21 Mission Hall

"We can help you create a debit card and transfer your money to the card, after which your money can be transferred into your account on our platform and deducted for the transaction amount," the receptionist explained to Shao Zifeng softly.

Simply put, Shao Zifeng's nickname, Hidden Peak functioned like an account that he could use to apply for a personal locker, top up, purchase items, or post missions. The platform would directly deduct the corresponding amount from his account for the items. If he filed the completion of a mission, the reward, either in money or goods, would be directly deposited into his account.

He could then withdraw the money and items freely, while the platform would charge a certain amount as a service fee.

Shao Zifeng thought about it for a moment. After withdrawing 30,000 yuan from his debit card earlier, he still had a balance of 52,000 yuan. He deposited 50,000 yuan into his Hidden Peak account to act as funds for his operations.

"Dear respectable customer ID: 9331, the 10 bottles of Energy Potion Type I have been deposited into your locker, and we have deducted 12,000 yuan from your account. You can choose to pick the goods up yourself or have them delivered to you. Have a nice day."

Shao Zifeng received a message on his mobile phone as soon as he inserted the anonymous Sim card.

With the receptionist's guidance, he downloaded the platform's app, logged in, and checked his account. True enough, 12,000 yuan had been deducted.

He said goodbye to the receptionist and went to the locker section. After scanning the place for a while, he found his locker.

He opened it, and there were ten tubes of Energy Potions with a purity of 99%. He took one out.

Ballie was lying on his shoulders, and it stretched its neck out to catch a glimpse. Instantly, its eyes opened wide, and it conveyed its eagerness by whining at Shao Zifeng.

He popped one bottle open and handed it to Ballie, who quickly grabbed it with its claws and gulped the content down.

As it finished, it started to sway and burp, just like that time when it got drunk.

A plume of smoke rose before it curled itself up into a ball and fell asleep.

Shao Zifeng reached out to stroke Ballie with affection. 

Ballie's skin felt good to the touch, and he was immersed in it. 

After Shao Zifeng tucked Ballie into his pocket, he proceeded to the lounge and studied the app that he had just downloaded.

The app's icon was a simple "X" that was made up of two knife slashes on a black background, with "X" being the app's name. 

He logged in and saw a simple interface that was divided into shopping, forum, Q&A, and Tik Tok sections. He did not bother to check out every one of them, though. As he tapped on the shopping section, the information of different items popped up on his phone screen.

"Emperor Bai's Sacred Sword: originated from the Kingdom of Rakshasa, ultra-sharp, and said to possess a 'Follow Me' skill. Price: 200,000 yuan."

Shao Zifeng tapped on "x" expressionlessly and casually looked around, directly browsing the online store. With the exception of the high-priced official products, the inventory mostly consisted of miscellaneous objects that had bizarre stories and nonsense introductions slapped on them.

His "eye plugin" would be useless if he could not see the actual physical items, so he tried to key in the keywords, "Tang saber" in the search field. An entry named Dragonspring Saber & Sword Store, which sold cold weapons, popped up. It felt like déjà vu.

He learned from the introduction that this store had a physical outlet there. It was said to have an excellent reputation, so Shao Zifeng switched off his phone and walked over to the trading floor. Forget about the miscellaneous personal items sold in the app; the physical stores on the trading floor were basically more trustworthy. 

The battle was still ongoing in the central amphitheater, and there were few people on the trading floor. Aside from the occasional cheers coming from the amphitheater, it was basically quiet. As he entered a store, he saw a young man who was engrossed in a mobile game.

There was a weapons rack with several rows, and from it, Shao Zifeng found two genuine Tang sabers. They were hugely different from the training sword in the saber sheath that he had bought earlier. He picked up one of them, a pure black Tang saber, and grabbed it by the hilt as he slowly unsheathed it.

A Tang sword had a long handle that could be held with both hands and a blade that was slender as well as straight. He carefully examined it, and it turned out to be just an ordinary cold weapon. Those blue dots in the interface were not moving at all; it was as if they were dead.

Shao Zifeng was buying cold weapons partly because of the scabbard. Another reason was that he had learned his lesson from the Bloodsiphon Tarantula incident and the unprovoked malice of MAD's Li; they made him feel suffocated, hence he wanted to train his stamina so that he could fight back whenever he was in danger. 

Thinking about it, Shao Zifeng wore a gentle expression on his face as he petted Ballie in his pocket.

Again, Ballie felt wonderful to the touch.

After he paid up, he inserted the newly-bought Tang saber into the Hidden Peak scabbard. The training sword, on the other hand, went into the new scabbard, which he then gave to the shopkeeper who was struck dumb by his actions.

As Shao Zifeng wandered around the trading floor, he found a few quality little creatures at the mutant creature trading area. He was told that the little ones came with accreditation certificates and were priced at around 35,000 to 50,000 yuan each. It was a pity that he did not like them...

Actually, the real reason was that he could not afford it. Once Ballie started to grow or even entered its evolutionary stage, the cost to care for it would increase tremendously. Considering the fact that it was a dragon, it had to be damn expensive to keep.

The image of Ballie being the size of a small mountain and swallowing a pig came to mind. He could not help but shiver—pork was expensive.

He did not even dare to think about it.

Without realizing it, he had arrived at the mission hall. It was not a hall per se but a semi-enclosed area, and there was a giant LED screen on the wall that displayed a long list of missions.

Shao Zifeng stood in front of the screen with one hand in his pocket, fiddling with Ballie while looking up at the list—he could not help it since Ballie felt so good to the touch.

"Individual mission: A large number of family pet beasts have gone missing in the neighborhood. Need to find out the truth. Reward amount: 50,000 yuan and an appreciation pennant (Detailed information will be provided once the mission is accepted)."

Shao Zifeng appeared dumbfounded. An appreciation pennant? What the hell?

Individual mission: Looking for a combat trainer who can teach Rhythm of Wind to a pet beast. Reward: 20,000 yuan. 

The reward was generous, and the task was not difficult. In this world, besides comprehending something on its own, a pet beast could acquire skills through training. Of course, not all pet beasts could learn this skill, which involved a bit of metaphysics. 

Certain pet beasts that failed in learning this low-level skill might find it easy to acquire a higher-level skill.

"Group mission: Assist someone to catch a mutant creature…"

This might have seemed simple, but the risk was too great. You never knew if your teammates would dig a hole for you. Shao Zifeng ruled out this mission due to a slightly dark reason. After all, he felt that even if he were to die in this life…

Hold on a second, it was better not to jinx it.

It looked like the only thing he could do was to accept the mission that came with a pennant reward.