Chapter 168: Bullying the Newbies

“Oh, La Xia, great beauty, long time no see.”

After returning to the Land of Exile, Chen Mo’s first move was to visit La Xia at the bottom level of the prison.

Seeing Chen Mo, La Xia couldn’t hold back her anger. “Why are you back here again?”

The final investigation into Princess Peraldili’s escape from the Land of Exile concluded that this Human Adventurer was the one responsible. Because Peraldili got away, Dunis’s plans were severely disrupted. La Xia’s standing in Dunis’s eyes dropped significantly due to her poor supervision.

Seeing Chen Mo made her absolutely furious.

But due to the rules, she couldn’t openly cause trouble for this adventurer. Any adventurer who escaped from the Land of Exile had their slate wiped clean, no matter what they did there. If she wanted to mess with Chen Mo, it had to be done in secret. At the very least, letting Peraldili escape couldn’t be used as a charge against him.

Chen Mo came to see La Xia to test the attitude of the NPCs here, to see if it was really as Joanna said. If La Xia tried to capture him the moment they met, he would have to use the logout tactic to lay low temporarily, then find another way to assassinate the Sea Clan NPC Haiweila.

It seemed now that Joanna was right. Even though La Xia hated him, she didn’t dare to do anything openly. Otherwise, instead of questioning him, she would have sent people to arrest him right away.

“Of course, I missed you, great beauty La Xia.” Chen Mo smiled. In reality, only a little over four days had passed since he escaped the Land of Exile. Today at 6 PM would be the next time the Hunting Grounds opened.

Another reason Chen Mo sought out La Xia was to reclaim his privilege to enter the Hunting Grounds.

After being away for five days, the number of Blacklisted Players in the Land of Exile had clearly increased. If he wanted to personally gather ten Beast Cores, he would have to spend money to reach the fourth level. But to get to the fourth level, he still had to come to La Xia. Even if he didn’t look for her, La Xia, as the person in charge of the bottom level, would quickly find out he was back.

This small Land of Exile made it impossible to avoid La Xia and the others no matter what. So Chen Mo straightforwardly went to see her.

“Hmph! Who would believe you? Out with it, why are you looking for me? If you have no business, don’t bother me. I don’t want to see you!” La Xia issued an order for him to leave.

“Don’t be so cruel, beautiful. We know each other, after all. Well, I just wanted to ask if my privileges are still valid?”

With a full set of top-tier equipment and Sesshylow being stronger than ever, Chen Mo equipped the Heinous Crime Title as soon as he arrived in the Land of Exile to gain privileges. Even if La Xia and the others wanted to deal with him, they would have to think twice.

In fact, the Heinous Crime Title made La Xia very cautious. If she wanted to deal with Chen Mo, it had to be done secretly.

“They’re valid, same rules as before!” La Xia said with a stern face.

“Good, I’ll come chat with you when I have time.” Chen Mo nodded in satisfaction and turned to leave.

“That guy!” La Xia stared annoyed as Chen Mo left, then decided to contact Dunis.

She couldn’t easily take action against this adventurer, but it was different for Dunis.

…

Back at the lowest level of the prison, Chen Mo noticed the number of Blacklisted Players had increased significantly. It seemed there were quite a few Players in the Game who enjoyed killing.

However, Chen Mo soon noticed something unusual.

The number of Players coming to the Land of Exile today was excessively high. Moreover, two groups appeared one after the other.

“Are these Players here on Quests in the Land of Exile again?” Chen Mo wondered curiously.

But it wasn’t strange. Wasn’t he here on a Quest too? The Game was huge; having a few groups come here for Quests was perfectly normal. Think about the Main City; that area wasn’t much bigger than the Land of Exile, yet the number of Quests undertaken daily in a single Main City was countless.

In comparison, having a few groups of Players coming to the Land of Exile for Quests was the most ordinary thing.

After realizing this, Chen Mo couldn’t be bothered to pay them any more attention. As long as they didn’t interfere with his Quest, it didn’t matter how many came.

However, Chen Mo noticed that these newly arrived Players were very familiar with the rules of the Land of Exile. As soon as they arrived, they sought people to buy Beast Cores at high prices. Their goal seemed to be entering the Hunting Grounds.

Chen Mo’s target was Haiweila, but he had no idea where Haiweila was imprisoned.

If Haiweila was held in the upper levels of the prison, Chen Mo could forget about completing this Quest for now.

To reach the upper prison levels required spending a large amount of Gold Coins. Chen Mo currently had less than 50 Gold Coins on him, a pitiful amount. At most, he could only reach the Fourth Level. However, he had already been to the Fourth Level before, and it didn’t hold any important NPCs, just some monsters.

So, Chen Mo’s only option was to search the Hunting Grounds.

Last time, although he stayed in the Hunting Grounds for several days, he was primarily active near the Valley where Princess Peraldili was held. When searching for a way out, he simply followed one path straight to the Hunting Grounds’ wall, then moved along the wall until he found the exit.

Therefore, Chen Mo hadn’t visited many areas of the Hunting Grounds. Haiweila was likely imprisoned in one of those places.

There wasn’t much he could do. He would only know how to proceed after entering the Hunting Grounds and searching.

He logged out to wait for 6 PM. However, shortly after Chen Mo logged out, a refined-looking Archer Player logged in. It was Qi Se Yu Yi.

Of the two major Guild leaders, Six Paths Maniac was eventually forced to suicide and start over. Qi Se Yu Yi, however, couldn’t bear to do that and stayed in the Land of Exile to cleanse his Crime Value. Now his Crime Value was almost cleared. He just needed to wait until the end of the month for the teleportation NPC to appear, and then he could leave the Land of Exile.

“Boss! That guy is back!” Just as Qi Se Yu Yi logged in, one of his underlings frantically reported to him.

“Which guy?” Qi Se Yu Yi asked, puzzled.

“That Hunter who ruined our Quest last time!”

“It’s him!” Qi Se Yu Yi was furious.

Because of that Hunter, they suffered heavy losses, all their efforts went unrewarded, and they had to waste a lot of time in the Land of Exile.

If they had an enemy in the Game, it was definitely that Hunter!

“Where is he? Back here after just a few days, this guy really has guts!” Qi Se Yu Yi sneered, already thinking of various ways to get revenge.

“He logged out, but I think he’ll probably enter the Hunting Grounds,” the underling quickly reported.

“The Hunting Grounds? Perfect!”

A fierce glint of revenge shone in Qi Se Yu Yi’s eyes.

…

“Adventurers participating in the hunting activity, stand on the Teleportation Array. There are quite a few people; we’ll do the teleportation in several batches. Don’t rush.” Morris was still in charge of the teleportation matters. When Chen Mo walked over, Morris immediately looked at him angrily.

Chen Mo had disguised himself as Morris to escape the Hunting Grounds last time. Afterwards, Morris faced a lot of trouble, so he naturally didn’t have a favorable view of Chen Mo.

“Mr. Morris, long time no see.” Chen Mo, completely ignoring Morris’s anger, greeted him with an infuriatingly cheerful smile.

Morris really wanted to hit this guy, but he couldn’t take action. Forget it, out of sight, out of mind. Morris waved his hand and teleported this annoying fellow to the Hunting Grounds.

Batch after batch of Players were teleported to the Hunting Grounds. Before the teleportation, Chen Mo roughly estimated there were at least 200 people, four times the number from last time.

But Chen Mo also knew that the Third Level of the prison was accessible now; otherwise, the supply of Beast Cores definitely wouldn’t be enough.

Randomly teleported to the Hunting Grounds, the place was still as vast as ever. There were a few monsters in sight, but they were all Bronze-grade monsters. Chen Mo had no interest in fighting them.

“Where could Haiweila be?” Chen Mo pondered. “She is a Sea Clan NPC, so it’s highly likely she’s in a place with water. If there’s water and a cage, that would essentially confirm it. For now, I should first look for places with water.”

Having decided, Chen Mo began searching around.

While Chen Mo was searching for Haiweila, someone else was frantically looking for him.

“Boss, we found that Hunter!”

Two hours after entering the Hunting Grounds, Qi Se Yu Yi suddenly received an excited private message from a subordinate.

“Let’s go! This time we must kill him for revenge!” Qi Se Yu Yi immediately gathered his subordinates and rushed over.

Not long after, Qi Se Yu Yi actually found Chen Mo.

“Spread out, surround him from all four sides. I don’t believe we can’t kill him!” Qi Se Yu Yi knew Chen Mo had a powerful Pet with a large Area Attack skill.

But as long as they attacked from all sides, that Pet’s group attack could kill at most a quarter of them. The remaining three-quarters would be more than enough to finish off that Hunter!

Watching a group of people emerge from all directions and surround him, Chen Mo was taken aback.

Then, seeing Qi Se Yu Yi, he chuckled lightly.

“What are you laughing at, punk? You’re dead!” Qi Se Yu Yi shouted hatefully.

“Laughing at you for overestimating yourselves, delivering yourselves to your deaths,” Chen Mo retorted without mercy, flashing a mocking grin.

“Arrogant!”

“Kill him!”

The members of the Seven Heavens Guild couldn’t hold back and fiercely charged at Chen Mo.

“Hurricane.”

Chen Mo unhesitatingly had Sesshylow use the Hurricane Skill.

“Attack!”

After the Hurricane Skill was used, Chen Mo seemed much less threatening in Qi Se Yu Yi’s eyes. So he led his subordinates in attacking Chen Mo.

Chen Mo chuckled and boldly charged towards Qi Se Yu Yi and the others.

Over a dozen people were fighting one. Qi Se Yu Yi and his crew launched fierce attacks at Chen Mo. Chen Mo didn’t even bother to dodge, taking all their hits. Then he took out the Sea Stone Bone Spear, threw it, and hit one Player, dealing over three thousand Damage.

In contrast, the skills from Qi Se Yu Yi and the others only dealt a little over a hundred Damage each to Chen Mo. Altogether, they only took off a little over a thousand of his Health Points.

Equipped with the Heinous Crime Title, Chen Mo’s Health Points were extremely high. Losing a thousand points was nothing to him.

Qi Se Yu Yi and the others were stunned.

Their attacks dealt so little Damage, while Chen Mo’s casual strike instantly killed one of their high-level, level 18 members.

They didn’t know that Chen Mo was now level 25. Fighting them was like bullying newbies.