9: Chapter 9: Is that stuff water? The women were devastated.

Su Xixi's face turned dark on the spot.

"Bastard!" She gritted her teeth and glared at Lin Qing. "Can you be serious for three seconds? We just caught a breather, and you're starting to act like a hooligan again, aren't you?"

"Sleep? Sleep with who? Dormitory Head Lin, elaborate on that!"

Lin Qing wore an innocent expression and blinked.

"What I said was, I—am—sleeping—alone."

Su Xixi snorted coldly.

"You'd better be."

Bai Nian rubbed the space between her eyebrows, genuinely exhausted.

Yet she had to admit.

With their back-and-forth banter, these two had managed to rip a tear right through the suffocating, deadly pressure from just moments ago.

Several girls had still been trembling.

But hearing Lin Qing and Su Xixi bicker, they felt as if they could finally breathe again; with red eyes, they burst out laughing.

An Muxi walked forward, her gaze falling upon the bloody gash at Lin Qing's waist as her fingers instinctively clenched the corner of her shirt.

"Next time I'll make you a waist guard. Don't be so reckless."

Lin Qing nodded immediately. "I'll listen to the great engineer."

The tips of An Muxi's ears heated up, and she turned her face away.

Yang Yating supported herself against the doorframe, her face still pale, but her voice was no longer weak. "Next time, I'll call out positions faster."

Shen Zhiyi also chimed in softly, "I'll put more strength into it too."

Su Xixi clicked her tongue. "Alright, stop pledging your loyalty one by one. His tail is practically sticking up into the sky."

Lin Qing sideways-glanced at her. "Bro, were you worried about me just now?"

Su Xixi's expression stiffened. "This lady was worried that if you died, there wouldn't be anyone left to block monsters for us!"

"Got it!" Lin Qing dragged out his tone. "Pure, unadulterated bro-love."

"Lin Qing, you're going to die because of that damn mouth of yours sooner or later!"

The girls finally couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into laughter.

This time, the laughter wasn't entirely teasing; it was also filled with the relief of having survived a catastrophe.

Only Lin Yawei in the corner had an ashen face. She was like a transparent person discarded in the shadows.

No one looked at her, and no one paid her any mind.

The frantic action she took earlier wanting to close the door had already nailed her to the pillar of shame in everyone's eyes.

Lin Qing withdrew his smile, just as he was about to lead everyone back to the dormitory, his peripheral vision swept across the piles of ash on the ground.

After the Goblins died, their corpses didn't remain.

And the game refreshing corpses didn't work this way either.

He frowned slightly.

This thing might actually have some use.

Thinking one step ahead wouldn't hurt.

"Gather up this ash as well."

Everyone was stunned, but no one questioned him.

The short-haired girl immediately tore off a few pieces of rag and wrapped up the ash.

"Alright, everyone, back to the dormitory."

Bang!

The dilapidated wooden door was closed.

The moment the bolt dropped, the girls in Dormitory 9001 finally let out a true sigh of relief.

The hallway returned to dead silence.

After a moment.

The grey fog six meters away grew faint again, and that white circle, so dim it was almost imperceptible to the naked eye, suddenly flashed before disappearing entirely.

Another minute passed.

The fog ten meters away also slowly dispersed.

In the darkness, a dilapidated doorframe was revealed.

Hanging on the doorplate were a few distorted numbers—[9002]

The room's wooden door had already vanished without a trace.

A pool of thick, crimson blood seeped outward silently.

It looked as if something had just finished eating inside.

...

Inside the dormitory.

Lin Qing secretly clenched his fists, feeling the surging power within his body.

His physical fitness had almost doubled compared to before.

No wonder that after taking a slash earlier, aside from the pain, there wasn't the slightest feeling of weakness now.

He quickly pulled up his personal status panel.

[Lin Qing]

[Talent: Origin of Life · SSS-Rank (Unique)]

[Life Rank: Common Grade (Early Stage)]

[Strength: 23 (Average adult male is 10)]

[Physique: 23]

[Skills: None]

Lin Qing's gaze narrowed slightly.

An average adult male's strength is 10.

He is now at 23.

He had only killed a few monsters, what if he continued killing?

"Xixi, Bai Nian." Lin Qing looked up. "How are you guys feeling?"

Bai Nian clenched her fist, her knuckles making a faint cracking sound.

There was an uncontainable brightness in the depths of her eyes. "I've gotten a lot stronger, and I should be close to leveling up soon."

Su Xixi was even more direct. She flexed her wrists, the corner of her mouth curling up: "As for the kind from earlier, this lady could hack them to pieces in two rounds."

The three of them only discussed it briefly.

Next was dividing the loot.

Over a dozen girls crowded around.

The ones whose legs had been weak earlier now had eyes brighter than one another.

Lin Qing dumped the silver coins onto the table. "A total of ninety-one silver coins."

"Ninety-one? Six Goblins dropped this little?" a girl said.

"Then that fire axe in the Trading House costs one hundred gold coins. Just what level of talent is that?"

Lin Qing also thought of this question.

That fire axe in the Trading House, priced at one hundred gold coins, had been bought out in a second.

Yet after they fought for their lives, what dropped were silver coins.

Lin Qing guessed that the person who bought the axe had a talent of at least A-rank.

Or even higher.

"We aren't the only lucky dormitory."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone went quiet for half a second.

That's right.

Dormitory 9001 had Lin Qing, Su Mengmeng, An Muxi, Bai Nian, and Yang Yating.

But this world had ten thousand players per district.

Who knew what monster-level talents were hidden in other dormitories?

At the same time.

In another dormitory.

A cute young girl wearing a Lolita dress suddenly sneezed.

She rubbed the tip of her nose, her expression somewhat aggrieved.

"I wonder how he and the fifteen classmates from the class are doing..."

...

Dormitory 9001.

Lin Qing picked up the bone whistle, and the information emerged.

[Sentinel Token]

[Quality: Common (Top-tier)]

[Effect: After blowing it, you can randomly summon three Goblins within the Common Grade category to fight for you. They exist for ten minutes and will be forcibly recalled once the time ends.]

[Cooldown: One hour.]

The dormitory instantly erupted.

"What a good item!"

"That's equivalent to getting three extra cannon fodder?"

"It can scout the path at critical moments and even block attacks!"

Bai Nian nodded, her eyes serious. "The cooldown is only one hour. Used well, its value is very high."

Lin Qing put away the Sentinel Token and picked up the crude short crossbow.

[Dilapidated Short Crossbow]

[Quality: Common (Intermediate)]

[Damage: Low]

[Can consume one silver coin to launch an attack.]

Everyone: "..."

After a brief silence, the complaints erupted.

"What kind of scam is this piece of crap?"

"One arrow for one silver coin? That's robbery!"

"We just earned ninety-one coins, and firing ninety-one arrows resets us to zero?"

"And the damage is still low, isn't this a money-swallowing beast?"

Lin Qing weighed the short crossbow in his hand, but instead didn't disdain it.

"Being able to exchange money for damage isn't a loss."

He raised his eyes to look at the crowd.

"At critical moments, a single arrow could mean a life."

As these words fell, the girls went silent.

After that battle in the hallway just now, everyone understood.

In close combat, being half a beat slow would get you killed.

If they had possessed ranged weapons earlier, they might not have been in such a sorry state.

In the end, only two bottles of turbid liquid were left on the table.

A girl disgustedly stepped back half a step.

"This wouldn't happen to be Goblin urine, right?"

"It looks like poison, don't open it, right? What if it's corrosive?"

Lin Qing didn't speak, picking up one of the bottles.

The information popped up.

[Turbid Water, 100 ml. Cannot be consumed long-term.]

Lin Qing's fingers paused.

Everyone in the dormitory stared at him.

"What is it?"

Lin Qing fell silent for two seconds before slowly spitting out two words.

"It's water."

The dormitory instantly went dead silent.

Water?

This stuff that looked like it was squeezed out of a mud puddle was actually water?