Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Withered Desert Region. Coordinates: 2873, 4887

Night fell. The temperature in the desert dropped drastically. The high temperature nearing 50 degrees in the day was now less than 30 degrees.

At night, the entire ground of the Withered Desert had an odd layer of a red glow. The red glow came from the sand scattered across the desert that looked yellow under the white sunlight in the day. At night, under the moonlight, most of them had a light red glow. The Withered Desert had another nickname. It was also called the Crimson Desert, which was because the sand possessed certain minerals that glowed red at night.

The reason the Withered Desert became a leveling zone at night was also due to this glow. Players did not need to bring any lighting tools to continue fighting.

Feng Luo lay on a large boulder that also emitted a light-red glow and looked through the scope of the Eye of the Thunder to observe the glowing “castle” around 800 meters away from him.

The Withered Desert map had not been a desert before the Great Destruction. According to the backstory, it was only because of the terrain shift over the centuries that the desert covered everything. It was also due to this that under the yellow sand, players would occasionally discover “ruins.” After exploring them, they would gain unexpected rewards.

However, at that time, through the Eye of the Thunder’s scope, Feng Luo noticed that the huge “castle” over 700 meters away from him was not a ruin created by homo sapiens curing the Galaxy Empire era. Instead, it was a large nest created by multiple creatures smaller than humans!

The Fire Ant nest was over 20 meters high and glowed red in the Eye of the Thunder’s scope since the building material for this castle was the same special sand with the light-red glow in the desert. However, although the “castle” glowed, the brightness was incomparable to the thousand or even tens of thousands of Desert Fire Ants.

Fire ants, which were almost 10 centimeters long and long and bullet-like in shape, had flame-like translucent bodies!

Desert Fire Ant Worker Ant (Level 30, Normal). Species Code: **H-O0247. Estimated HP: 2,500.

Data regarding the ant was transmitted through the Eye of the Thunder Sniping Scope. Low HP. Just 2,500 HP. Theoretically, it could not even take one hit from the Eye of the Thunder.

However, inside this mid-sized nest, there were more than 50,000 Desert Fire Ants. Even if he were to kill one in a single shot, Feng Luo did not have that many bullets in his backpack.

The total, 50,000, was not computed by Feng Luo. Rather, it was the number several Scout players had obtained by using recon meters to scan the area before providing the data in the zone public channel through their communicators.

At that time, in the public channel—which covered a radius of five kilometers—there were already countless voices that made the place extremely noisy.

“Wow! There really is a Desert Fire Ant nest!

“Amazing. This is my first time seeing one. The nest of the Desert Fire Ants is actually quite beautiful. I’ll feel a bit bad about destroying it in the future!”

“Why haven’t we started? It’s getting dark. I still have a mission later.”

“Any young ladies who still don’t have a party? A Level-48 fully equipped sword-wielding Light Armor Warrior is looking for a party! Also looking for a sugar momma!”

No response.

Feng Luo looked at the channel and saw that the number of people in the channel had was 104. That meant that the number of players who were attracted to the free thread and also followed the directions and requirements of the thread to join this command channel had reached over 100.

As for the people who had the public channel activated, a player with the ID “Unparalleled Violence” kept speaking through the channel by using his authority.

“Everyone, please calm down,” he said. “We will speak again when there are more people. Right now, taking the nest with our current numbers might be a little risky.”

“I hope that everyone stays outside the 300-meter range and avoids attacking first. The aggro of these Desert Fire Ants is triggered as soon as you kill one.”

“Everyone, listen to our commander. If it’s too chaotic and we get annihilated, nobody wins…”

“Us?” Feng Luo placed emphasis on this word, as his expression showed he was thinking.

******

Over 200 meters across from Feng Luo, behind a large sand dune, six young players were fully equipped and were casually chatting away while holding their weapons.

The non-mainstream young girl with the short red hair, wearing thick makeup and big silver earrings, said in disbelief, “Jingjing, your talent showed you something that happened previously in that place, which means that that Sniper really killed the Level-38 Desert Rock Lizard Commander by himself?”

“Whether he did it alone, I’m not entirely sure,” the Fire Manipulator girl said. She looked very quiet and gentle, but her brows furrowed slightly as if she were trying to remember the scene she’d witnessed about half an hour ago. “But there’s a 70 percent chance he did. You should know that although my talent lets me see the scenes of certain places for a certain period, most of them are passive and I can’t control them. Moreover, the scene I saw was a bit weird. It’s hard to analyze…”

To think that a Sniper—constantly running at high speed while facing the continuous fatal Earth Spike attacks of the Desert Rock Lizard Commander—could actually dodge all the attacks by a hair’s breadth every single time. And even if he were running at high speed, the sniper rifle in his hands had been frighteningly stable. All the shots he fired actually hit the body of the Desert Rock Lizard Commander that was over a dozen meters away.

Even more peculiar were the two brown and eight dark crimson beetle creatures. They seemed to have been under his command and had initiated attack after attack against the Desert Rock Lizard Commander.

Commanding monsters, huh? Just what kind of ability is that? she wondered. Is it a unique talent like mine? Or is it because of a mission? Perhaps even a hidden profession? But this person is also incredibly strong himself. Moreover, he seemed so calm back then. He was clearly not worried about us closing in on him at all… Yeah, I must record his data in the database. It ought to be useful to the organization…

The Fire Manipulator had a lot of doubts, and her eyes showed that she was in deep thought. However, she consoled her friends. “Although I can’t confirm whether or not he killed that Desert Rock Lizard Commander by himself, I can confirm that he is an expert, at the very least. Based on my calculations, our chance of victory against him is below 30 percent!”

“Expert? What kind of expert? Is he better than Flowing Wind Sword River?!” The short-haired girl was clearly not convinced, but the moment she mentioned the name “Sword Ki Long River,” her face became that of a fangirl.

Flowing Wind Sword River was the “face” and “master” of one of the largest guilds in Storm City, the “Nine Star Group.” He was a Light Armor Warrior with a full set of Level-50 Rare-grade equipment who was also widely recognized as a top player in Storm City. He had a duel record of one versus over 30 in which he’d emerged victorious.

In the Storm City player Power Ranking, which had over three million players, he was listed as one of the Top 10 Masters of Storm City! For teenage boys and girls of that age who were players, idolizing someone was extremely common, especially when Flowing Wind Sword River also had the title of “Storm City’s Most Handsome.”

“There isn’t a lot of information. I can’t confirm whether he is stronger or weaker than Sword Ki Long River, especially since he’s a Sniper. It’s hard to compare him to the Light Armor Warrior profession that is supposed to be strong against his profession… However, if I were to compare him to Ghost Eye, I would say they aren’t that far apart.”

When the girl manipulator mentioned Sword Ki Long River, her face was calm. It was as if this “Storm City’s Most Handsome” superstar player was very normal in her eyes.

“Ghost Eye?” The short-haired girl’s eyes widened, and after that, her face revealed that she did not believe her at all. “The Sniper who is ranked seventh on the Top 10 Masters list? Jingjing, you must be overestimating him!”

“How is that possible? If he were someone with that kind of strength, he would have gotten famous since a long time ago, wouldn’t he? But I’ve never seen his face before.”

“Perhaps he isn’t a player from Storm City. Or perhaps, he’s that kind of low-profile player who doesn’t like to be famous!”

“And Yoyo, don’t think that those ‘Top 10 Masters’ are really the best players. These people are certainly strong, but most of them are perked up by the huge resources their guilds pour on them. In truth, they ought to be called the ‘Top 10 Most Popular Masters!’”

“Storm City has around 15.634 million players right now, and the number of hidden Masters within it is not low,” the Manipulator girl said confidently. “Yes, I’ve analyzed it before. There’s a 0.00054 percent chance that there should be at least over 70 hidden players with the ability of a Top 10 Master.”

“Gosh! Little Yu Jing, nicknamed the human terminal—can you refrain from always speaking in decimal points and percentages?”

“Yeah, don’t you always brag that your IQ score was over 300?”

“So why didn’t you give me any reminder when I was tricked just now?” the short-haired girl said upon hearing that her “enemy” was actually assessed to be a Master. Her expression showed that she was disappointed. She noted her friend’s mistake and said, “That was also very weird. How did he know that the maximum price that you guys discussed was 60,000 credits?”

“Five percent chance that it’s a coincidence. 17 percent that his threshold was the same as yours. 72 percent that he used a skill to detect the content of your discussion…” The Manipulator girl frowned. Clearly, she was also confused.

“There… There… you’re doing it again!”

“Ah! Hurry up and check the communication channel. The mission is starting!”

The short-haired girl showed an annoyed expression. Upon hearing something from the public channel, she quickly changed the subject.

However, if Feng Luo were to hear the words of the Manipulator girl, he would definitely have been quite shocked. Initially, in his eyes, they were just a group of adolescents, yet among this young and dumb group of six was hidden a genius with incredibly high IQ. At the very least, her assessment of how Feng Luo had determined their threshold for the item—stating that it was because Feng Luo possessed a skill to detect the content of their discussion—was very close to the truth.

Although, no matter how smart she was, there was no way she could have guessed that it was a natural skill and talent that he had himself: lip reading.

The only issue was—over 300 IQ? Wasn’t that Lin’s trademark?