Chapter 14: The Treasure Chest

“This system is really inconvenient.” Lin Qi frowned as he glanced at the system panel in the lower left corner of his vision. Although he had successfully set Qin Mu as the game’s test opponent, aside from being able to set the test duration, there were no other control options. Trying to filter out geniuses this way was truly challenging.

Moreover, the time settings were rigid, offering only three slots:

10 seconds.

20 seconds.

30 seconds.

“In the end, I still need to select geniuses who aren’t too weak,” Lin Qi thought, choosing the second slot directly. The middle-tier geniuses, neither too high nor too low, would make for valuable recruits. After all, his rapid strength improvement depended entirely on the players’ talent—the higher their talent, the faster their progress.

System: Test opponent settings complete. Testing will commence in half an hour. Please select the number of slots to allocate for those who pass.

“Let’s go with seven,” Lin Qi decided without hesitation, planning to recruit more players. He wasn’t short on food or water to support them, and expanding the martial arts hall underground required a large workforce. Previously, he had been cautious about bringing in players who might be useless, but now, after this filtering process, at least no strange people would be recruited.

“Master of the Hall!”

Just as Lin Qi confirmed the number of players to introduce, a muddy figure named Ragnarok rushed up excitedly, nearly colliding with him.

“Master! I’ve made a great discovery!”

“What kind of discovery?”

“I found a treasure chest underground!”

“A treasure chest?” Lin Qi was a little baffled—this wasn’t an MMO game; how could there really be treasure chests?

“Yes! I’ll show you.”

Ragnarok’s excitement only deepened Lin Qi’s impression of him as a somewhat foolish NPC. After all, digging up treasure chests in a virtual game was nothing extraordinary.

Soon, Ragnarok led Lin Qi to the underground warehouse, where a large chest sat.

“It really is a treasure chest!” Lin Qi was surprised. The chest was about the size of a suitcase, made entirely of an unknown metal, with inscriptions in the language of the Martial World on one side.

2214’s college entrance exam materials!

In a sense, this was indeed a treasure chest—many students from centuries ago would have loved it.

Lin Qi opened the unlocked chest and found it filled with piles of college exam papers, their scores shockingly high.

This explained why someone had carefully stored these materials in a metal chest and even buried it.

“Master, are these useful?” Ragnarok asked eagerly.

In MMO games, treasure chests were filled with valuable items. Though this chest was different—filled only with paper—it had to trigger some special event or grant some advanced rewards. After all, Ragnarok had been digging underground for a while; if it had nothing to do with this chest, no one would believe it.

“Uh...” Lin Qi looked at Ragnarok’s hopeful eyes and hesitated. To a 2214 high school student, these might be useful, but for him to demand rewards now seemed a bit much.

“Not useful?” Ragnarok looked puzzled, eyes filled with disdain. “That area is so dangerous—I died four times before I finally managed to drag this chest back. How could it be useless?”

“You died four times just to bring back the chest?”

Lin Qi felt a surge of sympathy, but sympathy aside, business was business. He couldn’t jeopardize this good relationship easily.

“Yeah!”

Just as Lin Qi prepared to comfort Ragnarok, he noticed two books tucked inside the chest among the exam papers.

“Crushing Rock Fist: A Technique Worth Mastering, One Punch to Break Your Teacher’s Defense!”

“Shadow Leopard Step: How to Triple Jump Your College Entrance Exam!”

“Is the college entrance exam in this world really this intense?” Lin Qi looked at the textbooks, suddenly realizing he had underestimated these high school students.

Flipping through the books, he saw detailed instructions on learning the Crushing Rock Fist and Shadow Leopard Step—both apprentice-level martial arts, unlike the half-finished fitness breathing method.

“Where did you find this chest?” Lin Qi asked Ragnarok, who looked both pained and proud.

The chest was only the size of a small suitcase, and considering the excellent exam scores, there were probably more chests buried—these papers were only from the first year of high school.

“Useful?” Ragnarok’s hope rose at Lin Qi’s question.

“A bit useful,” Lin Qi nodded slightly. “I’ll credit you 500 points for this chest.”

Apprentice-level martial arts currently sold for at least 20,000 bits on the market, but mastering them was another matter.

“I knew it was useful!” Ragnarok breathed heavily, thrilled. “I found it over 40 meters underground, in a large fissure where several four-to-five-meter-long horned monsters roam. I spotted dozens of chests near them with my spotlight, so I took the chance to carry one back when they weren’t around.”

“Over 40 meters underground, in a large fissure?” Lin Qi was amazed. This guy was serious about digging deep and testing just how far underground he could go.

He also admired Ragnarok’s luck—encountering horned gold-munching rats and only dying four times before bringing back the chest was impressive.

Horned gold-munching rats were common wild monsters that loved collecting hard metals for their nests. A quasi-martial artist might barely survive one-on-one, but encountering several meant certain death.

“One chest is worth 500 points. If I could get twenty, that would mean I could directly obtain the intermediate volume of the Astonishing Breath Technique.”

“Each death costs 648, and carrying one chest requires four trips—so that’s 76 trips costing 648 each.”

Ragnarok calculated his funds, wondering if he could haul the other chests back, but sighed soon after.

He was just an ordinary student who earned some money from game boosting. He had already spent four times 648 and all his allowance this month, now living off his savings.

Considering he would likely die more, hauling two or three more chests would mean subsisting on steamed buns and cabbage for months.

“Forget about the other chests,” Lin Qi advised, seeing Ragnarok’s lingering hopes. “Horned gold-munching rats are not only smart but extremely cautious. You were lucky to bring back one chest. Next time, it won’t be so easy. If you lure those monsters to the martial arts hall, I’ll have to expel you.”

Though these exam chests were valuable, the risk posed by these monsters was too great. The current Obsidian Martial Arts Hall had no quasi-martial artists; facing those rats would be a death sentence.

Upon hearing the word “expel,” Ragnarok immediately became obedient.

All disciples were born into the martial arts hall, and expulsion meant losing their identity as disciples—their accounts would be canceled, as they could not survive outside the hall.

“This means more work for me,” Lin Qi said after reprimanding Ragnarok. He took the chest back to the lounge, planning to organize and copy the Crushing Rock Fist and Shadow Leopard Step manuals.

This way, players could redeem them, enriching the game’s class system instead of limiting points to just a handful of items, which severely stifled purchasing power.

Meanwhile, on the game platform’s Martial World Arrival forum, chaos erupted.

System: The game’s test assessment has begun. All pre-order players may now participate. Each death during the assessment costs 198 for revival.