Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Mo Ka Forest

The roots were still in decent shape. If she planted it in her pocket space, it should survive.

Ling Mo didn’t hesitate. She transferred the plant into pocket space.

The moment the obstruction vanished, the stream surged. The sudden rush slammed into her and swept her downstream.

Players below weren’t spared, either. The lucky ones just swallowed a mouthful of water. The unlucky ones were knocked off their feet and dragged along.

“What the hell? Why did the current suddenly get this strong? How are we supposed to catch fish now?”

Complaints rose from every direction.

Piao Miao Yun Yan spoke up, soothing as ever. “All right, all right. The fish are hard to catch during the day anyway. We have a lot of people—let’s go look for ingredients somewhere else.”

They stared at the now-turbulent stream. No one could even stand steady in it. With no choice, they agreed.

Ling Mo, meanwhile, had been carried to the end of the stream, where a waterfall roared like thunder, filling her ears.

She looked up. If she wanted to go farther, she’d have to climb the mountain.

She glanced at her thin arms and legs and decided she’d rather not.

That was when a dark clump on a nearby tree trunk caught her eye.

She stepped closer and peeled back the cover of leaves and grass.

Wood ear mushrooms.

And not just a few—beneath the weeds, the shaded area was packed with them.

She scanned them with her learning machine.

Black wood ear. Rich in nutrients.

Ling Mo’s eyes lit up. Nutritious was good. She liked nutritious.

She reached up and tried to yank one free—

It was like jelly, slick and impossible to grip. She slipped, failed to pull it off, and ended up dropping hard onto her butt.

A beat later, the learning machine displayed an added note: the surface secretes a sticky mucus; gloves and tools recommended for harvesting.

Ling Mo stared at the screen, deadpan. “Thanks. A little late.”

Maybe because the black wood ear clung tightly to the bark, even her mental power couldn’t pry it off.

It was the first time her mental power had truly failed her.

Strangely, she didn’t feel frustrated. She just adjusted.

She pulled on anti-slip gloves. She didn’t have a proper harvesting tool, but she did have something better.

A shovel.

One clean pry, and she popped off an entire sheet of bark with the black wood ear still attached. Faster than any delicate tool.

With the shovel, the work became absurdly easy. The wood ear were slippery, but the bark was brittle; with just a little force, wide chunks came free.

And once she started looking, she realized the surrounding trees were practically covered in black wood ear.

Shovel in hand, Ling Mo worked her way from the forest edge deeper inside, stripping bark and collecting as she went—perfectly missing Piao Miao Yun Yan’s group.

By the time they arrived in the area, the nearby trees had already been cleaned bare.

Piao Miao Yun Yan kept glancing around, searching.

A young man beside her couldn’t help asking, “Yun Yan, what are you looking for? You’ve been scanning around since earlier.”

Piao Miao Yun Yan’s expression tightened with worry. “I’m looking for Sesame Rice Ball. She went upstream first. I thought we’d run into her.”

At first, she hadn’t cared about that girl at all. Someone with so few points was obviously going to lose her right to stay in the game. Giving her a bowl of soup had already felt generous.

But after the girl left the group alone, the more Piao Miao Yun Yan thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

A girl who looked barely in her teens, surviving alone in a primeval forest?

And when they’d first met, even though the girl’s clothes were dirty, her eyes were bright and her posture steady. She didn’t look like someone barely scraping by. She looked like someone living well.

A cold suspicion settled in.

Maybe Sesame Rice Ball had never been robbed at all.

Maybe the vegetable basket she’d shown wasn’t even hers.

Realizing that, Piao Miao Yun Yan bit down hard, anger flashing hot behind her eyes. How shameless could someone be? She’d offered kindness, and the girl hadn’t even told her the truth.

“Why bother?” the young man said. “She’s going to lose her right to stay in the game anyway. Yun Yan, you’re just too kind. You worry about everything.”

Piao Miao Yun Yan’s expression stayed stiff.

She glanced at him, disgust twisting in her chest. Idiot.

But her smile was perfect when she answered. “Thanks.”

The young man flushed. “No problem.”

Piao Miao Yun Yan’s eyes gleamed faintly. Thanks—for carrying me through this round.

Far away, Ling Mo kept shoveling bark until a familiar prompt chimed in her ears.

“Soy Sauce Drunk, congratulations. You have successfully cleared third game round and become an official player.”

A blue light flashed.

Ling Mo expected to open her eyes at home, but instead she found herself inside the game pocket space.

“As one of the top ten in this game, besides money, the system will grant you a special reward.”

A massive circular display appeared in front of her, filled with items—some she recognized from the system shop, others she’d never seen before.

They all had one thing in common: the price. One glance was enough to make your heart sink.

This was a reward reserved for the top ten.

“As the first place winner of this game, Soy Sauce Drunk, you may designate one reward. However, this reward requires payment in a corresponding amount of energy rawstone.”

Ling Mo stared at the system prompt, deeply suspicious it had added that condition on the spot.

Who would waste time collecting a pile of mysterious stones when you didn’t even know what they were?

She raised her chin. “System, can I pick anything?”

“Then I want a spaceship.”

A pause.

Then the system responded again.

“Dear player Soy Sauce Drunk, according to the system’s detection, you do not currently meet the qualifications to purchase a spaceship. Please choose another item within the system’s permitted range and within what you can afford.”

Ling Mo’s eye twitched.

So it was mocking her for being too poor to buy one.

She took a slow breath. Fine. It was true, but it still felt awful hearing it said out loud.

“Then I want smartbrain,” she said. “That’s within your allowed range, right?”

Truthfully, smartbrain had been her goal from the beginning. She’d only asked for a spaceship first so her real request would seem reasonable by comparison.

She already knew her learning machine was basically a primitive version of smartbrain. For interstellar people, smartbrain was a standard device—part phone, part tablet, part computer, only far more advanced and intelligent.