Chapter 164

Chapter 164: Ascending to the Peak of A-Rank, Bai Fu’s Catastrophe Legion Takes Shape! [6k]

After Bai Fu announced a new testing quest, all players were thrown into a state of agitation.

If they didn’t seize this opportunity, according to Bai Fu, the next chance to leave the Source Star for the Celestial Sea would be months away.

Months?

They couldn’t endure even a single day!

If Bai Fu hadn’t intentionally charmed them, they might have been able to hold out a bit longer, but now there was no way they could resist.

【Urgent, I am King Urgent】

【Ah ah ah, I’m going to charge forward, I really am charging forward, I’m determined to secure first place!】

【Are you aiming for first place or just rushing for it?】

When Bai Fu unloaded five virtual combat platforms from the starship that could test player strength, those ferocious players rushed over like a flood and engulfed her instantly.

“Don’t rush, line up, one at a time. There are still five days.”

Bai Fu deliberately emphasized the words “five days” while speaking.

This word, much like a succubus’ flying kiss, instantly captured the souls of the players.

There were only five days left?

Some players had originally planned to complete a few quests and slightly increase their levels before challenging again, but now they had completely lost that thought. If they waited any longer, Bai Fu would leave, and they would face the scenarios of “chasing their spouse to the crematorium” and “regretting endlessly.”

However, there was now a very serious issue. Without increasing their levels, they had no confidence in securing a stable spot within the top 3000 in the test.

The 3000 slots seemed like a lot, but considering that there were hundreds of thousands of players on the Source Star, this number wasn’t exaggerated. After all, the concurrent online numbers above the Stars broke the record set by WOW.

【Damn it, why are there only 3000 slots? I want to join this grand Star Ocean party too】

【You should be satisfied. 3000 is a lot. This is a starship, not an ↑↓ train; you can’t buy standing tickets】

Actually, the starship Bai Fu brought could carry far more than 3000 people. 3000 was the rated capacity, not the maximum capacity.

Just like a minivan, if you squeezed hard, fitting twenty to thirty people wouldn’t be a problem, and the same went for this starship. If the players switched to subway mode, though the experience would be worse, it could easily fit tens of thousands.

The reason Bai Fu didn’t do this was twofold.

The first reason was practical. Taking too many players to the Star Ocean at once, she simply couldn’t manage them all. She wouldn’t be able to provide various basic services to the players immediately, and after some time, even players who recognized her as the main character would leave due to poor gaming experiences here.

Could she bear that?

She worked hard to bring the players to the Star Ocean because she wanted to keep them close, ready to squeeze them for experience whenever needed. If the players ran off elsewhere, who would she squeeze? Herself or Youlia? That would only drain her stamina, without gaining any experience.

The second reason was to maximize profits. By limiting the number of people to a relatively lower degree, she could better stimulate competition among the players, thereby better squeezing out their experience.

When she said she only needed 3000 people, she also specifically mentioned that she would return in a few months. This move was akin to a succubus flicking its tail upon departure. Players who intended to participate in the Star Ocean joyride but missed out would undoubtedly become more diligent under the charm of the tail, accumulating more experience so she could feast even more when she returned.

If she took tens of thousands of players at once, seeing how easy it was to reach the Star Ocean, the players would surely slack off. How could she squeeze anyone then? She came to eat meat, not drink clear soup.

“Cutting grass is also a kind of art.”

As Bai Fu mused, a player opened the instance store and directly allocated half of the experience points he had saved for upgrading, purchasing several skills that could temporarily increase defense and speed.

This virtual test did not require defeating opponents; it only looked at combat ratings, which were related to output and duration.

After successfully purchasing the new skills, the player re-entered the challenge.

“907 points, damn, it’s 300 points higher than before, I’ve surged to 81st place, this is secure!”

He was ecstatic, but soon realized the situation was far from stable.

Seeing the huge difference between his two scores, other players quickly investigated and discovered that he refreshed the record by buying new skills from the instance store. The other players immediately followed suit.

Not only you are willing to spend experience to buy skills!

【Buy Buy Buy!】

【Get me one too!】

In no time, all confident players on the Source Star joined this super party with nearly ten thousand participants.

At first, players just needed to score around 1000 points to top the test, but as more competitive players joined, the number quickly increased.

1100!

1200!

“1337, holy crap, beast!”

By the evening of the third day, the rating of the first place reached 1408. From this point on, every additional point required tremendous effort, yet the players continued to grind enthusiastically, unaware that they were playing ranked matches.

At this moment, some veteran players emerged. They clearly had the ability to enter the top 3000 but intentionally delayed their challenges, planning to sneak in right before the event ended.

Bai Fu just wanted to say well done!

With these players drawing fire, no one would criticize her as a swindler.

Where’s the scam? It’s always been like this, isn’t it? The players spent their experience, and she provided rare knowledge obtained from the Star Ocean. The only thing she probably did wrong was deliberately creating concepts that made the players spend money unnecessarily.

But it wasn’t a big deal anyway. After all, the players gained happiness, look how happy they are now!

Looking at the gleaming eyes of the players, Bai Fu excitedly raised her legs.

“Compete fiercely, compete fiercely!”

“Damn, didn’t you eat breakfast? Give me more experience!”

Her face was flushed red, as if she had drunk fake alcohol.

“Hey, your eyes are glowing red,” Youlia reminded Bai Fu to mind her image.

Bai Fu waved her hand dismissively. No need to worry, after all, they were inside the house where players couldn’t see.

“I’m just happy. It’s rare to come back to my second hometown, the Source Star. I’m just too happy.”

Her legs crossed smugly, her big toe teasingly hooked the red strap of her slippers.

Youlia: “…”

Do you think I believe what you’re saying?

Sigh, the unfortunate undead were being toyed with by Bai Fu.

Sometimes Youlia truly suspected that Bai Fu was a succubus, and a high-level one at that, capable of absorbing others’ life force from afar to strengthen herself.

Otherwise, why did she feel so exhausted after each experiment with Bai Fu? It couldn’t possibly be because she was too engrossed in the experiments and forgot the time, right?

Wait, that doesn’t seem like a valid excuse. Perhaps she should use the undead as examples.

It seemed necessary to add some projects that could study Bai Fu the next time she cooperated with Youlia in research. As a doctor, she had endless interest in conducting experiments with Bai Fu.

Putting aside her strange thoughts, Youlia began recounting the results she extracted from the researchers of Singularity Company.

What was called reporting results was actually submitting a shopping list.

With the prototype, making dissociative medication wasn’t difficult, but some equipment needed to be purchased.

“I’ve checked, it will cost roughly 130,000 credit points. If we purchase purification equipment additionally, it will cost another 60,000.”

The cost wasn’t low, but Bai Fu decided to spend it.

Dissociative medication was an item that could enhance base stats. Its appeal to players was self-evident. As long as she didn’t set the price too exorbitant, all players would come to buy it. With sufficient production capacity, she should quickly earn enough money to feed Youlia.

Oh, almost forgot one issue: prototypes also have limits.

“After this prototype is exhausted, my strength should have improved. Then I’ll find other prototypes!”

The prototype for dissociative medication was tied to Wei Ke’s main quest. As long as the players continued this main quest, she would eventually find new prototypes.

After discussing the new method of harvesting players entering the Star Ocean with Youlia, Bai Fu met Xia Shi once again.

“I’m leaving tomorrow night. How about your consideration?”

Xia Shi nodded: “I’ve decided, I’ll go with you.”

Bai Fu sighed in relief.

With Xia Shi, her player-harvesting squad was beginning to take shape. Prayer cards, medication, and mechanical equipment – these three strategies together could basically meet the daily needs of players. Although Xia Shi and Youlia’s levels weren’t high now, neither were the players’. Making items too good would make them unaffordable for the players.

On the last day, Bai Fu met Su Li and other high-ranking members of various factions again. This meeting mainly aimed to reinforce her presence and discuss the location of the ground-based spaceport, balancing the interests of all parties.

After witnessing her tremendous improvement in just two months, all factions had no objections to her proposed distribution. Instead, they solemnly promised to complete the purification of spiritual energy contamination as much as possible before her next return, laying the foundation for the next phase of the reconstruction plan.

At sunset, the selection test quest officially concluded. Some players were ecstatic like Fan Jin passing the imperial examination, some fainted in anger, and others watched the live broadcast enviously and regretfully.

【This is Bai Fu we’re talking about. How could I have thought she would no longer be the main character after leaving the Source Star? If I had reincarnated earlier on the Source Star, I might have caught this train】

This sentiment caused many players who had wasted their characters, chosen the wrong profession, or selected the wrong starter planet, or simply weren’t enjoying the game, to grit their teeth and decide to create a new character and transfer to the Source Star.

However, most players didn’t act rashly. Re-creating a character was too costly. They decided to endure, since the 1.3 version was already halfway through, and after two more versions, they would see the light at the end of the tunnel towards the Star Ocean.

The happiest person after the test quest ended was none other than Bai Fu. This time, she drained nearly a hundred thousand players who had struggled for two months in the 1.3 version, yielding extremely extravagant results—

A total of 4…





70 million experience points!

On average, each player gave her more than 4,000 experience points. One must know that in the last version, it took her a whole month of hard work to squeeze out 100 million experience points from players, and that was only possible because she was a big star in the Star Ocean. The efficiency of squeezing out experience points this time is simply amazing.

Bai Fu had no hesitation whatsoever.

“I’ve found you! Delicious experience points!”

She immediately spent over 200 million experience points, leveling up the Anomaly Constructor skill to its maximum level, Lv25. The moment her skill reached max level, she received a Game Prompt:

“You have unlocked the Advanced Profession Quest. Please complete one of the following three branches.”

“Branch 1: Summoning Heart – Collect an S-tier advanced knowledge of summoning-type Spiritual Energy and learn five additional summoning-type Prayer Card blueprints, all of which must be at least purple quality.”

“Branch 2: Anomaly Construction – Collect an S-tier advanced knowledge of anomaly construction-type Spiritual Energy and further upgrade Anomaly Construction to Lv3.”

“Branch 3: Mental Scroll – Collect an S-tier advanced knowledge of prayer-type Spiritual Energy and increase Inspiration to 700.”

This advancement quest was rather special. It didn’t require collecting any advanced knowledge to trigger the quest, but the quest itself included the collection of such knowledge.

The reason for this peculiarity was due to the specialization of professions when advancing from A-tier to S-tier. In previous promotions, completing different branches would result in the same final profession. However, this time around, different completed branches would lead to entirely different professions.

The bonuses brought by this unique promotion method were naturally special and substantial, but what truly stood out was the leap from S-tier to Tiān-Zāi Jié.

Promotion?

Using the term “Awakening” would better describe that leap.

Outstanding S-tier superhumans usually could destroy a city, whereas Tiān-Zāi Jié superhumans could shake entire continents, with some even capable of using special methods to blow up a planet. They were known as humanoid star-destroyers, and such powerful individuals were highly respected even in the core regions of the three major universe-level civilizations.

Bai Fu carefully reviewed the three branches of the promotion quest, noticing that they emphasized summoning, construction, and prayer cards respectively from top to bottom.

She didn’t have any particular preference, nor did she need one.

Having secured these players who could regularly supply her with massive amounts of experience, her experience gap was much smaller compared to normal players and NPCs. She could easily learn more skills and blueprints to enrich her combat style, making herself more versatile and harder to counter.

“Whichever branch can be completed sooner will be the one I choose. Anyway, after promotion, the skills of other branches are not completely unlearnable; they just come with higher costs compared to direct unlocking.”

Bai Fu closed the promotion quest and excitedly opened her Stats panel.

This Level Up boosted her by 13 levels, bringing the total level of her main profession to 75, significantly enhancing her attributes.

[Health Points]: 13846/13846

[Spirit Energy]: 16505/16505

[Qi]: 940/940

[Stats]: Strength 97, Agility 164, Constitution 314, Intelligence 206, Spirit 168, Inspiration 659

Her Inspiration attribute increased by 1/4 compared to before the upgrade. With the added bonuses, her overall power improved considerably.

Bai Fu confirmed that the gap between ordinary A-tier superhumans and those at their peak was indeed significant!

Actually, the gap between regular S-tier superhumans and someone like Scarlet Leaf, who was S+, was even larger. For NPCs, advancing from S-tier to Tiān-Zāi Jié seemed like just a rank difference, but from the player’s perspective, there was a huge disparity. They needed to undergo a promotion from level 100 to 101 and an Awakening from level 110 to 111, with a whopping 35 levels in between.

However, Bai Fu wasn’t very worried about this gap.

Now that she could already bring large numbers of players from Source Star into the Star Ocean, once she firmly established herself there, she could pilot a Starship to various beginner planets to continuously extract experience points from players.

After this round of tours, she couldn’t even imagine how much experience she could squeeze out from the players—it would surely be a truly massive amount, enough to make one tremble with excitement.

With the support of those experience points, her only concern was how to efficiently complete the promotion quest.

Bai Fu glanced at her remaining experience, still having 240 million left. Her wealth made her feel quite extravagant, so she started upgrading the Prayer Cards she possessed.

Max them out, all of them!

After clicking until her hand tired, she still had 210 million experience points left. There was nothing else to do but gamble on drawing some cards.

Next, she was going to support Scarlet Leaf and help resist the Flood Disaster. The Flood Disaster referred to the cosmic insect infestation rampaging across the Edge Worlds. To deal with these creatures, which combined quantity and evolution, she needed more Prayer Cards similar to [Void Sphere], which, although low output, provided continuous damage over a wide area.

After failing more than fifty times, she finally managed to synthesize a suitable card.

[Heavenly Magic Gravel], this card summons a Spiritual Energy vortex that continuously shoots magic gravel formed by condensed Spiritual Energy toward its surroundings during its duration, causing burning damage to struck targets.

In addition to [Heavenly Magic Gravel], Bai Fu also obtained a summoning card called [Big Big Black Fu].

Big Big Black Fu was a super-enlarged version of Small Black Fu. While Small Black Fu was only thirty to forty centimeters tall, Big Big Black Fu was four meters high, larger than many Power Armors.

Small Black Fu had low health and lost blood automatically over time, but Big Big Black Fu was different. Its skin was extremely thick, and once summoned, it wouldn’t disappear unless actively dismissed or killed. Although it lacked special abilities and couldn’t release Spiritual Explosions like the upgraded Small Black Fu, it was incredibly strong, perfect for leading charges as a shock tank alongside a group of Small Black Fus.

“Great in every way, except the production cost is a bit high.”

Bai Fu increasingly pitied her bank account.

Let’s go.

With everything prepared, she no longer needed to stay on Source Star. After all, she would return after some time.

After bidding farewell to some acquaintances and repeatedly emphasizing that she would return soon to motivate players to accumulate experience, Bai Fu set off with 3,000 selected players aboard the Starship. The enthusiastic cheers faded as the ship’s doors closed, leaving every player inside excited and restless.

After going to the Star Ocean, Fu Fu became even more powerful, but no one knew where Fu Fu’s limits lay. Now, they could finally follow closely by Fu Fu’s side to explore her true potential.

“The chosen one is me!”

“I’ve always believed in Fu Fu. Even though many people said Fu Fu has become irrelevant, I chose to believe, and this is my reward.”

“Take off, we’re flying!”

While touring the Starship and boasting on community platforms, the players onboard irritated players from other planets.

“Just wait, now we’ll encourage our local protagonists to hurry up and bring us into the Star Ocean!”

Bai Fu’s wings flapped lightly on Source Star, and the wind crossed the vast Star Ocean, reaching other beginner planets.

Suddenly, multiple protagonists, including Melulu, were confused.

“Learn from Bai Fu, quickly defeat the villain, then take you all into the Star Ocean?”

No, who is Bai Fu? Can villains be defeated so easily? And entering the Star Ocean, does that mean there are civilizations elsewhere in the universe? But the problem is, we don’t have the technology for long-distance travel in the Star Ocean.

“I don’t care, I want to go to the Star Ocean, I want Fu Fu.”

Bai Fu smiled faintly, hehe, isn’t this how popularity continues to grow?

From departure to leaving Source Star, she spent seven and a half days. If there hadn’t been any delays along the way, she could have met Scarlet Leaf before she joined up with the other supervisors and the Star Network Community.

But she wasn’t in a rush to meet Scarlet Leaf. She wanted to use this opportunity to leave a deeper impression on Scarlet Leaf, making her fully realize her value so that she could better follow behind Scarlet Leaf and enjoy the spoils.

“Deliberately delay, and when the mission starts and Scarlet Leaf’s team is short-handed and struggling, show up dramatically as Super Fu Fu. I guarantee it will boost Affinity!”

Perfect.

…

Three days later, at the Star Network Community.

Not long ago, Scarlet Leaf had already met with the other supervisors sent by the Star Treaty. As expected, she was harshly ridiculed by the others because she had only brought a few subordinates to the meeting.

She wanted to retort, but she couldn’t find anything to say in defense, so she maintained a brash attitude as if talking through a communicator.

“Bringing too many people is useless. Elites, understand? Elites are enough to solve problems!”

The other supervisors smiled silently.

Elites, huh? You should first have enough people to bring, right?

They actually liked working with Scarlet Leaf on missions because, with her around, they were likely not to finish last in the task.

The Sworn One managed the Star Treaty relatively loosely, but the internal competition among departments within the Star Treaty was intense. Everyone wanted to gain the favor of the Sworn One. Recently, the director of the Initial Gateway Star Cluster Operations Department might be transferred, and the vacant position was most likely to fall to one of these supervisors. Therefore, the competition among the supervisors was fierce. Even if they couldn’t secure the top spot, they certainly didn’t want to be dead last.

“The front-line commander of the Star Network Community just sent a message. He’s already waiting for us on Heaven Lake Star. Let’s depart now,” Herbert suddenly said.

The other supervisors had no objections.

Scarlet Leaf opened her mouth but said nothing. Instead, Green Mud beside her looked extremely serious.

“Bai Fu hasn’t returned yet. Did something unexpected happen on the way, or did she run away with the spaceship?”

Scarlet Leaf shook her head. “I believe she won’t run away.”

Green Mud turned to look at the motionless He Fu nearby.

Because of hostages?

“No, because of her past experiences, and her eyes—they’re very pure.”

Purer than a snow leopard’s!

Scarlet Leaf believed that anyone with such eyes must be a simple, kind, trustworthy person who keeps promises.

“Let’s go.”

She signaled Green Mud, her other subordinates, He Fu, and dozens of players to board the spaceship heading to Heaven Lake Star.

PS: Placing a bowl to beg for votes~

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