Chapter 45 - Mastermo Overthinks It

Aunt Su had a satisfied smirk on her face as she looked at the surprised expression of the white Lion that was struck with an axe and its mouth was almost split in two.

The lion retreated back a few steps and whimpered in pain, looking somewhat cute like a cat with a thorn embedded in its paws. If it had been Li Ling or Andy, they would have felt pity for the beast and would have left it alone without attacking it any further but Aunt Su was different. She saw the beast crying out in pain and her smirk only grew wider into a grin as she raised up her axe and got ready to slice its neck. 

After having struggled with fighting against the beast for a good twenty minutes, Aunt Su's brain had finally started working and she found out that she had been tricked by Zhihao and Li Ling. 

The two had initially warned the other players not to kill any treasure beasts because these beasts were their missions and they were supposed to catch them. Aunt Su listened to them and believed them without crosschecking the situation. 

The system had told them to catch the treasure beast but it had never told them if the treasure beast should be alive or not. Zhihao was in too much stress at this moment so he had not seen it this way and even if he did, he would not act on it since killing the beast was something that can't be undone, and if he had killed the treasure beast on a whim, saying the system hadn't specified the state of the beast—what if he was wrong and he failed the mission? He would just not take that risk.

Aunt Su on the other hand was a woman whose brain would never worry about the consequences of her actions hence when she finally found a loophole, she acted on it and decided to kill the treasure beast in front of her..

She was excited to see the beast's head fall down from its body but when the axe struck down with all its might, it passed through the lion's neck without leaving a scratch.

Aunt Su was shocked to see this as she had never guessed this outcome. The white lion was now in its physical body so why would the axe pass through it?

She wanted to curse the system, thinking that it was a glitch or something but before she could scream out her frustration, the reason was presented in front of her in the form of a system notification that popped up on the screen.

The time Aunt Su attacked the beast and the time Kaoru and Andy had captured the beast coincided with each other and the team of three's mission was completed. The system immediately reacted and got ready to throw them out of the level.

For ten seconds after the mission was completed, the player's screen would be filled with notifications of their achievements and in that ten seconds the players would not be transported out of the level but they would be in a state where the things inside the level can't catch them and they can't touch the things inside the level. This ten-second was like living as a ghost in the level, they would only be able to look at things and not interfere in them further.

Andy and Kaoru were thrown out of the level with pop-up notifications that made them (T-point) rich and happy. Aunt Su also received the same notifications but her face was not happy as she was annoyed that when she had finally got the big cat cornered and ready to take her revenge, she was suddenly thrown out. She felt like it was unfair to her and she still wanted to teach that white lion a lesson.

God knew how she had managed to survive that twenty minutes alone with that damned lion which only looked beautiful.

Back inside the level, Zhihao and Li Ling were the last players left and it was exactly what Zhihao had asked for.

Li Ling stood by Zhihao's side as he asked, "What's the plan?"

Zhihao glanced back at Li Ling and chuckled, "Sorry, I lied."

"Huh?" Li Ling didn't understand it.

"I just wanted you to go help them." Zhihao responded, "They were distracting me and that woman was really annoying."

Li Ling was dumbfounded and didn't know how to react. He had originally thought that Mastermo had come up with a badass plan that was so big in scale that it would hurt the other players, this was the reason why he had risked his life as bait and helped those players pass this level but to think that this man had actually tricked him?

Li Ling was oddly amused and proud of him.

Li Ling didn't know how to tell Zhihao that the man had indirectly, once again, saved Aunt Su's ass and helped her level up while he was still here struggling. Maybe it was a family thing—hating your relatives but also helping them—it had to be something like that, this was Li Ling's conclusion on the situation.

"Do you have any ideas worth suggesting?" Zhihao asked in all seriousness.

"I don't know."

"hmm"

It wasn't that Li Ling didn't have an idea, he did have a solid plan but this was being live-streamed and he didn't want to take away Zhihao's spotlight by raising suspicion on himself. He'd rather stay low and follow Zhihao, supporting him from the shadows. If there really was a plan that he wanted to be done, he'd put it in Zhihao's mind and make the man think that he was the one who came up with it.

Li Ling was like a puppet master but he would never want Zhihao to be his puppet so he would not be the one pulling the strings from behind. He would sometimes wonder what it would be like having Zhihao follow his every command but whenever he thought about it, he would slap himself on the face and put a full stop to his improper thoughts.

Zhihao and RoRo were in a glaring competition as the beast encircled around the two players and Zhihao continued attacking the beast with his sword.

"I want to try something but..."

"But?"

"The idea is so simple that if it actually works I'll want to slap myself." Zhihao answered as he put his sword away and opened his inventory.

Li Ling's lips turned upwards as he realized what Zhihao wanted to do.

Sometimes, the answers to certain things weren't as difficult as one makes it to be. Maybe the answer was so simple that you would overlook it and this had been the current case. Li Ling thought he would need to work with Zhihao and put in hints here and there for the man to figure it out but he was pleasantly surprised to see that the man had figure out the answer on his own.

Zhihao flipped through his inventory and took out a familiar book called the moon goddess spellbook.

He stopped a moment to pray before activating the book and once the book was activated it did its usual job of sucking in players but this time, it wasn't Zhihao or Li Ling who were sucked inside it. The moon goddess spellbook had actually managed to suck in RoRo.

It worked!

It freaking worked!

Zhihao wanted to bang his head on the tree. He was always an over-thinker, always overlooking the most simplest answer. Even in the past when he was still a school student and used to sit for exams. He would often overthink the question and give an answer that was so smart that the teacher would draw a line over it and cut it out giving him a shining zero as a score, this was also the reason why he was ranked the fourth highest in class.

The system gave out multiple dinging sounds and a number of notifications popped up on the screen.

They had successfully completed the mission and were ready to be thrown out of the level.

"Maybe we should've tried this a long time ago." Li Ling commented

"I should have..."

[Congratulations to Mastermo and Devilmagiclover on successfully clearing the I-ranked level 5360: Treasure hunt]

[All level missions cleared]

[T-points gained: +1400]

[Player health status refilled]

[Skills gained: +Treasure hunter]

[Surprise rewards gained: +Sun stone]

[Rewards gained: +Crying eagle +Fox spirit]

[Surprise Gift: +200 T-points]

[Logging out of I-ranked level 5360: Treasure Hunt]

[Preparing for transmigration in..]

[3]

Zhihao, "What's the use of a brain if it goes into overdrive?"

[2]

"..." Li Ling didn't have the answer to the question.

[1]

Zhihao's screen turned pitch black with a ding and in the next second, he was back to the game's home page. He looked at his total T-points which glistened a rich four-digit number of 2693 and felt somewhat better. He was rich and this was the hard-earned T-points he had sacrificed his sleep for. He didn't regret it in the least. When Zhihao remembered back to the hard work he had done to receive this much, he also remembered a rather delightful thing. Hadn't they made a deal with Zhou XinYi?

With this much T-points from a single level added to the already existing T-points owned by Zhou XinYi and Wang GuiYing, the amount was in no manner going to be small. Just from this level alone, the two had probably gained 3200 T-points collectively and this was just from this level. If both of them already had at least 1000 T-points with them, their new total would be 5200 and when divided by two would give a total of 2600 for Zhihao and 2600 for Li Ling. When Zhihao mentally calculated the new total of T-points he'd be gaining, his mood was a lot better and he had forgotten all about banging his head on the wall for overthinking.

Li Ling was also thrown out of the level in the same way and just as he came out, the first thing the man did was go into the T-points trading server and tag Hulk0_0 and BBtrash. The T-points trading server was visible to all and hence every player that was on this page currently saw the message. This feature was both a good thing and a bad. On one hand, it made T-points trading transparent hence, the amount of T-points a person earned could be made clear. The accounts were clear and hence cheating was further put out in the open therefore it was discouraged. 

On this T-points trading server, there was also a side page where the names of players were displayed and the amount of T-points they have was all recorded. If a player was to suddenly get a lot of T-points, it was either because the player cleared a high-ranked mission or because the player had received T-points from another player and the records of this were maintained in this server. Plainly putting it—T.I.A.D. hid nothing from the players and presented all the data, excluding personal data, of the players to the other players. Making the system so transparent that if a player were to hack into the game and cheat, it would be too clear and would be seen by everyone.

This T-points trading server also had one more feature that most players were unaware of. If a player were to suddenly gain a lot of T-points without winning a high ranked level or T-points trading, the player will go through a 'rebirth' and be banned from the system for three weeks under the reason of cheating.

Some players hated the strict anti-cheating rules but the majority of the players loved it because it gave them all an equal chance at winning. Nobody would need to worry about being wronged and having some hacker come up with cheat codes and getting ahead of the other players who won through hard-work. The fact that T-points cannot be bought with real money was also a factor that was loved by the players who had always considered it unfair for some rich players to win without working hard and just throwing their money around.