Chapter Thirteen: The Golden Legend!

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Unlike the pale-green skill card that had previously revealed Hawkeye, this pale-red skill card already displayed its effect.

[Skill Card: Fusion (Special). The player may select one item card and bind it for use, thereby creating a new skill.]

Jiang Ran’s eyes widened slightly.

There were actually skill cards of this kind?

Her gaze fell upon the item card Parasite, which had returned to an available state because the Black-Stocking Heiress had not perished at the same time as Brother Long.

The effect of Parasite was astonishingly powerful, and naturally came with quite a few restrictions.

But if it became a skill… what other surprises might it bring her?

With a trace of anticipation, Jiang Ran clicked to use the skill card Fusion, then placed the item card Parasite inside the halo that had suddenly lit up.

[Would you like to select [Item Card: Parasite] as the fusion target? (Yes/No)]

Her heartbeat quickened, as though she had sensed something.

She drew a deep breath and clicked Yes.

The next instant, a dazzling golden radiance erupted before her eyes!

[Congratulations! You have successfully fused [Item Card: Parasite]!]

[Congratulations, player! You have obtained the skill Obliteration (S-Rank)! Skill Description: The most thorough form of disappearance is replacement! After activation, any player who dies by your hand may have their identity stripped away by you. (Single-use cost: 1,000 Vitality. Cooldown: 72 hours.)]

It was actually an S-rank skill!

Jiang Ran’s gaze lingered on the four words “strip away identity,” while the thunderous pounding of her heart echoed in her ears.

Was it… what she thought it meant?

She took a sip of iced beer to calm herself, then immediately clicked to use Obliteration.

As the Vitality was deducted, several portraits suddenly appeared beneath her game interface. In order, they were Xu Yunxuan, three unknown underlings, Luo Yaozong—Old Luo—Shorty, Brother Long, and Lin Yang.

Xu Tian and Song Churou did not appear on the list because Jiang Ran had not killed them herself.

Strangely, however, only the portraits of Xu Yunxuan, Luo Yaozong, and Lin Yang were lit up. The others were gray and could not be selected.

After thinking briefly about the usage restrictions of Parasite, Jiang Ran understood the difference: the portraits she could select belonged to people whose real names she knew.

She found this hidden restriction entirely acceptable.

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After hesitating for a moment, she tapped Lin Yang’s portrait.

She had originally intended to choose Xu Yunxuan, but was not the purpose of creating an alternate identity to sever all ties with her real one?

In a survival game involving everyone, there was no guarantee she would not encounter someone who knew Xu Yunxuan. If they followed the clues and eventually connected him to her, she would lose far more than she gained.

Someone like Lin Yang, who had absolutely no connection to her, was the better choice.

Especially since the name Black-Stocking Heiress had already successfully established the image of an “idiotic but resource-rich beta tester.” From now on, she could sell supplies entirely through this alias.

The second Jiang Ran clicked, an additional page appeared in the personal information section of the game interface.

[Character: Lin Yang. ID: Black-Stocking Heiress.]

The portrait showed a pair of legs clad in black stockings. The values below it—Strength, Agility, and the like—were all blank, allowing Jiang Ran to set them herself.

There was even a location coordinate at the very bottom, which could likewise be configured manually. This made it far easier for her to distance herself from the Black-Stocking Heiress.

Jiang Ran did not bother changing the portrait. She casually set several ordinary attributes, changed the coordinates to those Brother Long had sent her earlier, and then concealed the personal information.

When she opened the chat hall, a switching button had appeared beside the portrait on the left side of the input box. After tapping it, she could freely switch between Brute Force and the Black-Stocking Heiress.

Jiang Ran knew she would certainly create more alternate identities in the future. To prevent herself from accidentally switching to the wrong account, she replaced Brute Force’s portrait with a brick flashing with golden light.

Perfect. It was conspicuous enough that she could never possibly get them mixed up.

Now that she had an alternate identity, Jiang Ran could no longer restrain her urge to sell goods.

After all, she had not earned much Vitality through legitimate means, yet every expenditure ran into the thousands. She simply could not afford it.

Thus, everyone discovered that the foolish, naive beta tester known as the Black-Stocking Heiress had come online again.

Black-Stocking Heiress: “Selling some unwanted items. Pick them up in the trading hall.”

That ID had left a deep impression on everyone, so the moment Jiang Ran posted, numerous people immediately began mocking her.

“Oh, isn’t this the esteemed beta-tester heiress? What could possibly require you to trade in person?”

“Weren’t you going to lead all the beta testers to conquer the entire train? Why are you selling things now?”

“Maybe it’s because the other beta testers have normal intelligence and aren’t as eager to show off as this idiot.”

…

But it was not long before these people lost the time to mock her, because they discovered that the Black-Stocking Heiress had listed fifty bottles of purified water and fifty bottles of electrolyte water in the trading hall!

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To distinguish them from Brute Force’s goods, Jiang Ran had deliberately switched to new brands for both the water and the electrolyte drinks.

The purified water was priced at ten Vitality per bottle, while the electrolyte water remained at thirty each. By then, the players had already been tormented nearly beyond endurance by the heat and desperately needed something cold to quench their thirst.

After a full day, most of them had managed to save up at least some Vitality by searching crates and selling odds and ends.

So, while complaining that the prices were outrageous, they cleared out the entire stock.

Some players who had failed to buy anything even tagged Jiang Ran, asking her to list more.

After all, this was only the first day. They still had six more days to endure.

Since the Black-Stocking Heiress’s account openly belonged to a wealthy supplier, Jiang Ran stopped pretending and immediately listed another fifty bottles each of water and electrolyte drinks.

This batch sold considerably more slowly. The prices were, after all, rather steep.

But Jiang Ran was in no hurry. These were necessities, and sooner or later people would continue buying them little by little.

With these sales alone, she had already completely recouped her investment.

She gazed happily at her Vitality, which had finally surpassed six thousand, and settled down to continue eating dinner with peace of mind.

* * *

Deep inside a mountain thousands of miles away, a man whose ID was Little Spinning Top licked his cracked lips, covered in countless tiny splits, and carefully took a sip of electrolyte water.

With a sinister look in his eyes, he slowly rubbed the pale-gold item card in his hand.

He had planned from the very beginning to use this rare item, Rebound, against Lin Yang.

That was why he had deliberately sold Parasite to Lin Yang, while also casually letting slip just how outrageously lucky he was at opening crates.

Lin Yang was a moron with a brain no bigger than a sunflower seed. A few flattering words were enough to make him lose all sense of direction, and he was even easier to provoke.

Originally, everything had proceeded according to plan. But that afternoon, when he sent Lin Yang a message, the system displayed: “This player is offline!”

As a beta tester who had seized every advantage, Lin Yang had stockpiled a mountain of supplies and even possessed a gun, yet he had failed to make it through the very first day. The sheer extent of Lin Yang’s uselessness nearly made him laugh with rage.

But now that Lin Yang had suddenly “come back to life,” the situation was even more suspicious.

After steadying himself, he sent a message to the Black-Stocking Heiress.

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