Chapter 40

"Hey, I told you that the Cleaner is fine, so why did you drag me here? You know my combat ability, what else can I do besides causing trouble for you?" Tao Hua Yan, with a look of dissatisfaction, followed behind the Cleaner, his eyes constantly flickering as he looked around in a somewhat lewd manner.

"You are at least a Psychic, if you like to stay in the safety base, wouldn't it be better to choose a Mechanic or a Doctor? At least in the early stages, these two professions are not in demand for teaming up, and you can do some research in the safety base. I wouldn't force you to come along."

"What do you know? A Psychic's mental power can make the brain more active than in reality, making it easier for me to write programs. Do you think it's easy to input all the things I remember into the computer? If I weren't a Psychic, could I have turned all those things into data in the computer so quickly?"

"Bullshit! You chose to be a Psychic because Psychics can do things without using their hands, using mental power instead. Don't think I don't know that you asked Trigger to make you a mental keyboard." The Cleaner glared fiercely at Tao Hua Yan.

In the past few days, the Cleaner had noticed that Tao Hua Yan had a very bad habit—he was very lazy. This laziness was so extreme that it couldn't be described by just being lazy. If possible, Tao Hua Yan would even want to turn his teeth into mental equipment so that he could eat by just using his mental power, without having to chew.

"Making a mental keyboard is for work, not because I'm lazy, okay? In reality, this kind of manual keyboard has been obsolete for many years. Didn't you see how clumsy my hands were when I used this old keyboard? With a mental keyboard, even though it's not as advanced as the smart keyboards in reality, it can greatly improve my work efficiency."

The Cleaner glanced at Tao Hua Yan, then turned his head away and stopped talking. Besides being lazy, Tao Hua Yan had another problem: he would never admit to being lazy and could always find countless twisted reasons to justify his laziness, leaving people speechless.

"Hey, how do we do the main quest? You told me to find Sang Shan, but he completely ignored me." Seeing that the Cleaner wasn't paying attention to him, the bored Tao Hua Yan started looking for a topic.

"The direction the werewolf took the little girl to escape yesterday is this way. We'll follow this direction and look for them. Once we collect a backpack full of materials from killing monsters, you'll take them back."

"Make me a porter? No way, absolutely no way. Look at how fat I am, how can I possibly be a porter?" Hearing the Cleaner's words, Tao Hua Yan shook his head repeatedly. Finally, his eyes lit up, and he said, "Cleaner, now the system shop has return tickets. How about using a return ticket to transport the materials? That would be very efficient."

The system introduced return tickets from the beginning, but they were very expensive, so no one bought them. However, as players ventured further to kill monsters, some areas were inaccessible by vehicles. Therefore, return tickets became popular, and the price dropped to 100 points each. They allowed players to return to the safety base from anywhere in the monster zone, as long as they were not in combat, making it very convenient.

"Do you think I'll have any points left after collecting a backpack full of boar tusks and deducting the cost of the return ticket?" The Cleaner rolled his eyes at Tao Hua Yan.

"That's not how you calculate it, okay? You should think about it this way: if I walk back and get killed by monsters, then the whole backpack of materials will be lost, right?"

"Let's talk about it when we're further away." The Cleaner frowned. Although Tao Hua Yan was talkative, his words made sense.

After all, carrying a large backpack of materials would greatly restrict movement. If attacked by monsters, even though Tao Hua Yan was good at escaping, carrying dozens of kilograms would make it very difficult to run away. Of course, this was also because Tao Hua Yan's combat ability was weak; otherwise, he could have easily killed small monsters and not needed to escape.

Both of them carried backpacks, and the Cleaner and Tao Hua Yan gradually left the ruins, heading towards the distant wilderness. Of course, the Cleaner's backpack was filled with materials from killing monsters, while Tao Hua Yan's backpack was empty. Even when the Cleaner needed to fight, Tao Hua Yan only needed to follow behind. However, seeing Tao Hua Yan sweating profusely, one might think that his backpack was full of materials, while the Cleaner's was empty.

"I can't go on, I can't go on. Let's rest. Damn Trigger, why does he need earthworm blood? What use is that mud-like blood?"

On a slightly damp patch of grass, Tao Hua Yan fired a Soul Arrow, then panted and sat on the ground, refusing to kill any more monsters.

The mutated earthworms were much larger, with the smaller ones being over three meters long, resembling headless snakes. The larger ones were as thick as arms or even thighs, like pythons. Earthworms are segmented creatures, so even if their bodies are cut in half, they won't die; instead, they will eventually become two earthworms.

So, if other professions kill earthworms, they would have to wear down the earthworms' health bit by bit, just like in a regular game, until the earthworms die. However, Psychics have the Soul Arrow skill, which targets the soul rather than the body.

The earthworms' souls are very fragile, despite their ability to regenerate. Li Feng just needed to stomp near an earthworm hole to lure the earthworm out. Tao Hua Yan could basically kill an earthworm with two Soul Arrows. The points from earthworms were also quite high, with 50 points per earthworm, making it very cost-effective.

At the same time, earthworms would drop a mud-like blood, which was one of the materials Trigger specifically requested. Each earthworm would drop one or two drops of blood, which looked like teardrops and were easy to distinguish from the soil. When picked up and placed in a container, it would immediately melt into a liquid, resembling very watery mud.

So, this material could be stacked. After killing earthworms for a while, Li Feng's conical flask with a stopper only collected half a bottle of earthworm blood. They had already killed over twenty earthworms, and compared to other materials, the earthworm blood was very space-efficient.

However, it was a bit unfortunate that the Doctor's level was not high enough to have any healing skills. There were also no fast-recovery drugs developed yet, so few teams brought Doctors to kill monsters. Once a Psychic's mental power was depleted, they could only sit and recover, which greatly affected the progress of killing monsters, especially for Psychics.

"Can't take it already? This is just the beginning. Trigger said the more earthworm blood, the better. A whole bottle of earthworm blood is worth 3000 points. We can't afford to buy materials for Trigger indefinitely, so we have to do it ourselves."

Li Feng collected the earthworm blood in the conical flask, picked up the other items dropped by the earthworms, and sat next to Tao Hua Yan to rest. Although Tao Hua Yan was the main attacker, the Cleaner needed to attract the monsters' attention and the Soul Arrow had a cooldown of about 10 seconds. During this time, the Cleaner had to both lure and attack the monsters, causing no less damage than Tao Hua Yan, otherwise, two Soul Arrows wouldn't be enough to kill an earthworm.

Earthworm blood was also a relatively rare material. Although earthworms were common, they could be found wherever there was soil and some decaying plants, such as forests with fallen leaves, dark and damp places with plant debris, or grasslands after a heavy rain.

The chance of earthworms dropping blood was not low, almost every earthworm would drop some. However, the amount varied, and even with a large number of earthworms, the total amount of blood was small. It was considered lucky to fill a conical flask with the blood from forty to fifty earthworms, with each earthworm dropping a significant amount of blood on average.

So, sometimes, even after killing a hundred earthworms, one might not get a full bottle of earthworm blood. Therefore, in the market, earthworm blood was one of the most expensive materials, with a small bottle costing 3000 points.

"Talking is easy when you're standing." Tao Hua Yan didn't care about the wet ground or the sharp grass, lying down in a spread-eagle position and said, "In the future, your points will be used for leveling up, and mine will be used for trading. Now that experience points and trading points are separated, it's a waste to use both of our points for trading."

Game points are the universal currency in "Fate," which can be used as experience or money. However, there is a distinction: points earned from killing monsters can be used as experience or money. But once these points are traded, they can only be used as money, not as experience.

For example, if the Cleaner sold an item for 300 points, those 300 points would be money, which could be used to buy skills or trade with others, fulfilling all the functions of money. However, they could not be used as experience, and vice versa. This was to prevent players from buying points to directly boost their levels, which would affect game balance.

At first, the two types of points were mixed, and players were confused. Due to constant complaints, the "Fate" system made a minor adjustment, separating the two types of points and introducing a gold coin system.

100 points could be exchanged for one gold coin, making it easier to distinguish between experience points and trading money. Players could exchange all their trading points for gold coins to differentiate them. Experience points could also be directly exchanged for gold coins, but neither gold coins nor trading points could be exchanged back into experience, making it much clearer.

"Are you afraid that if I level up, I'll drag you to kill monsters?" The Cleaner glanced at Tao Hua Yan.

"Stop thinking everyone is so dirty, okay? I feel that your level is a bit low, and you need points to level up, okay? Good intentions are taken for granted." Tao Hua Yan glared at the Cleaner in annoyance.

"Level up, and then I'll kill monsters alone, while you don't have to follow because of your low level." The Cleaner ignored Tao Hua Yan's glare. Tao Hua Yan, who had been annoyed, turned his head away from the Cleaner, looking hurt, but he was actually feeling guilty.

"Alright, stop lying there. I know your mental power has recovered. Hurry up and kill monsters. Once we fill a bottle, we'll go further in to see if the werewolf and the little girl are there, and collect the other materials Trigger needs." Ten minutes later, the Cleaner stood up and kicked Tao Hua Yan, who was about to fall asleep, then walked towards a pile of mud.

Not every hole in the grass contained an earthworm, but holes near mud clumps or hidden under mud clumps definitely had earthworms. The mud clumps were formed by earthworms pushing out mud from their holes.

Those who knew the habits of earthworms knew that these mud clumps were earthworm excrement, so there were definitely earthworms nearby. The size of the mud clumps could also indicate the size of the earthworms. Since earthworms have no eyes, they judge enemies by the vibrations on the ground.

"Let's not look anymore, we've been searching for days and found nothing. Besides, these earthworms are so disgusting and hard to kill. Let's go kill the big boars instead?" Not far from where the Cleaner was killing monsters, a team of five Gunners was also advancing.

It's the last day of the week. Thank you all for your support this week, especially Xue Nuo Mi and Wu Wei Ben Xin. I'm very grateful to both of you. Today, I'll update three times as a reward for the long holiday. I need your recommendation votes for next week. The recommendation votes are really low, and it's very disheartening.

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