chapter 115

Lu Li tossed aside the iron bar that had bent after smashing through the lock and closed the Shop screen on his Wristband.

“Buy it.”

Gu Yu Chu hadn’t been wrong. There were over a thousand Items under [Weapons] in the Shop, but very few were cheap. If you wanted to exchange for something that you could burn through in terms of durability, a conservative estimate was at least 150,000 Points.

Against that, 6,000 Points was absurdly cheap.

A crisp clang rang out.

The hook of the Climbing Item landed with pinpoint accuracy between Lu Li and the lock. A moment later, Gu Yu Chu hauled himself up and stopped in front of Lu Li for a face-to-face trade. He shook his Wristband.

“Payment first, then I move. Which of you is paying the Points?”

“Six thousand? That’s not a small number! Charge it to me!” Luo Jia Bai’s voice carried over from far away, both distant and firm. He raised one hand high, trying to catch Lu Li’s attention. “Can you let me contribute to the team just once?”

Lu Li and Gu Yu Chu were the closest to each other. Lu Li had already threaded his arm out through the wire gaps, pressed his Wristband to complete the payment, and said without looking back, “You’re too far. Next time, you pay.”

Gu Yu Chu glanced at his new balance. The severe line of his brows finally relaxed a little. “Generous.”

He found a good angle, took out a thread-thin wire, and began feeling around inside the keyhole for the critical spring.

“I can open it within two minutes.”

Watching Gu Yu Chu work, Luo Jia Bai ground his teeth a little. “You can jimmy it open with just a piece of wire, and you’re charging 6,000 Points for that?”

This kid was a money-printing machine.

He was better at making money than the Necromancer Game itself.

If this guy didn’t get promoted to head of the entire Items department, it was the Necromancer Game’s loss.

“If he can open it, that’s his skill. I think the Items he makes are pretty good, and they’re usable across all Instances. Since we’ve run into him here, we might as well buy more.” Mirella clearly approved of Gu Yu Chu’s abilities. She then reordered the payment sequence Lu Li had just mentioned. “Luo Jia Bai, next time I pay the Points, and then it’s your turn.”

For some reason, two future orders had been pre-booked against him.

Gu Yu Chu’s hands paused on the lock. His gaze swept over the three Players inside the iron cage.

What a strange team.

In the Necromancer Game, Points were literally chances at staying alive.

Once your Points reached the ten-million threshold, you could find out how many Points it would take to fulfill the wish you’d made when you entered the Necromancer Game.

The sooner you fulfilled your wish, the sooner you could leave this game where you could drop dead at any moment.

Everyone clung to their Points with a death grip. They only ever wanted more, never less. Who would fight over the chance to spend them?

If this was all an act, Gu Yu Chu thought, then their performance was way too convincing.

The space in front of him suddenly emptied.

Lu Li was climbing up along the bars of the cage, moving along the edge toward the crying, shrieking child NPC’s face.

“There’s pus running down his face too. It’s probably corrosive!” Luo Jia Bai’s ears were ringing from the NPC’s wailing. He shouted anxiously, “What are you going over there for? Put on some anti-corrosion gloves!”

“It’s fine,” Lu Li said.

A thick Tentacle separated itself from the child’s palm. Once it noticed Lu Li, it shot toward him like a dart.

The tip of the Tentacle stopped dead just a few centimeters from Lu Li.

“Sss-”

Lu Li had caught the obstructing Tentacle in his hand.

The sound of mucus corroding flesh kept hissing.

When gray blood began to seep from his palm, the roles of corrosive and corroded flipped completely.

The surface of the Tentacle was stained with Lu Li’s blood. Scorched and wracked with agony, it convulsed nonstop.

It twisted and tried to retreat, spinning as it struggled, but under that steadily tightening grip, nearly half its thickness turned to rotten pulp.

It wanted to escape, but there was nowhere to go.
How could this be?

The point where Lu Li’s hand closed became the center.

The Tentacle was crushed cleanly into two.

Lu Li said, “You’re too noisy. I can’t see anything like this.”

“Shut your mouth.”

The other Tentacles that had been surging forward to attack instantly shrank back, trembling. The child NPC also closed its mouth halfway, as if afraid to open it too wide.

Lu Li shook his slightly numb hand. The skin in his palm quickly regenerated.

One Tentacle was easy enough to restrain.

If there were too many, it would be a lot harder to deal with.

Fortunately, the Tentacles really did share their master’s main flaw: limited intelligence.

What Lu Li wanted to look at was the child’s Eyeballs.

The three Test Reports had only ruled out one option that had definitely been wrong.

Next, he had to eliminate one of the two remaining possibilities.

The choice he needed to make now was:

Cat, or dog?

Lu Li leaned in close to the pair of Eyeballs almost sunk into the iron cage, carefully studying the not‑so‑clear images reflected in the dark pupils.

It was a large dog with a brownish‑yellow coat.

The dog seemed tormented by the child’s endless screeching. It lay in the cage with its face buried between its front legs, ears pressed over its head to block out the noise.

Before the Evil Spirit Game could even force a choice, Lu Li already had his answer.

“You can come out now.”

Gu Yu Chu was as good as his word. In less than two minutes, he had worked the lock open. The cage door swung wide with a clang.

Stepping out of the cage, finally feeling solid ground under his feet-

Lu Li glanced at Gu Yu Chu, who had sat down on the floor and started applying powder, and asked, “You’re hurt?”

“I saw it.” Luo Jia Bai walked over. “That lock was very close to the NPC. The slime on his face dripped on you more than once, didn’t it?” He’d originally wanted to call him a profiteer, but swallowed the words back at the last second. “You’re a little too dedicated.”

“I lost count,” Gu Yu Chu said lightly, glossing over it. He was sprinkling the cheapest powder from his Medicine Items onto the wound.

“You just earned six thousand. Counting the Climbing Items we bought, that’s over ten thousand Points. You really can’t exchange for a few decent potions?”

“Too expensive.”

Luo Jia Bai opened his mouth a few times, hesitating, then finally asked, “Do you really have to be this stingy?”

Gu Yu Chu explained with a straight face, “The powder’s actually pretty useful. It only works with repeated application. You just have to endure the pain in between…”

He didn’t finish.

He suddenly felt a warm sensation spread across the wound.

The pain vanished in an instant.

Luo Jia Bai’s hand was pressed over the injury, white light leaking out between his fingers. He said, “At the rate that powder works, you’d still be waiting for it to kick in next Instance. Even newbies in a beginner Instance don’t bother with Medicine that slow anymore.”

“I’ll give you a little heal. Next time you’re selling Items, come to me first to settle the bill, all right?” Luo Jia Bai lowered his voice. “See that girl over there with the blindfold? Don’t take any Points from her.”

Gu Yu Chu froze.

Staring at the newly healed skin, he silently warned himself.

It’s an act.

All of this is an act.

They’re probably working together, trying to trick me into going soft so they can haggle me down next time.

By the time Lu Li and Mirella walked over, Luo Jia Bai had already withdrawn his hand and was pretending nothing had happened.

Lu Li asked Gu Yu Chu curiously, “You can open any lock?”

Gu Yu Chu patted the dust from his clothes and stood up. “I can’t do free‑spinning locks without springs. But all the locks showing up in the game so far are pretty standard. They’ve got springs inside, so you can pop them open with external force.”

He glanced at Lu Li’s neck and then asked:

“That thing on your neck is a lock too, right? It’s a type I haven’t seen before, but it shouldn’t be too hard.

“Do you want me to unlock it?”