Chapter 149: The Unscrupulous Old Man

The server-wide first boss kill announcement belonged to Huang Yunshuo, who had slaughtered Gororo’s projection in disaster mode.

He was also the person who triggered the server-wide announcement by scoring tens of thousands of points in the space-time wandering instance... One must remember that the highest known score among players at the time did not even reach 8,000.

Then came the server-wide city defense battle, where he led Stone Platform Town to dominate the scene completely. Triggering the first announcement by grabbing a treasure chest, the second by successfully defending the city in carnival mode, and the third by finally slaying Gororo—the server-wide announcement had practically become a broadcasting machine for Stone Platform Town and his personal battle records.

That’s right, quite a few players had intermittently triggered server-wide announcements over the past two days.

However, the vast majority of these were pure luck. Someone might have accidentally done something that triggered a server-wide announcement, or someone might have inadvertently killed something that made their race unpopular among certain native inhabitants...

Even those who managed to secure an announcement through skill were driven to their limits by countless opponents behind them, and they usually fizzled out shortly after.

The most famous example was Dimensional Reaper, who secured the first server-wide announcement and held strong for a while, but had now faded into obscurity. His name was nearly impossible to find on any major leaderboard, and he was only occasionally remembered for the rare green ring on the equipment leaderboard. He had fallen out of favor far too quickly.

Yet, not a single person had ever managed to treat server-wide announcements like returning to their own home the way Huang Yunshuo did.

It had been less than 48 hours since the servers opened, good grief.

Thus, one could easily see how wide the gap had grown between this big brain and everyone else.

As someone already targeted by Dominating Splendor, could they afford not to come over and hang around whenever they had a spare moment? If some shameless guild snatched him away, wouldn't all their efforts go down the drain?

Especially with the appearance of the girls from Anthem's Aria, which heightened everyone's sense of crisis.

Four million female priests! Among them, there must be at least 400 beauties selected out of ten thousand. If Render was truly shameless enough to make this bigshot the sole male in the entire legion...

The mere thought of it was spine-chilling. Surely no normal man could refuse. He might put up a token verbal resistance, but his body would never help him put up a false disguise.

Unfortunately, everyone came away empty-handed.

The big-brain streamer was indeed broadcasting live, but he was currently in a state of "turning a blind eye to all things streaming."

A massive influx of players from the Purple Lightning Divine Court nearly caused the livestream’s routing to crash on the spot. The two million original viewers complained that the viewing experience was absolute trash, yet they were completely helpless and lacked any ability to fight back.

One could tell why just by looking at that horrifying viewership of 63 million. What was there to use for resistance? They could only lie back and wait to be ravaged by these newcomers.

"Ahem, let's retreat, retreat! The routing for this stream is going to collapse in a moment! Everyone drop a follow on the way out, and you can come back to watch on your own when you're free!"

Magic Wheel shouted at the top of his lungs in the senior management chat, terrified that so many people would crash the big-brain streamer's channel and cause the bigshot to turn hostile against them.

Guild management began cascading orders down level by level, telling people to withdraw.

Regrettably, the effect wasn't particularly significant. In the end, while quite a few people left, over ten million remained to watch the broadcast, and the pre-existing two million viewers felt their viewing experience was still trash...

The bullet-screen comments they typed out were completely drowned out by these newcomers.

"Clank."

An old man placed a helmet onto the counter.

The helmet was made of white leather armor, which happened to match the color of Huang Yunshuo's alloy battle armor.

The front projected slightly above the brow with a brim-like curved protrusion to block the sunlight.

The eyesore part was the top of the helmet, where over a dozen rooster feathers of various colors were stuck. As the old man set it down, they swayed haphazardly back and forth with joyous abandon, instantly driving Huang Yunshuo to despair.

"What is this thing? Can it be removed?" he protested.

"That won't do. This helmet is a single piece. You can take it or leave it if you don't want the stats... Of course, you aren't a blacksmith, so you couldn't take it apart even if you wanted to."

The old man said smugly.

Huang Yunshuo slapped a hand to his forehead. As for the design... it was certainly eye-catching, but whatever, forget it.

Let's check the stats first.

Provocation Helmet (Green), Level 20
Agility: +15
Defense: +10
Movement Speed: +5%
Spite (Passive): After suffering any provocation, you will uncontrollably launch a premeditated attack against the other party. May you wish its master a long and healthy life!

"Movement speed becomes 60%, defense 58, agility 134-139..."

A set of data flashed through his mind instantly, though Huang Yunshuo's face was alternating between black and white. The stats added were plentiful, extremely powerful, right on point, and utterly insane—he would admit to that.

Yet what on earth was this passive skill, dammit?

Suffering any provocation makes you uncontrollably launch a premeditated attack against the other party?

What if someone across a ravine called me trash... and the ravine happened to be too wide for me to fly across?

Huang Yunshuo shuddered.

Or what if he passed by a high-level monster zone in the future, say, a level 40 or 50 zone, and some monster roared at him twice, prompting him to instantly charge over and duel them?

Screw you, you unscrupulous merchant!

"Return it! Refund it for me right now! I don't want this equipment anymore, give my 120 little rooster feathers back!"

Huang Yunshuo vaulted directly onto the counter, crouched down, and grabbed the old man by the collar.

The old man struggled violently: "You can't blame me for this! These are the stats it rolled when crafted. I'm a conscientious merchant, you know."

"You're a conscientious merchant, my ass! With a skill this brain-dead, you must have skimped me of at least 60 little rooster feathers, didn't you?"

"No, no! If you don't believe me, you can search my body."

"Come with me to the garrison office. Let me tell you, Ling Bing, the garrison commander of Stone Platform Town, is my woman. I was just caressing her little hand and flirting with her not long ago!"

"Holy crap!" The old man was startled.

"Just in time, my woman is about to get a promotion and leave. Shall I drag you off to be beheaded as a sacrifice to the flag? An unscrupulous old man who dares to scam the garrison commander's husband?"

Huang Yunshuo roared.

Foam formed at the corners of the old man's mouth, and he looked thoroughly broken.

"Please don't go to the garrison commander! We can settle this privately instead!"

The old man cried out mournfully.

Damn it all, he must have been out of his mind. Why did he go back to his old trade when he clearly knew the person in front of him was the esteemed Champion Warrior and Golden Warrior...

Serves him right.

"Spit it out. How many feathers did you embezzle from me, and how many were actually used to craft this piece of junk?"

Huang Yunshuo pointed at the helmet and demanded an answer.

"Not much, hehehe... I only embezzled about 50. But I guarantee you! The remaining 70 are made from genuine, top-quality materials!"

The old man flashed a wretched smile, then quickly straightened his expression and spoke loudly.

"You..."

Huang Yunshuo memorized the old man's name—Pan Dainian. He really wanted to execute him on the spot with a rocket launcher right now.

To gather those extra 40 feathers, he had sprinted all the way to that godforsaken mine and hammered away for ages, only for the tier-7 ores he had painstakingly acquired to be snatched away by those punk viewers.

And with just a flick of your damn hand, you swiped 50 of them?

If he didn't squeeze every last coin out of this old man today, his surname wouldn't be Da—

Wait, no, his surname wouldn't be Huang.