The Highest Bounty

Chapter 208: Carole

After escaping from the interstellar storm, Gu Ding once again found time to enter Monster Paradise. He had no idea how much attention Neptune had attracted with his anonymous answers.

Of course, no one except the top brass knew it was Gu Ding.

However, some people could also distinguish that there was more than a 90% chance that this was done by a new member. If it was an old member, there was no need to keep the points for so long without giving a reply. However, Gu Ding joined three others at the same time. In the five days since Gu Ding’s absence, only one of the three had gone into Monster Paradise and has been probed enough to confirm that his score was zero. Therefore, only he was excluded.

As he entered Monster Paradise, Gu Ding found that 56700 points had all been credited to his account. It was clear that Neptune’s answers were all accepted as correct. He was going to the trade center to help Robert see if he could redeem the few remaining materials, as well as to see if any items could help him to break through his current ranking.

According to Monster Paradise’s rules, one must activate all new functions themselves. Gu Ding, under Neptune’s guidance, used the transport function to send himself directly to the trade center’s entrance.

After entering the trade center, he rummaged through the original list for the remaining four items. Three of them could be bought with Gu Ding’s existing points, but there was also something called the energy matrix, which would require over eight million points to redeem.

“What is this energy matrix? It’s significantly more expensive than most god items.” Gu Ding muttered under his breath.

“Energy matrix is an essential item for metallic organisms to evolve into super metallic organisms because only by emitting energy from the energy matrix, can the super metallic organisms’ properties be brought into full play.” It was not Neptune who answered, but a woman.

The woman was very distinctive, with waist-length hair that had ten different colors. They were spaced at the same distance from left to right. It did not look messy but gave a sense of order instead. The nails on her hands were also painted ten different colors. What caught their attention was the stark white lady suit she was wearing, which contrasted sharply with the colors of her hair and nails. However, it made people feel unusually harmonious. Due to the strange getup, Gu Ding’s attention was drawn away from the perfect makeup of her delicate features.

“Are you new?” The woman approached Gu Ding slowly. Her pink high-heeled soles clattering against the ground, creating a crisp tapping that sounded more like musical notes than noise. When she reached Gu Ding, she stopped and held out her hand. “My name is Carole. Nice to meet you.”

“Hello, my name is Gu Ding.” It was Gu Ding’s first time meeting someone else in Monster Paradise. Judging by her appearance, he knew she was not a virtual character like the NPC.

“When did you join? You look unfamiliar.” Carole was pretty sure he was new because she could tell Gu Ding’s Gene Level was not high.

“Five days ago.” Gu Ding was not trying to hide anything, and she seemed harmless.

“Five days ago? You’re not the one who solved the problems on Asking Tower’s first floor, are you?” Carole had been looking for the person who helped her solve her question.

Gu Ding hesitated when he heard the question. It was not that he was afraid of getting in trouble. He had never been afraid of a challenge. The main thing was that Neptune had warned him to keep a low profile from the start.

Seeing his hesitation, Carole basically figured it out. “There are indeed some pesky people here who like to challenge newcomers who have just earned points to gamble said points, but that’s all right, you can just tell me. I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Admit it, this woman isn’t easy. If you don’t, she’ll find out sooner or later. It’ll be awkward when your lies are exposed.” Neptune just checked the woman’s information; she had a very unusual background.

Gu Ding then said, “You can say that I solved those questions.”

“I’m the one who asked the question about Water Split-body that was number one on the list earlier. Thank you for your answer, I was able to learn a lot from it.” Carole smiled faintly. “I was actually a little curious about how you knew the serial number, but then I looked at the other questions you answered and decided that there was no need to ask. It was because you obviously did not come out with this conclusion through your own research. The questions are too broad, and many of the questions are asked after the research has reached a certain level. There’s no way one can be proficient in so many fields. Therefore, I guess you hacked into Skynet’s secret Databank and got answers no one else could get.”

“That’s a reasonable hypothesis.” Gu Ding did not admit or deny the answer.

“You should have more than fifty thousand points by now, right? That’s quite a fortune for members who are not even a demigod.” Carole saw that Gu Ding was unwilling to discuss the subject and did not delve into it.

“It’s not enough though.” Gu Ding shook his head with a wry smile. The energy matrix Robert wanted would be hard to come by anytime soon. Eight million points–that was about as much as a Middle Ranking deity in Monster Paradise could own, and he was not even a demigod.

“You want the energy matrix? It’s only useful for metallic organisms. It holds no value to any other organism. The reason the concentration camp set the price so high was to prevent people from buying it at a lower price and then resell it at a higher price. If you really want it, the only way is to solve a few puzzles left by the Medium Ranking deities.” Here, Carole secretly looked at Gu Ding to see how he would react. “However, the deities have changed completely into another entity. It’s to be expected that their mentality changed greatly and that they will ask questions no one would expect. Moreover, to get to the fourth floor, you either have to wait until your combat effectiveness reaches a Middle Ranking deity, or you have to answer three questions from a Lower Ranking deity correctly. Therefore, eight million points are hard to get, no matter how you look at it.”

“I’d better wait.” Gu Ding knew that Carole was right. He decided to wait and see for a while. Keeping a high profile would only attract unwanted attention. So far, the questions Neptune answered were below demigod level. If he could solve a Medium Ranking deity’s question immediately, Gu Ding would surely receive a deity’s attention, and the attention would not necessarily be well-intentioned.

“Alright, I have to go, and you can take your time wandering around.” Carole checked the time, bid Gu Ding goodbye, and left the trade center.

Gu Ding stayed at the trade center and examined three other materials. According to the name and quantity Robert provided, the total cost was only about twenty thousand points. Gu Ding immediately placed an order, choosing Probrand as the delivery address.

With thirty-six thousand points left, Gu Ding was going to buy something that could improve his strength. “Neptune, what could break my gene lock and get me to Rank-7?”

“You need to have a pretty strong energy shock, and considering how it’ll fit with Sun Sutra, Earth Core Crystal is probably the most suitable one,” Neptune suggested. “The market price of Earth Core Crystals is around one billion Universe Credits per piece. If you redeem it with points here, it will cost one thousand points per piece.”

Neptune finished and entered three words–”Earth Core Crystal” in the inventory tab but did not expect the system to display (This item is temporarily unavailable).

Gu Ding was stunned. “Not available?!”

“It’s not considered a rare item. If it’s out of stock, there are probably too many people in need of it.” The search results were out of Neptune’s expectations, but when Neptune thought about it, it was clear why it was selling like hotcakes. In Monster Concentration Camp, most of them were monster members like Gu Ding. The stronger their combat effectiveness, the more difficult it was to advance each time. Hence, when one needs a breakthrough, they easily thought of using Earth Core Crystals.

Although he did not get Earth Core Crystals in Monster Paradise this time, Gu Ding had helped Robert to order the remaining three materials besides energy matrix, which still made it a worthwhile trip.

Gu Ding, who had left Monster Paradise, continued his new cultivation in his bedroom.

It took Gu Ding and his crew eleven days to reach Probrand.

During the eleven-day journey, Lilliath finally managed to break through to Rank-11 Gene Body. Not only that, but her spirit had also increased to a million points, and her Cell Index had increased from thirteen thousand points to three hundred thousand points. Her Cell Index had risen so fast because after reaching Rank-9, the black crystals she ate were switched to the ones like Elsa. Lilliath finally surpassed Gu Ding’s Cell Index for the first time since leaving Coela that was in Gray Star Sectors.

Gu Ding did not seem to care that he had the lowest Cell Index on the crew. It did not disrupt his cultivation pace. He still ate black crystals every day and cultivated Righteous Force. The Righteous Force cultivation seemed to get more and more difficult as it got to later stages. He just successfully structured a third big circulation in his body before they reached the port.

As soon as the Golden Eagle docked in the port, everyone could not wait to get down from the ship. It had been more than half a month since the spaceship left Fister without docking at any planet’s port, and Gu Ding and his crew were indeed sick of staying on the spaceship.

As he stepped out of the hatch, Gu Ding’s communicator rang. He looked at the number. It was a long list of unreadable codes…