Watching the five of them fall, Pei Guang showed a satisfied smile.
But soon he suddenly realized something was wrong.
As he looked at the last one plunging into the abyss, Pei Guang crouched at the edge and reached out in anguish.
"Nooooo!!!"
His cry was heart-wrenching, as though it wasn't an enemy falling, but a companion.
Seeing Pei Guang in such pain, Firefly asked worriedly from the edge of the rooftop: "Are you alright?"
Pei Guang: "Not alright! Very not alright—those five coins can't be picked up now."
All the way here, he had been thinking about how to farm coins, but when it came to the fight, he forgot.
Still, it wasn't a big problem. He quickly adjusted his mood and returned to the rooftop.
"Since these five couldn't drop coins, I believe this old man will definitely give us a well-rewarded quest. Old man~ how are you feeling?"
Pei Guang pulled the elderly man out of the sack. When he was freed, he gazed up at the sky with statue-like calm, showing barely any signs of breathing.
Even Pei Guang unconsciously held his breath at the sight. In dreams, breathing wasn't necessary, so even holding it caused him no discomfort.
"Could it be… he got scared stupid?" Sparkle whispered beside him.
He had been carried around in a sack by Pei Guang for so long, yet once released, he remained perfectly calm.
When Sparkle said this, the old man turned his head toward her. His gaze was still tranquil, but Sparkle felt as if even her underwear had been seen through.
The discomfort made her instinctively hide behind Pei Guang.
Then his eyes moved to Firefly. With just a glance, he pierced through the heavy dream-filters and saw her essence.
At last, his gaze fell on Pei Guang. When he saw him, the old man seemed stunned.
Though he looked like a senile elder, he calmly said: "You… carry a mysterious aura. Once, just by someone's demeanor and attire, I could roughly guess their identity. But you are different… child. Your body is flawless. Even the most precise machine in the universe is not as perfect as you are…"
There was a hint of excitement in his tone as he lifted his eyes to Pei Guang: "You have a heart that refuses to stay silent. That heart makes me feel a passion I haven't felt in a long time. You are a Trailblazer, aren't you?"
Pei Guang nodded: "You've got sharp eyes, old man. Yes, I'm a Trailblazer."
After complimenting the old man, Pei Guang looked at Firefly: "See? I told you it's easy to recognize us Trailblazers. But those Bloodhound Family members kept insisting I was a stowaway. Even an old man can tell—how come they can't? Obviously they were just picking a fight."
Although Sunday had already lifted the warrant against him, Pei Guang didn't know that. He still believed the bounty was active.
That was why, when even this elder could identify him as a Trailblazer, he hated being treated like a criminal even more.
Being wrongly captured as a suspect is a classic trope in all kinds of games, but Pei Guang had no interest in playing it out. Right now, he was determined to farm those guys' coins hard.
If the old man could see he was a Trailblazer and not a stowaway, why couldn't they?
What? Just here to mess with him? Exactly. Pei Guang admitted he was messing with them too—for fun.
With full freedom, he only wanted to play his own way.
After venting to Firefly, he turned back to the old man: "Hello, sir. Let me introduce myself. I'm Pei Guang, a Trailblazer from the Astral Express. May I ask your name?"
"Chadwick…"
Pei Guang: "Chadwick~ got it. Old man, is there anything you'd like me to help with? Any mission, any request at all."
"Heh… that's the way of a Trailblazer, always so passionate…"
Chadwick could remember little else, but some things about Trailblazers still remained. He wanted to ask for help—but as soon as such thoughts arose, his expression froze completely, as if his mind went blank.
Sparkle leaned in and waved a hand in front of his face.
Seeing him dazed again, she asked nervously: "Um… this grandpa… does he have some kind of health problem?"
Pei Guang nodded: "Definitely. I can see he's missing something. I think the first stage of the quest is probably helping him recover his lost emotions."
Sparkle looked up with anticipation: "Is there something I can do?"
Firefly also turned toward Pei Guang, but he shook his head: "Not for now. Because someone has already gathered what we need for the quest~"
He pulled out thirty Emotional Manifestations. Twenty-five had been collected by Stelle at the frontier, and the other five were from the Clock Credits she had obtained.
Seeing the materials, Pei Guang couldn't help but sigh.
"Thank goodness Stelle had such good luck. If she hadn't swept all this up, we'd be in real trouble right now."
If Stelle had been here, Pei Guang would have grabbed her and planted a big kiss. No wonder she was called Stelle: she really was the party's lucky star.
Without her, he figured it would have taken him hours to gather the materials.
At this moment, Stelle had no idea what was in his mind. If she had, she'd have teleported back immediately: there was no way she would miss such a chance.
Firefly had already seen Pei Guang create top-grade items out of a pot, so she just watched him expectantly.
But Sparkle had never seen it before.
When she saw Pei Guang pull out a pile of gear-like things, and then take out a cooking pot, her curiosity got the better of her.
"Wait… that's a pot? Are you about to cook here?"
Pei Guang shook his head: "Nope, I'm synthesizing an item. Here! Step back a bit. Although the Savory Truefire doesn't burn allies, the golden flash when the pot opens can blind you."
Since Chadwick was also missing something deep inside, then let this functional drink help him regain himself and become whole again.
Together with Chadwick, the three of them watched as Pei Guang used the synthesis pot. They saw him toss in some gear-like parts, then snap his fingers to summon a flame under the pot.
When he saw that flame, the emptiness in Chadwick's eyes flickered with life. The moment he laid eyes on it, he felt it was no ordinary fire.
It looked ordinary, yet it carried the possibility of igniting an entire galaxy.
And somewhere, the once-prolific monstrosity, whose galaxy had been roasted whole after someone borrowed its fire, muttered: "You guessed right."
What came next shocked the old man even more—because the gears inside the pot turned into… a bottle of drink?
Even though it was a dream, what kind of nonsense was thirty gears turning into one bottle of drink? And yet, he could tell at once this wasn't some fake dream-only drink. T
his was a real drink, manifesting here in the dream.
What unsettled him further was that when the bottle appeared, it shone with a faint golden light. That golden glow didn't belong to this world: not to the dream, not to reality. It was as if its existence here was only natural, even though it defied every known principle.
Fortunately, his consciousness wasn't whole, so while he was shocked, his mind didn't collapse.
"Here! Drink it! This will help you recover some of the emotions you've lost."
At Pei Guang's urging, he took the drink.
But just as he was about to drink, a primal instinct flared up. His instincts screamed that he must refuse—that drinking it would unleash something terrible.
Seeing him hesitate, Pei Guang's face hardened. He had no intention of giving Chadwick a chance to refuse.
He reached out and, as if feeding someone coffee, forced the bottle into his mouth and gave it a squeeze. A mouthful of the drink poured into his body.
The instant it entered him, Chadwick's empty eyes went wide. Emotions returned to them, and the things he had lost began to slowly come back.
But when a certain crucial memory was about to resurface, his body reacted violently. As a true top-grade item, the Emotion Recovery Functional Drink ran its own judgment.
It determined that this sealed memory could only remain so if Chadwick was to reclaim himself.
So it blocked the recovery of that memory, reinforced the seal, and ensured that until he encountered someone who met his conditions, the memory could never be revealed by any means.