“Momo, you two head home first.
I’m going to recruit a new member for you!”
Ignoring Jessica’s jab, Daisy grabbed her luggage, waved goodbye to Morris, and hailed a cab from the airport alone.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Morris’s mouth.
Taking her in had certainly paid off—she was more proactive about finding teammates for him than he was himself.
It made Morris suspect she had awakened some hidden trait he wasn’t aware of…
He didn’t worry much about her safety.
If nothing else, her unequipped level-70 base stats combined with her Inhuman talents were more than enough to handle most dangers.
So, Morris took Jessica and headed home early.
It wasn’t the weekend, so when they arrived home in the morning, Morris’s parents had already left for work.
With nothing else to do, both of them lay down and logged straight into the game world.
They had been quite busy in China recently, so logging in so early in the morning was a rare treat.
Both of them were fully geared with current end-game gear in the game, so their main objective upon logging in was simply farming gold.
Though a bit tedious, it was a good way to pass the time.
Meanwhile, Daisy and Colleen met face-to-face for the first time.
Colleen was initially on guard, but relaxed considerably upon seeing Daisy’s young, mixed-Asian face.
She was extremely tense—after all, the person closest to her had turned out to be the mastermind behind her parents’ deaths.
Anyone in her position would feel driven to despair.
True to form, Daisy cut straight to the point.
Inside the Wing family dojo, she cast two healing spells on Colleen, restoring her from the haggard state caused by exhaustion and grief.
Then, she demonstrated her power directly to Colleen.
Besides various in-game skills and her powerful physical attributes, she also showed off some high-tech gadgetry.
Additionally, she compiled the intel on The Hand that she had missed over the past month.
Colleen was naturally left utterly flabbergasted.
“Jessica has a soft heart, so she sent you that text in secret.
Too bad you didn’t seize the chance back then!
Don’t overthink it, either.
A lot of activities in that game require teamwork, and we happen to be short-staffed right now.
If you decline, you’ll just miss an opportunity—you won’t lose anything else.
Now then, can you tell me your choice?”
Sensing the timing was right, Daisy delivered her final invitation.
“Is what you said about the price of entering the game real?”
Colleen felt the price sounded somewhat improper, but lacking proof, she asked anyway, unable to let it go.
“Mm, probably!
At least for me, I couldn’t enter the game until after I slept with him.
Even if he tricked me, I don’t care.
As for your question, if you join, you can ask him yourself.
If you don’t plan to join, there’s no need to ask, is there?”
Daisy’s logic left Colleen speechless.
However, without much hesitation, she agreed.
After all, when she sent that last text to “Jessica,” her mind had already been made up.
Now that she had confirmed the other party genuinely had the power to help her, joining was a natural choice.
Daisy asked about Colleen’s current situation.
Colleen was currently in college, only a year older than the three incoming college freshmen.
After paying steep inheritance taxes, the assets left by her parents consisted of only a house and the family dojo, with cash reserves nearly depleted—at most enough for three months of living expenses.
Honestly, those conditions were still far better than those of most American middle-class families.
Furthermore, if she wanted, selling or renting out the dojo would cover her college tuition and living expenses for the foreseeable future.
But Colleen was stubborn.
She cherished the dojo left behind by her parents, so her solution was to sell the house, move into the dojo, and drop out of college to keep the dojo running.
Morris learned these details when Daisy returned.
Recalling the plot of the Marvel spin-off shows he had watched, he figured the circumstances matched, so he didn’t probe further.
As for initiating Colleen into the group, Daisy had scheduled it for tomorrow at the dojo.
Morris naturally had no objections.
After all, he had seen Colleen before—she had Asian features, being of Singaporean Chinese descent, with a great figure and face, easily an 88 out of 100 beauty.
At night, all three logged into the game again.
They all had decent savings now; after all, their only expense was maintaining game time cards, leaving them with substantial gold reserves and no worries about game time costs.
After casually running a few small dungeons, they began browsing the forums.
Phase 2 of the Level 70 expansion pack had just been announced.
It was expected to launch after their college semester started, though an exact date hadn’t been set.
The two girls were naturally reviewing details on the newly announced dungeons.
Morris did the same, but he focused more on whether these new dungeon specs matched or resembled his memories.
Spending some time comparing boss stats and mechanics, Morris found that on Normal difficulty, they were almost identical to World of Warcraft from his past life.
On Heroic difficulty, the mechanics didn’t change much either—the dungeon’s difficulty tuning was simply scaled up.
Makes sense; after all, it was just a casual game created by the Interstellar Alliance.
If it were too hard, nobody would play it.
Feeling reassured, Morris logged out to the character selection interface, intending to do some work on his “housing” space.
Morris had investigated this “housing” system a few times, but currently, only the two-story cottage allowed basic decorations.
And even then, only basic infrastructure like forging stations and bonfires could be placed.
The lawn outside couldn’t be altered at all.
Right now, its sole function was pasturing in-game non-combat pets.
Checking the forums for housing news recently, he saw the latest expansion teaser mention briefly: [Starting from Phase 2, certain housing features will be updated.]
This feature didn’t exist in World of Warcraft on Earth, so Morris was quite looking forward to it.
After all, this housing could be considered an ability in the game; he wondered if it fell under the portable attributes and skills specified by his Golden Finger.
Why consider it an ability?
Simple: in a virtual reality game, players might need to spend the night or get lost in the wild.
Thus, this housing could be summoned onto any open ground.
Once summoned, the housing area was by no means small: the two-story building had over a hundred square meters per floor, and the front lawn covered roughly an acre.
Beyond that, the cottage had a back door leading to a small backyard of over a hundred square meters, with a small wooden box-like structure sitting in the corner of the lot.
Morris went over to inspect it—this tiny box, under five square meters, turned out to be an outhouse.
Luckily, game characters didn’t need to relieve themselves, so the outhouse was purely decorative and had no smell…