Lin Ye felt the world spin around him.
After the sensation of weightlessness passed, he felt his feet touch solid ground once more.
He opened his eyes and found himself standing in the teleportation hall of Wanghai City.
The hall was in complete chaos, filled with the noise of countless people.
White light kept flashing inside the teleportation arrays as professionals fleeing from the wilderness emerged one after another, their faces deathly pale.
Lin Ye walked out of the hall. The streets outside were just as disorderly.
Although the piercing alarms had stopped, the pedestrians were still hurrying about, their faces filled with lingering fear.
Lin Ye looked up.
Across the sky, the surface of the enormous pale-blue protective barrier was covered in horrifying spiderweb-like cracks.
Its radiance had dimmed to the extreme, and it looked as though it might completely shatter at any moment.
Lin Ye was stunned.
He had indeed underestimated the value of a Mythic-grade item.
After all, its description had been only a single short line. Before this, even the words “fire element” and “talisman” had barely seemed worthy of being mentioned alongside its power.
Who could have imagined that this thing could directly condense a Golden Crow from myth and flatten a vast area?
A wave of lingering fear surged through Lin Ye’s heart. At the same time, he secretly made up his mind: from now on, he absolutely could not use Mythic-grade items near cities or anywhere ordinary people were present.
…
When he returned home, his parents had not yet finished work. The house was silent.
Lin Ye took the treasure chests out of his backpack.
There were two Black Iron chests and one Bronze chest.
He now had two choices before him.
Should he open the Black Iron chests in succession, relying on the guaranteed Mythic rewards each time to win through sheer quantity?
Or should he open the Bronze chest directly?
If he opened the Black Iron chests first, then by the time he got to the Bronze chest, his progress would definitely be below one hundred percent. That meant he would no longer be able to guarantee a Mythic reward from the Bronze chest.
Quantity or quality?
As he pondered, Lin Ye suddenly remembered something.
He quickly opened the global rankings and switched directly to the Talisman rankings.
His gaze swept rapidly across the list.
The tension in Lin Ye’s nerves finally eased.
The Mythic-grade fire-element talisman he had just used was still sitting proudly in third place on the rankings.
It seemed that the rankings recorded not a person’s current inventory, but items that had “once existed.”
As long as an item had existed, it would appear on the rankings. Even if it had already been used, the record would not disappear.
That was good news for him.
The authorities had surely already begun investigating the cause of the explosion in the Poisonmist Forest.
If the Mythic fire talisman suddenly vanished from the rankings, even an idiot could connect the two incidents.
They would then be able to determine that “Pangu,” the person ranked on the list, was in Wanghai City.
But now, the fire talisman was still on the rankings.
Even if someone grew suspicious, they had no concrete evidence.
And even if the investigation really led to him, it would take a long time.
Whatever happened, increasing his strength was still his top priority.
Lin Ye fixed his gaze on the Bronze chest.
Bronze it is!
Junk chests and Black Iron chests could at most produce some materials and consumables. Only Bronze chests had a low chance of producing skill books—or even special abilities like the one Sun Jinhao possessed.
Lin Ye gripped the handle on the lid of the chest with his right hand.
At that moment, he noticed a tiny cursor had appeared on the bands of light around his right wrist.
The cursor moved according to his gaze and thoughts.
Lin Ye tried moving it to the second, dark-red band of light.
The total progress, which had originally displayed 189%, instantly changed to 89%.
He moved the cursor back to the first band of light, the one radiating seven-colored brilliance, and the number changed back to 100%.
Lin Ye understood.
The system was letting him choose his chest-opening result.
If he chose the first band, it would consume 100% of his progress, and the chest was guaranteed to produce a Mythic item.
If he chose the second, it would use only 89% of his progress, and the result would be Legendary-grade.
Lin Ye decisively locked the cursor onto the first, multicolored band of light.
He took a deep breath and pulled hard!
Nothing happened. He had pulled for nothing.
The lid of the Bronze chest remained tightly shut, without even the slightest gap.
Lin Ye stood up, planted both feet against the bottom of the chest, gripped the handle with both hands, and pulled upward with all his might.
The veins on his forehead bulged, but the chest remained firmly sealed.
Lin Ye released the handle and gasped for breath.
Junk chests could be opened with ease.
But the physical durability and locking force of the Bronze chest were clearly beyond what an ordinary high school student could overcome through brute strength alone.
Lin Ye glanced at his status panel.
He had reached Level 13 in the Poisonmist Forest earlier and had accumulated thirteen free attribute points, which he had yet to spend.
Normally, it was best not to distribute attribute points randomly before changing classes, since no one knew what sort of class they would obtain.
But after changing classes, everyone received one free opportunity to reset their attributes.
Lin Ye no longer hesitated. With a thought, he invested all thirteen free attribute points into Strength.
He gripped the handle once more and pulled with all his might!
With a crisp snap, the Bronze chest opened.
Lin Ye looked inside expectantly.
Lying quietly at the bottom of the chest was a palm-sized doll.
There was nothing else.
Lin Ye’s heart filled with disappointment and speechlessness.
That was it?
A Bronze chest only gave him one item?
At that moment, the doll inside the chest suddenly seemed to come alive. Seven-colored light poured violently into it.
[Congratulations! You have opened the chest and obtained a Mythic-grade item: Companion Intelligent Machine: Cute Cat Edition ×1]
[A Mythic-grade global announcement is about to be triggered. Would you like to publish it anonymously?]
Lin Ye pondered for a moment before directly choosing no and refusing publication altogether.
Even if he remained anonymous, everyone else would still know that Pangu had obtained yet another reward.
The rewards from the rankings and achievement unlocks could wait until later.
For now, all he needed to do was lie low and develop step by step. Becoming the strongest was merely a matter of time. There was no need to take unnecessary risks.
Lin Ye took the doll out of the chest and examined it carefully.
The so-called intelligent machines were essentially mechanical puppets infused with spiritual energy and equipped with low-level artificial intelligence programs.
The intelligent machines commonly found on the market were mainly used as playmates for children—to keep them company, chat with them, and tell them stories.
They were roughly equivalent to a child’s smartwatch with calling functions.
In other words, they were toys.
Even if this one was Mythic-grade, it was still just a toy!
And besides…
Lin Ye held the white, mouthless cat-shaped doll in his hand. A red bow was pinned to one of its ears.
He was utterly speechless.
What Cute Cat?
Wasn’t this obviously Hello Kitty from his previous life?
They had not even changed a single whisker!
Did they not have to pay copyright fees?
Who on earth had put something like this into the Mythic reward pool?
Lin Ye sighed and pressed a finger against the doll’s head.
The lifeless doll’s eyes suddenly lit up with two beams of blue light.
A mechanical female voice rang out.
“Hello. The Cute Cat Intelligent Machine is at your service. What should I call you?”
Lin Ye replied casually, “Whatever.”
“All right, Whatever.”
“Beep! Voiceprint binding successful… Skeletal age scan complete… User identified as an adult male. The system is automatically switching to Adult Mode.”
Lin Ye froze.
Adult Mode?
Before he could react, the Hello Kitty in his hand suddenly grew heavier and dropped to the floor.
Then, dense streams of blue data appeared across the surface of the doll’s body. Its form began to rise and expand at a speed visible to the naked eye.
After several seconds, the doll that had originally been in his hand was gone.
What replaced it was a girl about five foot five, with a figure so smoking hot it could make a man’s nose bleed.
Perched atop her head were two fluffy white cat ears, while a long cat tail swayed gently behind her.
She was dressed in an extremely skimpy maid outfit, with so little fabric that large expanses of snow-white skin were exposed to the air.
Lin Ye stared in shock.
Holy crap!
She looked so lifelike that he genuinely couldn’t tell whether she was a real person or not. He could even make out her pores!
The catgirl blinked her large, watery eyes, stepped closer, and clasped her hands over her chest. In a coquettish voice, she called out, “Master~”
The drawn-out, melodious tone made Lin Ye’s scalp tingle.
Then the catgirl pressed herself right up against him and lightly licked her lips.
Her gaze turned sultry, and her fluffy tail wound its way up from Lin Ye’s calf.
Just as the scene was about to veer wildly into decidedly adult territory, a vein throbbed on Lin Ye’s forehead. He abruptly grabbed her hand as she reached for the buttons at his collar.
“Stop, stop, stop!”
As if jolted by electricity, Lin Ye retreated two steps to put some distance between them. He watched the fiery catgirl before him with extreme caution.
“Exit adult mode!”
Lin Ye wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
If a child ever saw this thing, who could possibly keep their composure?
Was this really a wholesome toy?
The catgirl tilted her head, and the ears atop it twitched twice, as if processing Lin Ye’s command.
“Command confirmed. Shutting down adult mode.”
The mechanical female voice rang out once more.
The next second, dense streams of blue data surged across the catgirl’s body. Her figure rapidly shrank and folded in on itself.
She transformed back into the adorable, cute cat toy.
Lin Ye let out a sigh of relief.
“What exactly are you good for?”
The toy’s eyes lit up with blue light once again.
Rather than transforming like before, it answered in the same emotionless mechanical female voice, speaking at lightning speed:
“Very well. I will now tell you in the most truthful, straightforward, blunt, direct, hard-core, practical, and completely unreserved way possible…”
“You can establish a neural connection with me directly and explore for yourself!”