Chapter 8: Lightning-Fast Advancement

“Oh right, I forgot to introduce the main feature to you,” Chen Shi said with a shy smile.

“You can exchange one draw for every ten hours accumulated, and when you reach ninety-five hours, you get an additional five hours for free.”

“Not only that, before each blind box draw, you can spend some of your accumulated time to make a wish, increasing the chances of rare items appearing. Different rarity levels require different amounts of time.”

“Also, as a newcomer to the blind boxes, you have a ten-draw voucher waiting for you!”

“Would you like to use it now?”

“Use it!” Su Liu replied without hesitation.

As soon as the words left her mouth, the scene before her instantly shifted.

The small blind box machine suddenly expanded and stretched, as if melting into the starlight. The humble camp surroundings shattered like broken glass, replaced by a deep, dreamy backdrop of stars.

A gigantic virtual screen unfolded slowly against the starry curtain, with countless translucent bubbles floating within. Each bubble seemed to contain faintly shimmering treasures, radiating mysterious auras of various strengths and attributes.

“Yay! Ten draws activated!” Chen Shi’s little sprite cheerfully exclaimed, fluttering lightly back to the top of the now towering silver-blue blind box machine, nearly as tall as a person.

“Clack-clack-clack-clack!”

A clear, rhythmic mechanical hum echoed through the starry expanse. The revolving star seeds accelerated, transforming into dazzling streaks of light that surged into the large prize dispenser.

Then—

A series of crisp popping sounds rang out in quick succession as ten radiant cube boxes, each wrapped in a differently colored cocoon of light, floated before Su Liu in the starry sky.

From the lowest tier of white and green, up to the higher tiers of blue and purple.

The shifting light illuminated Su Liu’s eyes, wide with anticipation.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!...

Accompanied by a string of clear, pleasant system notification sounds, lines of glowing text rapidly scrolled across the virtual screen beneath the boxes:

[Temporal Sand Grain x1, Vehicle Fragment x3, Space Evolution Stone Fragment (1/3) x1, Workbench x1, Energy Food for Spirit Beast x3, Cotton Quilt x1, Mineral Water x10, Game Coins x10, Blue Ocean Mystery Skincare x1, Painkillers x5]

Wow!

Su Liu almost wanted to hug Chen Shi’s little sprite and give it a kiss. With this ten-draw, there was no longer any worry about evolution stones for upgrading her little companion. After dinner, she could feed the little one some energy food and boost its experience to the max, ready to break into level two!

First day—and it was only the first day!

It’s worth noting that in the last game, even the fastest player on the entire server only managed to level up their spirit beast companion by the fifth day.

Feeling delighted, Su Liu packed up her belongings, said goodbye to the little sprite, and entered her personal space.

Her little companion was curled up in a corner, peacefully sleeping with a sweet scent surrounding it. Su Liu didn’t disturb it but carefully took out the last portion of the rabbit meat bucket to add water for it.

Then she placed the workbench in another corner, opened the interface, and combined the three fragments.

Rubbing her slightly hollow stomach, Su Liu sat down and took out the small electric cooker to prepare instant noodles.

She thought about improving her quality of life once her resources were sufficient—not just because being alone in the game, waking up every day to rush and fight monsters, was rather dull.

More importantly, it was bad for her health.

In the previous game, by the later stages, Su Liu had become numb from survival struggles—dry, greasy hair, rough skin, indigestion, swollen thyroid...

She had accumulated a host of chronic illnesses. Though she was tired of life, she didn’t want to die; day after day she lived numb and in pain. Su Liu was determined never to experience that again.

While waiting for the noodles to cook, she opened her status panel: her health had dropped to 61 points, and her fatigue had risen to 77 points.

But all of this was worth it.

Looking at her 20 game coins in savings, Su Liu thought slowly.

Game coins were hard currency, only obtainable through leaderboard rewards and dungeon runs.

Many “service” area tickets and NPC transactions only accepted game coins.

She opened the chat hall and saw players still casually chatting, though indeed the newbie protection period hadn’t yet revealed the harsh dangers of this survival game.

She recalled that on the second day of the newbie protection period last time, nearly one-third of the roughly ten thousand players in the 888 zone had vanished—strange attacks, failed dungeons, shortages of supplies... it was brutal.

The rich aroma of the noodles filled the space. Her little companion slowly awoke, and upon seeing Su Liu, happily burrowed into her arms, rolling around. Its large, fluffy tail swept across her palm.

It seemed to sense Su Liu’s low spirits and tried hard to cheer her up, even flipping over to lie softly on her lap, exposing its tender belly.

Looking at her adorable companion, Su Liu shook her head and decided not to dwell on those worries. This time, she had a good start and could accompany this little one to live a better life together.

After they finished dinner, Su Liu opened the spirit beast panel. Seeing her companion’s experience bar at 105/100 points, she decided to begin the upgrade.

[Upgrade time: 1 hour. During the upgrade, the spirit beast cannot move or be attacked. Confirm upgrade?]

Without hesitation, Su Liu clicked [Yes].

[Countdown: 59 minutes 59 seconds—]

She summoned the [Chen Shi Hourglass], selecting to accelerate the spirit beast’s upgrade in the virtual light screen.

[Available time: 10 hours]

[Please select acceleration duration—]

“One hour!”

[Usage successful]

A burst of magical starlight flashed, and Su Liu heard the system announce in her mind—

[Little companion’s affection +10, current affection 50]

Twenty minutes later—

[Congratulations to the player for being the first to upgrade their spirit beast companion to level two. Would you like to announce this to the entire server?]

[Countdown—]

“Yes, yes, yes, no need for a countdown!”

Boom!

As a silver secret box dropped before Su Liu, a burst of confetti exploded in the chat hall. Simultaneously, every player on the server heard this announcement in their minds—

[Congratulations to player Doomsday Rogue for being the first to level up their spirit beast to level two! What are the rest of you waiting for? Are you going to be left behind?]

Su Liu read the announcement but felt something off. After pondering for a while, she realized the problem—

When did the game’s system announcements become so humanized? She vaguely remembered that in the last game, the voice was always cold and mechanical...

“[Username Load Failed] says: Damn! Who’s this Doomsday Rogue? I was only 36 minutes away from the announcement chance! Showing off much?”

“[Dreamer on the Keyboard] replies: To the one above, just practice more if you’re bad. Instead of whining, what were you doing all this time?”

“[Snail Riding Missile] says: Seriously jealous. I’m still struggling to survive, and here others have already leveled up their spirit beasts! Amazing!”

“[Spring Commander] adds: Exactly. We’re all from the same zone. Having such skilled players in our server is a good thing. High-level players lead us little guys to improve.”

“@Doomsday Rogue, master Rogue, how did you gather those evolution stone fragments? Share with us, so we all improve together—that’s real progress.”