"Calling someone a cheat is a bit too rude, wouldn't you say? Couldn't you view it as a kind of talent, a gift, a... support tool?"
Maria spoke with a distinctly French rhythmic cadence and a sexy little trill in her voice.
"Fine, cheat," Sonia shut her down in a single sentence.
"Sonia is seriously devoid of basic manners," Maria stood up, locking eyes with Sonia.
"Look at you acting all high and mighty as an XGP exclusive player," Sonia put her hands on her hips and glared at Maria.
Melina said nothing.
Because Meimei played mobile games.
Suosuo, the rebirth-blessed protagonist, and Lao Ma, her system-cheat companion, bickered back and forth while leading Melina into the alchemy room.
Sonia put on her processing gloves and poured the sparkling, beautiful Taryi Crystal Mine onto the material processing table. At the sound of the crystals clattering down, Melina noticed Maria's left eyelid twitch.
"Ahem, ahem!" Senior Sister Sonia loudly cleared her throat at the material table.
Melina saw that Maria had clenched her fists so tightly they were white.
"Lao Ma, show Xiaomei a proper trick!"
If Sonia's personality went unpunished by the heavens, it could only mean the heavens were blind. True to form, Maria took it upon herself to act as the agent of celestial justice, lightly consoling Senior Sister Sonia's ribs with a precise elbow strike. With a dull *thud*, it landed squarely on the smooth armor; a banshee's formidable strength allowed them to strike an opponent through an intervening barrier right at the edge of pain.
The only drawback was the slight recoil.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Senior Sister shrieked melodramatically. Everyone who got elbowed reacted this way, attempting to elicit the referee's sympathy to cover up the fact that her own lowly ribs had just dared to assault the noble, precious elbow of a Child of Heaven.
"..." Meanwhile, Maria's eyes swam with unsuffused tears; elbowing an armored unit hurt like hell.
This made her look like a wet, bedraggled golden retriever, successfully distracting from the fact that she had just ruthlessly elbowed Sonia.
Standing at center stage by the material table, Maria raised her hands slightly and let out a light, dismissive huff—like a top-tier chef turning her nose up at a student's cooking:
"Material storage."
The deep blue crystal mine vanished.
"Material appraisal."
Neatly stacked rows of ingot-shaped crystals reappeared on the table.
Melina stared in wide-eyed shock.
This defied all science; this violated every single principle of alchemy.
Maria really was a cheat!
Watching from the side, Sonia rubbed her abdomen while inwardly screaming, *So cute! Xiaomei is too damn cute!* Melina's expression just now looked exactly like that cat reaction image from those pre-rebirth internet group chats—the one where the cat waves its little paws with the caption, "Look at her, just look at her!"—and it had to be photoshopped with a Cheshire cat's head.
She didn't let on that she had noticed, though.
Instead, she put on a face full of deep, solemn, deadpan respect!
"Appraisal result: Quality... C!" With Maria's solemn declaration, the blue crystals on the table dimmed considerably, even developing patches of rust...
Melina jumped in fright and glanced at her senior sister, who simply gestured for her to stay calm.
Maria tossed her long golden hair, looking rather miffed as she muttered, "Roll!"
*Click*—Melina heard the faint sound of dice rolling, carried on the vibrations of magic factors in the air. She calmly glanced sideways at Sonia; sure enough, the other girl hadn't heard a thing.
"F," Maria said, her tone dropping. She even held up her fair, delicate palm to inspect her skin tone, her big eyes filled with utter bewilderment. *Makes no sense. My skin tone screams 'lucky European gamer'.* But this wasn't Earth; this was another world, and the laws of European gacha luck didn't apply here.
The crystals on the table instantly crumbled into dust, mixed with mud and gravel—a quality so low that even a low-grade Red-Feathered Dragon would shake its head at it.
"Lao Ma, oh Lao Ma, what kind of absolute trash did you roll?"
"You do it then."
"If I could, I would've done it already." Sonia took off her glove and shoved her own paw toward the other girl. "Here, let me lend you a hand!"
Without standing on ceremony, Lao Ma grabbed Sonia's hand and pressed it against an invisible button in mid-air.
*Click*—Sonia blinked, seemingly feeling her hand brush against something.
Maria called out:
"Roll."
Then her expression gradually froze:
"A+?"
The crystal transformed into an incomparably gorgeous, transparent, deep blue, rose-shaped cluster of crystals, every single inch radiating powerful magic factors.
It was too beautiful. Logically speaking...
Wait.
Before Melina could even speak, Maria bit down hard on the back of Sonia's hand and shrieked:
"I cannot accept this!"
...
Unacceptable or not, Lao Ma still had to carry those high-quality Taryi Crystals over to craft the "Bluetooth" adapter armament.
Lao Ma's system cheat leaned heavily toward the sub-profession side. When applied to combat, its sole function was essentially: *If you roll the dice well, you can aim straight for a dragon's head and blow its balls off with a single shot.* It could basically be summarized as an [overpowered, ban-worthy toolkit] featuring magic bullets, spin-attacks, auto-aim, zero recoil, and Spider-Sense...
That's right, Lao Ma was also a ranged combatant, utilizing gunblades—a sword in the left hand and a gun in the right. She retained a few elements that looked like melee combat, but in reality, she was purely a ranged fighter.
What the actual fuck.
"Though when her dice rolls suck, her aim is even worse than mine. And what's creepier is that she's an aim-down-sights player, so her overall firing output isn't high."
Sonia covertly dropped hints about Maria's pitfalls as a teammate.
The "firing output" she mentioned was a comprehensive statistic used among explorers for ranged shooters. A shooter's lethality mainly stemmed from steady, consistent long-range hits, which was why the term "firing output" had been coined. A shooter with high accuracy but low firing output could only play support. On the other hand, explorers like Sonia—whose individual shots weren't high in single-target quality, but whose firing output was through the roof—formed the core of the meta.
"Still, when she rolls well, she's both deadly accurate and pumps out crazy numbers."
A buzzing sound drifted over from the workstation.
Maria was in the middle of processing the adapter using a top-tier alchemical lathe. She probably didn't actually know how to make it, but it didn't fucking matter because as long as she had the blueprint, she could craft it. That's just how broken a system-cheat player was.
Sonia cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Lao Ma, get ten of them made first! With Xiaomei's current condition, five might not even be enough!"
Without even looking back, Maria threw up an internationally recognized friendly gesture.
"Ha! What a great person, wouldn't you say!"
Sonia chuckled, but the moment she turned back around, her expression morphed into a cold stare. Lowering her voice, she said, "Xiaomei, you mustn't grow up to be a soft adult who only knows how to play *Halo* and *Fable*, understand?"
...I *do* play those games... Melina, who only played mobile games, didn't dare make a single sound. Wearing an awkward *Cat-has-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about* expression, she elegantly leaned on her lace parasol and lifted her chin.
"Now, Senior Sister has an important task to entrust to you."
Sonia said with a mysterious air, "This mission is of monumental gravity. It will determine the future of the world."
Melina blinked. "Does it have to do with that dragon?"
"Dragon?" Sonia looked genuinely baffled. She blinked. "Of course not!" She raised her hands slightly. "It's about ordering takeout! I need you to go get takeout for the three of us. Right at that inn in Hamlet Town—it's the only reliable restaurant in this remote little town. The pub is out; the Ratman chefs there only know how to spike dishes with alcohol alongside the Clockwork Cat Dumplings..."
This world was rich in resources, allowing ordinary folk to enjoy all-you-can-eat feasts and heavy drinking, even in this lawless wasteland where one could only bare their teeth at wyverns.
"You're sending *me* to buy takeout?"
Utterly outraged, Melina rolled up her sleeves, flexed her muscles, and struck a pose that screamed, "Leave it to your big sis!" as she declared:
"What ingredients do you have here? I'll whip up a meal!"
She was brimming with confidence; back at the Explorer Academy, her dormmates had absolutely adored her cooking.
Sonia was startled too. She hadn't expected Xiaomei to know how to cook. In her first playthrough, by the time she learned of Xiaomei, the girl had already evolved into Uchiha Melina, constantly broadcasting chuunibyou quotes like "Know hatred." That she could cook was entirely unprecedented.
Full of anticipation, Senior Sister requested braised pork belly—Xiaomei had claimed she could make it.
Moving with practiced speed, Melina churned out three dishes and a pot of rice. Maria laid it on so thick with sweet talk that she abandoned all sarcasm toward Suosuo: "So versatile! My life belongs to A-Mei."
Then, after taking a single bite of the rice... Melina was dispatched to go buy takeout.
Watching the huffy, retreating figure of Melina as she stomped out the door, Senior Sister Sonia—currently rinsing her mouth—began to suspect that Xiaomei's classmate must also be Lv Tong, and at the very least a two-star Lv Tong.
"Actually, there's still room for improvement."
Nearby, Maria—who had just rinsed her mouth with salt water until her tongue tasted like bitter ash—offered a sharp critique.
Sonia glanced at her and muttered under her breath, "No wonder you won the championship of the inaugural Xiaomei Cup."
...
The inn at Hamlet Town was one of the spots Sonia liked to use to scare Melina.
When Melina arrived, she found Miss Qiong standing on tiptoes checking out, while Miss Lei muttered under her breath, "What kind of ghost town uses a scrub brush instead of toilet paper, and why are the public toilet and the bathhouse built right next to each other..."
Her senior sister hadn't been exaggerating at all!
Melina stepped up to join the queue.
Qiong turned around, flashed a gentle, wholesome MILF smile, and waved. "Oh, Miss Melina! Fancy seeing you here."
Melina's face turned pale as she deliberately averted her gaze.
Qiong was filled with confusion: *I smiled so gently, why is Meimei giving me the cold shoulder?* But she remained undeterred. Someday, she would form a bond with this prodigy of a junior explorer and successfully poach her! Their squad was currently missing a primary damage dealer.
Naturally, a squad typically consisted of three members. Old man Don Quixote was the tank and couldn't be kicked; she herself was the captain and couldn't be kicked. Therefore, the person who could be optimized out...
Silently, Qiong glanced at her twin sister.
Believing that her younger sister Qiong was uncharacteristically relying on her for once, and wanting to help her get on good terms with Melina, Lei puffed out her chest to shoulder the responsibility and cornered Melina into some awkward small talk.
After solidifying their acquaintance, Melina learned that Echo Squad was planning to rent a plot of land on the grasslands of West Hamlet to pitch their tents. She decided that when she got back, she would give them two bottles of the mosquito-repellent alchemical potion she had brought in her luggage. When she first arrived here, she had expected to suffer, only to end up moving into a luxury mansion ahead of schedule.
It just went to show that most of the time, success in life didn't depend on your own hard work—it depended on divine arrangement.
Having checked out, Echo Squad hurried off toward West Hamlet.
Night had swallowed the day, leaving behind a lingering red sunset imbued with the weary vitality of returning home.
Melina politely greeted the innkeeper—a bald middle-aged man with bizarre facial features, a flat nose, bulging eyes, and deeply wrinkled skin. From him, she purchased the local specialty: "Father Dagon's Face," a dish made of fried rice stuffed with glutinous rice, roast meat, and green and red peppers, all baked inside an octopus. She also bought "Hydra Swamp," an ultra-thick fish soup that looked like it would give you instant rheumatism just from inhaling the steam, served with a side of bread.
Could this suspicious food really taste better than what she cooked? Melina felt deeply skeptical as she packed up her takeout.
It only cost six silver lei.