Chapter 33: Taking the Initiative to Visit

Books are less valued until they are needed.

Gao Yi knew very well that his English was poor. He could handle simple everyday conversations, but words he didn't recognize were completely alien to him.

After registering a formal user account that could also accept tasks, Gao Yi had truly entered the Dark Web.

He definitely needed to check the assassin rankings, which were essentially a list of service providers similar to the stores on some treasure website, with a long list of names from top to bottom.

The ranks ranged from high to low, labeled as ABCDEF, with AAA being the highest and F the lowest.

The highest AAA rank had only one name, Zilch.

As for the Andic Group, which Gao Yi was interested in, it was ranked AA at the top; however, next to the name Andic was a parenthesis adding the word "organization."

This meant both assassin organizations and individual assassins were included in the same list. The top individual assassin was Zilch, at 3A level, unique in that category.

Andic Group, a large-scale assassin organization, also stood alone at the top of the assassin organizations' list.

Further down was the A rank, the Garden that Luca had recommended to Gao Yi twice was in this rank, which was quite high.

However, within the A rank, there were four individual assassins and five assassin organizations, with the Garden being the last in the A rank.

This meant that the Garden, as an assassin organization, was ranked lower than four individual assassins.

Below were plenty of B rank and C rank, and Gao Yi, of course, was in the lowest F rank.

In the lowest F rank, Gao Yi's position was in the middle, alphabetically, with only six people in front of him out of seventeen in total.

Contrary to Gao Yi's expectations, he thought the competition in the lowest rank would be fierce, but it turned out that most assassins were concentrated in the B, C, and D ranks, while the lower E and F ranks actually had very few people.

Purely a newcomer, it seemed he could only choose from public tasks as the likelihood of someone seeking him out specifically was almost nil.

Then Gao Yi began to pay attention to this top-ranked assassin organization.

Gao Yi didn't know what the word Zilch meant and had to look it up online; he learned it meant insignificant or might also refer to an insignificant person.

The top-ranked assassin was called insignificant?

Also, the initial letter was Z, meaning the only AAA rank assassin on the entire Dark Web had purposely used a word beginning with Z as their name.

This "insignificant person" really had confidence, the kind that reached the extreme.

Leaving the assassin page to explore the Dark Web's main hall, Gao Yi could see all kinds of services and a variety of goods.

The most popular items on the Dark Web were women, firearms, various banned drugs and, of course, the fake documents that Gao Yi needed. However, the various videos claimed to circulate on the Dark Web were absent as they were too low-grade to be traded here.

Gao Yi needed fake documents, so he entered a specific smuggling section and chose his region. He found no specific option for Liberia, only a general West Africa section, and located within it three snakeheads offering smuggling services.

After further searching, two of the three snakeheads couldn't use the Dark Web's third-party assurance services, leaving him with only one option.

He contacted the merchant directly via private message.

"Hello, I need to travel from Liberia to the United States."

After about two minutes, the snakehead replied.

"No business in Liberia, you need to make your way to Nigeria."

After the snakehead responded, Gao Yi immediately asked, "How much?"

"To arrive in Mexico, from Mexico to California, ten thousand dollars, the risk is your own, there will be someone to meet you after arrival, confirm payment before leaving."

Ten thousand dollars was not expensive, but going through Mexico was not ideal.

Essentially, entering California from Mexico meant first arriving in Mexico and then, led by local gang-affiliated snakeheads, rushing across the US-Mexico border. After crossing, one would remain undocumented in the United States.

Gao Yi didn't want such trouble; he wanted a one-stop solution, so he immediately said, "I want legal residency."

This time the snakehead paused for a moment before replying, and quoted a price Gao Yi found unacceptable.

Two hundred thousand dollars, two hundred thousand dollars would allow Gao Yi to fly to Los Angeles and pass through customs.

Then Gao Yi decisively chose the ten thousand dollar option.

There were too few people offering high-end services in West Africa. Gao Yi felt it was best to minimize costs and get to Mexico first.

In Mexico, there were many people providing smuggling services, so Gao Yi planned to first reach Mexico, then find a high-end service provider there. What cost two hundred thousand in West Africa might just be twenty thousand dollars there.

While Gao Yi was negotiating a price with the snakehead, he suddenly received a private message.

On opening the message, it was from a more upscale assassin, who directly inquired if Gao Yi, being in West Africa, was interested in taking on a high-priced, low-risk commissioned task, among other things.

Had he not known Luca, Gao Yi might have been deceived.

This was an intermediary who sought out consumables after discovering a new account.

Gao Yi simply ignored this net-casting intermediary, curious about how the other party knew he was in West Africa. Then he began checking his settings, only to discover that the Dark Web also had a rough location feature, showing he was located in the West Africa region, which any diligent person could directly discern his position.

He quickly hid his address information, but in that short time, Gao Yi received two more private messages.

One offered a sale of suitable weapons, low price and high quality, available for contact anytime, with delivery to the door, payment via the Dark Web after satisfaction, appearing to be a real tradesman.

Another indicated having numerous tasks urgently needing partners, suggesting contact if Gao Yi was interested, but such people didn't merit any attention—it was just another intermediary fishing with direct hooks. Unless utterly ignorant, not even a novice would be fooled.

Gao Yi simply wanted to quietly make his way to the United States, with a few hundred thousand dollars in hand, enough for him to live comfortably for a long time.

As for tasks, well, those could wait.

But just as Gao Yi was about to finalize the transaction with the snakehead, he received yet another message.

This message was different. It was a direct commission from a client, not a public task visible to all, but a direct assignment given to him by the client.

"I have a job for you, two hundred thousand dollars, Dark Web guarantee, contact me if interested."

Gao Yi had only just registered. He hadn't even finished exploring the Dark Web and wasn't familiar with its functions when a mysterious task with a not insignificant price found him. This was indeed intriguing.

He had intended to ignore it, but after much hesitation, Gao Yi finally couldn't resist replying.

"What's the task?"