NOVEL WEB Chapter 166: It’s Black
"Eliminate the red-named players?"
Li Zheng chuckled; this task just so happened to align with his upcoming goals and could be easily accomplished.
"Hopefully, it's worth it." Li Zheng dipped into the bathtub, submerging his chin in the water.
From the previous dungeon rooms he had cleared, most of the rewards were immediately usable.
Even blueprints could be valuably assessed.
Except for this reclassification certificate.
Though marked with a Diamond Level tag, it seemed that unless the task was completed, the final reward wasn't guaranteed.
"Zone administrator, privileges?"
Li Zheng immersed in the bathtub, lost in thought, until the warm water turned completely cold and he got up.
He stepped out of the bathtub, and a flash of blue light flickered on his body as fine ice shards clattered to the ground.
This also washed away the fatigue and discomfort he was feeling.
"Housekeeper, bring me that clean set of clothes."
Shortly after, the housekeeper came in carrying another set of Silver Level clothes.
Li Zheng took the clothes and swiftly changed into them, feeling refreshed and renewed.
"Wash that set of clothes clean."
After assigning the housekeeper some tasks, Li Zheng walked out of his capsule residence.
Li Zheng realized that ever since acquiring the intelligent humanoid, his life was becoming increasingly comfortable.
If only the engineering humanoid could operate the stove, he could practically live a life where everything was done for him.
In the Matrix Game, this was something others wouldn't even dare to dream of.
"Hmm… should I manufacture some household robots and sell them?"
Li Zheng stood at the doorway, pondering carefully, and eventually set the idea aside.
It's not that selling household robots would be unprofitable or anything.
The main issue was that these things looked virtually human-like, and if they were sold and then used by players for some bizarre purposes, Li Zheng felt...
He couldn't let them indulge in such actions.
Primarily, he didn't want to end up in solitary confinement.
"Eh? Little Sakura?"
Looking up, Li Zheng's attention was drawn to a figure darting back and forth in mid-air. After watching for a while, he realized the little guy was trying to replicate his "big top."
Judging by Little Sakura's flying state, it's been pondering this for a while without much progress, and the movements were rather clumsy, managing only to spin three times without landing.
"This little guy, doesn't it see how severe the side effects are?"
Li Zheng shook his head with a smile, but he didn't stop Little Sakura from practicing, only calling out to summon it back before packing up his residence and setting off again for exploration with it.
For the remaining two rooms, Li Zheng chose not to enter the creature room and instead specifically searched for material-type rooms, connecting the two.
The luck wasn't great, but not bad either, yielding two Silver Level active cores and several low-level materials with an overall decent value.
"It's a pity there's no Gold Level active core."
Taking out the Mysterious Declaration, Li Zheng continued opening doors.
This time, he didn't pick and just walked through the nearest door.
Since there was still some time before dark, Li Zheng entered rooms where he happened to encounter other players battling various creatures.
Most of the time, Li Zheng wasn't inclined to intervene.
With Phoenix Mountain's pocket watch and the genetic potion he provided.
Combined, if these players still couldn't win and asked for help, Li Zheng might start questioning whether they were worth the previous care he had given.
But there were those unfortunate ones, detecting a black difficulty door, only to end up in a red difficulty one instead.
For instance, Li Zheng helped a woman named Mo Lian for whom the pocket watch detected black difficulty; she switched doors and unluckily encountered two Silver Level creatures amplified by daylight.
When Li Zheng saw her, she was already at a heavy disadvantage against the two Silver Level creatures, on the verge of defeat.
Upon seeing Li Zheng, she immediately called for help.
Having no choice, Li Zheng swiftly took down the two Silver monsters with a shot each, then decomposed them all, gaining ten bottles of Silver Level 3+ materials.
Mo Lian was so ecstatic she almost wanted to offer herself to him, but Li Zheng coldly rejected her.
It wasn't because Li Zheng was such a gentleman, nor because Mo Lian was unattractive.
On the contrary, Mo Lian had a standard internet celebrity's oval face with a reasonably tall and slender figure.
If not for the fact that she hadn't bathed in a week, and was filthy all over, Li Zheng would have had a hard time restraining himself from making some principled mistakes.
If you insist that doesn't he have a bathroom? Washing up should solve it, right?
Li Zheng could only respond: Women only slow me down.
However, with this experience, Li Zheng suddenly discovered a new use for the Mysterious Declaration.
Going through doors all along the way, during which Li Zheng would help kill the evenly matched creatures that could take some time to deal with.
In the name of happy to help others.
He then conveniently decomposed the creatures, leaving only the blood-like materials useful to him and returning the rest to others.
This kind of activity, nicely put, was a service fee.
Put bluntly, it was a protection fee.
Thus, having gone through nine player rooms, Li Zheng obtained materials for three types of Silver Level potions.
Unfortunately, the quantity was small and not enough for a complete set, so he would have to collect other materials later.
Meanwhile, Li Zheng gained some awareness of the survival difficulty others faced.
It turned out that players with lower combat power had to be very cautious when dealing with Silver monsters at this stage.
The difficulty of Silver Level for them is roughly equivalent to the difficulty Li Zheng faced with the Golden Monster two days ago...
As for players ranked in the top two hundred, facing a Silver Monster is easy, but encountering a Golden Monster becomes quite challenging, with the possibility of a mishap.
Of course, because many people are looking for some Black Iron Monsters, most of the daily exploration is still very safe.
This is thanks to the sacrifice Phoenix Mountain made back then, distributing pocket watches to others.
Aside from the player rooms, in the 10% of the rooms with the Mysterious Declaration trait, Li Zheng entered a low-temperature room and found a Silver Level ice element fruit inside.
This added 15 points to Ice and Fire Attachment experience.
Thus, the exploration of the seventh day officially came to an end.
Night fell.
At dinner time, Li Zheng went all out, creating three dishes of Silver Level cuisine, striving to adjust to peak condition.
During the meal, he contacted Ye Kai to borrow the Hunter's Compass.
It turned out the compass was with Zhan Zhouzhou.
No choice, Li Zheng then contacted Heroine Zhan, persuading her to hand over the compass.
"Damn it, I shouldn't have told them about the Mud Furnace Chicken. They are all fired up, wanting to take matters into their own hands." Li Zheng played with the compass, surprisingly discovering it could still be used four more times.
This was because Ye Kai had charged it to help Zhan Zhouzhou quickly reach Old Xiao, which now worked to Li Zheng's advantage.
After Zhan Zhouzhou left the competition room, she directly teleported to Xiao Siyuan, originally planning to deal with the other two Mud Furnace Chickens once her wounds healed.
However, her injuries were too severe, and by nightfall, she had not recovered much.
Even so, Zhan Zhouzhou was reluctant to give the compass to Li Zheng, but finally, Li Zheng threatened to take back Prel's Eye, and she handed it over.
Similarly, fortunately, Ye Kai and the others were in a competition room today, Liu Jiale was lightly injured, but he realized there was still a gap between his strength and Li Zheng's, so he didn't rush to rent the compass.
Chu Xiao knew he could at most kill one Mud Furnace Chicken. He worried that finding trouble could alert the enemy, so he gave up on taking action himself.
And Ye Kai still needed to repair the mecha...
After obtaining the compass, Ye Kai privately contacted Li Zheng, indicating that it was fine for him to use it.
But Li Zheng must livestream the punishment of the Mud Furnace Chicken, so they could enjoy the show.
Li Zheng didn't rush to agree but studied the streaming setup first, discovering he could specify the viewing audience, only then did he agree to Ye Kai's request.
Feeling full and satisfied, Li Zheng stretched a bit, packed up his capsule residence, and prepared for post-dinner activities.
"Start streaming, specify the viewing audience as all Dragon Country players on channel 879!"
[The livestream room is now open, please adhere to the broadcaster's conduct rules, violators will be stripped of broadcaster status.]
As soon as the livestream began, players from over a dozen regional channels quickly joined.
Bullet screen—
Liu Jin: Isn't this Li Zheng, the big shot? Streaming so late?
Zhou Kai: What do you know, streaming at this time means the big shot is going to perform!
Mo Lian: Big shot, what's wrong with me? You don't even accept my devotion!
Liu Jin: What's the gossip?
Zhou Kai: Am I a marmot?
Ye Kai: Just watch, don't babble nonsense, what Li Zheng is doing is important, don't disturb him.
Chu Xiao: Has it started? What a pity my strength is weak, otherwise something this good wouldn't fall to Li Zheng.
Bystander: Is that something a human should say, Mr. Chu?
Bystander A: The Palace of Versailles is almost full, isn't it?
Phoenix Mountain: Eh? What's going on here? What is Li up to?
"Why the hell aren't you dealing with Yu Xiaoyu, and are instead watching this stream?"
Li Zheng paused his actions and immediately tweaked the streaming settings.
[Players: Phoenix Mountain, Yu Xiaoyu, Feng Qiwu, Yan Guang, have been blocked from the stream.]
"Yu Xiaoyu's identity is unclear, until Phoenix Mountain finds out her depth, I can't let her notice too much."
Li Zheng muttered, feeling a bit troubled, "With Phoenix Mountain's intelligence, I fear he might not find out Yu Xiaoyu's depth, but instead expose his own details..."
"If the compass still has spare teleportation chances afterward, I might as well visit in person."
With a plan in mind, Li Zheng didn't waste words, directly activating the Hunter's Compass, targeting: Watanabe Shunyo!
...
"Ola, ola, regular exploration is truly boring…"
Watanabe Shunyo raised his hand, a boomerang-shaped weapon flew automatically back into his hand from the corpse of a Golden Level creature.
If Li Zheng were here, he would surely recognize this Golden Level creature.
Three-headed Ghost Lion!
This was a room with a grassland terrain, originally inhabited by eight Three-headed Ghost Lions!
However, now all eight Three-headed Ghost Lions had become corpses, fresh blood gushing out, steaming.
"Hmm, it's night, I should contact those two fools to gather here."
Watanabe Shunyo moved back and forth in the crimson blood, decomposing one Ghost Lion after another, storing the materials in his capsule residence.
Meanwhile, he took out a tool similar to a radio, flicked a switch, and two electronic lights lit up on it.
One green, one red.
"One dead?"
Watanabe Shunyo frowned, noticing something was off.
...
Gangmen leaned slightly to the left, sitting at the entrance of the capsule residence, watching as the sky outside suddenly darkened, a chill ran down his spine.
"It's night."