Chapter 120: The Absurd Shop System

As soon as the transport arrived at the station, Li Xin disembarked immediately and vanished into the surging crowd.

"Where is he?"
"He ran so fast!"
"We were tailing him so closely, how could we have lost him?"

At the entrance of a shopping mall, three lean, hardened men cursed under their breath, their expressions dark. They were soldiers from the Holy Angel Legion who had traveled into the city on the same transport as Li Xin. One was a level 24 lieutenant, and the other two were level 22 sub-lieutenants.

One of the sub-lieutenants said with a look of hesitation, "Barton, Sosie, he holds the rank of captain. If we mess with him, what will happen when we return to the unit?"

Hearing this, the other sub-lieutenant, Sosie, also wavered, looking toward Barton. "Barton, Dragic makes a good point. He is our superior officer, we..."

"Hmph!" Barton, the burliest of the three, sneered. "What kind of damn superior? As long as the three of us work together and beat him into submission, do you really think he’ll dare to report us? Besides, this is just a game; I don't believe for a second that the system can actually do anything to us."

"This..." The two hesitated again, bowing their heads in deep thought.

Xiangzhou was the largest city within a radius of hundreds of kilometers, rivaling even Santiago in scale. The streets were bustling with NPCs and citizens. Li Xin wove through the crowd until he found a relatively quiet café and ducked inside.

He chose a secluded spot by the window and ordered a coffee. Only after downing half of it in one go did he finally let out a long sigh and relax. He had sensed that the trio’s gaze was off while on the transport, and his suspicions were confirmed after they disembarked.

Once settled, Li Xin summoned his Mechanical Eye again, his pulse quickening as his breath hitched.

In the right-hand section of the Mechanical Eye's interface, which previously only displayed data related to his personal level as the "King of Games," he now saw something he still found difficult to believe.

Li Xin: Game Master
Level: 11
Special Skills: Universe, Invincibility.

Below this, three new lines of information had appeared:
Combat Power: 5300, Defense: 3360.
Skills: Charge, Piercing Shot, Cross-Kill, Stealth, Dash, Team Formation, Marksman, Roundhouse Kick, Sweeping Army.

It was exactly his full set of skills and actual combat power from the game *Journey*.

"Could it be... that this means the skills I have in *Journey* can also be used in reality?" Li Xin smacked his lips, recalling the time he played *The King of Fighters* at a small town with Er Gouzi. The combat techniques he had learned from Leona at that time had indeed been usable in the real world.

Li Xin had always assumed that was a projection—memories from the game reflecting into reality. But looking at the situation with *Journey*, it wasn't that simple. This "King of Games" chip seemed capable of absorbing everything from the game for his own use. Of course, this was just a hypothesis; he would need to find a suitable opportunity in reality to put it to the test.

Ding!

A notification sound cut through his wandering thoughts.
"The Store System has been activated. Would you like to enter the store to make a purchase?"

Yes!

The center panel of the Mechanical Eye underwent a drastic transformation, becoming something similar to the in-game mall interface from *CrossFire*.

Skills, Special Abilities, Weapons, Items. There were four categories in total.

Li Xin quickly browsed through them, but after checking the price of a random item, his enthusiasm vanished completely. The prices were outrageously expensive. Furthermore, there was an even more absurd rule: for every new item selected, he had to choose one of his existing attributes to sacrifice as collateral.

For instance, if Li Xin wanted to buy a new skill, he had to discard an existing one. If he wanted a new weapon, he had to discard one from his inventory.

How preposterous.

After much deliberation, Li Xin chose a special skill: "Scan." In exchange, he sacrificed his "Marksman" skill. Marksman only increased shooting accuracy by 5%, which felt somewhat useless to him. He also paid a full 5,000 credits.

Once the selection was finalized, the store closed, and there was no telling when it would open again. But for now, Li Xin was immersed in his new special ability: Scan.

[Scan]: Allows the user to view the comprehensive combat data of a target and, if necessary, lock onto them.
Note: When locking onto a target, the target will simultaneously lock onto you. This lock cannot be broken until one party is defeated or killed.

"That's aggressive!" Li Xin grinned. This was essentially a 100% boost to his shooting accuracy. The mediocre Marksman skill and the 5,000 credits seemed like a worthy trade.

After chatting briefly with the waitress to confirm the location of the Adventurers' Guild, Li Xin tipped her 5 gold coins and left.

Before the Adventurer branch was opened, players mostly relied on luck to find quests, chatting up NPCs in hopes of being handed a task. But now that the branch was open, most players shifted their focus to the guild. It offered a massive volume of quests with rich rewards and varying difficulties. Most excitingly, one could truly experience the thrill of slaughter in these quests, unlike the dull, effortless tasks handed out by random NPCs.

There were, of course, hidden NPCs holding uniquely important quests—like the Belo Village quest Wang Xiaoqian and her group had encountered—but that came down to luck.

Unlike the simple, rustic appearance of the Santiago branch, the Xiangzhou Adventurers' Guild was housed in a magnificent, 12-story building. Upon entering, one was greeted by a sea of adventurers and teams waiting at windows reminiscent of a mobile service center to accept or turn in quests.

"I didn't expect this," Li Xin remarked with a faint smile. "Xiangzhou isn't as grand as Santiago, yet it has several times the number of adventurers. I suppose the quests here must be better, attracting more people."

Following the instructions of the lobby attendant, Li Xin took a number and sat down to wait. 0321—a serial number, and a lucky one at that.

"I hope I can land a good quest today," Li Xin mused, opening his adventurer profile. He had accepted four quests, but had only completed one on the way to Black Lion Ridge. The other three were impossible to finish due to their geographic locations. Li Xin planned to abandon them and pick up new ones, though he would have to pay a hefty fine for his failure.

Just as he was leaning back with his eyes closed, organizing his thoughts, a conversation at a nearby seat caught his attention.

"Hey, I just heard some big news," an E-rank adventurer with a handlebar mustache said mysteriously.
"What big news? Tell us!"
"Li Si, stop being so cryptic and just say it."

Seeing the crowd's enthusiasm, the man called Li Si took a deep breath and said smugly, "I have a cousin in Santiago who is already a D-rank adventurer."

"What? D-rank? That strong?" Several people gasped in shock.
"Your cousin is amazing; he must be in the top 20 of all player adventurers."

"That's right," Li Si said proudly, before offering a mysterious smile. "But that's not what I wanted to tell you."

"Then what is it?" the crowd asked in unison. Could there be something even more incredible than that?

"My cousin told me that the quasi-S-rank quest for the Loch Ness Monster wasn't completed by the Feiyang Adventure Group. Just as the Feiyang group was about to be defeated and forced to retreat, a mysterious powerhouse appeared and killed the monster in under 20 seconds," Li Si said solemnly, his eyes filled with envy and admiration for the mysterious figure.

"20... 20 seconds!"
"A... a single person killed it!"
"That’s ruthless!"

The crowd was stunned, their faces pale as they whispered in disbelief.