Chapter 30: Exiled, So Time to Play an Alt (Special Thanks to Student Xiaosen for the Alliance Upgrade)

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Divine Fore-Seat Headquarters.

The City Lord’s curfew decree left the Divine Fore-Seat team deeply unsettled. Fortunately, the Fighter Corps had raced against time to leave the city and grind levels, successfully avoiding the curfew, which would further widen the gap between them and ordinary players. However, for the Maritime Merchants Guild where Yougaowan was located, this was a massive blow; the economic losses were immeasurable.

“Report, Young Master: after this player, Da Chun, went online, he collapsed in the mining area and was taken away by the prison guards.”

The Young Master was troubled. “What’s going on? Continue monitoring.”

“It’s curfew now. We can’t monitor him.”

Nani? The Young Master felt a faint sense that things were not as simple as they seemed.

Half an hour later, the city suddenly issued an announcement:
—Black Iron Frontier City Bulletin: The sewer’s mutated super-boss, the Plague King, has slain the mutated Cockroach King!
—Black Iron Frontier City Bulletin: The sewer’s mutated super-boss, the Demonized Bat King, has slain the Plague King!

The entire guild was in an uproar!

To say that this was the monsters killing each other was not impossible, but it was hard to believe! Could it have something to do with Da Chun, who had been taken away? But how could he re-enter the sewers while being a prisoner?

While they were still confused, the city issued another announcement:
—Black Iron Frontier City Bulletin: Player Da Chun has voluntarily reported a plague infection, promptly reducing the risk of its spread; he is now formally exiled to Plague Island. Meanwhile, the prison where Da Chun appeared will undergo prioritized sterilization. All prison personnel must cooperate...

The guild erupted in a frenzy: “So he collapsed because he was infected with the plague!”

The Young Master was stunned: “Does this mean the Red-Named Third Corps, who were mining with him, are also infected?”

A team member suggested: “Let’s riot with the Third Corps. At this critical moment, not cooperating is definitely a major crime! They will surely be sent to the lower levels of the prison.”

The Young Master didn’t waste words: “Riot! If once isn’t enough, do it several times! Also, gather all information on Plague Island!”

...

Escorted by Shirley and Fafna, Da Chun boarded a small boat and headed out to sea. The boat was stocked with plenty of rations, fresh water, and tools like cookware and oil lamps. Several shimmering, ethereal figures were rowing and steering the sails; it turned out these were the “mirrors” she had mentioned—the true power of an NPC Archmage! How could players ever learn such things? Shirley had a bright future following her.

Just then, the city-wide announcement appeared.

*I’m on the announcements again!*

Although he really didn’t want to be famous, this was actually quite good. Being officially announced as “out of the game” made him seem down and out, but in reality, he had become the controller of a down-and-out merchant guild.

The guild would eventually need to recruit players, and Da Chun immediately thought of the masters on the first floor. His rapid mastery of the game from a complete novice had everything to do with their enthusiastic advice. In terms of both emotion and logic, he should bring them in to enjoy the month-long 105% guild bonus, which would likely give them a massive head start.

But the problem was, once he added them, this hidden guild would be exposed. It wouldn’t just be the Black Iron City’s big-shot consortiums hunting him down; it would be big shots from all over the world, green with envy, chasing him. Initially, the 10-billion debt wasn’t completely hopeless, but if he were targeted and sabotaged by a combined force, there would be no chance at all. By then, not only would he have failed to help them, he would have dragged them into the PK chaos.

More troublesome was the possibility that someone with the “let the world burn” style of a “Great God” would egg on the Imperial family’s big shots to join the guild and start a project to fill this 10-billion hole! And with the Imperial family’s style, they would definitely make him sign a gambling agreement—if they succeeded, he’d step down. If they failed, the losses would be unimaginable...

Trouble, way too much trouble. He wouldn’t think about it for now.

At this moment, Da Chun’s boat passed through the waters near the shipyard. He remembered the 6-in-1 modular fishing rod he had lost there yesterday. Since the boat was moving slowly, he might as well dive in and retrieve it. He couldn’t just sit idly during the several-hour journey; he would use muscle memory to restore his fishing skill. It might come in handy later when he aimed to become a fishing expert.

As soon as he retrieved the rod and started idling, Da Chun felt his body acting up and starting to tremble.
—Warning! You have caught a chill in the water; your plague symptoms have flared up prematurely. Your attributes will continuously decrease, and you will suffer from tremors and blurred vision.

Da Chun’s screen actually started trembling and blurring!

Damn it! He knew the plague was nasty, but how was he supposed to play if it was this severe? The key was that with these tremors, all actions would be botched; he probably couldn’t even cast a single skill!

***

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Da Chun had thought about clapping his hands in the water to summon the whale for a blessing. But he didn’t know if these golem boatmen would attack the whale, nor was he certain if they were Fafna’s avatars. Should he expose his trump card—the whale—in front of Fafna? Better to just endure it.

With nothing to do on his main account, he switched to his Little Angel sub-account.

At this moment, three new prompts appeared on the sub-account:
—System Prompt: Through the Soul Link skill, you have acquired the talent skill: Diving Mastery.
—System Prompt: Through the Soul Link skill, you have acquired Advanced Throwing (Level 1)... Intelligence +1.
—System Prompt: Through the Soul Link skill, you have acquired Intermediate Modular Assembly (Level 1).

He had to admit, this Soul Link was simply heaven-defying; it was essentially two accounts splitting the work of training skills, doubling the efficiency of a normal player! It was just a shame the sub-account couldn’t enjoy the guild’s 105% bonus.

Looking through the messages he hadn’t had time to check earlier, the sub-account had mined and turned in 3 chunks of rare lava ore crystals and 12 chunks of secondary ore crystals during the 7 hours of idling. It had automatically visited the warehouse to swap for 4 pickaxes, received 40 hallucination mushrooms as a reward, and then automatically eaten 10 of them during rest to gain 10 hallucination points, with a prompt stating that today’s quota had been exceeded.

However, Master-level Mining was still at Level 1; progress was incredibly slow. Dual-wielding pickaxes, however, had hit Intermediate Level 10 and was stuck there.

In short, it was truly pathetic not being able to sell the ore, and he was just living off these few dozen mushrooms?

Checking the sub-account stats:
Level: 1.
Race: Phantom Spirit.
Reputation: -100,000.
Attack: 10 (Pickaxe +10).
Defense: 0.
Attack Speed: 10.
Movement Speed: 11 (Expert Running +1).
Health: 100 (Hallucination Value +67, Intermediate Dual-Wield Pickaxe Lvl 10 +20, Primary Pickaxe Disarm +1, Intermediate Modular Assembly Lvl 1 +11).
Load Capacity: 324 (Master Mining Lvl 1 +53, Expert Running Lvl 1 +32, Advanced Swimming Lvl 10 +30, Advanced Fancy Swimming Lvl 10 +30, Advanced Underwater Mining Lvl 10 +30, Advanced Underwater Construction Lvl 10 +30, Advanced Fishing Lvl 3 +23, Advanced Gathering Lvl 1 +21, Intermediate Dual-Wield Pickaxe Lvl 10 +20, Intermediate Climbing Lvl 1 +11, Primary Marathon Lvl 10 +10, Primary Cooking Lvl 1 +1, Primary Pickaxe Disarm Lvl 1 +1, Advanced Throwing Lvl 1 +21, Intermediate Modular Assembly Lvl 1 +11).
Stamina: 324 (Master Mining Lvl 1 +53, Expert Running Lvl 1 +32...)
Leadership: 11 (Intermediate Modular Assembly +11).
Intelligence: 9.
Spirit: 1.
Hunger: 24.
Special Skill 1: Soul Link; the avatar and main body share knowledge and skills.
Special Skill 2: Phantasmal Growth; can comprehend phantasm skills.
Inventory: 46 Hallucination Mushrooms.

...

The sub-account’s health had finally reached 100; it looked like a real person now. The health reward from the main account’s muscle memory skill restoration hadn’t added to the sub-account, but the 1 point of Spirit gained from the main account’s soul battle had actually been added over!

Since he had already finished today’s quota, could he walk around a bit?

***

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But he was afraid of being beaten by the overseer. He decided to wait for the overseer to arrive and see what her attitude was toward a talent like him, and whether he could trigger the trial for the second floor.

The overseer’s patrol took over ten minutes. Impatient, Da Chun asked the nearby little demons: “Do you know how to get to the second floor of the trial?”

The little demons repeated the same line: “Don’t know!”

Did they know but wouldn’t say, or did they really not know?

Da Chun found the two little ones. In the group, having eaten an extra high-grade mushroom, they were clearly a head taller than the other demons, making them easy to find.

Da Chun gave them more and asked: “Do you know?”

The two little ones excitedly gobbled them up: “Big Brother, we really don’t know!”

Damn it!

Well, it was fine. If he couldn’t ask it out, the consortium big shots wouldn’t be able to either when they arrived. The harder, the better.

But the two little ones added: “If Big Brother is really going to the trial, we’re willing to follow you!”

Da Chun was surprised: “You can bring people to the second floor?”

The two little ones shook their heads: “Don’t know! But big shots always need servants, and we’re willing to be Big Brother’s servants!”

“Big Brother will definitely become a big shot!”

Da Chun frowned: “You wouldn’t defect again, would you?”

The two little ones were anxious: “Betrayal is a virtue! Powerful demons don’t care about servants betraying them; if they betray you, it just means you aren’t powerful enough!”

What kind of demonic values were these!

Da Chun didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “So when they call me a liar, they’re actually complimenting me?”

The two little ones said with reverence: “Yes! It means Big Brother is smarter than them!”

Da Chun asked again: “What if I lie to you, too?”

The two little ones were very calm: “Then that means we have no value! If we have value, Big Brother wouldn’t lie to us.”

Da Chun chuckled: “What value do you have?”

The two little ones said with pride: “We can mine for Big Brother, and we can run errands and do chores for you! If we get stronger, we can even help Big Brother fight!”

Oh!! Honestly speaking, he couldn’t expect Level 1 little demons to fight, but being able to do this was of huge value! How was this any different from having two auxiliary cheats?

Da Chun was truly tempted: “Okay, okay...”

Just as they were talking, the rumbling footsteps echoed through the tunnel again, and the horde of little demons went back to mining frantically, as if injected with adrenaline.

She was here!

Da Chun immediately returned to his spot and, as she appeared, took the risk and waved at her.

The overseer pointed at Da Chun: “Go to the warehouse!”

Damn, this event triggered quite easily!