Harvesting Season

'Could it be—?'

Meng Chao felt his skin crawl.

He did not care about the world spinning when he got up. While his family cried out in surprise, he pounced on the embrasure and looked outward. 

Just as he expected, the Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle had crashed into the ground, but even though golden liquid flowed all over, it was not completely dead.

It had faked its death for a moment. As the golden liquid gradually coagulated, its wound squirmed and started healing. Its wings also started trembling a little. 

'No. In the end, my body is still too weak. My internal injuries aren't completely healed yet, and I don't have powerful spirit energy.

'Even though I have the mindset of Perfect Level Basic Gun Technique with me and my previous life's memories of the monster's weaknesses, my body is not cooperating with my mind. I will need a long time for my body to get used to this.

'There were slight problems with the accuracy and timing of the shot just now, and I didn't manage to blow its head off.'

Despair rose in Meng Chao's heart. 

'It's just like how my younger sister still has a high chance of being corrupted… Could it be that fate is like a running river and we can't change it with human power?

'But I must change it!'

He gritted his teeth, and his eyes turned bloodshot. Just as he wanted to climb downstairs and use Reckless Bull Technique to fight against the superbeast, a ray of lightning tore through the fog and pierced right through the Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle. 

Shick!

The Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle had just risen half a meter when it was pinned to the ground once again. 

Lightning crackled, and like hundreds of bright sabers, it stabbed into the superbeast's body. Each of its organs were struck so many times that they were reduced to mush. 

The superbeast let out a miserable cry. The scales, which were its armor, were electrocuted to the point that they curled up. The flesh inside burst apart, and the creature died. 

Then, the lightning faded away, and Meng Chao saw that the thing that had pinned the beetle down was a twelve feet long silver spear. 

It was curled up like a coiled dragon, and the end of the spear trembled nonstop with a prideful whine. 

A person in white landed lightly on the end of the spear like an immortal who had descended to the mortal world.

His powerful aura instantly enveloped all of Blessed Heavenly Garden. Many of the low-grade monsters were intimidated so badly that they did not dare to move. 

"A superhuman!"

All the residents were delighted. Things had become better than they expected, and they cheered loudly. They were people who had just survived a disaster. 

In the end, Meng Chao had still crushed the nightmare of Blessed Heavenly Garden. 

He delayed the fight by five minutes, which were necessary for a superhuman to arrive before the superbeast could devastate the area. 

A notification finally arrived. 

[You assisted a superhuman in killing the Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle and were crucial in the fight. Increased contribution points by 758.

[Your performance in the defense of Blessed Heavenly Garden was outstanding. You made the greatest contribution in the district and saved a large number of normal citizens. Dragon City has become stronger because of you. Increased contribution points by 436.

[The Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle is a creature that surpasses the level of what you can kill. Congratulations for being brave and risking your life, Fire Relayer. You won against something stronger than you. If your achievement becomes known to the public, normal citizens will regard you as their role model and fight for civilization until their bitter end. Increased contribution points by a further 899.

[Special citizen Bai Jiacao (Dark Witch)'s possibility of being corrupted has been reduced by 1%. The degree of chaos in Dragon City in the future has been reduced. Increased contribution points by 500.

[You now have 2,478 contribution points. You can awaken a new basic skill: Dragon Snake Force, or a support skill: Basic Harvesting Skill.]

Nearly two thousand and five hundred contribution points flashed nonstop in front of Meng Chao.

A few gray skills also popped up. They were waiting to be activated.

If he added in his Basic Gun Skill, which had been pushed to Perfect Level in one go, his rewards could be said to be incredibly great.

But Meng Chao found himself a little dazed. 

He leaned against the corner of the wall and sat there for a long time while grumbling to himself. He was unable to accept the results.

"Superhumans, huh?"

When a superhuman appeared, there was no longer any need to wonder about who would win the fight. The battle ended within half an hour. 

Aside from two residents who accidentally broke their arms, Blessed Heavenly Garden did not suffer any casualties. 

In the eyes of those from Dragon City, a broken bone could be healed with just a few bandaids. 

"We won!"

"We finally killed those bastards."

"Superhumans are so awesome…"

"Block 19's Old Meng is awesome as well. He was the one who dealt a heavy blow on that superbeast. As expected of the ace sharpshooter from the military."

"Stop arguing! In the end, Blessed Heavenly Garden is awesome, Dragon City is awesome, and Earthlings are the most awesome things in existence!"

The Shooting Squad and Bayonet Team praised each other. The residents smiled, and the district was full of joy. 

What was up next was the rewards segment, which was what the residents loved the most. 

It was not that much different compared to when in the villages on Earth they killed pigs for Chinese new year.

The crystal horns broadcasted a happy song called "Today is a Good Day". The old and young men went up the fray, polishing their sabers while they were at it, and started harvesting the monsters. 

All the normal monsters belonged to Blessed Heavenly Garden.

The Flaming Black Beetles might look ugly, but the flesh under their shells tasted very fresh and good. After boiling it for a while, they could dip it in ginger vinegar and eat it, and it would taste the same as the Chinese mitten crabs from Earth.

Just thinking about the "imitation crabs" which were the size of drumsticks made many of the residents drool.

Besides, the abundant sticky liquid was an excellent fuel additive. It could be sold for a lot of money. 

The newly evolved Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle had high research value, since it was the first time it had appeared in Dragon City. The superhuman would send it to the monster research center, and a large amount of cash, ammunition, and cultivation resources would be sent over to Blessed Heavenly Garden. 

Meng Yishan wore chemical protective clothing, anti-corrosion gloves and boots, and swung his butcher knife and scalpel.

He looked like a savage butcher or a crazed witch doctor.

Not only was he one of the best sharpshooters in Blessed Heavenly Garden, he was also the best harvester. No one could compare to him.

In truth, he was a professional harvester. Whenever the fog descended and monsters surged forward en masse, he and some of his friends were hired by a resource recovery company to clean up battlefields. 

Meng Chao was tired. He leaned against the balcony and watched the residents work with great excitement. 

After injecting a few high-density nutritional fluids and eating up all the emergency compressed food in the house, he finally recovered a little.

But he was still hungry. In fact, he was as hungry as someone who had just been fired in the stomach by a main battle tank. 

The pain in his head did not go down either. He pressed ice against it until his teeth went numb, but he still felt dizzy, and his head was still throbbing. 

He held his head and rubbed his tummy while he recalled the battle just now and thought about his next step in development. 

'Since the Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle appeared, it means that the monsters are getting stronger, and the war is about to go out of control. I have to use every second I have to get stronger as fast as possible.'

He thought about things for a long time and came to be certain of one thing first: His memories of the previous life were blurry, but it was to protect his brain. 

Matter determined consciousness. A human only had a limited number of brain cells, and the capacity of memory cells was limited. No one could remember every detail and every skill that they had learned in a couple decades.

If all the information from the decades of memories had gushed into his young, seventeen-year-old brain at the moment he was reborn, his brain would have been damaged, and he would have ended up mentally disabled.

'By the looks of it, only if I continue cultivating and get stronger will I be able to get stronger brain cells and a stronger central nervous system. It's only then that my memories will be able to return to me in a steady stream.

'That makes sense. Every time I awaken to a new, short memory and a new skill, I feel like my head is about to explode, and I get really hungry too. If I instantly awakened to dozens of years of memories and activated hundreds of skills, either my brain would explode, or my life would be instantly drained.

'It's like my memories from the previous life are sealed in a sustained-release capsule. They'll be released to me bit by bit so that my brain and body can absorb them safely. I wonder if this is a principle of rebirth, or whether it's something Kindling does to protect me.'

Aside from that, Meng Chao also noticed that even if he had a Perfect Level skill, it did not mean that it was necessarily perfect.

Awakening to the memories of his previous life only helped him possess perfect consciousness. 

His mind said, "I have Perfect Level Gun Techniques. I'm super strong!"

But his body said, "No, you aren't."

That seemed to be the logic behind it.

'Even if I manage to increase my Skillfulness with contribution points and get Perfect Level whose effects can reach straight up to the ends of my nerves, there are still a lot of flaws. I have to keep using the skills in real battle so that my consciousness and my body can reach uniformity.

'But without cultivation resources, I'll be so hungry that I'll turn into a shrimp. I was gasping for breath after killing a Flaming Black Beetle, so how am I supposed to fight like this?'

After going round in circles, he returned to the age old problem. 'My family's poor…

'I have Kindling and my memories from my previous life. My learning efficiency is much higher than that of others. But in comparison, the amount of cultivation resources I need to use is also five times higher, perhaps ever more. Where am I supposed to get those resources though?

'Relying on the study group to get my classmates' resources isn't a long-term plan. I mean, how rich could a student be? If I go too overboard, the school will not allow it either.

'Should I open a training group and focus on teaching Super Reckless Bull Force? … Impossible. I need qualifications and fame for it. I also need to register a company and put out ads for it, then hire powerful people to be the spokesperson for my brand. 

"Without at least a year to develop my market value and promotion, when I'm just a student in his third year of high school, no one will come. It'll also waste too much time, and how am I supposed to take my national college examination if that happens?'

Meng Chao scratched his head. The problem troubled him. 

The Flaming Black Beetles were cut into pieces below him. The pungent smell of the sticky, flammable liquid rose into the air, and suddenly, he found it rather familiar. 

The sight of his father swinging his butcher knife and cutting up the monsters stimulated the fragments of memories from his previous life. They were shining. 

'Huh?'

Meng Chao noticed something. 

Among the two new skills that appeared, the exchange rate for Dragon Snake Force was rather normal, but Basic Harvesting Skill was very cheap!

Regardless of whether it was Reckless Bull Force, Dragon Snake Force, or Basic Gun Technique, he could obtain all of them with just two thousand to three thousand contribution points, which was about the price for guiding one hundred normal citizens or killing more than one hundred monsters. This "price" was still rather reasonable.

As for Basic Harvesting Skill, he did not need to pay three thousand for it since not even two thousand were needed for it. In fact, he did not even need to pay one thousand. Instead, it only cost 998!

'Is it especially cheap because it's a support skill? … Wait, I just remembered. I became a harvester for ten years with my dad in my previous life!'

Meng Chao shut his eyes, and a few scenes flashed in his mind.

In his previous life, when his mother was severely injured by the superbeast, he failed his national college exam. To be able to survive and get money for his mother's medical bills as well as earn tuition fees for his younger sister, his father brought him to the job. They harvested a lot of monsters during the Monster War, and his skills became pretty decent after all the practice he had.

'Being a harvester… is pretty good money, isn't it?'