Chapter 298 - 288: Blind Box Bumping 3

Meanwhile, Shane Rhodes watched as a perfectly good spaceship was dismantled into countless parts. He curiously asked the person beside him, "What’s going on here?"

Indeed, Shane Rhodes wasn’t alone in his work area. Several other players and a few robots were working alongside him.

A robot, directing the mechanical arms on either side of it, explained, "These are spaceship blind boxes. If you collect all the parts, you can get a complete spaceship."

Hearing this, Shane Rhodes looked at the pile of dismantled components and asked, "So, about how many blind boxes would I need to open to collect all the parts?"

The robot thought for a moment before replying, "If you’re lucky, you could probably collect them all by opening about three hundred blind boxes."

Three hundred blind boxes.

In other words, this one spaceship had been dismantled into at least three hundred parts.

Besides, Shane Rhodes hadn’t missed the robot’s "if you’re lucky" remark.

’Three hundred boxes if I’m lucky... so what if I’m not?’

Shane Rhodes was reminded of his childhood, collecting the character cards from crispy noodle snacks. You were supposed to be able to trade a full set for five yuan, but he’d never once managed to collect them all.

’These spaceship blind boxes are probably the same kind of gimmick.’

Once the spaceship was fully dismantled, it was time for the players to step in.

Some of the spaceship components were huge, so the blind boxes used for them were also massive, requiring several people to work together to pack them.

Just before the spaceship dismantling had begun, Shane Rhodes quietly activated his Intelligent Brain’s recording function.

On the off chance it might be useful, he recorded the entire dismantling process.

’Since they’re selling the spaceship as blind boxes, this process probably isn’t classified,’ he reasoned. ’After all, whoever buys them will have to assemble it, right?’

While Shane Rhodes could at least record a video to study later, Kai York’s situation was a scene straight out of a horror film.

He was surrounded by dolls of every kind—big ones, small ones, tall ones, short ones, and even some that were life-sized.

He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but the longer he worked, the more unsettling it felt. A chill ran down his spine.

There was one doll in particular, roughly the size of a person, that had to be packed by separating all of its component parts.

Kai York placed the doll’s head, torso, and limbs into the box one by one.

’I don’t feel like I’m packing blind boxes,’ he thought. ’I feel like I’m dismembering a corpse.’

To make matters worse, not long after they started working, the lights in their room malfunctioned.

They didn’t break completely, but one of them went out, plunging the entire room into a dim, flickering gloom.

Imagine it: in that flickering space, a pile of dolls staring blankly at you, smiling.

In a situation like that, it was hard for him not to let his imagination run wild.

Fortunately, Kai York was in good health and had no heart conditions. Otherwise, the atmosphere alone would have given him a heart attack by now.

The only saving grace was that he wasn’t alone.

The good news was that he wasn’t alone—there were other players with him. The bad news was that the other players were all girls, and they seemed even more terrified than he was.

Their high-pitched screams came one after another, wave after wave.

「Elsewhere.」

In her haste, Moira Lynch made a mistake and packed two items into a single blind box.

Just when Moira thought it would be sent back, the blind box surprisingly sailed right through inspection.

This confirmed Moira’s earlier suspicion: the batch of blind boxes she was currently packing wasn’t considered important at all.

After several more "experiments" passed without issue, Moira grew bolder.

’Blind boxes... they’re only really blind boxes if there’s a surprise inside, right?’

From then on, when Moira packed the blind boxes, she adjusted the contents. If the items were large, she’d put in one or two fewer; if they were small, she’d toss in an extra one or two. It was all about creating value.

The benefit of this approach quickly became apparent: the pile of goods in the room began to shrink at a noticeably faster rate.

Moira’s own workload lightened considerably as well.

At this rate, she might even be able to finish the task ahead of the three-day schedule.

Several more hours passed. Moira glanced at the time—it was already past midnight.

Moira paused her work and stretched.

Although she had originally planned to work through the night, she still had a Moon Wheel and a Calming Bell to sustain.

Previously, when her spiritual power was severely depleted and she couldn’t use it freely, she had left the Moon Wheel and Calming Bell with Snowy to sustain for a few days.

It had been fine at first, but after a few days, Snowy’s body began to shrink at a visible rate, and it was soon nothing but skin and bones.

Fortunately, Moira’s spiritual power recovered just in time to prevent Snowy from kicking the bucket.

Even now, Snowy hadn’t fully recovered.

Therefore, to ensure she had enough spiritual power for the next day, Moira stopped using it and began packing by hand.

Just then, Moira spotted an item she had never seen before.

It was a square object, about the size of her palm, with a clear handprint indented on its surface, presumably to make it easier to grip.

"What is this?"

Just as Moira was about to pick it up for a closer look, she noticed the text and product description on its side.

[Intelligent Weight Meter: Simply grip it gently to test the holder’s weight, body fat percentage, and other metrics, and to accurately determine your current physical condition.]

After reading the description, Moira immediately lost all interest and tossed it into a blind box with a look of disgust.

’What an evil device.’

However, what Moira didn’t know was that her actions had already been noticed by the Tarmirians.

The weight of every blind box was recorded.

If a weight discrepancy was detected, the system would immediately report it.

However, just as Moira had guessed, this batch of blind boxes wasn’t important—otherwise, they wouldn’t have assigned only one person to the task—so her actions naturally didn’t attract much attention.

"Supervisor, is this really not a problem?"

In the monitoring room, a creature with a long face, brown skin, round eyes, a large mouth, two holes for a nose, and no hair asked the question.

The creature’s arms were actually a set of tentacles, and it even walked on tentacles instead of feet.

Another Tarmirian, who looked just like the first but wore different attire, replied, "They’re just some worthless items, anyway. In past years, these types of blind boxes have always been overstocked. Her approach might actually boost sales."

"When this batch of blind boxes goes to market, remember to use this as a gimmick to generate some hype."

"Will... that really work?"

"It will!" the supervisor said firmly.

"Also," the supervisor added, tapping a tentacle on the screen showing Moira. "Dock half her pay for this job. She may have given us a new idea, but the company has its rules. She violated regulations, and wrongdoing must be punished."