Chapter 139: Dividing the Spoils Again

“Our town, Sakura Ridge, is the fourth to successfully defend the city!”

A group of young priestesses, their white auras flashing brightly, were buzzing with excitement, their enthusiasm almost overwhelming.

The first ten towns to successfully defend their walls would have their victories announced server-wide. Neither Huang Yunshuo nor anyone else had realized that, after all this time, only two towns had managed to hold their ground before.

“The rest probably all fell… The later stages see the animal hordes grow fiercer, especially when Golloro himself takes the field. He can tear through player ranks effortlessly, leaving wounds that just won’t close.”

Mulling over this, Huang Yunshuo glanced down at the scattered loot strewn across the ground.

Ignoring the silver coins, crafting materials, and a recommendation letter for upgrading the Adventure Badge, he picked up two gems and an object resembling a wooden token.

A Life Regeneration Gem (flawed)
An Anger Gem (medium quality)
A Low-level Talisman: +50 Life (effective just by being in the inventory)

He glanced at the remaining three pieces of green equipment. Since none included a hat, robe, or boots, he left them untouched.

Even just these three items made him quite satisfied.

With the new Anger Gem increasing rage generation speed by 20%, combined with another already embedded in his alloy battle armor, his total rage gain boost reached 60%.

The new Life Regeneration Gem restored 2 health every 5 seconds, which, added to a similar gem in his rocket launcher and another in his alloy battle armor, meant he now regenerated 6 health every 5 seconds—72 health per minute. That outpaced the combined healing of a 50-point recovery spray and a 20-point strong recovery spray.

All he needed now was to socket these two gems into his thruster unit.

The talisman was a novelty to Huang Yunshuo but a welcome one—effective just by carrying it in his pack, it boosted his health from 505 to 555 and added 10 points of passive armor, raising his total HP to 565!

The term “tank” no longer fit him; “meat mountain” was closer, though it sounded unpleasant.

Fortunately, his Adventure Badge still had three empty slots, and he placed the talisman into one of them.

“Is that all?”

Hai’s voice asked, wondering if the “dim-witted boss” was too shy to pick up more. There were still three green items on the ground—quite valuable.

“You guys can have them; I don’t need green gear.”

Huang Yunshuo smiled, refusing the green gear, materials, the upgrading recommendation letter, and even the silver coins, considering that the entire Singing Anthem guild would have to share them.

That way, he could comfortably ask for a bit more copper coins later without shame—a win-win.

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Back at the players’ castle, everyone was busy cleaning up the battlefield.

The players from Singing Anthem clearly separated themselves from the others, each group gathering half the loot. Singing Anthem’s cleanup was efficient, and their data collection even more impressive; soon, the numbers were ready.

“Captain, the total copper coins are about 940,000 to 950,000. The value of high-grade materials and gems is estimated between 800,000 and 1,000,000 copper coins. The rest of the materials and loot are harder to quantify.”

A petite girl barely over 1.6 meters tall hurried over, speaking rapidly to Ranran, then gratefully glanced at Huang Yunshuo: “Boss, I really don’t know how to thank you!”

This cute girl was Melody of Oblivion.

“The loot is really that much?”

Huang Yunshuo was surprised by the massive haul left by the animal horde.

The high-grade materials and gems alone were worth nearly a million copper coins, with gem shards constituting the majority of the value.

“Ah, with just one copper coin each, we wouldn’t even have enough to share...”

Ranran sighed, then invited Huang Yunshuo to pick his share first.

With a 10% cut, Huang Yunshuo could select items worth 200,000 copper coins. Since he wasn’t taking the green gear, the girls wouldn’t mind if he took a bit more.

But first, Huang Yunshuo had a few questions.

“Ranran, how are you pricing the gem shards?” he asked.

Last time, Night Flowing Light exchanged 18 gem shards for 90,000 copper coins, which at 5,000 per shard seemed high.

“All three types of gems are about 6,500 copper coins each, which is the current market average,” Ranran explained.

“Oh!” Huang Yunshuo felt a wave of relief.

So he hadn’t taken advantage of Night Flowing Light after all; in fact, she’d done him a favor. That was good; next time he borrowed money, he’d feel more confident.

“What about the little rooster feathers?”

He recalled seeing someone pick up those feathers. He still had 80 in his inventory and had forgotten to check the tailor’s shop earlier. He planned to inquire soon.

“200 copper coins each, and they drop less often than gems,” Ranran said with a slight grimace, admitting she was quite nervous since they only had about 150 feathers in total.

Having experience exchanging chick down feathers for gear in the newbie village, she understood their value and was worried Huang Yunshuo might want them.

Huang Yunshuo nodded. “How many little roosters died in the siege? At least a few thousand, right?”

Yet only this few feathers dropped, indicating the drop rates and kill methods differed significantly. Unlike his own items, which had a guaranteed 100% drop rate.

“Alright then.”

Huang Yunshuo thought it over. “Including the low-level materials and other items you didn’t count, even if the total loot reached 2 million copper coins, considering I covered the ammo cost today and didn’t take any silver coins, green gear, or high-level materials dropped by Golloro—I want 250,000 copper coins!”

“That’s fine!”

Ranran nodded immediately in agreement.

This had been prearranged: without Huang Yunshuo, they’d get nothing from Golloro’s drops; the whole city’s PvE stats and rewards would drop by 10%, and no extra experience boosts would compensate for the loss.

“I want 18 Slowdown Gems, worth 117,000 copper coins. That leaves 133,000 copper coins—boss, time to pay up.”

Huang Yunshuo did the math and smiled.

“Slowdown Gems, huh?”

Ranran smiled beautifully; the priests cared more about Anger and Life Regeneration Gems, so asking for Slowdown Gems was no problem.

“May I be so bold as to ask—how much does one of your cannon shells cost?”

While trading with Huang Yunshuo, she grew curious.

“Six shells for 52 copper coins. I used nearly 1,500 shells today,” Huang Yunshuo said with a grimace.

The women were speechless.

“This… is really a money-burning weapon,” Melody of Oblivion wiped cold sweat from her brow, watching the dim-witted boss blast away happily, never guessing a single shell cost 8 to 9 copper coins. The spending was truly outrageous.

Huang Yunshuo confirmed the deal, smirking, “Money-burning? Have you seen this thruster on the back of my battle armor? I spent 200,000 copper coins just to make it! Damn it, one day this hidden profession’s gonna kill me!”