"You have completed a special mission; you get 10 card draws as a reward!"
"There are 180 cards in the card pool so you can get 10 of the 180 cards as your reward."
"Warning: You can only select ten cards from the pool only once. Once selected, no changes are allowed!"
The cards then came to life and arranged themselves neatly in the air in front of Lin Huang. There were 10 columns and 18 rows which added up to a total of 180 cards. They were all identical; completely black with a golden question mark in the middle that looked more like a golden burning flame.
Lin Huang initially thought he could pick 10 cards from a pool of 18 cards. If that was the case, the probability of getting better cards would be higher. Now, his options were more and so, the probabilities of getting good cards were no better than a regular card draw.
"Bibbidi-Buddhadi-Boo [1], please give me some good cards! No mission cards please, I beg you!" Lin Huang pressed his palms together and said a short little prayer with his eyes closed. He then opened his eyes, took a deep breath and picked 10 rewards cards.
"This, and this…"
The remaining cards disappeared after he was done. The cards that he picked were arranged into two rows of five columns in front of him. One by one, the cards revealed themselves.
"Congratulations, you have received Epiphany Card x1, Advance Card x1, Small Destruction Card x1, Healing Card x2, Double Card x2, Provisional Transformation Card x3."
"I got one Small Destruction Card and two Healing Cards?!" Lin Huang was over the moon, for the very first time, he actually had good luck. He remembered clearly how powerful the Small Destruction Card worked on the Sand Monsters. As for the Healing Cards, he had seen how useful it was several times. He had just used his last Healing Card earlier and now he has replenished them.
"Too bad there’s only one Advance Card. If I had two of them, I could upgrade the Alexandrian Eagle into an Epic Card."
The four Advance Cards he obtained earlier were used on Bai and Tyrant.
He was familiar with some cards, but not all of them. He took a look at them. The Epiphany Card was completely gold with a blue brain amidst a boundless starry night at the front of the card. He turned the card around to read its description.
"Epiphany Card: Gives the user a chance for an epiphany."
"Remarks: Consumable, it can only be used once. The effect depends on the user’s credentials and talents."
"Good stuff!" Lin Huang was satisfied with the cards he selected. He got cards that could be used in practical situations and none of the mission card that was useless.
"My luck has finally changed for the better!" He happily kept all his cards and headed to the shower.
Maybe he was in a good mood, he had a good night’s sleep and it was after eight in the morning when he woke up. After checking out from the hotel, Lin Huang ran out of the foothold and summoned the Alexandrian Eagle to head to Xiagong City. If not for the city curfew, he would not have stayed in Xiaoxia City. However, he was not so concerned about Lin Xin. Ever since the parasites were eliminated, even if a transcendent monster were to invade a B-grade large foothold like Xiagong City, he would be able to stop it.
Lin Huang arrived at the hotel in Xiagong City at 8:30 in the morning. He opened the room door with the keycard. Lin Xin was standing at the door with a gun pointed at him.
What are you doing?" Lin Huang raised his voice.
Lin Xin then put down the gun, "I thought it’s a bad guy at the door… Why didn’t you inform me beforehand that you’re coming back?"
"I came back right after I woke up, I just realized I hadn't told you when I was already walking over." Lin Huang shrugged his shoulders.
"Have you settled your stuff yet?" Lin Xin kept the GrayEagle17 back into storage.
"Yes, it’s been done." Lin Huang nodded in satisfaction.
"Let’s book the tickets back home."
"You haven’t been to Xiaoxia City yet, don’t you want to visit the Xiagong Ruins?" It was odd for Lin Xin to change her mind.
"I don’t want to go anymore." Lin Xin shook her head.
"What’s wrong?" Lin Huang could sense that she was upset.
"I want to go home earlier so that I could spend more time to train my gun skill." Lin Xin explained.
"Let’s go to Xiaoxia City to see the Xiagong Ruins, it won’t take too long."
"I still prefer to go home now." Lin Xin shook her head.
"Alright then. Since you insist, let’s go home then." Lin Xin was persistent.
"Have you had breakfast yet?" Lin Huang asked.
"Yes, I have."
"I’ll have my breakfast downstairs first and we'll book the return tickets when I'm back." Lin Huang patted her head and left.
After he left, Lin Xin resumed the video that she was watching. There was a lady on the paused screen with a sentence at the bottom.
‘If you don't want to be a burden, you must be strong yourself.’
Lin Xin pushed the play button and proceeded to watch the entire video. If Lin Huang was there, he would definitely recognize the lady in the video. She was a celebrity gunmaster whose videos went viral online - Ou-yang Bingli.
Ou-yang Bingli was an 18-year-old who ranked 14th on the Division7 Gold Hunter Leaderboard. She was also the highest ranked female gunmaster. She had fans who loved guns, most of them were teenage fangirls below 18.
As Lin Huang was having a buffet breakfast on the second floor, he received a notification from the Union Government.
"Last night at about 10:30, a serious parasite contamination happened in Xiaoxia City causing up to 130,000 people to get contaminated with parasitic pods. An anonymous transcendent managed to kill the parasites in time and saved everyone before leaving. On behalf of the Union Government, we would like to apologize for the unforeseen circumstance. We will prevent it from ever happening again. At the same time, we would like to thank the anonymous transcendent. Although we don’t know who you are, what you did has earned our respect and we shall learn from you…"
"It seems like they have no idea what happened beneath the Xiagong Ruins. They just assumed that the parasite was a transcendent based on the contamination figures and assumed that I was a transcendent as well…" Lin Huang smiled as he shook his head. Theoretically, the most a gold-level parasite could infect would not be more than 10,000 people. The Demonic Dandelion Vine was just silver-level but it managed to infect more than 100,000 people. Perhaps it was because it had mutated twice or other unusual circumstance. It managed to mislead the Union Government to think that it was a transcendent monster. Of course, the main reason for their misinformation was because they did not see the battle between Lin Huang and the Demonic Dandelion Vine. Else, they could tell from the remaining aura in the cave that the Demonic Dandelion Vine was merely a silver-level.
After that, the Union Government sent another message.
"Around 11 o’clock last night, all of the 15 offenders who escaped prison were captured in foothold No.7B61. The security regulations and curfew have been lifted…"
"They haven’t been telling the truth since the beginning…" Lin Huang raised his eyebrow as he read the news.
After breakfast, he went back to his hotel room. Lin Xin looked at him, eyes wide opened.
"Brother, it was you, wasn’t it?"
"What is it that I did?" Lin Huang riddled back.
"The transcendent monster in Xiaoxia City, did you kill it?" Lin Xin waited for his reply.
"You’re overthinking, do I look like a transcendent to you?" Lin Huang lied because he was afraid that Lin Xin might tell her schoolmates if she knew the truth.
"But the time Bai disappeared matched the time the transcendent appeared. I don’t think it was a coincidence, brother." Lin Xin became factual.
"I just happened to encounter some trouble at the time. It was a mere coincidence that the timing matched!" Lin Huang attempted to cover up the truth so he pinched Lin Xin’s cheeks, "Look at you, why are you thinking of such ridiculous things at this hour of the day. I’m just iron-level, if I really did bump into a transcendent monster, I would run away real fast. How can I fight it?"
"Oh…" Lin Xin’s face dropped almost immediately.
"I was looking at the spaceship schedule, there’s one tomorrow and the tickets are available." Lin Huang then looked at Lin Xin, "Are you sure you want to be a recluse?"
"I have thought about it. Since I will be going to graduation class in September, I can always have fun after I graduate next year. I should spend time studying and training in order to get good grades next year." Lin Xin thought of a reason to convince Lin Huang.
"You've grown up; it’s great that you are managing your time well." Lin Huang patted her head, "I'll go book the tickets now."