Chapter 90: Bottomless
Crimson Moon Mountain, market street.
“Could it be that Hall Master Lin has gone mad?”
“Those are advanced apprentices! And he actually has them mining?”
As one player after another vanished from the street, it was not only Abner who was greatly shocked. Even Flo, who knew a bit about the situation of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, was stunned on the spot.
Although Flo had already experienced the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s madness in the previous death match—where, in order to deal with the enemy, they would not even spare their own people, and could sacrifice even intermediate apprentices with limitless potential at any time—
Now, seeing advanced apprentices mining still refreshed Flo’s worldview once again.
If he suggested having these advanced apprentices go mine, his own uncle, Gang Leader Valrod, would probably slap him twice on the spot to wake him up.
Even if advanced apprentices were indeed far, far more efficient at mining than ordinary people, able to easily pick up three to four hundred kilograms of weight with bare hands and sprint, and carve through hard ore mountains as fast as slicing tofu.
But in the wilderness gangs, an advanced apprentice was at least a core backbone. Even the gang leader, many times, had to take their opinions into consideration.
Sending such a group of advanced apprentices to mine absolutely meant you did not expect your gang to live long.
Even those suburban gangs where advanced apprentices were as common as dogs were not extravagant enough to send advanced apprentices to mine. Being able to assign some intermediate apprentices as overseers was already good.
“Flo, I wonder if you could introduce me to the person in charge of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall?” After a brief moment of shock, Abner almost immediately looked to Flo and asked, “Of course, I will not let you, my old friend, suffer. For future energy ore transactions, I am willing to give you an extra 5% on the price. How about it?”
Previously, Abner had not believed what Flo said and felt that the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall could not really be on par with the Magic Star Gang. But now, seeing those advanced apprentices mining, Abner believed it a bit more.
Unlike Flo, whose strength lay only in sharp five senses, Abner’s intuition was unusually sharp. He could perceive many subtle mental states.
Precisely because of this perception, Abner clearly sensed the enthusiasm and persistence these players had for mining. They were obviously not mining to obey the gang’s orders but out of a recognition from deep within their hearts.
One advanced apprentice might be explained as just having that kind of personality, but when all the advanced apprentices were like this, the meaning was completely different.
Clearly, in the hearts of these advanced apprentices, being an advanced apprentice of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall meant nothing. They were no different from ordinary gang members, without a shred of self-identification as experts.
For advanced apprentices to hold such a view, there were only two possibilities. Either the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s brainwashing of its members had reached an extraordinary level; or these advanced apprentices had truly glimpsed a higher sky, understood their own insignificance, and thus felt that advanced apprentices were nothing special.
The first possibility was a hundred times harder than the second. After all, no one capable of reaching advanced apprentice level was a fool. To brainwash such people, you would have to cultivate them from a young age, and even then, you would need to produce this many gifted individuals in one go. The requirements for a faction would be far greater than those of the second possibility.
So it was far more likely that these advanced apprentices were in the second situation: they had truly seen a great number of experts, and advanced apprentices were merely ants.
From this alone, one could imagine the true strength of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. It was definitely more terrifying than Flo had described; even the Magic Star Gang was likely far from comparable.
Thinking of this, Abner suddenly understood a bit why, back at the gate, those guards’ gazes had been that way. Each of them was an intermediate apprentice with decent strength, enough to threaten him, a quasi-martial artist, yet none of them showed the slightest respect or fear toward a quasi-martial artist.
Especially someone like him, a convoy leader driving a large transport vehicle. Even the dumbest vagrant would know he came from a powerful major gang and would show some degree of wariness.
But none of those intermediate apprentices from the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall did, which showed just how much confidence and backing they felt they had in the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
Such an Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, especially opening a transit market here—
With such a business opportunity, if he did not get to know them properly, he would be unworthy of being the vice gang leader of the Magic Star Gang.
“My dear old friend, I did not expect you to be so generous.” Flo felt Abner had likely guessed some things and smiled. “Of course, no problem. I am happy to help.”
Flo had originally been thinking about how to cling to the thick thigh of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. Now Abner came knocking himself, and on top of that, Flo could get an extra 5% energy ore rebate. Just a single goods transaction could earn him tens of thousands of bit, far more than he made as vice gang leader.
This suddenly made Flo feel that clinging to the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s thigh was one of the wisest decisions of his life.
Flo then led Abner, the Magic Star Gang’s vice gang leader, and, asking along the way, found Lin Qi, who was preparing to transport the energy ore back to the martial arts hall.
“Hall Master Lin, long time no see.”
Flo looked at Lin Qi, who was directing vagrants to load the vehicles. He had just taken a few steps forward when he was shocked by the surging qi and blood naturally emanating from Lin Qi’s body, and he stopped on the spot, his eyes full of disbelief.
It had only been a few days, yet Lin Qi had already become a quasi-martial artist.
Meanwhile, he himself had been stuck at limit apprentice for a year with no movement. Such progress, even with gene potions, was monstrous.
“Vice Gang Leader Flo, what brings you to me?” Lin Qi looked at Flo approaching and smiled.
Lin Qi’s impression of Flo was not bad. In fact, the rapid development of Crimson Moon Mountain owed much to the instructions Flo had left with the Green Sparrow Gang members stationed here. That had saved them from having to purchase alloy picks for mining, and had provided a large amount of wood, iron wire, and other equipment originally meant for building walls.
Otherwise, in just two days, it would have been impossible to set up even a small prototype of a market at Crimson Moon Mountain.
“I imagine Hall Master Lin has not spent much time operating in the wilderness, and the gangs that reach the top hundred rankings all have mandatory wilderness supply tasks. If you have someone familiar with the wilderness to help, you can avoid a lot of trouble. I happen to know such a friend, so I came especially to introduce him to you.” Flo smiled, then pointed to Abner beside him and introduced, “This is Abner, vice gang leader of the Magic Star Gang of Wanxing City. The Magic Star Gang is one of the top ten large wilderness gangs of Wanxing City, with a very wide range of wilderness activities, and Abner is one of the persons in charge.”
“After I told Vice Gang Leader Abner about Hall Master Lin’s heroic deeds, he wanted to make friends with you. I believe that with his help, you will encounter far fewer troubles in your future wilderness activities.”
“Wanxing City’s Magic Star Gang?” Lin Qi looked at the four-armed burly Abner at the side and could not help feeling a bit surprised.
As for the Magic Star Gang, ranked among the top ten wilderness gangs of Wanxing City, he had naturally already learned about it from Qin Mu. In fact, anyone wanting to deal in suburban company business had to be aware of the major well-known wilderness gangs of the surrounding cities. Otherwise, if they ran into them one day, they might not even know how they died.
The dead were the lesser issue. The key problem was the loss of goods, and those had to be compensated.
According to the latest data, the Magic Star Gang ranked fourth among wilderness gangs of Wanxing City, and its overall strength was even greater than that of the top-ranked wilderness gang of the City of Light Chasing.
Lin Qi found it hard to imagine that a major wilderness figure like Abner would take the initiative to come and befriend him. Was this not a joke?
As for his so-called heroic deeds, it was nothing more than confronting the White Feather Gang, which was nothing at all compared to the Magic Star Gang.
“Hello, Hall Master Lin, it is a pleasure to meet you.” After Flo’s introduction, Abner took the initiative to step forward, speaking with sincere admiration. “I have long heard of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. My visit to Crimson Moon Mountain this time, apart from doing a transaction with the Green Sparrow Gang, was to meet you, Hall Master Lin. Seeing you today, you are indeed as formidable as the rumors say. With such terrifying qi and blood, even those limit quasi-martial artists are no more than this.”
Abner spoke without blushing or skipping a beat, and Flo at his side nodded along, as if they had come from the start solely to see Lin Qi.
“Your excellency Abner, I like to be straightforward, so let us get to the point.” Lin Qi did not believe a single word Abner had just said.
If someone wanted to con him, they should at least consider how he conned players every day.
“Hall Master Lin is certainly direct,” Abner said with a helpless smile. “But what I want to say is that I truly came to make friends with you, and, by the way, to do some business with the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.”
“What kind of business?” Lin Qi looked at Abner, not at all surprised by his intentions.
Abner almost did not hesitate. “I want to work with you, Hall Master Lin, to monopolize this trade route between Wanxing City and the City of Light Chasing.”
Originally, Old Cat planned to release this tomorrow, but since the 500 monthly ticket mark is not far away, it is being released together today.
