Chapter 1 The Village Chief's Request

The village chief looked at the dirty, filthy cloth bag and asked suspiciously, "What is this bag...?"

Hohenheim had a strange expression on his face as he slowly said, "I found this by accident in the forest and have been carrying it with me ever since.

I originally thought the smell was from the bag itself,

but now that I think about it, combined with the bag's shape, what's inside should be what you're looking for... treasure."

Hohenheim truly deserved to be the Clock Tower's most promising transcendent. He didn't even flinch when using the word "treasure."

Ding Zhensi's heart stirred, recalling the events in the forest.

Claude had taken the initiative to propose a coin toss gamble, lost to Hohenheim, pointed out the road to the Holy Mountain, and provided three cloth bags.

According to Claude, the first bag should be opened when "attacked by a filthy object,"

and the second bag should be opened when "hearing an unreasonable request."

The attack by a filthy object corresponded to the flesh and blood sludge creature in the underground palace,

so did the unreasonable request refer to the village chief's request to cure progeria?

Ding Zhensi felt like he had vaguely grasped some clue. He quickly manipulated the cockpit's control panel, playing back the footage of their meeting with Claude that the sensors had recorded earlier, analyzing the footage frame by frame, hoping to find more information.

Hohenheim remained expressionless, released the bag, and used mage hands to take it. With a flick of his fingers, he released several spells.

[Isolate Air] – Prevents the circulation of air in an area to the outside world.

[Soundproof Barrier] – Prevents sound from traveling outside an area.

[Curse Barrier] – Isolates curse effects for a short time.

[Create Mirror] – Creates an ordinary mirror.

...

After preparing, Hohenheim used mage hands to gently untie the rope on the bag.

Maybe it was just an illusion, but at the moment the rope was untied, a wisp of thin black dust seemed to rise in the spherical barrier isolating the air.

The muscles in Hohenheim's eyes twitched slightly. Through the [Create Mirror] spell, he clearly saw a blackish-gray pebble-like object at the bottom of the bag.

The object's surface was not smooth, but rather rough. If you stared at it closely, you could see some thread-like impurities resembling hair mixed inside.

Next to the object, there were also some scattered blackish-gray small particles.

Is this shit? This is shit, isn't it?! This has to be shit!

The muscles in Hohenheim's mouth twitched. The thought that he had been carrying this bag all this way suddenly filled him with a furious, destructive impulse, wanting to immediately rush into the forest and hang that three-armed weirdo Claude up for a round of ritualistic washing with various spells.

Calm down.

Hohenheim cast the [Iron Will] spell on himself, quickly stabilizing his mind and calmly saying to Li Ang, "Take a look at what's in this bag and see if it can be used."

"Mm."

Li Ang nodded with a subtle expression. He took out a pile of metal parts of different materials and types from his sodium ring, as well as several extremely thick medical instrument manuals.

He compared the manuals on the spot and began to manufacture and debug the instrument.

The principle of a centrifuge was not particularly complex. With the help of intermediate alchemy, he made a prototype machine in less than thirty minutes.

He connected it to the village's power system,

and then had Hohenheim throw the contents of the bag into the feeding port and start the machine.

Buzz—

The instrument quickly started running, crushing the pebble-like object into slag, and the mixed solution began to separate, until a colorless and transparent liquid was separated and poured into a glass bottle.

"This batch is very authentic."

Li Ang looked at the data on the instrument panel and nodded. "Although it's been stored for a while, the intestinal flora inside is extremely active, exceeding the theoretical data for ordinary life.

The proportion of beneficial flora is also higher."

The village chief hurriedly asked, "Does that mean it can be used?"

"After diluting and reducing the potency with the instrument, yes."

Li Ang nodded, put away the instrument, and returned with the others to the home of the progeria patient. He had the family use the first vial on the patient.

At first, the patient showed no abnormalities. As time passed, his stomach began to make gurgling, muffled noises.

His breathing became heavy and powerful, constantly releasing foul-smelling gases (meaning his intestinal function had restarted),

and his eyes gradually became clear and bright.

In less than half an hour, his mind recovered to the point where he could respond to his family's calls.

Forty minutes later, he was even fully awake, stuttering that he was extremely hungry and demanding that his family make him food.

Li Ang used the biological blueprint to observe the progeria patient again. The intestinal flora from the bag object was extremely adaptable and had begun to gradually clear the harmful flora that had been entrenched in the patient's intestines.

It propagated beneficial bacteria.

The patient's digestive ability, intestinal function, and physical function had all improved significantly compared to before.

The village chief was overjoyed and hurriedly entrusted Li Ang to produce four more doses of the medicine, which the guards delivered to the four villagers with the most severe progeria and were on the verge of death.

The test results were also very gratifying. None of the four villagers showed any rejection reactions. According to the biological blueprint's test results, they would be able to restore all of their physical functions in less than a month.

As for their external age, there was a high probability that they would become younger as well.

There was just one strange thing: the more severe the patient's progeria, the stronger their ability to adapt to the intestinal flora...

"The production line for transplant containers, the maintenance and manufacturing notes for separation instruments, and the solutions for possible rejection reactions later on are all in this booklet."

Li Ang handed a thick book, three fingers wide, to the village chief.

The latter solemnly accepted the booklet and gratefully nodded again. "I... I really don't know what to say. Thank you, brave warrior..."

"You can skip the polite words."

Li Ang smiled casually. The other party was just a thin old man, not some catgirl from another world who would say "I will never forget your great kindness and virtue and can only repay you with my body."

Li Ang cleared his throat. "As for the reward..."

"Oh, oh, look at my brain."

The village chief reacted, slapped his forehead, and led the players back to the warehouse door, having the guards open the door again.

"According to what we agreed on earlier, brave warrior, please feel free to choose forty items."

The village chief rubbed his palms with a smile and said, "Due to the clan's rules, I can't really introduce which items might be more valuable,

but... big, new items aren't necessarily good, and small, broken items aren't necessarily bad..."

The village chief gave a kind reminder, blinked, and glanced at a corner of the warehouse.

Li Ang nodded knowingly and turned to look at his other companions. "Everyone, regarding this reward..."

"I don't want this reward."

Liu Wuwei preemptively said, "After all, I didn't help at all. You can dispose of your reward as you wish."

Everyone had just been randomly matched together this time, and there was no friendly fire shielding setting yet.

According to some players' ideas in the Killing Game, they could make up some reasons like "You did the task yourself, but you wasted all of our time,"

and demand "finders keepers" or "split it in half."

It wouldn't be strange for them to fight over the wealth.

However, the people matched together this time were all well-known first and second-tier players, and it was hard to say that their strengths were overwhelming each other.

It wasn't good to do things like killing and stealing goods.

As a friend, Liu Wuwei simply took the initiative to express his position, blocking the mouths of others.

"Yeah, that's right, no reward for no merit."

Ding Zhensi also reacted and helped to speak.

David smiled wryly and naturally said knowingly, "I have no objections."

Anboli casually shrugged. "Me neither."

"Okay."

Li Ang nodded and looked at Hohenheim. "Then Brother Hohenheim, how about you take forty percent of this reward and I take sixty percent?"

"My name isn't Ho."

The muscles in Hohenheim's eyes twitched, and he sighed. "Let's just make it twenty-eight. I'll take twenty percent, and you take eighty percent."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow. "So generous?"

"Just a reasonable calculation."

Hohenheim smiled. "If it weren't for your idea, I wouldn't have thought that the smelly bag would contain... that thing.

Even if I knew, I wouldn't have thought of the specific uses of that thing.

Besides, even without the items I provided,

you could probably solve the progeria, it would just be a little more troublesome."

Hohenheim was very open-minded. The three bags that Claude provided shouldn't be necessary to clear the game, but rather an auxiliary item that could reduce the difficulty of clearing the game.

Even without these props, you could clear the game normally.

Besides...

A trace of worry flashed in the depths of Hohenheim's eyes. Claude's statement at the time was to open the bag when "hearing an unreasonable request,"

but combined with the fact that the first bag could kill flesh and blood sludge monsters and was estimated to be able to harm shadow beasts,

the second bag might have more crucial uses later on.

He didn't know whether it was a blessing or a curse to use it up here.

The doubt flashed away. Hohenheim came back to his senses and smiled at Li Ang. "There's another reason, just treat it as me wanting to make friends.

I heard you haven't joined a guild organization yet?

Maybe you can consider our Clock Tower. The benefits are good, and the conditions we can provide are no worse than the Special Affairs Bureau."

The major guild organizations' demand for recruiting strong players has never died down, especially for players like Li Risheng, who are powerful, have diverse power systems, and have logistical capabilities.

Not to mention that he hasn't joined the Special Affairs Bureau yet, even if he did, the Clock Tower was confident that it could offer corresponding valuable and irresistible bargaining chips.

Of course, the premise was that Li Ang only had the strength he was currently showing.

If he went up any further, simple bargaining chips wouldn't be able to buy him off.

Forty items, calculated at a twenty-eight split,

Hohenheim would take eight, and Li Ang would take thirty-two. Although the number was large, they had to choose carefully.

Li Ang used divine vision to select more than twenty items that seemed to be of higher value (none of the things here had item description instructions from the system),

and with the suggestions of Ding Zhensi and Liu Wuwei, they selected a few more—

Ding Zhensi worked in the equipment research and development department of the Special Affairs Bureau, and his main job was to be researched.

He usually came into contact with a lot of the Special Affairs Bureau's confidential props.

Liu Wuwei often purchased and selected items in the game mall and auction house, and had handled a large number of high-quality items. His vision wouldn't be too bad.

After the players finished selecting, the village chief had the guards close the warehouse doors again, led the players away from the village, and headed east of the village, towards the gate of the Holy Mountain.

On the way, Li Ang looked at the village, which was once again shrouded in optical camouflage cloth, and marveled. He really wanted this technology,

but unfortunately, the large-scale optical camouflage generation equipment was an important secret for the village's survival and was not within the scope of the transaction.

"By the way."

Li Ang remembered something and had Ding Zhensi take out the photos of the murals taken in the underground palace earlier and handed them to the village chief to look at. "Village chief, do you recognize these pictures?"

"This is the mural in the underground palace hall?"

The village chief nodded. "I saw it in a book my father left me. He got the book from my grandfather."

"Do these patterns above have any special meaning?"

Li Ang pointed to the hero team in the photo. "For example, are these people a symbol of the vast number of heroes, or do they really exist?"

"You mean them?"

The village chief frowned and thought for a while, then slowly said, "They should really exist...

Our Guardian clan has a habit of recording all heroes,

especially those who have made great achievements, completed all the trials, and finally realized their wishes.

The ones from recent times are better, but the records left behind from older times are not very detailed.

But I remember seeing similar images.

This warrior wearing red armor appeared repeatedly in the book and was marked as the first hero to defeat all the underground palaces."

"The first hero to defeat all the underground palaces?"

Li Ang raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying that he once led a team to conquer all the underground palaces around the village in one go, and was therefore sculpted into murals for this feat?"

"Yes."

The village chief nodded. "But I don't know what he looks like specifically—none of the pictorial records depict the face under the armor, nor do they mention the names of him and his teammates...

Wait, let me think.

That's right, one of his necromancer teammates also had a statue erected in our village because of some special event.

It should be the one on the third street west of the village—you can see the basic shape before that stone sculpture was completely destroyed."

Li Ang frowned slightly, recalling the stone statue with only legs left that he had seen before. "Necromancers have their own statues in your village? Why don't others have them?"

"I'm not too sure about that."

The village chief shook his head honestly. "After all, it's been too long. It's possible that each member of that hero team had a statue, but they were accidentally lost.

I only remembered it when I saw the pictures and thought of that book."

Li Ang and his teammates exchanged glances, then turned to look at the village chief and continued to ask, "Then do you have that book with you?"

"Uh? No."

The village chief shook his head. "I'm sorry, that's a text that only the village chief can read, and outsiders can't read it—but I can be sure that the book only has the information about these murals that I remember."

"Is that so..."

Li Ang nodded thoughtfully and gestured to Ding Zhensi to take out Claude's photo and show it to the village chief. "Then do you know this person?"