Chapter 81: The Daily Free Roll

The sun dipped low over the Mistveil Mountains, painting the sky in deep streaks of purple and orange.

On the clover lawn of Solitude Spire, the evening tension was thick enough to cut with a dull butter knife.

Sky-Captain Drake stood rooted to the soil.

The forty-eight-year-old pirate admiral kept both hands firmly outside his duster coat, terrified that any sudden movement might provoke the young man on the porch.

His stomach let out another quiet, hollow rumble.

Behind him, fifty starving corsairs leaned against the iron railings of the Iron Gale, holding their breath. Up in the crow’s nest, First Mate Bones clutched his spyglass with white knuckles, his face grey with terror.

Across the gorge, Inquisitor Valen and twenty academy elders floated on their swords, sweating through their silk robes.

Nobody dared speak. Nobody dared breathe.

Then, from the depths of Felix Vance’s linen pocket, a cheerful 8-bit melody chimed:

Doodle-doodle-doo-DING!

Felix pushed his straw hat back off his forehead, his messy brown hair sticking up in soft tufts.

"Oh, nice," Felix muttered, his sleepy face perking up. "Six o’clock server reset. Daily free roll is live."

Drake narrowed his weathered grey eyes, his pulse quickening.

Server reset? Daily free roll?

The pirate captain translated the cryptic terms in his head with mounting dread.* The sovereign speaks of the Cosmic Calibration! At the turning of dusk and night, the ancient gods reset the scales of fate! He prepares to draw a divine decree from the fabric of destiny!*

Felix reached into his pocket and lifted the obsidian AetherDeck.

He didn’t sit up. He simply laid the cool black slate across his stomach, tapping the glowing summon tab on the glass display.

The screen shifted, displaying the standard daily banner:

Felix stared at the golden summon button, his thumbs hovering over the glass.

"Come on," Felix murmured to himself. "Give me something useful. A basket of steamed pork buns. Maybe a nice loaf of crusty sourdough. Even a jar of raspberry jam would be great."

He pressed the [PULL 1x] button with his right thumb.

The screen lit up with sparkling starlight.

A spinning golden dial appeared in the center of the display, churning with digital runes.

For three seconds, Felix held his breath.

Then, the golden animation collapsed.

The screen didn’t flash majestic gold. It didn’t flare with deep royal purple.

It flashed a dull, sickly, depressing shade of washed-out blue.

BEEP-BOOP.

A notification box slammed onto the screen with a mocking little rattle:

THUMP.

With a faint spatial pop, a heavy burlap sack materialized out of thin air and dropped straight onto Felix’s lap.

Felix stared down at the coarse cloth bag.

He slowly picked it up by the drawstring, untied the rough twine, and peeked inside.

It was gray, granular rock salt. The exact kind of cheap, dusty salt people threw on icy pathways in the winter.

Felix’s face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated gamer fury.

"Rock salt?!" Felix shouted, tossing his hands into the air. "Are you kidding me right now?!"

His voice echoed across the quiet mountain, ringing down the valley like rolling thunder.

Down on the grass, Drake flinched. The pirate captain nearly drew his cutlass in sheer panic, his heart leaping into his throat.

The Sovereign is enraged! Drake thought, his blood running cold. The heavens have offended him!

"Eighty-four percent?!" Felix yelled at his tablet screen, shaking the burlap sack with righteous anger. "Eighty-four percent drop rate for dirt-cheap table salt?! What kind of scammy developer logic is this?!"

He squeezed the bag, sending gray salt crystals tumbling through his fingers.

"I logged in every single day this month!" Felix ranted, glaring at the digital skybox. "I ignited an entire fusion star in my chest! I didn’t set a single tree on fire! And my reward is one pound of driveway gravel?!"

Over on the railing, Barnaby the clockwork owl let out a muffled brass click.

The hand-carved oak bottle cork in Barnaby’s beak held firm, preventing him from squawking, but his amber lenses dilated in complete mechanical sympathy. Barnaby tapped his shiny copper penny against the wood, as if agreeing that management was completely incompetent.

"This is highway robbery," Felix grumbled, tossing the salt sack onto the cedar side table beside his Never-Cold Jade Teacup. "Mobile game gacha rates are an absolute scam. The devs probably rigged the RNG tables to drain my soul."

Down near the garden patch, Senior Groundskeeper Nether-Bane suddenly froze.

The seven-foot Ghost King dropped his wooden trowel into the dirt.

His glowing crimson eye sockets locked onto the small burlap sack resting casually on the porch table.

Nether-Bane took two trembling steps backward, his skeletal knees knocking together beneath his funeral robes.

The Primordial Salt of Cleansing! the Ghost King screamed within his silent soul. The sacred mineral of supreme purification! For ten thousand years, the exorcists of the First Epoch used mere grains of that salt to burn our ghostly legions to cinder!

Nether-Bane shuddered, bowing his straw hat until it brushed the cabbage leaves.

The Sovereign summoned a whole pound of soul-melting bane from the void with a flick of his finger! Yet he tosses it aside like garbage because he wanted pastries! What terrifying majesty!

Up on the deck of the Iron Gale, First Mate Bones lowered his spyglass, whispering to the trembling pirate crew.

"Did you see that, lads?" Bones whimpered. "The lad conjured matter straight from the void! No circles, no spirit stones! Just pure creation!"

On the lawn below, Sky-Captain Drake was having a complete spiritual breakdown.

He stared at the small burlap sack sitting on the table.

To Drake’s eyes, that wasn’t just kitchen salt.

That was an artifact summoned from the highest dimensional vaults without breaking a sweat!

The Primordial Mineral of Absolute Preservation... Drake’s mind raced in frantic circles.

In the old legends of the Void Corsairs, salt was the purest elemental essence of the ancient celestial seas. It was a holy substance capable of warding off void beasts, purifying cursed wounds, and halting necrotic decay!

He summoned a sacred pouch of Primordial Earth-Essence from the void, Drake realized, cold sweat dripping from his chin.

Yet he curses the heavens because he wanted bread instead! What unfathomable heights has this young master reached?! To him, a divine purifying mineral of the gods is nothing more than driveway dust!

Across the gorge, Inquisitor Valen was weeping softly into his silk sleeve.

"The Sovereign laments the decay of the mortal elements," Valen whispered in reverent awe to the trembling elders. "He gazes upon the mineral wealth of heaven and finds it lacking in true spiritual warmth. Such boundless philosophical detachment... it shames our greedy mortal hearts!"

On the porch, Felix rubbed his temples, letting out a heavy, tired groan.

"Unbelievable," Felix muttered. "Ruined my afternoon mood with a blue-tier trash drop."

He reached out, grabbed his Never-Cold Jade Teacup, and took a deep, comforting sip of warm jasmine honey tea.

The eternal warmth soothed his irritated nerves, smoothing away the frustration of the terrible gacha roll.

Felix let out a slow breath, glancing back down at the four-hundred-foot warship parked on his lawn.

Then he looked at Sky-Captain Drake, who was still standing stiff as a board in the clover.

"Hey, coat guy," Felix said, pointing with his cup. "What are you staring at? Haven't you ever seen someone get scammed by a daily login bonus before?"

Drake swallowed hard, forcing his dry tongue to work.

"I... I have witnessed many celestial rites, young master," Drake rasped respectfully, bowing his head. "None so... passionate as yours."

Felix snorted, leaning back into his floating recliner.

"Yeah, well, wait until you pull twenty straight blue rolls in a row," Felix said dryly. "You'd yell at the sky too."

Drake blinked in sheer bewilderment.

"Twenty... blue rolls?" Drake echoed cautiously.

"Garbage drops," Felix explained, waving a dismissive hand. "Useless rocks. Broken twigs. Common dirt. The game gives you a pity timer, but they tune the algorithm so you only hit the jackpot when you're on the verge of quitting."

Drake nodded slowly, hanging onto every word as if it were sacred scripture.

The Dao of the Pity Timer! Drake marveled. The Sovereign speaks of the cosmic trials! The heavens test a cultivator with endless suffering, only granting supreme enlightenment when one is ready to abandon all mortal attachment!

"The wisdom of the heavens is indeed harsh, young master," Drake said with deep reverence.

Felix stared at the pirate captain for two seconds, then shook his head.

"Right," Felix muttered. "Whatever you say, buddy. Just don't touch my cabbages."

He pulled his straw hat down, settled into his cushions, and closed his eyes to recover from the trauma of bad RNG. From the kitchen doorway, Lyra Ashford stepped quietly onto the porch.

Her long silver hair was tied in a neat ribbon, and her violet eyes shone with calm discipline. She carried a polished wooden tray with two clean porcelain cups and a small jar of pickled plums.

She took one look at the sack of gray rock salt sitting beside the Never-Cold Jade Teacup, and her heart swelled with admiration.

Senior Brother draws raw minerals from the primordial void without breaking a sweat, Lyra thought proudly. He treats imperial treasures and cosmic salt with the exact same tranquil indifference.

Lyra bowed respectfully toward Felix's resting form, setting the tray upon the cedar side table.

Underneath the table, Grandmaster Vivienne’s Sovereign Heart Seal—etched with the ancient jade seal on its underside—held the wood perfectly level against the mountain breeze.

Down in the yard, the Thunder Gryphon let out a lazy snore, twitching its golden wings in the cool twilight air.