Summoning Players into My Game Chapter 4 - 2: Godlike Start (Part 3)

Blood spirit rice, when sown in zones brimming with energy, ripens in merely ten days and brims with potent energy. Great cities usually rise above energy ore veins, supplying vast power reserves to urban hubs. Hence, energy intensifies nearer the city core, establishing blood spirit rice as the staple crop within these metropolises.

Yet cities possess finite bounds, yielding insufficient blood spirit rice to nourish all inhabitants. Still, the wilds teem with energy-laden regions, transforming cultivation there into a highly profitable pursuit for unregistered wanderers.

Successfully growing even a single batch of blood spirit rice in the wild—say, ten pounds—fetches 2000 bits at Chasing Light City’s market rate of 200 bits per pound. Seeds cost just 500 bits, delivering a fourfold return that maddens countless souls, particularly among vagabonds.

"You’re utterly mad. That trade’s no place for average folks. Even martial arts apprentices shy away from it lightly. Drop it now. Apart from your slim frame, locating a secluded energy site in the wild and safeguarding the blood spirit rice—you know gangs dominate this racket. Get spotted, and it ends badly," Luo Qi remarked in disbelief. "Lately, you’ve haunted the bar excessively. You believe anyone can rise to city legend status."

"Vagabond icons like Wilderness Jackal Fei Jin and Steel’s Light Chaser Qi Lan truly shattered gang monopolies as wanderers, ascending to Martial Artists and idols all vagabonds dream of emulating. But amid Chasing Light City’s millions of vagabonds, how many such legends exist?"

"Turn back while you can. Abandon this folly."

"I know a reliable clinic. With your appearance, if you’d rather not stay male, wealthy clients would snap up your refined, attractive sort."

Luo Qi spoke with genuine concern, her gaze envisioning Lin Qi’s glamorous prospects, leaving him briefly speechless.

Refined and attractive?

Lin Qi viewed himself as decently tall—186 cm from his Blue Star days—but in this realm of supreme martial prowess where even middle schoolers hit two meters and high schoolers surpass 2.2 or 2.3, his stature ranked merely average, not lamentable.

"Scratch that route. It’s an insane risk, and I lack the nerve for it," Lin Qi cut in swiftly as Luo Qi geared up to elaborate. "Got any maps detailing gang territories beyond Chasing Light City?"

Though monsters infest the wilderness, certain energy-rich zones offer relative safety. Gangs typically claim these for blood spirit rice farms sold in the city. Outsiders must steer clear to plant their own.

Not a top-tier arms dealer, Luo Qi’s Cangjing Weapon Shop still held fame on the city fringes, routinely arming and delivering to gangs, so they grasped the gangs’ operational zones.

"Alas, you’re far too timid." Luo Qi eyed the resolute Lin Qi, sighed over his apparent lack of drive, transmitted an electronic map, then departed after a final warning.

"Should you fail to repay by the deadline, alert me early. You’d hate falling to those brutes; my contacts could auction you handsomely, perhaps sparing one kidney for later."

"They’d spare one?" Lin Qi stared at Luo Qi, amazed by her network’s reach.

Sixty thousand bits loomed large, matching two years’ earnings for typical Chasing Light City dwellers. Lin Qi pegged his body’s value at sixty to seventy thousand, explaining why the brutes loaned him just thirty thousand.

"Or have ‘29’ test the waters?"

"Sixty thousand upfront—even aspiring martial artists don’t pull that, and you’d retain a kidney to survive—it’s ideal!"

As Luo Qi vanished into the darkness, Lin Qi felt a fleeting allure but quickly shook it off.

Players differ from mortals; their infinite resurrections set them apart. Should any faction sense anomaly and uncover his boundless revival upon capture, catastrophe would ensue.

Two hours passed, deep in Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s basement.

"Impressive endurance—you show real promise." Lin Qi nodded approvingly at Fang Zhen’s strained yet upright stance. His stamina and grit marked him as prime labor material, boosting Lin Qi’s regard and nearly erasing prior doubts. "Incidentally, how do your kidneys feel normally? Any sensations now?"

"My kidneys? Sensations? Wobbly legs qualify?"

"Nothing else?"

"Bro, am I supposed to sense something?"

Fang Zhen gazed puzzled through the iron bars at Lin Qi, baffled after 2000 squats over two hours, now quizzed on kidney feelings.

What madness was this? What sensations?

Good ones? Thrilling?

"Sigh, novices truly fall short."

"???"

Lin Qi sighed softly, glanced at his watch’s time, then fixed on Fang Zhen expectantly. Fang Zhen opened his mouth but abruptly suffered excruciating, indefinable agony in his brain and kidneys, spewing blackish blood before blackness claimed him.

System: You have died.

"Game? This is a game?!"

The system message left Fang Zhen’s eyes bulging in shock.

Have game devs grown this bold nowadays?