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“Alright, alright, we’ll swap them all,” Song Mingshi sighed.
Behind him, three students stood, with only the baby-faced twin-tailed girl remaining neutral. The other two looked displeased, feeling this trade was unfair.
“In the city, the market price is only one silver coin for a day’s supply,” the male student muttered under his breath. The purchasing power of Silver Tower coins remained strong, enough to exchange for a decent amount of food. But here, with Yu Hong, the price had been multiplied by five!
It was outright profiteering.
Soon, Yu Hong retrieved three portions of anti-inflammatory dicine from the cave and completed the exchange with the four.
The group quickly carried the dicine back to the village, while Yu Hong returned to his courtyard, waiting for the grand array to fully activate.
The countdown ticked away:
’03 minutes.’
’02 minutes.’
’01 minute.’
With Yu Hong watching intently, the lush, Luminous stone grass within the rocky courtyard glowed with a faint white light the mont the countdown reached zero.
At the sa ti, in complete silence, an enormous Rune Array surfaced from the ground, covering the entire courtyard.
The Array was entirely white, and the mont it appeared, it stirred the air into subtle currents, forming a gentle breeze.
Standing outside the courtyard, Yu Hong held a red-value detector in hand and clearly saw the numbers on the device rapidly increasing.
Previously, the courtyard’s negative value averaged around -120 to -130, but now, as the Array erged, the number skyrocketed.
Yu Hong watched in astonishnt as the value surged past 130, climbed to 160, then 250, 300, 500, 800—1,000!
After exceeding 1,000, it gained another seventy or eighty points before finally slowing down and stabilizing.
Then, the Array’s white glow quickly dimd and disappeared, and the red value started to drop from over 1,000, swiftly returning to around -100.
“Just like the Arrays, the radiation is now condensing instead of leaking. That’s a good sign!” Yu Hong nodded to himself.
The Arrays he crafted worked exactly like this—normally, their radiation levels were much lower than those of Great Luminous stones. But when facing ghostly threats, they would rapidly activate, surpassing even the stones in intensity.
This was one of the reasons why Rune Arrays were so popular—they significantly reduced the risk of contracting Great Luminous Stone Disease.
“Over a thousand in negative value…!” Yu Hong exhaled deeply as he watched the massive Rune Array fade into the ground.
“And this is a self-replenishing array. Normal Ghostly Shadows won’t even be able to approach, and even sothing like a Withered Woman might not dare to get close.” ℞₳NՕᛒĘṢ
The grand array’s completion gave him a strong sense of security. A three-thousand-value array had completely neutralized the Whisperer, and the Withered Maiden had weakened considerably under a silver array with a re -500 value.
As these thoughts passed through his mind, Yu Hong rembered the news brought by the academy students earlier. Without wasting ti, he headed toward Old Li’s place.
He needed to check if his water supply system had arrived.
Ten Minutes Later
Yu Hong reached the stone post office but was surprised to see two young won inside, tidying up the yard and maintaining the fence.
Both wore completely out-of-place gray, low-cut yoga outfits that accentuated their curvy figures. Their faces had light makeup, the kind popular in peaceti. As they worked, their every movent seed oddly out of sync with the current world.
anwhile, little Aisena stood by the door with her arms crossed and lips pouting—clearly displeased with the newcors.
It was obvious she didn’t welco them.
“Yu Hong! You’re here. Co, co!” Li Runshan, who was busy inside, noticed Yu Hong and cheerfully stepped out, spreading his arms for a hug.
“What the hell are you up to?” Yu Hong obliged with a brief hug before asking in a low voice.
“I found so helpers! The heavens show rcy, and since I was going to take in people anyway, why not pick so good-looking ones?” Li Runshan replied matter-of-factly.
“Can you handle them?” Yu Hong questioned.
“One’s helping grow mushrooms, the other’s taking care of the lizards. This frees up my ti so I can spend more of it with Nana,” Li Runshan said naturally.
“Hah… just don’t cause trouble,” Yu Hong smirked, knowing this guy was simply indulging his lust.
“There are plenty of people in the village. If you need talent, you can go pick soone. Most of these people are desperate for food and water—they won’t last much longer.” Li Runshan lowered his voice.
“You hoard food, don’t you? Why not share it to help them?” Yu Hong sneered. “What, only the pretty ones count as people?”
“Co on, that’s not fair. I’m just trying to find soone to take care of Nana. She’s growing up, and as her father, I can’t be the one giving her baths forever,” Li Runshan argued.
Yu Hong didn’t bother debating further. He wasn’t the type to let just anyone into his ho. He could make exceptions for Little Stutterer, maybe even Dr. Xu, but that was it.
“Alright, alright, where’s my water system?”
“I was just getting to that. It’s inside—co see which parts are damaged,” Old Li said, leading Yu Hong inside.
In the living room, the water supply system lay in pieces, dismantled into various components.
It was a simple setup—just a series of pipes, a high-powered silent water pump, and control valves.
The key, however, was that it was made with a bit of Sunlight-series material, making it resistant to Blood Tide bugs.
Yu Hong quickly assessed the damage—the core water pump was broken. But that didn’t matter to him. With his Black Seal, nothing was beyond repair.
He grabbed a pile of parts and headed back.
On his way out, he noticed Li Runshan sneaking off with one of the girls, supposedly to gather firewood, but really just groping around behind the house.
He was speechless. While he knew Old Li had “needs,” this level of casual behavior was ridiculous.
Returning to his safehouse, Yu Hong stashed the water system components in the newly carved underground stone chamber.
Then, he picked up the red-value detector, preparing to enhance it—he didn’t want to be caught off guard like with the Whisperer.
Placing his hand on the detector, he focused on the modifications: increased sensitivity, expanded detection range, extended battery life, and integration into his reinforced White Bear Suit.
As dark lines seeped from the Black Seal, a countdown appeared:
‘6 hours 17 minutes.’
Once he confird the enhancent process had begun, Yu Hong sat by the fireplace, gazing through the reinforced glass window.
He pondered what to send to Little Stutterer.
After so thought, he decided to wait until the detector was upgraded. If the results were promising, he’d send one her way.
Unlike arrays, which were single-use, a fully charged detector could last a long ti, and there were charging stations in the city. In terms of safety, it was far superior.
As he lay down, waiting for the enhancent to finish, Yu Hong unknowingly drifted into sleep.
This was his routine—after morning training, he always took a midday nap to ensure he had enough energy for the afternoon.
Normally, he’d sleep for about an hour and a half.
But this ti, sothing unexpected happened.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
A series of cautious knocks woke Yu Hong.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw soone standing outside the window—it was the baby-faced girl from earlier that morning.
The girl’s eyes were even redder, slightly swollen. She had changed into a rather cute white lace princess dress. From this side of the glass, Yu Hong could clearly see the thick, pure-white stockings under her skirt, accentuating the graceful curves of her legs.
Although she was short, her proportions, highlighted by this outfit, looked rather decent.
“Do you need sothing?” Yu Hong stood up, walked behind the stone wall, and asked through the door.
“Excuse … could you possibly spare one more portion of anti-inflammatory dicine? Please!” The girl bowed deeply, only to bang her forehead against the door with a loud thud, imdiately crying out in pain.
“I already told you, I don’t have any more. I’ve given away all I could spare,” Yu Hong replied expressionlessly.
“But… but the dicine really isn’t enough!” The girl’s voice trembled as she tried to suppress her sobs. “The dicine from this morning… my mother didn’t get any at all! The others took it all before she could… please, I beg you!”
Yu Hong fell silent.
He did still have so dicine. After selling three portions, he had kept a small reserve for himself, and even if he ran out, he could always gather more ingredients to make more.
But making dicine took ti. And besides, he had always believed in the principle of fair exchange. No one could take sothing from him without offering sothing of equal value.
After experiencing people taking advantage of his generosity ti and ti again, he had beco even firr in this belief.
“I can spare you one last portion. But this ti, it’ll cost six silver coins,” Yu Hong replied calmly.
He needed her to pay a higher price—only then would people stop having unrealistic expectations of him.
“One portion… might not be enough… could you spare one more? My father works in Aurora City. Once we get there, we’ll definitely repay you!” the girl pleaded, her voice filled with desperation.
“Aurora City?” Yu Hong’s heart stirred.
Now he understood—this group was clearly made up of privileged second-generation elites. Not a single one of them was an ordinary person. After all, what kind of commoner could casually take out so many silver coins and evacuate with the supply convoy?
“Can you get your hands on Sunlight-series materials?” Yu Hong suddenly asked.
“I… I’m not sure… My father works at the Energy Research Institute… he specializes in nuclear energy miniaturization research,” the girl hesitated before answering.
Nuclear energy miniaturization?!
Yu Hong’s heart trembled.
Right now, his most ideal power source was nuclear energy. If he could obtain a nuclear battery—even an incomplete version—he could enhance it with the Black Seal and create a fully functional one.
That would be a ga-changer. A complete transformation. A one-ti upgrade that would take his capabilities to an entirely new level!
“How can you prove that?” He suppressed his excitent and asked in a deep voice.
“My mother and I joined the supply convoy because my father arranged it through the postal system. If you want to verify, you can check through the postal network,” the girl answered smoothly, as if she had repeated this explanation multiple tis before.
Yu Hong’s thoughts shifted.
He knew for a fact that Li Runshan had real-ti communication equipnt at the post office.
“Alright, I’ll head to the post office right now to verify your story. If everything checks out, then we can have a serious discussion.”
“By the way, what’s your na?” he asked.
“Wei Shanshan. My father’s na is Wei Hongye. He’s the deputy director of the research institute,” the girl replied softly.
“Alright. Let’s head to the post office now to confirm your identity. No objections, right?” Yu Hong said decisively.
(End of Chapter)
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