CHAPTER 368

“Won’t you introduce this sister to me?”

On the way back to the city from the airport, Little Rich Brother, who was driving, glanced at MoeHaha sleeping in the back seat through the rearview mirror and quietly asked Sister Pomegranate in the passenger seat:

“Is she your friend? With your personality, you can actually have friends?”

“Are you asking for a beating?”

Sister Pomegranate raised her fist in annoyance, making Little Rich Brother shrink his neck, but then she curiously reached for the 60:1 finely carved perfume bottle on his dashboard.

It was carved into the shape of a manticore, using Stinky Treasure’s form as the base model, looking exquisitely lifelike.

The flamboyant Little Rich Brother had even included himself in it, standing heroically next to the manticore raising a beast tamer’s scepter, emphasizing the elegance of a summoner.

Addressing Little Rich Brother’s question, Sister Pomegranate said quietly:

“I’ve known MoeHaha longer than you. I had just started intensive training when I met her, she was still just a graduate student looking for people to help with her experiments. Who would pay attention to a mere graduate student without any background?

Then somehow through some busybody’s introduction, she came to me for help. I didn’t have much reputation then either and we got along well, so I helped her out.

We became close friends after that. Don’t be fooled by how she dresses like those brainless girls on the street, MoeHaha is very smart, a real genius! I heard the paper she wrote using my experiment even won an award. Anyway, I think she’s definitely smarter than Lumina.”

“Is she that impressive?”

Little Rich Brother couldn’t help but ask:

“So why did she come to find you…”

“For tourism, and to play a game together.”

Sister Pomegranate snorted and said:

“When I got the invitation code before, I shared the application link with her. She never replied to me, so I thought she wasn’t interested. But a few days ago she suddenly contacted me saying she passed the test and applied.

By the way, didn’t you hire a driver for yourself?

Why are you still driving?”

“One Pink Pear is still getting familiar with that RV,”

Little Rich Brother explained:

“Once he gets the hang of it, I’ll start my national tour. Probably won’t be back for several months. I’ll leave this car to you, just don’t scratch or dent it.”

“Hey, I already said we’re impossible.”

Sister Pomegranate pouted and said:

“Don’t think giving gifts will raise your favorability, this isn’t a game.”

“I gave up long ago.”

Little Rich Brother rolled his eyes and said:

“If we really got together, I’d be afraid of being accidentally killed by you someday. Better let Brother Mao tame you, I don’t have that ability! Don’t raise your fist! I’ll stop talking, okay? I’m driving, be careful.”

“You’re going on a national tour? Don’t go!”

During their bickering, MoeHaha sat up from the back seat rubbing her eyes.

She yawned and took out a small hand mirror to touch up her makeup, casually saying to Little Rich Brother:

“The new flu epidemic in the news is already showing signs of outbreak. Going on a tour now is just asking for trouble. Stay honestly at home and stock up on enough food for several months.

I came to see little Sister Pomegranate and then I’ll also go home to ‘seclude’ myself. My preparation is to not go out for at least 2 years.”

“Huh? Is it that serious?”

Both Little Rich Brother and Sister Pomegranate were shocked, but MoeHaha in the back seat didn’t answer immediately, only saying casually after a few seconds:

“This time is different, different from all previous major flu outbreaks. As someone walking the path of scientific research, I can’t convince myself to spread some kind of panic without supporting evidence, but the fact is, the analysis results of those virus strains don’t look naturally occurring. Anyway, everything is very similar to the so-called ‘Spanish Flu’.

Just be careful yourselves.

Oh right, I heard you mention Brother Mao earlier… is that Sister Pomegranate’s boyfriend?

Wow!

This fierce tigress who’s always bearing her claws can actually find a boyfriend?

That’s so scary.

I can’t wait to meet this extraordinary man who ‘feeds himself to the tiger’.”

“Not quite.”

Little Rich Brother said in an odd tone while turning:

“They’re flirting online friends.”

“Wow, after not seeing you for years, Sister Pomegranate is even doing online dating now, you’re so advan-”

Before MoeHaha could finish speaking, Sister Pomegranate’s fist came flying but she dodged it nimbly and stuck out her tongue, making Little Rich Brother laugh out loud too.

He gentlemanly dropped off the two ladies at Sister Pomegranate’s apartment building, then drove away.

MoeHaha would be staying with her for these few days.

But as soon as the elevator doors opened, both girls froze.

A delivery box sat quietly at Sister Pomegranate’s door, with “MoeHaha” as the recipient.

“Damn, another paranormal incident!”

Sister Pomegranate said with a headache:

“How does this Alpha company’s logistics appear and disappear like ghosts? You haven’t even arrived yet and the box is already delivered.”

“That’s normal, I put your address when I filled out the form.”

MoeHaha didn’t seem to mind, picking up the box and entering with Sister Pomegranate. But while washing up in the bathroom, she took off her black glasses and stared intently at the gaming helmet she had just unpacked.

The address she wrote

was actually a relative coordinate in Earth’s orbit!

Uh, she wasn’t joking! This was just a small experiment, and the results proved that the “entity” on the other side was indeed monitoring these test subjects, actually able to “precision airdrop” gaming terminals according to real-time coordinates.

Perhaps this was a ‘warning’ from them?

The physicist MoeHaha sitting on the toilet rubbed her aching brow hard.

She thought, this close encounter of the third kind really seems very dangerous.

————————

“Little one, still trying to play tricks with me? Don’t you know your level, how can you outplay this lord’s super admin system?”

In the Blood Vulture Halls, Murphy looked at the “terminal delivered” notification on the profile of the little player with ID “MoeHaha”, and couldn’t help showing a “world-ending demon lord” villain smile.

“You thought setting your address at a space station meant we couldn’t deliver? Too young, child. Even if you came from Alpha Centauri, I’d have ways to get the helmet into your hands! Think you can run after entering my web?

Hmph, just honestly contribute to Transia’s rise, my adorably slightly scheming little player.

Physicist, what an interesting player attribute.”

This little player had just registered and applied a few days ago.

Her credentials were very impressive, marked as a physicist with quite rare 【Researcher】 and 【Space Master】 traits among her character specialties. The former gave MoeHaha super strong research talent and maxed out spirit energy aptitude, while the latter represented her extraordinary “three-dimensional spatial perception”.

According to Tris, people with this talent would become very rare space spirit mages, with a greatly reduced failure rate for teleportation spells and spatial magic they cast. That Miss Lina who previously received Lieutenant Frayzer back home at Pioneer Fortress was such a rare space spirit mage.

This was a talent even Tris would envy, and it meant that as long as MoeHaha entered the game she would definitely become one of the most outstanding spirit mages among the player group.

Such super strong talent was enough for Murphy to overlook the 【Intelligence Gatherer】 trait on MoeHaha.

He knew she must be an official personnel.

But he no longer cared.

Because through observing Brother Loyalty’s group, he found that these official personnel’s work abilities were really ridiculous! Not only did they all have maxed out initiative, but they also all had very impressive hands-on capabilities and problem-solving mindsets.

Brother Loyalty being in charge of Transia’s armament factory aside, Mustard Madman, Master Ziwei and Border Town Wanderer brought back over 2000 refugees from the Cato region for Murphy in just one week, while the three “slackers” were also quite valued under Maxim’s command.

Facts proved that they were indeed exactly the kind of talent Transia needed most.

Even if just for this efficiency far surpassing ordinary players, Murphy was willing to take some risks.

After dealing with this matter, Murphy decided to visit the fighting club in the early evening. Yesterday’s defeat of Iron Fist Turner by Wan Hao became a popular tale on the forum, with videos of the whole process taken from various angles by Niuniu and others posted in threads, making the curious viewers exclaim that Chinese kung fu was invincible.

But those who actually knew about fighting could tell that Teacher Li’s combat techniques were definitely not just simple fixed moves from a few styles.

His fighting style mixed techniques from Sanda, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, wrestling and more, which determined that even without using traditional martial arts, Teacher Li was still an extremely rare combat master.

This wasn’t the same issue as whether traditional martial arts could fight or not.

And the great victories of Teacher Li and the Shadow Trail Sect also encouraged many little players who originally weren’t interested in participating in boxing matches to come join in the festivities.

Especially the Tiger Leopard Rider brothers currently lacking a leader and Brother Joy Stick’s other team members all came to participate. The Torrent Knight Order also sent their “representatives”, participating in the activities very formally and high-profile under their battle flag. All this made today’s boxing matches very lively.

However, on his way to the underground sewers in the outer city district, Murphy suddenly noticed the commotion in the camp outside the city.

This made Murphy frown.

Currently most of the subjects in the camp had already moved into the “otherworld apartment buildings” built for them in the residential area. What remained in the camp were several large warehouses and some functional facilities like blacksmith shops and medical stations. The next step wasn’t to abandon this camp, Miriam and Mr. Portman were going to convert it into barracks for the city guards.

Murphy followed the source of the commotion to investigate, and quickly found many people gathered outside the blacksmith shop.

Not just players but many NPCs, even Sharon and Valand were here.

But they weren’t the “protagonists” – the proud player blacksmiths Hundred Forging Great Horse and Master Broken Blade were surrounded by a crowd of people in the middle, like celebrated heroes.

This immediately aroused Murphy’s curiosity.

He stealthily descended and used the Thorn Clan’s night walking technique to conceal himself in the shadows approaching the front. Then he saw Master Broken Blade holding a strange metal ingot emitting a cyan glow, announcing loudly to everyone around:

“This is the ‘special alloy’ that my little bro and I made! It’s also the first spirit energy alloy born from the hands of local Transians on this land of Transia. This means from now on, no other forces can choke Transia’s neck in the field of spirit energy weapons!

This is clearly a work of epoch-making significance.

We call it ‘Spirit Energy Alloy No. 1’!

One point needs to be emphasized here, this amazing metal with spirit energy properties isn’t our original creation.

We’re not that amazing yet.

The inspiration for Spirit Energy Alloy No. 1 came from the Winged Cavalry’s armor forging formula.

We discovered this thing by accident while trying to forge new armor for the Winged Cavalry, so my brother and I decided to officially name it ‘Seicob Gold’! To pay tribute to its true inventor and birthplace!”

These two blacksmiths really knew how to handle relationships.

Their speech made Knight Valand quite satisfied, while little Sharon beside him probably guessed what these guys wanted to do, but she didn’t stop their attempt to establish connections with the Countess of Seicob. Instead she focused all her attention on the special metal in front of Master Broken Blade.

It was made in the shape of a standard iron ingot.

But its unique material made it reflect distinctive metallic green fragments of light under the glow of dusk. When Sharon placed her finger on the ingot and infused it with spirit energy, she was surprised to find this special alloy could actually store spirit energy.

Like an invisible pocket “storing” the spirit energy she injected into it.

But the efficiency was poor.

Basically only about one-third could be stored, the remaining two-thirds would dissipate in the process.

Actually spirit energy alloys weren’t rare among dwarf forgemasters, and some outstanding human blacksmiths or spirit mage blacksmiths also had various unique formulas to create different kinds of spirit energy alloys.

This thing was essential for making spirit energy weapons, after all even the most skilled blacksmith couldn’t forge weapons that could interact with spirit energy using ordinary iron.

Of course, enchanting ordinary weapons was another concept.

But it could be confirmed that spirit energy weapons were expensive.

Even the Blood Vulture Clan who ruled Transia for 400 years didn’t have too many spirit energy weapons, and the spirit energy weapons they distributed to elite clan members were mostly low-grade items, rarely having high-grade goods like “Warehouse Guard’s Ambition”.

This was related to Transia’s poor and chaotic environment.

Now the spirit energy alloy made by Master Broken Blade and Hundred Forging Great Horse through some unknown method was very poor in terms of conduction efficiency and spirit energy storage, but it was indeed a genuine spirit energy alloy. This meant these two otherworld blacksmiths could start mass-producing spirit energy weapons from now on.

Perhaps the quality wouldn’t be so good.

Perhaps there would still be various problems, but Transia’s history of being unable to self-produce spirit energy weapons and armor was indeed ended today.

“Make me a powerful weapon!”

“Brother Broken Blade, the shield you promised to deliver to me has been delayed for 4 days! I don’t care! You have to remake it with this amazing Seicob Gold!”

“Pah! Dream on…”

“I’ll pay more! How would you respond if I choose to pay double?”

“…Come in, let’s talk!”

A group of silly little players were invited into the shop by the two blacksmiths amid laughter and jokes, while the local blacksmiths bustling around also had happy expressions. Although most of them came from villages around Crimson Citadel without much knowledge, they had also heard that spirit energy weapons were very powerful things.

Now that their two “masters” had solved the spirit energy alloy problem, as long as these apprentices studied hard, they could learn similar formulas in the future.

By that time, wouldn’t becoming senior blacksmiths or blacksmith masters just be a matter of time?

Knight Valand also bent down to enter the blacksmith shop, planning to discuss forging specialized armor and weapons for the Winged Cavalry with the two blacksmiths, while Sharon stayed outside still frowning and thinking about how to maximize the utility of this “inferior spirit energy alloy”.

“Perhaps you could consider using this stuff to make some fine firearms.”

Murphy’s voice sounded behind Sharon, startling the contemplating little countess. She glared at her nominal “elder” and pouted:

“These alloys are a bit poor in quality, can’t make particularly good firearms that can enhance spirit energy. Also, although your two warriors keep saying this was inspired by the Winged Cavalry’s armor forging, to be honest I don’t quite believe it.

They must have used some otherworld techniques to effectively increase the alloy’s toughness without destroying energy conduction. These two guys are very cunning and shrewd, but I have to admit, they really have talent in forging.”

“Isn’t this exactly the knowledge we want to obtain from them?”

Murphy picked up a piece of spirit energy alloy to examine, saying softly:

“I know what they’ve made now can’t be considered good, even barely satisfactory is hard to achieve, but this is just the beginning, Sharon. They won’t be satisfied with this slight success. One day, my two warrior blacksmiths will produce works that would amaze even the most arrogant dwarf craftmasters.

I have no doubt about this.

But you do need to figure out how to make some fine firearms, this counts as contributing to our clan, it’s a task that can’t be refused, because I need a batch of things that can be given as rewards to other warriors.”

Murphy glanced at Sharon and said:

“And you have to go oversee the overall situation at the armament factory, right? Leaving everything to your apprentice Brother Loyalty, honestly I’m not very reassured.”

“Ah, wait a few more days! I plan to go after watching the King of Fighters Championship, looking forward to our mountain folk getting a good result. Besides, the factory buildings aren’t built yet.

The production lines are still being assembled, and the components still need to be modified later to be compatible with otherworld weapons.”

Sharon said with hands on her hips:

“I’m not one of your warriors at your command! You’re a count, and I’m a count too, Lord Murphy, you need to say ‘please’ when asking me to do something!”

“Alright alright, my dear Countess of Seicob, would you ‘please’ head to Anderma Hills soon to get the armament factory operation sorted out?”

“Hmph, considering your sincere request, I’ll think about it.”