Alex knew he could only answer Emily properly if he explained everything about the system and the cultivation world.
So he held back.
Emily kept asking more about Mingyue.
Most of the questions, Alex skipped.
He did not know enough about her yet.
When the questions started to turn more personal, Alex changed the topic.
"How about you? How is your life after becoming a hunter?" he asked.
"Me? Nothing special.
I just spend every day on mission after mission," Emily answered.
Alex frowned.
"If that's true, then why are you still ranked two? What really makes it hard?"
"Because I can only enter low-level dungeons. Mom is pulling the strings behind my back," Emily said with a sigh.
"So I can only grind with missions that give low contribution points."
"No wonder," Alex said.
He paused, then added, "Well, don't get me wrong, but I'm glad Mom does that.
You know the casualty rate in those kinds of dungeons, right?"
Emily pouted, feeling wronged.
"Even you! Why does no one support me in this?"
"It's not that I don't want to support you, Emily," Alex said.
"But the reason you're doing this isn't because of your dream. You're using it as a vent."
He looked at her seriously.
"What if something happened to you too? What would happen to me and Mom?
Do you think we can take another loss?"
Emily's voice turned weak.
"But then, who will look for Dad?"
"You know we've spent a lot of money putting up requests, right? And a four-star hunter already took the mission."
"But it's been years and there is no news at all, Alex!" she said.
"You are a hunter yourself. You should understand this more than me," Alex replied.
"A veteran hunter still gives us no result. What can you do by yourself, Sis?"
Alex only knew that his mother had spent a lot of their family fortune posting missions to look for their father.
A four-star hunter had accepted the request.
But Alex had never heard any follow-up.
Now that he understood more about the red and dark zones, he guessed the mission difficulty had reached S or even SS rank.
In his world, dungeons were categorized by numbers.
The bigger the number, the higher the risk.
Superpower talent and missions used ranks from F to A.
Above A were S, SS, and SSS ranks.
A few days passed.
That night, Alex spent his time catching up with Emily.
During the day, he finalized all the contracts and met with his family's lawyer.
He studied all the legal rules he needed to follow.
Meanwhile, in the cultivation world, Mingyue was disguised as a normal, plain woman.
She sat in a carriage that moved toward Da Ying City, the city where her family lived.
In the last few days, she had thought carefully about what Alex had told her.
She finally decided to act as a merchant.
She had already gathered many commoners from nearby villages.
She trained them using the instructions she received from Alex.
In her hand was a smartphone.
She had spent a few hours on the road reading a story on it.
It was one of the cultivation novels Alex had picked for her.
Mingyue frowned as she read the cliché plot.
"Is this man stupid?" she muttered.
"He comes from a prestigious family, and instead of looking for a woman from the same class, he goes too far for a woman in a rural area."
She kept reading and complaining.
"Even if she is talented, it doesn't justify offending other geniuses for her.
Or did this man have no choice but to do this? Is every other woman in this story that ugly?
How is a village woman, even as a genius, more beautiful than the daughter of another cultivator?"
The story told of a rich young master who offended the main character to steal his love interest.
To Mingyue, this did not make sense.
They might look down on commoners, but once a commoner became a cultivator, no one would offend them without a clear reason.
The competition between families and sects was brutal.
Every single talent was cherished and fought over.
In the story, both the main character and the woman were genius talents.
If the young master befriended them, he could have secured two geniuses for his family.
Instead, he chose to offend them both.
And for what?
Lust.
Because the woman was beautiful.
"This kind of brainless person would be killed without mercy in my family.
He acts like a virgin who's never seen anyone attractive," Mingyue mumbled.
In her world, the competition among the younger generation was intense.
The family did not care if it was a boy or a girl.
Those who were useless to the family were lucky to be fed.
Those who became a burden could not even hope to survive the next day.
Yet here, this young master was offending two geniuses just to feed his ego.
Mingyue shook her head and put the phone back into her storage ring.
A sleek gun appeared in her hand.
It felt cold in her palm.
On the back of it, a digital number showed 100%.
Vesa had already sent the information on how to use it directly into Mingyue's mind when she received it.
"To think they can mass-produce artifacts like this," she said. "Even making it usable by anyone."
[Told you, Queen, do not underestimate the weapons from the King's world.]
Mingyue agreed now.
She still remembered the result when she discharged all 100% of the charge in one shot.
She was sure that even with her current cultivation level, she would have been gravely wounded if she took a direct hit.
If many of these guns fired together, even a golden core cultivator could be pulverized.
Mingyue already pictured one of the scenarios Alex had described.
A commoner held the gun and shot a cultivator by surprise.
The beam moved at the speed of light.
If the cultivator looked down on commoners, he would not dodge.
He would be hit for sure.