LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 49 - Consequences
Mai Dongzi wasn’t someone who liked to meddle in others’ affairs, especially since she didn’t know the adventurer being chased. Seeing the situation, she naturally didn’t feel any urge to rush forward and play the hero.
After all, if the adventurer couldn’t escape, he could always call for help from the show’s crew. Given his abilities, he could definitely hold out until the rescue team arrived.
However, the problem was that the adventurer was running in her direction. At the speed of both the adventurer and the snake, they would reach her position in less than five minutes.
Mai Dongzi couldn’t predict what the adventurer would do upon seeing her. Would he try to convince her to help kill the mutated python, or would he attempt to divert the snake’s attention toward her, allowing him to escape?
This was the first time since landing on Aquamarine and the start of the survival game that Mai Dongzi had encountered another adventurer.
Curious, she used her mental powers to take a closer “look” at the adventurer. He appeared to be a young man in his twenties or thirties. Hmm, his face seemed somewhat familiar.
Mai Dongzi didn’t bother to spend too much energy figuring out why he seemed familiar; if she couldn’t remember, it was probably not important.
If Mai Dongzi didn’t want to confront the adventurer and the snake head-on, five minutes would have been more than enough time for her to avoid them.
But…
Mai Dongzi looked at the python that was closely chasing the adventurer and felt a bit reluctant to leave.
Snake meat tastes great—so how would a mutated python taste?
Based on her experience from the past ten days, mutated animals tended to taste better than they did before the mutation.
With this thought in mind, Mai Dongzi found herself hesitant to leave.
As she was debating whether to play the hero for the sake of a good meal, the adventurer and the snake closed the distance to just a few hundred meters.
Even though the forest was filled with towering trees and the light was dim, it seemed that when the adventurer was about a hundred meters away from Mai Dongzi, he somehow noticed her presence through the trees. Suddenly, he made a sharp turn and headed in a different direction.
Although this surprised her, Mai Dongzi didn’t believe the adventurer was being kind and trying to avoid bringing danger to her. She figured he was more likely afraid she might ambush him, pinning him between herself and the snake, leading to his elimination.
The focus of the survival game was on staying alive, not on competition. Therefore, there wasn’t much conflict of interest between adventurers, and they wouldn’t typically go out of their way to eliminate each other.
However, Mai Dongzi suspected that if these adventurers had the opportunity to eliminate a competitor, they wouldn’t hesitate.
Aside from the fixed rewards provided by the survival game’s production team, adventurers also earned revenue from their live streams. This revenue was split into two parts: fan engagement and tips.
Once an adventurer was eliminated, their exclusive livestream would be shut down, and their fans were likely to switch their support to another adventurer. This would give the remaining adventurers more fan engagement and possibly more tips.
So, there was indeed an economic incentive among the adventurers.
Mai Dongzi, who didn’t care about streaming profits, had no interest in that adventurer. Seeing him run off, she only gave the mutated python a reluctant glance before turning to continue on her way.
…
Mai Dongzi didn’t realize that this single glance would not only spark all sorts of speculation among the viewers in her live stream but also lead to interactions between the viewers of two different streams.
Even Lieutenant Chen and his team noticed that there was something different about that look.
“Little Lucy seems to know this person, doesn’t she? She looks a bit reluctant,” said Lieutenant Chen.
Ever since meeting Mai Dongzi and hearing the young girl call him “big brother,” Lieutenant Chen had started referring to her as “Little Lucy.”
“It doesn’t seem like it. If Miss Lucy knew this adventurer, she wouldn’t just stand by and watch,” Zhang Shenshang said hesitantly.
If Miss Lucy did know this adventurer, her reaction would have been to rush over and help him out of trouble, not just glance at him and then walk in the opposite direction.
“She’s probably just thinking that the mutated beast might taste good,” said Prince Arthur, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“How could that be? That mutated beast is both ugly and smelly, and it might even be poisonous,” Zhang Shenshang replied, finding Prince Arthur’s joke not amusing at all.
When their people had been clearing out high-level mutated beasts on Water Blue Star, many had suffered from dealing with these long, snake-like creatures. The ones that weren’t poisonous were still bad enough, often leaving nothing more than bite wounds. But if they were poisonous and the antidote wasn’t administered in time, a person wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes.
Prince Arthur just smiled at Zhang Shenshang’s response and said nothing more.
Lieutenant Chen glanced at Prince Arthur, feeling that the prince wasn’t joking.
As they watched Mai Dongzi discover another cluster of energy plants on the video, Zhang Shenshang sighed deeply, “I don’t know if I should say Miss Lucy’s wood-type ability is powerful or if she’s just lucky.”
Lucy Xi’s wood-type ability was only at the late stage of level two, and a level two wood-type ability user’s sensory range was only a few meters. For her to find so many energy plants, Zhang Shenshang thought her luck was stronger than her ability.
After Zhang Shenshang reported his mission progress to Prince Arthur and shared the survival game video with Lieutenant Chen, he left, and Prince Arthur turned to Lieutenant Chen.
“How is the Xi family doing?” Prince Arthur asked.
“The elders of the Xi family have reached a consensus. As of today, Nigri Xi is no longer the head of the family. To be honest, aside from the mistake he made with Little Lucy, Nigri Xi isn’t weak in other areas. It won’t be easy to replace him as the head of the family. Fortunately, Little Lucy discovered the energy plants on Water Blue Star, and after learning about the results you experienced after consuming those energy plants, the elders were finally determined to change the family head. However, because the elders’ opinions aren’t unified, there’s been quite a bit of conflict within the Xi family over the selection of a new head in the past few days,” Lieutenant Chen reported, glancing at Prince Arthur.
Prince Arthur seemed to have great confidence in Lucy Xi. The very night he brought back the energy plants, he consumed the one that bore small red fruits.
The next day, not only did Prince Arthur’s damaged mental power recover, but his martial arts level also broke through a barrier and advanced to the early stage of level eight, placing him among the high-level martial artists.
An early-stage level eight martial artist under thirty years old set a new record for the Blue-Black Empire in over five hundred years.
Although Lieutenant Chen and the prince’s personal guards were startled by Prince Arthur’s rare impulsive behavior, they quickly realized from the results after he consumed the energy plants that these plants were far superior in efficacy compared to any energy plants currently discovered by the Blue-Black Empire.
While the discovery of energy plants in the Water Blue Star forest by Mai Dongzi had been suppressed by Prince Arthur and Lieutenant Chen, the prince’s personal guards had always been aware of it.
After witnessing the effects of the energy plants on Prince Arthur, everyone eagerly awaited the energy potions to be refined by the Apothecary Guild.