Chapter 204: This is a Scheme to Drive Away the Tiger and Snatch the Wolf

After that guy with the long, hard-to-remember title, “Nice to meet you! I am Cheng Fengqi, the twenty-seventh out of the top one hundred of the Ancient Spirit Realm!” cried, “This is impossible!” and ran off, Miss Thief, who had been hiding in the bushes, emerged with a strange expression next to the Black-haired Girl.

“Boss, is this really enough? What’s the use of us doing all this?”

Having just thoroughly defeated him both physically and psychologically, Priestess turned around and shook her finger with a smile.

“Of course it’s useful. Think about it, if you were such a proud and righteous strong person who was suddenly robbed of all your jewels by a little girl appearing on the roadside, what do you think you’d do next?”

“Uh, what would I do? Boss, your conditions have nothing to do with me; it sounds too unreasonable…”

“You’re quite self-aware… As I mentioned earlier, there are two conditions for advancing in this outdoor survival competition. The first is to survive in the forest for five days and successfully reach the final meeting point, and the second is to possess a minimum quota, which means at least ten gems.”

Vilyric explained slowly.

“I robbed him of all his gems, so he lost his qualification to advance. If he doesn’t want to be eliminated for no reason, he naturally needs to obtain gems from somewhere else.”

“But you saw, he has a strong sense of justice; he’s a righteous person who wouldn’t directly rob others. So, it leaves only one way for him to obtain the gems.”

“Eh… Could it be…”

“That’s right, it’s ‘punishing the wicked and promoting the good.'”

A slight mischievous smile appeared on Priestess’s face.

“His sense of justice and reputation won’t allow him to harm innocent weaklings, so he can only target those who aren’t innocent and just happen to be loaded.”

“If they have enough gems, they might be cautious and reluctant to fight with the robber to avoid trouble, but if they are low on funds and have nowhere to retreat, will they not have to fight against the ‘villains’?”

“Such people aren’t needed in large numbers; as long as they fiercely clash with those blockers, their good reputation will surely attract more players heading to the meeting point to help, forming a large-scale chaotic battle…”

In the end, Miss Vilyric made her conclusion.

“So, how many people do you think are left on this road who might come looking for trouble with us?”

“Wow, Boss, you’re so despicable! This is like using someone else’s knife to kill.”

In response to Le Qiao Qiao’s blunt critique, Vilyric merely smiled and didn’t take offense.

“It’s just a reasonable use of external forces to reduce trouble; as the saying goes, ‘let the friends die, not the monks.’ It’s better to make others fight each other than to encounter all sorts of trouble ourselves, right?”

“Besides, I’m fighting them fairly; whoever wins gets the gems, and the opponent has agreed. It’s reasonable, so how can it be called despicable? Even if the officials come knocking, they can’t say anything against me.”

“As long as you’re happy…”

Le Qiao Qiao shook her head in exasperation, took the full bag of gems that Miss Vilyric had just snatched from that Cheng Fengqi guy, integrated it with her larger bag behind her, and turned to look around.

“This is the seventh one; Boss, should we continue?”

“Yeah, that’s about enough. Those earlier ones have gone far ahead; they probably ran into those who were happily preparing to rob by now. We should be able to avoid a lot of trouble by following them from a distance.”

“With so many supplies, we should have a solid chance of making the top one hundred.”

The Black-haired Girl patted the bulging bag, smiling slightly.

“Let’s go; we can head to the meeting point now.”

…

The meeting point for the outdoor survival advancement competition was set in only one place, located in an outer area near Xingyuan City, to the west of the great forest, not far from where Vilyric had set off five days ago.

In other words, the contestants simply made a long round trip and returned to the starting point.

Of course, those who completed this round trip and arrived here with enough gems were not likely to be many.

Even if Priestess didn’t know the specific numbers, her evaluation was based on her own experience; living independently in this perilous great forest for five days isn’t something that can be done solely with force.

Wisdom, experience, mindset, and strength are all essential… or one particular aspect must be extremely outstanding to have a chance.

With the earlier arrangements, Vilyric and Le Qiao Qiao truly encountered hardly any trouble along the way. Although she only robbed a few unfortunate strong ones, the series of chain reactions it triggered yielded quite noticeable effects.

The vast majority of opportunists aiming to snatch a large number of gems, after running into those strong individuals who also needed gems to advance, would inevitably give up on this difficult path and switch to softer targets; after all, their goal wasn’t to eliminate anyone, but simply to loot.

Whether the contestants on other routes could successfully reach the meeting point was irrelevant to Miss Vilyric. The paths in the forest leading to the final area were numerous, and there were certainly more than one or two opportunists. If someone got eliminated just because they got robbed, they could only blame their own lack of strength.

When they finally reached the campsite at the meeting point, it had already been cordoned off by the Eastern Yuan Guard as a no-fighting zone. A large number of contestants who arrived earlier were engaging with the staff, checking identities, and submitting gems. Though many looked somewhat disheveled from camping in the wild, their eyes sparkled more with the joy and excitement of successfully advancing.

Most of the eliminated individuals had already left the forest by various means within the five days. Those who made it here surely wouldn’t have only the initial basic quota left.

Many who looted gems on the last day wouldn’t take all the gems from their targets; they merely wanted to gather more capital to improve their rankings. Unless the opponent was particularly easy to handle, there was no need to be overly aggressive and cause a fish-die-net-break scenario.

As for those who didn’t plan to compete for rankings, if giving up excess useless gems could obtain safety, they typically wouldn’t choose to fight; it’s a simple logic.

Vilyric looked around in the crowd and didn’t see Miss Xiao Kong or Murong Yun, who had also participated in this advancement competition. She wondered whether they hadn’t arrived yet or if they had already finished their registration and left. After all, due to the earlier arrangements to reduce trouble, the two of them couldn’t be considered particularly fast; they just had a smoother process.

There was also one more issue to deal with.

The Black-haired Girl weighed the somewhat heavy bag in her hand and casually tossed it to the Miss Thief beside her.

“Qiao Qiao, count how many gems we have in total; let’s split it half and half.”

During the four days in the forest, Miss Vilyric had taken care of quite a few delivery guys that came right to her door, while Le Qiao Qiao, though she had a frightening appetite, found that the exchange rate for gems was high; she couldn’t consume too many things just by eating. She still had over two thousand gems left from when they set off.

Furthermore, those strong individuals she had beaten in ‘fair duels’ each had at least hundreds of gems on them; a couple of especially well-off ones, like the swordsman Cheng Fengqi, had surprisingly over a thousand gems, probably from their dark dealings.

With this, the total number of gems Vilyric and Le Qiao Qiao had should break five thousand, meaning they each would still have over two thousand gems after dividing them up. There wouldn’t be many contestants capable of collecting this amount in just five days.

After all, this was an outdoor survival contest, not a PK competition. Fighting carries risks and consumes a lot of physical energy; for most people, it’s certainly better to avoid it if possible.

   

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