter the market with caution; once money and goods change hands, no refunds.

And if they dare keep demanding it, let me introduce them to the divine punishment skill "Pull the Plug."

Stationed in reality, holding the network cable in his hands, he is the god who wields the Fate Clan's "authority over the virtual and the real."

Praise Beneath Di Zhao!

Watching his Shou Shou Jili balance continue to climb, Brother Ming Hou contentedly let the sea breeze blow as he waited for the right moment.

One hour later.

His Shou Shou Jili balance had reached 34.03 million, and most of the resources had already been successfully sold.

He had finally scraped together enough to cover the cost of fusing rules.

Unlike Xiao Xiao Fa, and the Kindergarten Principal, who used incomplete rule fusion to craft Painful Painful Minghun,

what he held in his hands was a complete rule.

Although no cost was needed to complete the fragment, and the rule strength was merely ordinary, the fusion alone required an expenditure of 33.98 million.

But Brother Ming Hou felt this expense was well worth it.

Having suffered in the past, he understood clearly what fusing rules meant.

This could not be measured by the amount of resources; the core lay in the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct rules.

Just as someone might hold a mountain of Jin Shan resources yet fail to even touch the edge of a rule.

Yet for a faction like the Black Tide, even the weakest Evil Spirit Warrior could easily open the door to using top-tier rules.

To reshape a rule, even if their entire Fate Clan poured all the wealth accumulated over countless ages into it, they still could not achieve this.

But as a player, one could easily accomplish it by spending 33.98 million Shou Shou Jili.

One did not even need to lift a finger throughout the entire process.

This was one of the hidden benefits of being a player.

At this moment, he turned his head to look at the floating guidance water sphere beside him, pressed his finger to his brow, bowed slightly, and respectfully said:

"Brother Ming Hou, are you there?"

【Go ahead.】

The guidance slowly opened its eyes, still wearing an impatient expression.

"Brother Ming Hou, I have gathered enough Shou Shou Jili. Please trouble you to step in and help me fuse the Game Space Rule with the Fate Rule Yan Sheng Lao Yin I carry, refining them into a special Painful Painful Minghun." Brother Ming Hou's tone grew even more respectful.

The guidance did not answer, but conjured a phantom arm, raised it, and grabbed.

Instantly, the Fate Rule Yan Sheng Lao Yin on Brother Ming Hou's body and the Game Space Rule in his backpack were extracted.

Under the guidance of the guidance's consciousness, the two rule clusters intertwined and collided in mid-air, spreading ripples of fluctuation in concentric circles.

The fusion of two completely different absolute logics was a miracle Brother Ming Hou had once been unable to imagine.

The only thing he knew was that a faction called the Blue Lantern Clan possessed the terrifying ability to devour rules.

But the method used by the Blue Lantern Clan was devouring; essentially, they extracted the absolute logic energy within the rules and fed it to the "Divine Lamp Rule" mastered by the Blue Lantern Clan.

During the devouring process, a vast amount of rule efficacy was wasted.

Even the framework carrying the rule energy was a part that could not be absorbed.

This was also the reason why the remaining rule fragments in adventurer dungeons were distributed as rewards.

The most famous case was when a player team sold a rule fragment named "Dead March" for the ultra-low price of 800,000.

This largest trading hall loss case since the server opened remains one of the forum players' jokes to this day.

Yet the guidance's rule fusion, on a technical level, was in an entirely different dimension compared to the Blue Lantern Clan's rule devouring.

It was like trying to put water and fire into the same bottle, forcing light and darkness to coexist.

The difficulty coefficient was not on the same level at all.

As the guidance initiated the fusion process, Brother Ming Hou focused all his attention.

He had once touched the realm of demigods and witnessed many strange landscapes in the Monster World, yet the sight of these two absolute logics deconstructing, reorganizing, and fusing before his eyes was a spectacle he had never seen in his life.

At this moment, floating to his left was the Fate Rule Yan Sheng Lao Yin.

Its surface flowed with a silver galaxy, countless silver threads entangled and woven within it, each thread representing a fate trajectory.

To the right was the Game Space Rule, shaped like a multifaceted Rubik's Cube, with different virtual scenes reflected on each facet, and pixelated data streams cascading down inside like waterfalls.

Sizzle!

The guidance's finger swept across the boundary between the two.

Instantly, the Fate Silver Flame and the data torrent gnashed and devoured each other, like two trapped beasts refusing to yield, with every collision exploding into blinding rule sparks.

At this moment, Brother Ming Hou discovered that the Shou Shou Jili number in his balance column began to plummet wildly.

32.03 million, 28 million, 21 million... nearly a million Shou Shou Jili per second turned into substantial scarlet flames, surging out from the void to envelop the two rule clusters.

At this moment, the Shou Shou Jili acted like a combustion aid for the rules, with flame-shaped energy carrying the aura of rules constantly striking the framework barriers of the two rules.

The Fate Yan Sheng Lao Yin melted into a silver liquid the next second, stretching out within the flames.

Meanwhile, the seven-colored light radiating from the Game Space Rule boiled under the scorching flames, melting much more slowly.

The vast majority of the scarlet flames also poured onto the Game Space Rule.

Those light points representing rule nodes jumped violently within the scarlet flames, as if striving to break free from the constraints of their own forms.

Just then, the scarlet flames suddenly tightened.

The silver liquid stabbed sharply into the core of the Game Space Rule, while the seven-colored light fiercely counter-attacked along the patterns of the imprint; the essences of the two rules rapidly blended within the scarlet flames.

The rule information of the Fate Rule and the rule information of the Game Space constantly combined.

The consumption of Shou Shou Jili also broke through 20 million at this moment, and the fusion reached its most critical instant.

Silver and seven-colored light suddenly erupted with blinding brilliance simultaneously, condensing into a rotating energy cocoon within the scarlet flames; fate patterns and rule runes related to the Game Space constantly appeared on the cocoon, only to be rapidly annihilated and reshaped under the scorching of the flames.

Brother Ming Hou clearly saw that tiny specks of silver light floated out from the cocoon, captured by the seven-colored light, and transformed into brand-new rule runes.

It was as if the trajectory of the Fate Rule suddenly had multiple branches.

When the scarlet flames suddenly extinguished, the rule cocoon cracked with a "Crack!" sound, and a fist-sized Painful Painful Minghun imprint slowly floated in mid-air.

The outer layer of the Fate was a flowing seven-colored halo, as if wrapping countless micro-spaces.

The inner layer was a silver-blue fate network, piercing through the entire halo like a spiderweb.

Brother Ming Hou reached out his hand, and the Painful Painful Minghun automatically fell into his palm.

Through the perception of the Eagle-Headed Demon, he could clearly see the two rules coexisting perfectly within it.

Or rather, this was already a brand-new rule.

The next second, a Challenger Prompt rang in his mind.

【Challenger Prompt: Obtained special Painful Painful Minghun (Unnamed).】

Special Painful Painful Minghun: Unnamed.

Painful Painful Minghun introduction: It can produce rule-derived energy by engaging in equivalent gambits with targets. Regardless of whether the gambit is won or lost, it obtains a 6% fate gift from the opponent's stakes. It can also obtain rule-derived outputs through specific gambit gameplay, such as the rule's built-in card gambit game, the Labyrinth of Fate game, the Probability Battlefield, and so on.

……

After reading the rule introduction, Brother Ming Hou's eyes could barely conceal his excitement.

The special Painful Painful Minghun in his hand fit his needs even better than the way he had originally envisioned using the Fate Rule.

The Fate Casino he had previously conceived had only one gameplay method, namely an equivalent gambit similar to comparing sizes.

The outcome was decided entirely by luck between both sides.

With this rule, the future gameplay of the Fate Casino could blossom in a hundred different ways.

Adding various strategic gambit gameplay meant that every guest who stepped into the Fate Casino would find a gambit style they liked.

Besides relying on luck, one could also rely on strategy.

But no matter what, as the house, apart from the upfront investment to Firefly Lake, he would always win without losing.

If a big-spending client showed up, he'd bring out his own tech.

With the aid of a luck-type Painful Painful Minghun, he couldn't imagine how he could possibly lose.

As for the Painful Painful Minghun's name, he summoned the Painful Painful Minghun analysis interface and used his consciousness to input three characters in the "Unnamed" field: Fate City.

Once the naming was complete, a system-wide announcement rang in every player's mind:

【Challenger Notice (System-wide): Congratulations to player "Throat of Defying Fate" for obtaining the special Painful Painful Minghun: Fate City.】

This notice instantly caused the player forum to explode.

Players capable of creating a special Painful Painful Minghun were without exception bigshots among the player faction.

And the id appearing in the notice was no stranger to forum players either; it had even been the subject of heated discussion before.

It was precisely the strongest newbie who had steadily held first place in the latest newbie leveling event, known as "Cheat Bro": Throat of Defying Fate.

At the time, many guilds had wanted to pull him into their guilds, but Throat of Defying Fate had always kept his block mode on, and the major guilds simply had no way to establish contact with him.

No one had expected that the Cheat Bro, who held first place on this round's newbie rankings, had struck again.

He had actually accomplished an achievement that many veteran players had been unable to achieve, forging a special rule that belonged solely to him.

Forum players were all curiously asking how this Cheat Bro had actually done it.

Whether there were any guides or video shares.

But at this moment Brother Ming Hou clearly had no intention of sharing his joy; at this time he saw the barrage messages sent by his clansmen, and decisively went offline.

The 39 clansmen who had helped him seize the game space rule had all descended and arrived on Earth.

The clansmen had already made contact with him.

After Brother Ming Hou went offline, he decisively used the communication device given by the Star Net to try contacting the Star Net.