【Permanent Summon · A Ling opened treasure chest (blue) ×1, Contractor obtained the following items:】
paradise coins ×1000 (This is the guaranteed reward)
paradise coins ×1200
Source of Body (skill scroll)
soul crystal · small ×1
...
Item Name: soul crystal · small
Item Quality: Green
Item Type: Consumable
Item Rating: 30 (This is the rating limit for green quality items)
Usage Method: Use in Order Paradise's infrastructure · Skill Upgrade Chamber to increase the level of some skills.
Item Description: A highly purified soul concentrate.
Item Price: 400 paradise coins
...
Skill Name: Source of Body
Skill Quality: White ~ ???
Skill Type: Basic · Passive Skill
(Hint: Basic passive skill scrolls are extremely rare skill scrolls, with a very low chance of being obtained from opening chests.)
Skill Effect: Various values derived from the Constitution attribute increase by 0.1%.
(Hint: Including but not limited to, health points, physical defense, bone strength, various resistances, etc.)
Learning Conditions: None
Learning Method: Just tear open the skill scroll.
Skill Evaluation: The foundation is the most important thing.
Skill Rating: 1
(Hint: The quality and rating of basic · passive skills will increase as the skill level increases.)
Skill Price: 100 paradise coins
...
Mu Bei temporarily made no evaluation of the soul crystal · small because he hadn't used it yet.
The skill scroll in Mu Bei's hand was more interesting to him.
The effect of this basic passive skill seemed quite heaven-defying at first glance, as it could increase various values derived from the Constitution attribute.
But don't overlook its increase rate, which is as high as 0.1%!
A Contractor with 100 health points would see their health increase to 100.1 after mastering this skill.
This increase rate is truly too "high".
Although the quality and rating of basic · passive skills will increase with skill level, this looks too much like drawing a pie.
The "???" quality cap does indeed show that this skill has high potential, and Mu Bei doesn't deny this point.
But the problem is, if you die in the early stage due to unreasonable resource allocation planning, where will the later stage come from?
Even if this skill's strength were to increase fiftyfold, it would still only be 5%, which is still a very low increase rate.
If a low-level Contractor had the resources to increase this skill's effect by fiftyfold, wouldn't it be better for them to upgrade other skills that are more effective and cost-efficient?
Why insist on upgrading this pie-drawing thing? Just for that elusive upper limit?
So, should he master this skill, or keep this skill scroll and sell it for a high price to a Contractor who has already grown strong after returning to the Paradise?
Mu Bei would naturally choose to... master this skill.
Mu Bei had previously analyzed his talent, Heaven Forsaker. Its positive effects in the early stage far outweighed its negative effects because his luck attribute was not too low at that time.
But as Mu Bei's luck attribute irreversibly decreases, the benefits Heaven Forsaker brings to Mu Bei in the later stage may gradually become unable to compensate for the losses this talent brings him.
Mu Bei needs skills that can support his strength in the later stage, and this talent called Source of Body is very suitable for Mu Bei's needs.
The biggest drawback of this basic passive skill is just that its cost-effectiveness for upgrading in the early stage is too low.
The resources that low-level Contractors can obtain are very limited, but this is not a problem for Mu Bei at all.
...
"I'll give you 9 more treasure chests, open them for me."
Seeing that the first treasure chest A Ling opened yielded a skill he wanted, Mu Bei felt a bit surprised.
He looked forward to seeing if it would flash a few more times and produce a few more skill scrolls with high upper limits like Basic Passive · Source of Body.
【Permanent Summon · A Ling opened treasure chests (blue) ×9, Contractor obtained the following items:】
paradise coins ×9000 (This is the guaranteed reward)
paradise coins ×10200
Fire Elementalist (profession scroll)
soul crystal · small ×6
...
Item Name: Profession Scroll · Fire Elementalist
Item Type: Class Change Item (one-time use)
Item Quality: Blue
Item Effect: After use, obtain the profession · Fire Elementalist, randomly increase Constitution and Intelligence attributes by a total of 2~6 points, as well as fire-related damage reduction ability, and obtain professional skills related to manipulating fire.
Usage Conditions: Have not undergone any class change before; Intelligence attribute is greater than 5; Constitution attribute is greater than 5.
Usage Method: Just tear open the profession scroll.
Item Evaluation: Ability users have a chance to drop profession scrolls related to their abilities after death.
Item Rating: 70 (This rating is the limit for blue quality items)
Item Price: 800 paradise coins
...
This time, after A Ling opened 9 treasure chests, none of them flashed, and the chest that yielded the Fire Elementalist profession scroll didn't flash either.
This made Mu Bei understand something: whether a chest flashes when opened depends not only on the item's rating and price but more on its rarity.
Although none of the 9 chests flashed this time, the return was not low, at least far higher than if Mu Bei had opened the chests himself.
However, although A Ling's luck attribute was 6 points higher than Mu Bei's, it was ultimately only at a normal level.
Mu Bei temporarily didn't plan to let A Ling open the remaining chests.
After returning to the Paradise, if possible, Mu Bei planned to find a few people with relatively high luck attributes to open the chests for him.
As compensation, Mu Bei didn't mind sharing a portion of the gains he couldn't obtain himself with the people who opened the chests for him.
If he couldn't find anyone or the compensation wasn't agreed upon, he would buy some items that could temporarily increase the luck attribute for A Ling to use before letting it open the chests.
...
"A Ling, don't continue summoning more Zombies for now. There are already too many corpses piled up inside and outside the city, and too many virus crystals need to be collected. How many Level 4 Zombies are there now?"
Every time A Ling attracted Zombies, Mu Bei would leave a very small portion of them alive and select individuals with sufficient potential from them.
Mu Bei not only temporarily didn't kill these individuals but also had A Ling order them to gorge themselves on corpses to level up, thereby increasing their Intelligence.
The number of Zombie corpses inside and outside the city added up to more than a hundred thousand, and most of the corpses hadn't had their heads opened to extract crystals yet.
Virus crystals could be directly submitted to Order Paradise for unlimited exchange for world source, which was a major benefit for Mu Bei, and he didn't want to waste these resources.
However, he couldn't collect so many crystals by himself.
Therefore, Mu Bei needed to cultivate a new batch of high-level Zombies with enough Intelligence to be competent at opening heads and extracting crystals.
"As of now, there are 19 of them," A Ling answered respectfully.
"That's enough. Order them to stop eating and all go open the heads of these corpses and collect virus crystals."
Mu Bei would not kill these Zombies before returning to the Paradise.
"Yes."
"Also, you must constantly monitor these Zombies and try your best not to let them steal my crystals."
"Yes."
"Let me remind you, if the number of virus crystals I finally receive is very inconsistent with my estimated result, you can guess how miserable your fate will be."
"Master, can you tell me the estimated result?"
"No."
Besides eating Human flesh, some low-level Zombies would also eat the flesh of their own kind and virus crystals.
These Zombies that eat their own kind generally have higher evolutionary potential and can upgrade to higher-level Zombies.
And as the Zombie level increases, some of their Intelligence levels will also recover partially.
Generally speaking, Zombies that reach Level 3 or 4 have an Intelligence level equivalent to that of a 4-8 year old Human child.
Zombies of this level can understand and relatively accurately execute the commands of the Zombie Lord, but occasionally they still cannot restrain their instincts—
Even though the Zombie Lord ordered them not to steal food, they would still steal and eat one or two virus crystals when they couldn't help it.
This phenomenon occurred many times during the period when Mu Bei was frantically improving his strength before capturing Jinzhou City.
When Mu Bei discovered it back then, he immediately killed several elite-level Zombies as a warning.
But this trick was useless. Zombies are not Humans and were not scared by Mu Bei at all. They would still steal food when they couldn't help it.
Mu Bei also tried having Level 3 Zombies collect virus crystals for him. Zombies of this level could complete the task of opening heads.
After taking out the virus crystals from the heads, they wouldn't steal them, but would eat them openly, eating every one they saw.
Even if Mu Bei and the Zombie Lord were right beside it, with the latter constantly giving it commands not to eat, it just couldn't control the instinct to eat the virus crystals in front of it.
As for lower-level Zombies, there's even less to say. Their Intelligence is so low that they can't even understand what opening a head is.
So, Mu Bei had no real way to deal with these Level 4 Zombies. Anyway, they would all turn into his treasure chests eventually, so he might as well consider it increasing the treasure chest's yield.
Increasing the treasure chest was just something Mu Bei said to comfort himself.
If 10,000 virus crystals were collected by those elite Zombies for Mu Bei, Mu Bei would probably get about 6,000, with the remaining 4,000 naturally entering the bodies of those Zombies.
These 4,000 virus crystals could only slightly increase the yield Mu Bei obtained when opening the chests after killing them.
If the increased yield were converted back into virus crystals, it would only be worth about 100 crystals, and this was the extra yield only when A Ling opened the chests.
If Mu Bei opened the chests himself, it wouldn't even be worth 10 virus crystals.
The value of the remaining several thousand virus crystals just evaporated like that.
This is actually not difficult to understand, similar to the energy loss that occurs during energy flow in an ecosystem.
The energy contained in 4,000 virus crystals flowed through the Zombies' bodies once, with considerable loss; then it turned into treasure chests and flowed once more; by the time it reached Mu Bei's hands, it had gone through two stages, with very large losses.
A Ling, who hadn't yet eaten Zhongli Yi's corpse, had less control over the Zombies than it does now. Mu Bei wondered if the current A Ling could significantly improve this situation.
Assuming there are 10000 virus crystals, if A Ling can ensure that Mu Bei ultimately receives 7500, which is 75% of the total amount, then Mu Bei will not take any substantial punitive measures against A Ling.
If the virus crystals received are less than 75% of the total, Mu Bei is prepared this time to cut open A Ling's chest cavity, take out its heart, place it in front of it, and then say this to A Ling:
Loyalty is a very important quality, and as my permanent summon, how would you evaluate your "heart" of loyalty to me?
75% was the percentage Mu Bei estimated, but he deliberately didn't tell A Ling for two reasons:
First, he wanted to see where A Ling's limit was.
The unknown is most terrifying. Without knowing the clear standard, A Ling wouldn't dare not try its best.
Second, he was preventing potential losses.
If Mu Bei had told A Ling in advance that his estimated percentage was 75%, and A Ling could actually achieve a ratio of 80% of virus crystals ultimately reaching Mu Bei through effort, then the question arises: would A Ling go all out to ensure Mu Bei gets 80% of the virus crystals?
A reminder, A Ling's loyalty to Mu Bei is currently only 23.
Loyalty is really a big problem.
However, Mu Bei has already thought of a solution, a theoretically permanent solution to this problem—mind imprint.
Current World technology, after achieving major breakthroughs in brain-computer interface technology, can already imprint minds, and Mu Bei was among the first to come into contact with this technology.
If Mu Bei has a chance to return to his Current World later, he will find a way to retrieve his hard drive and computer.
He would let a strong artificial general Intelligence (AGI) model analyze A Ling and then design a suitable mind imprint plan for A Ling for Mu Bei.