Zhong Yi’s Palworld.
Desert Sub-Base.
A massive metal contraption operated over a patch of black oil, creaking and groaning as it worked.
The Pals in charge of transportation carried the Spirit Oil from the oil extractor to the guild storage chest, one can at a time.
Players who had grown accustomed to letting their Pals automatically handle every resource were destined to hit a wall at Level 50 because of a material called Polymer.
Polymer was made from Spirit Oil—the equivalent of crude oil in the original game.
There were very few ways to obtain crude oil. The only method for fully automated mass production was to use an oil extractor on an oil field.
It consumed a great deal of electricity, operated slowly, and, most importantly, depended heavily on the location of the oil field.
Zhong Yi and the others had failed to discover the two isolated islands east of the beginner spawn area, each of which had three naturally occurring oil fields. Instead, they had been forced to make do with a two-field site in the desert and establish a sub-base there.
The output from two oil fields was nowhere near enough to meet the Spirit Oil needs of a four-person team.
Polymer production was severely limited, so the four of them had only upgraded the helmets and shields they absolutely needed.
After all, they only had to survive. Their Pals would handle most of the fighting.
As for the Ultimate Pal Sphere, which had unlocked at Level 51, each of them carried ten in case they encountered a rare, high-level Pal. In their day-to-day activities, they still used the previous-generation Legendary Pal Spheres as sparingly as possible.
The four had agreed from the very beginning to wait until they had built up their Spirit Oil reserves before making any further plans.
“Aren’t there still more than a hundred cans of Spirit Oil left? How could that possibly not be enough?”
Zhong Yi glanced at the guild storage chest, puzzled.
A hundred-plus cans of Spirit Oil were enough to make dozens of Ultimate Pal Spheres. He couldn’t understand why Zhou Qiaoling had suddenly started complaining about a shortage.
“I got a golden Cold-Resistant Polymer Armor schematic from a dungeon chest… One suit of armor needs two hundred Polymer! We’re ridiculously short on materials!”
Zhou Qiaoling pulled out a golden schematic, waved it in front of everyone, then protectively hugged it to her chest.
“Holy crap… Golden Polymer Armor? Doesn’t that mean we can go fight Frostallion!?”
The moment he heard that it was a high-grade suit of armor, Zhou Yue’s eyes lit up.
Just like Lu Ze’s other illusions, weapons and equipment in this one were divided into different color-coded rarities.
The items players unlocked through leveling were ordinary white-grade items.
The upgraded versions above white grade could only be crafted with schematics.
Schematics could be obtained from chests and powerful monsters. Gold was the highest grade. Its stats were tremendously enhanced, but the required crafting materials were several times greater than those of the ordinary version.
Most importantly, schematics could be used an unlimited number of times.
Once one person obtained a schematic, the entire sect could benefit from it.
“If everyone in the group had a full set of golden Polymer Armor… Frostallion definitely wouldn’t be able to one-shot us!”
Zhong Yi became excited as well.
Frostallion.
A top-tier powerful monster that lived in the northern reaches of the frozen wasteland. It was clearly no ordinary creature.
In Lu Ze’s previous life, Frostallion had been a mid-game demon king-level boss.
Now that the game’s difficulty had been increased, it was even more terrifyingly powerful.
Zhong Yi and the others had challenged it three times as a group, and all three attempts had ended in failure.
“But at this extraction rate, when are we ever going to gather enough Polymer for eight hundred pieces?”
Zhou Qiaoling looked dejected.
Her imagination even ran wild with the thought that perhaps the extraction speed would improve if Elder Chaowen were turned into a Level 10 Electric-type Pal and sent over to work.
“What if we farm the poachers’ oil fields again?”
Zhou Yue suggested.
He had just lost to Li Moran in the arena and was desperate to increase his strength.
Whether it was Frostallion or the golden equipment, both represented a substantial upgrade.
“The Level 30 oil field doesn’t yield enough. The Level 55 one hasn’t respawned yet, and we can’t beat the Level 60 one…”
Zhong Yi frowned and began thinking through their current situation.
It was obvious that their shortage of Spirit Oil couldn’t be solved with a one-time haul. They needed a permanent solution.
At present, the only answer was to find more oil fields.
“Looks like we’ll have to search for new locations after all!”
Zhong Yi sighed. He was just about to mount his Ragnahawk and start looking for oil when the Pal Terminal behind him suddenly began flashing brightly.
Mu Yawen’s figure appeared at the base.
“Senior Brother Zhong, what are you three doing at this base?”
Mu Yawen looked at the others curiously. His equipment was in tatters, making it obvious that he had gone out to fight another powerful monster.
“We’re producing crude oil to make Polymer… We don’t have enough Polymer!”
Zhong Yi sighed.
“Polymer? I have some!”
Mu Yawen chuckled and took two pieces of Polymer from his backpack, handing them to Zhong Yi.
“We’re not short by just two pieces… Wait! Where did you get Polymer!?”
Zhong Yi stopped halfway through his sentence as he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
“I think… it dropped from the Astegon in the forbidden hunting zone?”
Mu Yawen pondered for quite some time before offering his uncertain guess.
“Isn’t Astegon a powerful monster? Powerful monsters are only supposed to drop Ancient Civilization Parts. Why would it drop Polymer?”
Zhong Yi was confused.
“Uh… The nest was a little strange. Besides the powerful monster Astegon, there were also three shiny Astegon there… That powerful monster was incredibly fierce. I was no match for it at all, but I got lucky and managed to capture one of the shiny ones… The Polymer probably dropped from the shiny Astegon.”
Mu Yawen recalled the events.
“I see. It must have been a special event… Probably a powerful monster that had just given birth to its young.”
Zhong Yi nodded, and an audacious theory instantly formed in his mind.
“Could it be…”
He opened the Paldeck.
Sure enough, in Astegon’s drop list, he saw the following items clearly recorded:
Large Pal Soul and Polymer.
“Just as I thought! Non-boss Astegon can drop Polymer!”
Zhong Yi became excited at once.
“You mean we should go farm ordinary Astegon now?”
Zhou Yue said, understanding only half of what he was hearing.
“No, no, no… There’s no such thing as an ordinary Astegon. Junior Brother Mu just happened to stumble upon a special event.”
Zhong Yi shook his head and smiled mysteriously.
He had guessed correctly.
When Lu Ze created this illusory version of Palworld, he had added even more random events and side quests.
A powerful monster protecting its young was one of them.
Zhou Yue was even more confused. “Then do we still have to search for an oil field?”
“Search for one my ass!”
Zhong Yi laughed cheerfully and began constructing a Breeding Farm right where he stood.
“We’ll make our own! Aren’t the Pals that hatch from Pal Eggs ordinary Pals?”
“You bastard… Are you planning to use a Meat Cleaver!?”
Zhou Yue’s eyes widened.
The Meat Cleaver’s infamous reputation was known to everyone.
A post on the forums showing someone personally crafting a Meat Cleaver with a Cattiva, then using it to butcher that same Cattiva to death, had spread far and wide. As a result, the Meat Cleaver had been rejected by the vast majority of players.
Even Zhou Qiaoling, who was usually the least softhearted of them all, couldn’t accept the sight of a Pal being chopped into pieces with a butcher’s knife.
“Huh? What Meat Cleaver? I told you from the very beginning that we can’t be too cruel to our Pals!”
Zhong Yi waved his hand with a solemn expression.
“Senior Brother, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what you said at first…”
Mu Yawen muttered under his breath.
“Then what do you plan to do? Raise them and release them into the wild? It doesn’t seem like we can do that either…”
Zhou Yue was even more confused.
“Don’t forget about the new technology we just unlocked.”
Zhong Yi gave him a mysterious smile. He had already summoned an Anubis and was hammering away at something on the ground alongside it.
Before long, a strange contraption with a long conveyor belt appeared before Zhou Yue.
“The Rebirth Apparatus.”
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
