Chapter 24 Team

"Lying on the stretcher, the half-corpse's legs alone were longer than a person's, its iron-blue hair, skin, and muscles all desiccated and withered, clinging shriveled to the bones of its legs.

The skeletal structure of the corpse bore some resemblance to that of a human,

but the corpse's ilium was much larger, and its pubis and ischium were more pronounced with the femur of the upper leg being extremely long, robust, and curved outwardly,

its patella was larger, the gap between the shinbone and fibula was wider, and the first metatarsal (that is, the big toe) was more separated from the second metatarsal.

With just a cursory glance, Li Ang roughly memorized the skeletal structure of the half-corpse, and compared it in his mind with the skeletons of various modern and ancient organisms in his mental database.

It was not a known species.

Li Ang shook his head imperceptibly, fearful of drawing attention and not daring to look any longer, he lowered his head and, holding Wang Congshan's hand, blended into the crowd of evacuating tourists.

Those disguised as firefighters, the insiders from the system, and that group of bald monks, were they the official personnel dealing with supernatural phenomena?

He wondered what they were doing with the corpse...

In front of the grand hall of Daxiong Bao Hall, a 'firefighter' glanced at a muscle-bound monk who was zoning out and frowned, asking, "Mage Hui Bin, is something the matter?"

The muscular, handsomely featured monk snapped back to reality, smiling gently and responded, "Nothing's the matter, I was just a bit distracted."

The firefighter nodded, "We must not delay, I ask for Mage Hui Bin's help."

"Understood."

Mage Hui Bin gestured with his hand to signal everyone to move back, the firefighters swiftly sealed the grand hall's entrance, and took out their walkie-talkies, instructing the outside to completely seal off Jing'an Temple.

Once the area was cleared, Hui Bin stood in front of the corpse, held his breath and concentrated. The muscles throughout his body seemed to pulsate with life, his gray monk's robe strained, nearly bursting at the seams.

"Haa!"

Mage Hui Bin bellowed deeply, his face veins bulging and arms corded with strained blood vessels as he clenched his teeth, reached out, and wrapped his hands around the half-corpse lying on the ground.

The floor tiles beneath his cloth shoes cracked like a spiderweb, crumbling apart as Hui Bin, as if lifting a weight of a thousand catties, slowly hoisted the half-corpse up and shuffled his feet, moving toward the center of the courtyard in front of the grand hall, in front of the newly completed Fu Hui Treasure Ding.

The Fu Hui Treasure Ding was cast from white bronze, weighing more than 15 tons and measuring 10.23 meters in height, it stood on a base carved from a solid piece of millennium-old rock, majestic and elegant.

Holding the corpse, Hui Bin moved along the rim of the treasure ding, slowly placing it inside the vast vessel.

As the corpse collided with the walls of the white bronze ding, a deep, sonorous 'thud' echoed along with a shrill, piercing scream emanating from within the furnace, as billows of thick, turbid black smoke wafted out from the decorative holes on the ding's surface,

The ten-ton treasure ding, once as stable as Mount Tai, began to tremble upon receiving the corpse, swaying and shaking on its rock base, threatening to topple over.

The surrounding 'firefighters' and monks watched the treasure ding intently with tense, uneasy expressions, fearing an unforeseen accident might occur.

After a time, the treasure ding calmed down, the shrill screams gradually faded away, and no more black smoke emerged.

Mage Hui Bin leaped onto the stone base in two strides, peeking into the treasure ding. Seeing a pile of black residue, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, his muscles shrinking back to normal size, and turned to the 'firefighters,' saying, "The evil spirit has been purified by the treasure ding."

The firefighter heaved a sigh of relief, picked up the walkie-talkie, and spoke with the colleagues outside, "The task is completed, lift the blockade. Remember to inform the internet surveillance department to periodically check and delete online content related to today's events at Jing'an Temple."

"Understood." responded the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie. "Also, the Heterodox Academy just sent over an analysis report, they believe that this dry corpse, ejected from deep underneath Qianhua Road to the surface, was a monster beast that had gone extinct as early as the Song Dynasty."

"Its name is, the Mountain Demon."

——————

Though today's plan to look into Buddhist magic artifacts at Jing'an Temple was not a success, seeing a likely official agency's staff member still made the trip worthwhile.

After Li Ang and Wang Congshan parted ways, he returned to his home's living room, continued to collect urban legends, produced small works, and lived a routine everyday life.

According to the System description, the shortest time interval between every two tasks in the killing game (be it regular, compulsory, or script-based) is 15 days, unless the player actively triggers a task to shorten this interval.

As for the longest time interval between two tasks, that would be 20 days.

In other words, even if a player does nothing but hide at home after completing a task, 20 days later the System will definitely issue a forced task.

It had already been over 15 days since the Hidden Mountain Village task, and the System might assign a task at any time now. To avoid any accidents, Li Ang directly applied for 5 days of sick leave from his school, stayed at home and waited intently for the task to arrive.

Just as he was using a machine tool to polish the newly made AK47 Trait steel drum magazine, the System's prompt sound once again reached his ears.

[Task Type: Scripted Task (Team)]

[Task Name: Lonely Mountain Cold Temple]

[Task Objective: Survive 7 days within the Lonely Cold Temple]

[Task Time Limit: 7 days]

[Task Reward 1: Additional 200 Experience Points]

[Task Reward 2: 400 Game Coins]

[Task Reward 3: Rare Quality Random Item*1]

[Task Reward 4: Rare Quality Random Scroll*1]

[5 minutes until teleportation, do you wish to teleport immediately]

Hiss—

Li Ang couldn't help but take a sharp breath. This task, like the one in Hidden Mountain Village, was a scripted task, but weren't the rewards a bit too generous?

A rare quality item and a rare quality scroll, in addition to experience points and Game Coins, all combined, were worth more than double the rewards for the Hidden Mountain Village task.

When something is abnormal, there must be a demon at play. If the task reward is proportional to the difficulty of the task, then what horrors, worse than Black Zombies, will he be facing this time?

Li Ang felt a bitterness in his heart. Had he been in Black Africa, Mexico, or some other lawless region, he might have obtained all sorts of military-grade heavy weapons through illegal channels by now, instead of having to go to such lengths with an assault rifle.

More importantly, this script task was to be carried out as a team. So far, besides that muscular monk from Pure Temple, he hadn't met any other Transcendents with special abilities.

In this task, who would he meet?

Individual players lying low like himself? Official personnel with the backing of national apparatuses? Transcendents affiliated with foreign armed forces? Or perhaps modern Cultivators inheriting ancient players' legacies?

Questions after questions surged in his mind. Li Ang's expression remained tranquil as water, meticulously gathering all the equipment in the living room. As the five-minute countdown barely came to an end, he stood in the center of his living room, waiting to be teleported.