Chapter Sixty-Six: The Arrival of the Supreme Administrator

“Alright, since you seem sincere enough, I won’t ask you for the pickaxe,” he said with a dry cough, taking his leave from Old Song’s shop. Huang Yunshuo hurriedly left the North Town’s main street and headed toward a materials store near the central resurrection point.

After skimming through the instruction manual, a system prompt informed him that he had learned a new skill.

Equipment Care Spray Crafting Lv1: Use the required materials to create a [Minor Equipment Care Spray]. This spray can slowly restore durability to damaged equipment without affecting its usability.

Minor Equipment Care Spray: Restores 10 points of equipment durability over 10 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Only 10 durability in 10 seconds? And the cooldown is so long.

Obviously, this isn’t for use on shoddy gear. A poor-quality pickaxe breaks after just twenty swings, and a spray like this can’t keep up, not to mention it would be a waste.

He bought the necessary materials for a single batch according to the list, spending a hefty 260 copper coins.

Looking around, Huang Yunshuo realized he had nowhere to go. Crafting the spray would take some time, and he didn’t want to risk being disturbed.

“Should I rent a room?” The idea crossed his mind, but he quickly shook his head. Better to just find a quiet, secluded spot for now.

He slipped into a narrow alley, settled down where no one was around, and pulled out a small glass vial to begin mixing the ingredients.

Five minutes passed.

Bang.

The glass vial exploded, sending shards and medicinal residue everywhere.

Huang Yunshuo: “...”

Damn it! There’s actually a failure rate for crafting this spray? How the hell is anyone supposed to make a living with this?

He was frustrated beyond belief. The ingredients for one care spray cost 260 copper coins. If the success rate were 100%, he could accept it, but now he discovered there was a chance of failure. That was just too much.

At the very least, couldn’t they tell him what the failure rate was in advance? Was it 90%? 50%? Or what? Was he supposed to just keep trying and find out by trial and error?

He felt completely screwed.

He headed to the general store and bought a pickaxe for 198 copper coins.

Fine Pickaxe, Level 15

Durability: 100/100

Mining Speed +15%

A high-quality pickaxe with 100 durability. It would wear out much more slowly, though the 15% bonus to mining speed, while welcome, also meant the tool would be used up faster in practice.

Thinking it over, Huang Yunshuo bought a second one. Two should be enough.

Now he had just over 300 copper coins left—only enough for one more set of spray materials.

Returning to the alley where the last vial had blown up, he took a deep breath and began crafting with utmost caution.

He carefully measured and prepared each ingredient, grinding, pounding, or mixing as required, adding them in sequence, stirring, and shaking, all while keeping a wary eye on the progress bar beneath the glass vial.

“3%... 7%... 38%... 89%!”

When the completion bar reached 89%, his heart skipped a beat. The liquid inside the vial began to bubble furiously, clearly on the verge of exploding.

“No, no, don’t blow up!” He could practically feel his heart bleeding at the thought of losing another 260 copper coins. Without thinking, he jammed a stopper into the vial’s spout.

After this utterly spontaneous, nonsensical move, he shielded his eyes and covered his ears, bracing for the explosion.

Ten seconds passed. Nothing.

He opened his eyes. The stoppered vial stood perfectly intact, and the progress bar below it had turned green, indicating completion.

“???”

He picked up the spray, utterly confused. It had been on the verge of exploding, but the moment he capped it, the process was considered complete?

“Well, I’ll just hold on to it and see how it works.”

He dashed out of Stone Platform Town, staying alert for trouble along the way. He didn’t run into Stammering Liu again, which was a relief.

Repeating his earlier trick, he sent ten young roosters tumbling off the cliff, chuckling to himself as he slipped into the mine.

This little exploit with the chickens seemed perfectly tailored to him.

He had to admit, Knockback really was the soul of the Rocket Launcher—his survivability had soared since acquiring it.

“This spot is well-lit. I’ll dig here.”

Choosing a good location, he put away his rocket launcher, grabbed his pickaxe, and began mining with cheerful vigor.

Clink.

The first ore chunk dropped—just a piece of scrap.

Still, the fine pickaxe felt great in his hands: solid yet responsive, sharp and steady, and its durability dropped very slowly.

After four swings, only one point of durability was lost.

And those four swings had already netted him a grade 9 iron ore—worth 55 copper coins!

Old Song, wanting him to mine more, had raised the price of grade 9 ore from 50 copper coins to 55 per piece, and he could sell up to ten at a time for 550. This one chunk was basically worth an entire set of rockets—what a delight!

The eerie mine echoed with the constant ringing of his pickaxe.

Sweating from the exertion, Huang Yunshuo unconsciously began singing “The Boatman’s Love.”

“Here I am, raving alone in the dirt like a halfwit,” he joked to himself. Then an idea struck him: the game allowed for live streaming—why not start a stream now?

He was bored anyway, and bantering with those silly viewers might be fun.

He navigated the interface, logged into the Starry Sky streaming platform, and entered his channel. Just as he was about to start the broadcast, his eyes widened in surprise.

Someone was already chatting in his room!

Lv1 CuteCutie: “Sister Ruoruo, what do you mean by ‘Time and Space Odyssey’?”

[Supermod] Lv1 Starry Sky Ruoruo: “It’s a new feature, part of an internal version update. You can exchange a certain number of points for rewards.”

Lv1 CuteCutie: “Is it a new instance?”

[Supermod] Lv1 Starry Sky Ruoruo: “Sort of, but not exactly. I can’t say too much...”

Welcome [Host] Moron to the channel.

The welcome banner popped up as Huang Yunshuo entered his own stream.

CuteCutie: “...”

“Chatting on a black screen?” Huang Yunshuo mused.

It was a strange situation. Black screen chatting wasn’t unheard of—many mid- or high-level streamers had fans chatting in their rooms around the clock, even when the stream was offline.

But what was a supermod doing here?

The Starry Sky streaming supermods were high-level employees hired by the main mothership’s streaming node, responsible for collaborating with SkyNet to manage the platform, arrange recommendations, organize promotional events, and so on.

Their authority was immense; depending on rank, they could close channels, mute everyone, restrict chat by level, kick users out, or limit a channel’s popularity.

They were like GMs with cheat codes, able to do as they pleased.

Any streamer who saw an ID with a [Supermod] tag would immediately fawn over them, no matter which part of the platform the mod managed or how much power they actually had—flattery was always the right move.