The old man stood still at the cliff’s edge as his scarlet eyes followed the faint silhouette far below at the bottom of the cliff— the battered, motionless body of Lin Fang.
For a long mont, he said nothing. The only sound was the wind howling through the mountain peaks.
Then he sighed. It was a soft, almost regretful sound. "Foolish kid," he murmured. "You had a promising future... and you wasted it."
He turned away, his cane tapping lightly on the ground as he began to walk back toward his small hut. But before he entered, he paused again, glancing over his shoulder, to the distant horizon. "It’s really a pity."
The old man shook his head and vanished into the hut, shutting the door behind him.
*
Six minutes passed.
And then, Lin Fang’s corpse began to glow a soft gold radiance bleeding through the torn flesh. The air shimred around him. His body rose slowly from the ground, floating for a second before settling back down gently.
The holographic screens blinked to life before his open eyes.
*Ding!
[Skill Activated — Alpha’s Passive: Eternal Life.]
[Please choose a monster companion to sacrifice.]
[Host is not in condition to choose the sacrifice. A random monster companion is to be selected]
[Alpha’s command override system’s will. Alpha chose Mirror.]
[Mirror has been sacrificed.]
[Resurrection in progress...]
[Alpha’s Will overrides System’s Will. Resurrection paused for five minutes.]
[Resurrection resud.]
[Congratulations, Host. You have been revived.]
[Mimic Egg removed from Summoner’s Shop. You can no longer purchase Mimic Egg.]
"Haaa."
Lin Fang gasped, air filling his lungs in a rush. He rolled onto his back, facing the sky, coughing hard. "What the hell—" he rasped, clutching his chest. "Alpha...?"
"I’m here," ca the familiar voice in his head, calm as ever.
Lin Fang gritted his teeth and shouted aloud, "Alpha, you bastard! You killed ?"
"Correction," Alpha replied smoothly. "I saved you."
"Saved? You literally sacrificed Mirror! You didn’t even discuss it with before making commit suicide and then sacrifice my companion." Lin Fang yelled, his voice cracking.
"It was the only viable option," Alpha said simply. "Facing a demigod-class being with your current strength ant certain death. Eternal Life gave you another chance to live by sacrificing Mirror. As for why I selected Mirror without your consent is because you would do the sa. After all, you don’t have any companionship with Mirror. Have you ever even let it out of your pet inventory since its birth?"
"But I was too busy..." Lin Fang’s voice trailed off, and he realized that whatever reasoning he could give, it would be nothing but an excuse. And in front of Alpha, who can read his mories and thoughts like a book, it is useless.
As a result, he beca silent and sat there, panting. His fists clenched, trembling slightly — from anger or exhaustion, even he couldn’t tell.
After a long silence, he muttered, "Yeah. I guess I owe you that one."
"You can thank later," Alpha replied. "Right now, you need to move. If that demigod senses your resurrection, we’re both done for."
"Where?"
"To the South. Into the forests. Use your invisibility skill to add a layer of protection so that you won’t cause disturbance in these surroundings, atleast during those 60 seconds. If you run at your fastest, that ti should be enough for you to get away quite a distance."
Following Alpha’s advice, without thinking about anything else, Lin Fang forced himself to his feet. He whispered the command, Activate Stealth, and his body shimred, turning translucent before disappearing altogether, rging with the wind.
He took off running with the Mana boots, boosting his speed by 100%. Mana poured into his legs, boosting his speed again by fifty percent.
Every 15 seconds, he used the Spectral Dash skill to get away 100 ters in the line of sight and then continued to run, even after his invisibility wore off.
The night dragged on.
After nearly seventy-five minutes of nonstop running, Lin Fang was more than a hundred kiloters away from that place, crossing a few regions on the way, and finally stumbled into a dense jungle. He leaned against a tree, gasping for breath at last. His entire body was throbbing in pain, especially his legs. He was sweating from top to bottom, his vision beca blurry, and his breath beca uneven. With more than 5000 calories burned in the sprint, Lin Fang felt like he was going to faint at any ti soon, now that he was resting and was relaxed enough to care about his body.
The invisibility faded, and he slumped down, back to the trunk.
"Alpha," he muttered weakly, "next ti you say you’ve got a plan... make sure it doesn’t include dying first."
Alpha chuckled faintly in his head. "I’ll try my best."
Lin Fang sat slumped against the rough bark of a tree, his breathing finally steadying. The forest was quiet — no rustling beasts, no howling winds.
He exhaled a shaky breath. "Finally... so peace."
With a flick of his wrist, he first pulled out a water bottle and an ORS sachet from his inventory. After drinking the entire mixture in one go, he then took a burger from his inventory. Despite the fact that the burger was purchased two days ago, it still remained fresh — the perks of dinsional storage. He took a long gulp of water, then roughly bit into the burger like soone who had been starving for weeks.
"Gods," he muttered between mouthfuls, "I’m starving..."
One burger disappeared fast. So he pulled out another one and started devouring that too.
As he chewed, Lin Fang opened the character interface, summoning his system screen. The familiar blue holographic panel blinked into existence.
As he scrolled down, he confird the thing that he already confird back when he escaped from the Elephant territory. The positive numbers beside the store balance brought a massive grin to his face. "Ha... look at that. Day one, and I already cleared my debt."
He leaned his head back against the trunk, smiling faintly to himself. "Not bad, Lin Fang. Not bad at all."
For a while, he just sat there, listening to the soft rustle of leaves and the distant chirp of night birds. Then he sighed, his expression dimming slightly.
"Too bad I couldn’t grab those spirit cores," he muttered. "Each of those elephant-type monsters was Epic grade... I could’ve made millions just from the cores alone."
He rubbed his temples, frustration clear in his voice. "Damn that creepy old man. Of all the places to end up, I land in the backyard of a demigod-class monster. I thought about returning to the Elephant territory to resu my hunt later on, after getting the second guardian spirit, but... he made it impossible for to return to that place..."
The mory of the old man’s glowing red eyes flickered through his mind — and he involuntarily shivered. "Why would the military hold a hunter trial here of all places? Do they seriously not know soone like that’s living here? Or do they know and just... don’t care?"
"Yeah, it’s a pity that you couldn’t go back," Alpha’s calm voice echoed in Lin Fang’s head, soft against the rustle of the night wind. "But survival’s more important. You can’t earn coins if you’re dead. More importantly, you should make use of the Rise of Undead skill more effectively for hunting. They could beco your soldiers to gain you more points and also your defense."
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