Yan Changfeng waited for Mu Zhuang in the visitor’s lounge for nearly half a star hour before he finally appeared with Jiang Xiaoyu.
A faint scent of blood wafted from Mu Zhuang.
Yan Changfeng frowned. “Are you injured?”
Yan Changfeng had been injured herself, and the scent of blood on her was originally quite thick, making it difficult to distinguish others’ scents. However, her Spiritual Eyes had sharpened her perception, and her Physique Enhancement had boosted her sense of smell, allowing her to immediately notice the change in Mu Zhuang.
Mu Zhuang scratched his head awkwardly. “I didn’t expect Miss Yan to notice. I accidentally hurt Miss Yan before, so I went to receive my punishment after I returned. But please don’t worry, it won’t delay what comes next.”
*This man is truly stubborn,* Yan Changfeng thought to herself before turning her gaze toward Jiang Xiaoyu.
“Why are you here too?”
Jiang Xiaoyu stood with her hands on her hips. “I’m the owner of this villa. I can go wherever I want.”
Although Jiang Xiaoyu was acting quite bratty, they were on her turf. Yan Changfeng couldn’t exactly beat her up in front of Mu Zhuang, so she could only let the girl follow along.
Mu Zhuang was still the one driving, while Yan Changfeng and Jiang Xiaoyu sat in the back seat.
Jiang Xiaoyu took out a piece of candy and handed it to her.
Yan Changfeng took the candy, her eyes falling on the necklace Jiang Xiaoyu wore. She seemed to have taken the candy out of it just now. “What is that?”
Following Yan Changfeng’s gaze, Jiang Xiaoyu looked at her necklace and remained silent for a moment. “This is a Space Pocket. It can store things.”
As she spoke, the candy in her hand vanished. With a flick of her wrist, the candy reappeared.
Yan Changfeng felt like her horizons were being broadened. This was likely something similar to a storage bag. If she had a Space Pocket, wouldn’t picking trash be much more convenient in the future?
Wait, if she could afford a Space Pocket, why would she still be picking trash?
Yan Changfeng clicked her tongue. This past year of living as a trash collector had truly left her with some lingering habits.
Once they arrived at the shopping mall, Yan Changfeng looked around. The variety of goods was dizzying, and electronic screens everywhere scrolled with product information twenty-four star hours a day.
The original owner of the body was practically illiterate. Although Yan Changfeng had studied hard over the past year, she was still effectively semi-literate. Looking at the mall’s directory, she fell silent.
In the end, Mu Zhuang led the way to the shop selling optical computers.
[Name: Yan Changfeng, Age: 15, Optical Computer Account: 7185****01]
Mu Zhuang’s eyes narrowed. “A good name.”
Yan Changfeng ignored him and continued entering her user information.
[User ID updated: Trash Picking Emperor 097]
Mu Zhuang asked, “Miss Yan, what is the meaning behind this name?”
Yan Changfeng raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it imposing?” In her previous life, she had been a hair’s breadth away from ascension, only half a step away from the title of Great Emperor. When she was choosing a name, the words “The Emperor” were the first to come to mind.
Mu Zhuang stammered, “It’s… it’s alright.” It was a bit tacky, on par with something like “Mad Tyrant Crimson Warrior.”
Yan Changfeng nodded. “It seems you agree.”
With the optical computer set up, Mu Zhuang transferred the Star Coins he had promised to Yan Changfeng, along with the ten-fold amount Aunt Mei had agreed upon—a total of 500,000 Star Coins.
Hearing the notification for the 500,000 Star Coins entering her account, Yan Changfeng felt completely at ease. She no longer needed to buy half-price starship cargo hold tickets; she was going to buy a proper ticket with a private room!
“I’ll take my leave here. May we meet again if fate allows.” Yan Changfeng didn’t plan to linger; if she delayed any longer, she would miss the last starship of the day.
Jiang Xiaoyu hadn’t expected Yan Changfeng to actually leave just like that. She stomped her foot in frustration. “Wait a minute!”
Yan Changfeng asked, “What is it? Something else?”
Jiang Xiaoyu knew she couldn’t make Yan Changfeng stay, so she puffed out her round cheeks and took out her own optical computer, replying crossly, “Add me as a friend.”
“Fine.”
***
Starship Docking Port.
Yan Changfeng stood before a series of schedules. There weren’t many starships passing through Garbage Planet 5271, and most of them just shuttled between other trash planets, with one exception.
[Final Destination: Blue Star]
This was the only non-numbered planet she saw among the schedules.
Yan Changfeng felt that since she had a bit of money now, there was no need to move to another trash planet and continue picking trash.
After all, there was no future in picking trash. She couldn’t realistically rely on scavenging trash to feed the system.
A million coins—she’d have to scavenge for a lifetime.
As for what she would do on Blue Star? She would figure that out once she got there.
The voyage would take three days. Yan Changfeng splurged and bought a ticket for a room with a private bathroom.
Once in her room, Yan Changfeng opened the system card pool.
She had money now, so she wanted to see if she could pull any useful skills.
One draw required ten thousand Star Coins to convert into energy value. After spending fifty thousand on the starship ticket, she had at most forty-five chances.
Yan Changfeng started with a ten-pull to test the waters.
Beams of light flashed, eventually turning into ten vials of nutrient solution.
Unwilling to give up, she did another ten-pull and joyfully received another ten nutrient solutions.
Yan Changfeng tossed the nutrient solutions into her newly purchased Space Pocket and closed the card pool in a fit of rage.
Trash gacha system! Give me my money back!
***
Once the starship left the sector of the trash planet, Yan Changfeng intended to see if she could connect to the Star Net. She had tried while on the trash planet, but the signal there was too poor; one could only connect using a signal booster.
After fiddling with it for nearly a star hour, she finally managed to connect.
When a new account logs into the Star Net Space for the first time, it requires avatar customization, commonly known as “pinching the face.” If one doesn’t want the hassle, they can also scan their physical data to generate an image in the Star Net Space that is nearly identical to reality.
Yan Changfeng clearly had no interest in customization and chose to scan her data for upload. However, before it was generated, she increased her age base. This body was only fifteen years old; since she could use a virtual avatar in the Star Net Space, there was no need to stick with a “little bean sprout” image.
After filling out the remaining information, Yan Changfeng randomly chose a mask and entered the Star Net Space.
She first arrived at the Initial Lobby of the Star Net Space. The design wasn’t much different from an ordinary plaza, and there were even giant screens in the sky playing advertisements.
Following the prompts from a passing robot, Yan Changfeng collected a newbie manual at the lobby.
Every Star Net user starts at level 0 upon their first entry. Levels can be raised by accumulating time spent in the Star Net Space, or by topping up and completing various challenges in the Instance Zone.
However, the level cap for topping up was limited. To reach the maximum Star Net level, most people chose to challenge the Instance Zone. The types of challenges were endless: combat, calculation, literature, shooting, mecha…
Yan Changfeng glanced at her own level: Trash Picking Emperor 097 lv0.
Fortunately, even at level 0, the vast majority of functions and areas in the Star Net Space were accessible. One thing Yan Changfeng was very satisfied with was that there were very few paid areas, mostly concentrated in the entertainment, knowledge base, and training zones.
In the Star Net Space, one could even earn Star Coins by challenging the Instance Zone.
Yan Changfeng felt she had found another path to wealth.
Being both broke and stingy, Yan Changfeng first borrowed a large pile of free books from the knowledge base and then headed straight for the Instance Zone. She was going to make money!
The various challenges in the Instance Zone—like literature, theology, interstellar history, and the like—Yan Changfeng only glanced at before immediately giving up. After her hard work over the past few days, she had barely graduated from being illiterate to being a poor student; she probably wouldn’t even pass the first stage of those challenges.
Soon, Yan Changfeng focused her attention on the sword skill, shooting, martial arts, and combat challenges.
For shooting, she had her Spiritual Eyes, and sword skills were what she was best at.
After some deliberation, in order to earn the most Star Coins in the shortest amount of time, Yan Changfeng chose the sword skill challenge.
The instance challenges followed a tower-climbing model. Defeating the phantom on the current level allowed entry to the next. Repeated challenges would refresh the challenge time, and the ID of the person with the shortest time on each level would be engraved there. There was also a separate leaderboard for the number of floors cleared on the most prominent interface of the instance.
The top ID on the sword skill leaderboard was “Sword Venerable Himself,” who had reached the 375th floor, but that record hadn’t been updated in twenty years. Currently, the most popular IDs in the sword skill public chat were “I Am The Sword Dao Genius” and “Ru Xu Feng Yue,” both of whom dominated the records for the shortest times on the first hundred floors.
Before entering the challenge, a large number of precautions and instructions popped up on the interface.
Looking at the screen full of words, some of which she didn’t even recognize, Yan Changfeng started to get a headache and simply clicked skip.
She was then teleported to an open space. Countless points of light converged not far from her, gradually forming a virtual NPC image similar to her own stature.
Normally, the first level wouldn’t be too difficult. Yan Changfeng planned to draw her sword and end it quickly, but when she reached out, no sword appeared in her hand at all. There was only something that looked like a sword hilt.
[Challenge started. Please activate the laser sword hilt and defeat the phantom.]
Yan Changfeng: ?
What laser sword hilt? Surely it didn’t mean this thing in her hand.
Yan Changfeng tried to activate the hilt, but she had never seen such a thing before. Having skipped the instructions, she had no idea how to activate it. She could only dodge attacks while poking randomly at the hilt.
At the same time, the public chat in the sword skill challenge area had already exploded.
[Holy crap, everyone go look! It’s been ten minutes and the newbie rookie still hasn’t figured out how to turn on their laser sword. I’m dying of laughter, hahaha!]
[This newbie rookie is quite persistent though. Since she can’t open her own laser sword, she tried to steal the NPC’s sword to hit the NPC. But she didn’t expect that the NPC is immune to damage from its own sword. I’m losing it!]
[Kid, if it’s not working, just quit. Come back after you’ve figured it out. There’s no shame in it.]
[Guys, I tried to send a private message to this rookie, but I didn’t expect that she hasn’t even enabled the friend or private chat functions. Heavens, where did this newbie come from? She hasn’t turned on any functions and just charged straight into the instance zone to be funny.]
[I think the newbie rookie isn’t suited for the sword skill challenge. she should go to the entertainment zone. If she posts a video, the views will definitely be high.]
[There are still too few people in our sword skill zone. Everyone is so bored they’ve come to watch the show.]
[There are always plenty of trolls in this world.]
***
Sword Skill Challenge Tower Rest Area.
“I Am The Sword Dao Genius” was amused by the trolls’ comments on the public chat. He clutched his stomach, laughing. He looked at the youth beside him. “Fengyue, this ‘Trash Picking’ person is too funny. Who doesn’t read the rules and just starts fighting? I bet she’ll give up in a few more minutes.”
The expression under Ru Xu Feng Yue’s mask flickered slightly, but he didn’t join in.
***
Sword Skill Tower, First Level.
After trying to use the NPC’s own sword to attack it and finding it useless, Yan Changfeng helplessly tossed the NPC’s laser sword aside and picked up the laser sword hilt she had forgotten in the corner.
If she could go back to ten minutes ago, she would definitely read the instructions for the laser sword hilt repeatedly.
The NPC’s attacks continued. Yan Changfeng dodged while continuing to study the hilt in her hand, poking almost every spot that looked like a switch, but there was still no reaction.
Yan Changfeng finally decided to give up, planning to go out and study the rules before challenging again. Thus, with a cold face, she threw the laser sword hilt at the NPC as a weapon. It hit the NPC square on the skull.
To her surprise, the laser sword hilt suddenly activated in the next second, and the long blade grazed past the NPC’s forehead.
[Congratulations, you have cleared the first level of the Sword Skill Tower. Would you like to enter the next level?]
Yan Changfeng decisively chose to exit.
After Yan Changfeng exited, the public chat began to scroll frantically again. Due to the “great achievements” of Trash Picking Emperor 097, a post was pinned directly at the top of the channel: “On the Importance of the Sword Skill Challenge Newbie Tutorial!”
[Hahaha, ‘The Importance of the Newbie Tutorial.’ The sarcasm is off the charts. The newbie rookie won’t cry when she sees this, will she?]
[The newbie rookie has already logged out. She couldn’t have actually been discouraged, right? Don’t go! If ‘Trash Picking’ leaves, who’s going to make me laugh?]
[I Am The Sword Dao Genius: We really should add a newbie tutorial. There are more and more rookies lately.]
[Whoa! A ‘Sword Dao Genius’ big shot has appeared!]
[Let’s take a photo!]
Ru Xu Feng Yue soon saw the message from “I Am The Sword Dao Genius” and asked, “You also think she’s a rookie?”
“I Am The Sword Dao Genius” frowned. “Come on, Fengyue, you actually think that ‘Trash Picking’ person has real skill? If someone had practiced swordsmanship since childhood, how could they possibly not know how to use a laser sword?”
Ru Xu Feng Yue replied, “Not necessarily.”
“I Am The Sword Dao Genius” raised an eyebrow. “Then let’s make a bet. I bet she won’t log back on to challenge the second level today.”
Just as he finished speaking, a link popped up in the pinned post on the public chat.
[Breaking news! The newbie rookie is back to brave the second level!]