In front of a crowd of onlookers, Lin Chen walked out of the checkpoint carrying more than a dozen monster corpses.
Even the guards at the checkpoint couldn't hide their reactions.
They had been stationed there for over ten years, and they had never seen a single warrior haul that many monsters out at once.
Lin Chen left the checkpoint without stopping.
His plan was simple: find a shop nearby, have them break down the monsters, sell off all valuable materials, and turn the meat into stew for himself.
At that same time, his high school classmates had just arrived and were gathering to watch the commotion.
When the class monitor saw the figure in front of her — carrying multiple monster corpses like they were nothing — she immediately frowned.
Something about that silhouette was extremely familiar.
She looked more closely.
When she finally saw who it was, her eyes went wide.
"Wait… that's Lin Chen?!"
The moment she said it out loud, the group exploded.
All the other students turned toward Lin Chen.
And once they really looked, they couldn't deny it.
It was him.
Lin Chen.
The belief system for a lot of them instantly collapsed.
"Didn't they say Lin Chen couldn't afford college, didn't qualify for mecha commander selection, and would end up doing some low-level job like hauling bricks or working security?"
"Then why is he here?! And why is he already a Second-Class Warrior?!"
"What happened to him in just a few days? How did he get this strong?"
"A Second-Class Warrior needs at least 500 Qi and Blood. The highest any of us has is the class monitor with 189."
"Even Wang Hao, who was always ranked second, is probably only around 195 now."
"I remember when we graduated two days ago, Lin Chen's Qi and Blood was just 200. Now it's over 500? Is he even human?"
The shock in their hearts was overflowing.
They had mocked him.
They had pitied him.
They had written him off.
And now, Lin Chen had already surpassed them so far they couldn't even see his back.
Their faces flushed red.
Two feelings hit them at once — shame, and wounded pride.
"Do you think he's using drugs?"
"Honestly, it's very possible. I've seen news about that. Some warriors buy illegal enhancers to boost their strength in a short time."
"Yeah. Those potions can raise your stats really fast, but they destroy your body. Most of the people who take them die in under a month."
"I didn't think Lin Chen would actually go down that road just to save face."
"What's the point of being strong now if he's just going to die soon? He's basically a walking corpse."
"How pitiful."
The classmates kept talking, one after another, confidently convincing themselves that Lin Chen must have cheated.
If Lin Chen had heard them, every single one of them would've eaten a 30,000-jin punch to the face.
Leaving aside whether those "illegal potions" even existed the way they imagined:
If there really were some miracle drug that could massively increase a warrior's strength in a short time…
The authorities would've taken full control of it instantly.
Ordinary people would never see it.
They'd be using it to train death squads and send them to blast apart giant beasts.
Not hand it out to broke high school kids.
But his classmates had the classic "spiritual victory" mindset.
To protect their fragile egos, they made up a story that let them feel superior again.
They won the argument in their heads — and lost completely in reality.
Lin Chen ignored them.
The moment they'd laughed at him for losing the mecha pilot qualification, they stopped being his "classmates."
Soon, he reached a nearby market street.
He had the corpses of more than a dozen monsters dismantled on-site.
He kept only the flesh.
All the salable materials — fur, bones, claws, fangs, glands, whatever had value — he sold to local buyers.
After doing the math, Lin Chen realized he had made a total of 200,000 yuan.
One day of work… worth six or seven years of normal savings.
He had lived in this world for eighteen years, and this was the first time he had ever truly felt what it meant to "have money."
"Now that I've made money," Lin Chen said to himself, "I should spend money."
He still had the cash in hand — warm from the transaction — as he started shopping.
The owner of one of the shops, a woman, had been watching him.
Not only was Lin Chen good-looking, he was strong, calm, and clearly capable.
She pulled him aside to talk business.
"From now on, sell all the monsters you hunt to me," she said. "I'll give you preferred rates."
"Fine," Lin Chen said. "But I have one condition. I keep the meat."
"Deal."
Just like that, Lin Chen secured a buyer.
Then he started buying what he needed.
With the 200,000 yuan, he purchased:
A large high-heat cooking cauldron built for rapid boiling.
A basic space ring.
Seasonings and other supplies.
The cooking cauldron he chose was almost one meter across.
For small monsters, he could just throw the whole carcass in and cook it at once.
The pot was made of special materials that held and amplified heat, so cooking time was drastically reduced.
Before, it had taken him three to four hours just to cook down a wolf leader.
Now? He could do it in under an hour.
He stored the cauldron and his cooking supplies in the new space ring.
The ring had 64 cubic meters of internal space — about the size of a bedroom.
That meant he could store dozens of small monsters, or more than ten larger, leader-class corpses.
From what Lin Chen understood, the market price for this kind of ring was around 250,000 yuan.
After bargaining and with the shopkeeper's discount, he managed to get it for 180,000.
After finishing his purchases, Lin Chen headed home.
The plan: cook the meat from the dozen monsters he'd hunted…
…and eat it all.
…
Jiangcheng, Jinzun Pavilion Villa Complex.
Jinzun Pavilion sits in the most prosperous district of Jiangcheng. It's the most expensive residential development in the entire city.
There are 3,000 villas total, and each one is priced above ten million yuan.
The Wang family bought out the entire development and turned it into their private compound, assigning villas to different family members.
The most luxurious villa belonged to Wang Hao — heir to the Wang family.
At that moment, Wang Hao was inside his private training room, wearing a combat helmet, running a high-level simulated battle against a giant beast.
He maneuvered the mecha, fought hard, and eventually defeated the simulated beast with a perfect score.
He disconnected from the simulation.
Just then, his phone buzzed.
He picked it up and saw that the high school classmates' group chat had exploded.
He scrolled through.
Everyone was talking about Lin Chen. Saying Lin Chen had taken illegal enhancers. Saying he wouldn't live a month.
"I never thought the guy who used to rank ahead of me would fall this far," Wang Hao sneered. "How ironic."
He tossed his phone onto the sofa.
Then he put his helmet back on and started the next simulation.
Lately, he'd been training day and night for one reason: the mecha commander selection battle in a month.
The selection would be held inside the Qixing Mountains.
He smiled to himself.
A mecha commander is someone who can stand toe-to-toe with giant beasts.
Even if Lin Chen had taken drugs and forced himself up to Second-Class Warrior, he was still just playing around in the low-level zones fighting little monsters.
Even if, one day, Lin Chen rose all the way to the so-called "peak of martial arts" and became a Tenth-Class Warrior…
Even then, in front of even the most basic combat mecha, he could still be killed instantly.
That was the absolute gap between warriors and mechas.
One month from now, Lin Chen will die from the "side effects" of his little shortcut, he thought.
And I will become a mecha commander admired by the world.
…
When Lin Chen got home, the first thing he did was unload the meat from his space ring.
Then he took out the new cauldron and started cooking.
Before long, the pot was boiling with a monster stew.
There was wolf meat, iron barbarian beef, red-haired pork, mountain tiger meat…
All trophies from the monsters he had hunted that day.
He'd even tossed in some wild vegetables and tubers as side dishes.
[Consumed: Wolf Meat. Qi and Blood +40. Attribute Points +15!][Consumed: Iron Barbarian Beef. Qi and Blood +30. Attribute Points +10!][Consumed: Red-Haired Pork. Qi and Blood +35. Attribute Points +11!][Consumed: Mountain Tiger Meat. Qi and Blood +80. Attribute Points +30!]
…
As Lin Chen continued to eat, mouthful after mouthful, his power climbed higher and higher.