Chapter 424
During this time, Tu Lan died twice. After all, she had accidentally bumped into a demon lord-level overlord, and a single skill from such a powerful being was enough to take her out in an instant—Tu Lan had no chance to escape.
On the other hand, Yu Xun Ge managed to hold on thanks to her skill, "Sleepytime Fairytale."
After a full hour of blind fighting, the rewards were plentiful: five S-level skills, three SS-level skills, and one SSS-level skill.
Tu Lan received the same set, which was one of the reasons Yu Xun Ge had brought her along. Any kill would yield rewards for both her and her pet—why not take advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free deal? Oh, considering B8017913, it was more like a buy-one-get-two.
Moreover, two of the players she defeated were actually killed by Tu Lan.
With attack, healing, and defense, Yu Xun Ge compared them to her own skills, especially the SSS-level skill. She realized that even among skills of the same rating, there were distinctions in quality.
Her reference points were her own skills, "Phoenix Throne" and "Stubborn as a Mule," both of which she had comprehended herself without any modifications.
The skills she had developed were indeed stronger than the SSS-level skills she had acquired from other players.
In fact, the "Bravery" skill she had received from Yinghua Wulong was not as good as the similar explosive skill, "Phoenix Throne."
However, while the latter had a strong skill boost and a long duration, its cooldown was several times longer than that of the former, making it a trade-off of strengths and weaknesses.
Even with their respective advantages, if you put these two skills side by side, all players would choose "Phoenix Throne" over "Bravery."
Because cooldowns could be reduced through various means, but a five-minute burst was incredibly precious.
As she acquired more and more SSS-level skills, her comparisons increased.
This time, she received a skill similar to "Stubborn as a Mule"—"Old Rules."
"Stubborn as a Mule" solidifies all current states and ignores injuries and self-consumption, lasting for five minutes. In contrast, "Old Rules" can only solidify current states for three minutes, with the same cooldown as the former, three Star Sea Days.
After explaining this to B8017913, she also mentioned the self-created skill "Quadruple Spring" she had received from Tingzhou Jing'e.
This was also an extremely powerful healing skill, but she wasn't sure if she had received the modified or unmodified version.
B8017913: "The gods only grant players talents and talent skills. Beyond that, all the skills you encounter, regardless of how you obtained them, were originally created by various beings."
B8017913: "The so-called ratings actually assess the brilliance and beauty of the soul fire when players create skills. The more dazzling and beautiful the soul fire, the higher the skill rating. Within the same rating, the strength of the skill can fluctuate based on the 'temperature' of the soul fire."
Yu Xun Ge looked at the ninth place elimination slot that appeared at nine o'clock and recalled what the White Bear had said: the soul fire determines the lower limit of beings.
B8017913: "From the gods' perspective, without the existence of soul fire, there is no need for divine talents, because in their eyes, we are meaningless. We cannot create, and we cannot see the future."
This topic felt a bit heavy, and Yu Xun Ge didn't know how to comfort this suddenly melancholic mechanical being.
Fortunately, B8017913 didn't seem inclined to elaborate. Most of its emotions felt simulated, and in that moment of sadness, Yu Xun Ge couldn't tell if it stemmed from programming or desire.
The elimination of the last place in the second round was the same as before: for employees of the same type with fewer than 8,000, a 10% kill rate, and from the remaining players, 810 would still be drawn for surprise eggs.
This meant that the fewer employees there were, the greater the chance of being hit by the first type of surprise egg.
As the leaderboard disappeared, it was now nine o'clock.
Yu Xun Ge knew that the most challenging time was upon her.
She had become a black household around 7:50, and she had to secure a position and successfully find a restaurant to start working before 9:50.
She had been holding off on using "Quadruple Spring" just to wait for this time.
To be safe, she didn't plan to push her limits like those demon lord-level overlords; her goal was to find the job icon and start working around 9:30.
Yu Xun Ge said to Tu Lan, "Let's fight for another half hour, then we'll go get our jobs."
Tu Lan replied, "Okay."
After a new round of employee optimization, the red light pillars on the street had increased.
The food street was filled with red light pillars, and now and then, you could see black households passing through the pillars or getting knocked back while passing several light pillars.
This time period was the hardest to navigate, but it was also the time Yu Xun Ge had been waiting for.
After activating the 40-minute duration of "Quadruple Spring," it was time to use "I Want to Improve So Badly!"
With just two critical hits, she could use "I Want to Improve So Badly," and there were more black households in the air than employees and diners in the food street. Yu Xun Ge skillfully maneuvered between the red light pillars, hitting with precision.
With a critical hit rate of 50%, she could steal once after an average of three to four hits.
Yu Xun Ge was both attacking and stealing, her smile radiant and pure, her big bone club dancing in the air!
"Eighty!"
"Eighty!"
"Eighty!"
...
"It feels like everyone is going crazy."
"Flower-Scamming is a heinous crime!"
"Flower-Scamming is a heinous crime!"
"Does Ti Hu know that his front tooth was knocked out by the big bone club of Zai Jiu Xun Ge?"
"Did you record it?"
"I did, I did! I'll sell it for a high price when Ti Hu comes back!"
"So what does eighty even mean?"
"Hey, do you think these players will figure out that our surprise blind box draws are rigged?"
"We never said we wouldn't rig it."
"Right? We never said that, did we? Random draws aren't affected by luck or luck-related skills, but we never said they weren't influenced by us."
"Besides, why do those lazy players who don't play the game need so many good skills?"
"Will the gods get upset if they find out..."
"They won't."
"How do you know?"
"The captain just came to ask for half of the surprise blind box quota."
**Chapter 055: Divine Game: Nonsense Restaurant 85**
Relying on the critical healing skill of "Quadruple Spring," Yu Xun Ge sustained "I Want to Improve So Badly."
Even though the black households were invisible, passing through the red light pillars would reveal them. Yu Xun Ge hit with precision, stealing and then hammering, like playing whack-a-mole.
Her big bone club was polished to a shine, the meat and grease wiped clean with each strike.
She just didn't know who it had all rubbed off on.
She had originally brought the restaurant's knives with her, but in practice, this big bone club proved to be much more effective; the impact was incredibly relieving.
In less than 20 minutes, she had gathered a variety of strange ingredients and restaurant knives, all brought out by players. Additionally, she had successfully stolen four skill icons!
Three were SS-level skills, and one was an SSS-level skill!
Among the three SS-level skills, one called "Frost Nova" caught her attention. It was a skill that, when used, would create a large area of ice explosions centered around herself, dealing ice damage and pushing nearby players away.
It was a combination of attack and knockback.
She had been knocked back by a similar skill during her blind fighting.
The SSS-level skill was a shield skill, "Cloud of Fire," which could ignite a patch of cloud and surround her as a shield. It could only be used in cloudy weather, but each cloud could absorb a hit that would otherwise deplete her health, and the cooldown was only 30 minutes.
Yu Xun Ge glanced at the sky over the food street. Although most of the clouds had been dispersed by various powerful skills, there were still one or two remnants. She immediately used this skill to add a layer of cloud shield to herself.
Unlike the skills obtained from kills that did not transform into skill icons, the stolen skill icons could merge into the skill group on her arm.
Now, she had a total of 13 skill icons.
Even if something unexpected happened, the chance of losing her beloved skills had decreased a bit.
More and more strong players were securing jobs.
Before the first round of last-place eliminations, players rushed to find inspectors to have them take action against themselves because most strong players were employees.
But by the third round, there was much more room for maneuvering.
For example, two players could agree: one would secure a job first while the other, still a black household, would kill them. Then, after the first player became a black household, they could kill the one who had just secured a job.
Even if the battlefield was filled with enemies, most had grudges, but if they could find allies of the same kind, the plan was still feasible.
Players of similar strength could help each other, and even if they were killed, they wouldn't feel frustrated.
As for whether the black households, being invisible, would be picked off by unfamiliar players?
Well, one could say that everything comes with a bit of risk.
Players continued to secure jobs, some chose to stay and draw gift boxes, while others stuck to their original choices, stepping out of the restaurant to find other players of similar strength to kill themselves.
Losing one or two skills was better than losing a skill icon.
Everyone had different choices.
Yu Xun Ge didn't try to pick up any scraps; instead, she continued to steal skill icons. Without "Midnight Exile," her attack power wasn't very high, and her chances of successfully picking up scraps were low.
As she played whack-a-mole and pressed the steal skill, she felt that something was off.
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