Chapter 60: The Outrageous System

Upon seeing the message sent by Roger, Lin Xinghai was momentarily stunned before replying immediately: "I'm in!"

However, after sending this message, another question quickly popped into his mind: "Old Luo, after this mecha is bought back, who will be the pilot?"

Roger replied promptly: "I'll pilot it temporarily, and whoever reaches a 90% genetic optimization level first will obtain the ultimate piloting rights to this mecha."

"Really?" Lin Xinghai asked pleasantly surprised.

Back at the main base, Roger, who had initially been full of anticipation and longing, instantly froze.

Now he realized a very serious problem: given the monstrous rate of improvement Lin Xinghai had demonstrated, it was simply impossible for him to break the third genetic lock faster than the other guy.

Not only that, his biggest rival previously had been Wuyan, but for the two of them to decide a victor would take at least two months, if not longer.

Thus, even if he lost, he would still get to play with the mecha for two months first.

But if his opponent was Lin Xinghai, how long he would get to play with the mecha was hard to say.

In the end, he reluctantly typed two words into the message box: "Really!"

"I say, Old Luo, why are you wearing that wistful and sighing look, acting all deep? If I were you, I would have already set off firecrackers at the entrance to celebrate." Xu Haishui, who happened to pass by, couldn't help but complain when he saw Roger's expression.

With no other choice—since his genetic rating was only D-grade—it was simply impossible for him to compete with others in terms of advancement speed.

"Instead of having time to observe me, you'd better spend more time improving yourself. We're starting large-scale recruitment tomorrow, and if the genetic optimization levels of the newcomers all surpass yours one by one, I'll see if you still have the face to be this squad leader," Roger immediately snapped back.

"I tell you, why do you guys never learn anything good? You all act like Wuyan, constantly snapping at people. Is there any point?" Xu Haishui cursed angrily as he walked away.

Wuyan: ???

...

On the other side, seeing the message pop up on his wrist-mounted computer, Lin Xinghai couldn't help clenching his fist.

He knew Roger's genetic optimization level was 65%, and Wuyan's should be around the same. These people posed absolutely no competition to him!

With his system, making a breakthrough was a matter of minutes.

Of course... provided he had blood-qi energy.

The moment he thought of blood-qi energy, he felt a bit dejected.

He opened the system interface.

Host: Lin Xinghai
Physique: 25 points
Strength: 21 points
Speed: 30 points
Blood-qi Energy: 16 points
Genetic Optimization Level: 30%+
Ability: Hyper-speed (Within ten seconds, speed increases by 100%) (Energy Value: 10/10)
Primary Shooting Skill: Proficiency 100%+

"These 16 points of blood-qi energy are far from enough!"

According to the consumption pattern of blood-qi energy, once the genetic optimization level exceeds 30%, every 1% increase requires 3 points of blood-qi energy. Therefore, raising the genetic optimization level to 40% would require 30 points of blood-qi energy.

By the same logic, raising it to 50% would require 40 points of blood-qi energy, and raising it to 60% would require 50 points.

In other words, he would need at least another 120 points of blood-qi energy.

However, his ability definitely needed to be leveled up further, which meant he needed to reserve an extra 100 points of blood-qi energy.

In short, he needed at least 220 points of blood-qi energy to make his breakthroughs.

"After the mercenary corps is upgraded to Tier 2, it seems we'll need to recruit new members and handle other matters. For a short time, we probably won't be going out on missions, so how am I supposed to get blood-qi energy?"

"Stack it up using genetic nutrient solutions? That's not entirely unfeasible, but the credits consumed for that would definitely be quite a lot."

"It's annoying to think that I now have to pay money to buy blood-qi energy that I could have picked up for free! Whatever, I'll just ask Roger tomorrow if I can go out and hunt zombies alone." Lin Xinghai muttered to himself, failing to come up with any good ideas.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He scrolled down the system interface to the very bottom, where there was a task column, and opened it.

Having spent the day following the mercenary corps outside with his nerves strung tight, he had almost forgotten that he seemed to have accepted some kind of main quest earlier.

Of course, the main reason for forgetting was that this main quest offered no reward even upon completion.

Lin Xinghai had never paid attention to such unrewarding matters.

Main Quest: Kill 100 zombies. (Completed)
Description: Taking shortcuts is only temporary. To acquire blood-qi energy, you still need to rely on your own strength.
Reward: None.

Looking at the completed quest status, Lin Xinghai breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the zombies he hunted today definitely exceeded 100, all of them had been killed using the Ripper assault rifle.

He was afraid the system might suddenly glitch and set a rule like "kills made using external objects will not be recorded in statistics," which would have been disastrous.

Of course, coming up with a main quest that offered zero reward was already disastrous enough in itself.

Filled with resentment, Lin Xinghai clicked on quest completion.

Soon, a new quest refreshed.

Main Quest: Break the 1st genetic lock. (Completed)
Description: Breaking the 1st genetic lock to become a genetic optimizer is a small step from weakness to strength, but it is a giant leap for yourself.
Reward: 1 point of blood-qi energy.

Lin Xinghai looked at it again and again, checked it multiple times, and still found that he hadn't read it wrong.

This system reward was simply...

He was now 100% sure and confirmed that this was a system that only took and never gave.

Just looking at the various functions of the system and the blood-qi energy required for them made it obvious—the costs were getting higher and more terrifying.

Especially the energy value for his ability; restoring just 1 point actually required consuming 100 points of blood-qi energy.

This couldn't even be described as outrageous; it was completely unhinged.

And what were the system's rewards? Either nothing, or 1 point of blood-qi energy, which to Lin Xinghai was practically equal to nothing.

As for the reward of the Appraisal Skill when he first completed a main quest, it seemed pretty good, but the problem was that the Appraisal Skill only waived the blood-qi energy cost for the first 10 uses.

This was equivalent to feeding you a little sweetness at the beginning so you would get used to it and find it convenient, and then later on, whenever you wanted to appraise an enemy...

Lin Xinghai could guess with his toes that the system would undoubtedly demand an astronomical amount of blood-qi energy at that time.

Of course, curses aside, the system itself was still quite useful. He could only click to complete the quest and claim the reward.

His blood-qi energy thus reached 17 points.

"Even a mosquito's leg is meat," Lin Xinghai comforted himself in his heart, and then looked at the newly refreshed main quest.

Main Quest: Break the 2nd genetic lock.
Description: Breaking the 2nd genetic lock to become a genetic optimizer is a small step from weakness to strength, but it is a giant leap for yourself.
Reward: 2 points of blood-qi energy.

Lin Xinghai: "..."

"Did you just copy and paste this system quest!" Lin Xinghai complained in his mind, and then hid the entire quest column, opting for out of sight, out of mind.