Chapter 119: Ten-Fold Draw

[Due to the host completing a special mission, you have been awarded ten random card draws!]
[One hundred and eighty cards have been randomly selected as the current card pool. The host will draw ten cards from this pool as the reward.]
[Warning: Each card can only be chosen once. Once selected, the choice cannot be changed!]

After these lines appeared before Lin Huang’s eyes, the dense array of cards swiftly took shape in the void, arranged in a floating square formation in front of him.

There were ten rows horizontally and eighteen columns vertically—exactly one hundred and eighty cards.

All the cards were identical, entirely black with a golden question mark at the center, resembling a flame burning in gold.

“Damn, the card pool got bigger?!” Lin Huang had initially thought the ten-draw would be from an eighteen-card pool, which would greatly increase his chances of getting good cards. But surprisingly, as the number of draws increased, the pool expanded proportionally—the ten-draw pool was now ten times larger. This meant his odds of drawing good cards were no better than a single draw.

Staring at the dense array of one hundred and eighty cards before him, Lin Huang’s eyes began to blur.

However, he knew well that such random card draws were purely a matter of luck. All cards looked identical before being drawn, with no distinguishing features—a fact he had carefully observed during previous individual draw opportunities.

“Spirits of heaven and earth, Bodhisattva Guanyin, please grant me luck… Let this ten-draw not turn out to be another unlucky streak! Also, no mission cards, no mission cards, no mission cards!” Lin Huang clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and chanted quietly for a while before opening them again.

He took a deep breath, stepped forward, and began to select the ten reward cards one by one.

“This one, this one…”

The ten cards were quickly chosen. The remaining cards automatically disintegrated and vanished, leaving only the selected ten cards arranged in two rows of five before Lin Huang.

One by one, the cards shed their disguise, revealing their true forms.

[Congratulations, host, you have obtained: 1 Enlightenment Card, 1 Advancement Card, 1 Minor Extermination Card, 2 Healing Cards, 2 Reward Doubling Cards, and 3 Temporary Transformation Cards.]

“A Minor Extermination Card and two Healing Cards?!” Lin Huang’s heart leapt with joy; this ten-draw was finally worthwhile.

He remembered clearly the terrifying power of the Minor Extermination Card, capable of annihilating over a million enemies.

He had also witnessed the effects of Healing Cards more than once. He had just used his last Healing Card underground, yet now he had two more.

“Too bad there’s only one Advancement Card. If I had two, I could find time to evolve the Purple-Eyed White Eagle into an epic card.” Lin Huang felt a tinge of regret; he had previously used his four Advancement Cards on Bai and the Tyrant. Now, with only one left, it wasn’t enough to upgrade the Purple-Eyed White Eagle to epic.

He was familiar with the other cards, but his gaze shifted to the only new card he had never heard of.

The Enlightenment Card was entirely golden, with a giant blue brain depicted on its front, set against an infinite starry sky.

Flipping the card over, Lin Huang read the description:

[Enlightenment Card: Grants the user one opportunity for sudden insight.]
[Note: Consumable card, can only be used once. The effect of insight depends on the user's own aptitude and potential.]

“Good stuff!” Lin Huang nodded repeatedly in satisfaction after reading the description.

This ten-draw had yielded four highly practical cards and, importantly, no troublesome mission cards.

“Never thought even someone as notoriously unlucky as me could have a turn of good luck!” Lin Huang collected all the cards proudly, then went to shower and sleep with a joyful mood.

Perhaps because of his good mood, Lin Huang slept deeply, waking up the next morning well past eight o’clock.

After checking out of the hotel, he headed straight outside the base, summoned the Purple-Eyed White Eagle, and set off at full speed toward Summer Palace City.

Had it not been for the curfew the previous night, Lin Huang wouldn’t have stayed in Little Summer City overnight.

He didn’t worry much about Lin Xin’s safety. With the parasitic threat eliminated, Summer Palace City, a large B-grade base, could handle even extraordinary monster attacks with ease.

Around eight-thirty in the morning, Lin Huang finally returned to the hotel in Summer Palace City.

At the hotel room door, he swiped his card and entered, only to find Lin Xin pointing a gun at him.

“What are you doing?” Lin Huang asked, slightly dumbfounded.

Lin Xin lowered the gun. “I thought you were a bad guy… Why didn’t you let me know you were coming back?”

“I got up and left the bed, then remembered on the way that I forgot to tell you,” Lin Huang shrugged.

“Is everything settled?” Lin Xin returned the Gray Eagle 17 to storage.

“Done. Successfully completed,” Lin Huang nodded with satisfaction. This trip to Little Summer City had truly been profitable.

“Then let’s book the ship back early.”

Lin Xin’s suggestion surprised Lin Huang.

“You haven’t been to Little Summer City yet. Aren’t you going to see the Summer Palace ruins?” he asked, puzzled by her sudden change of mind.

“I don’t want to,” Lin Xin shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Huang sensed her mood was a bit low.

“I want to go home early and spend more time practicing shooting,” Lin Xin explained.

“A trip to Little Summer City to see the Summer Palace ruins wouldn’t take many days.”

“I’m not going. I just want to go home now,” she insisted.

“Alright, if you want to go back, then we’ll go,” Lin Huang agreed reluctantly. “Have you had breakfast?”

“I already ate.”

“Then I’ll go downstairs for breakfast. After that, I’ll book the return tickets,” Lin Huang ruffled Lin Xin’s hair and left.

Lin Xin watched him leave, then reopened a video she had just closed.

The video froze on a woman’s image, with a caption below:

“If you don’t want to be a burden to others, you have to learn to become stronger yourself.”

Lin Xin pressed play and continued watching.

If Lin Huang were there, he would recognize the woman immediately—Ouyang Bingli, a well-known beautiful gunsmith with high online exposure.

Ouyang Bingli, eighteen years old, ranked 14th on the Seventh District’s Gold Hunter leaderboard, the highest-ranked female gunsmith. She had many fans who loved firearms, especially numerous young female fans under eighteen.

Lin Huang didn’t know why Lin Xin suddenly changed her mind, but he trusted she had her reasons.

While having breakfast in the second-floor buffet restaurant, a government announcement from the Alliance suddenly popped up before Lin Huang’s eyes.

“Around 10:30 last night, a severe parasitic infection event occurred in Little Summer City, infecting as many as 130,000 people. An anonymous extraordinary expert arrived just in time, killed the parasitic creature, and saved over one hundred thousand citizens from crisis before quietly leaving. The Alliance government apologizes for our failure to prevent this and promises to take stricter measures to avoid such incidents in the future. We also extend our gratitude to the unnamed extraordinary who intervened. Though we do not know your identity, your actions command our respect and admiration…”

“It seems they never discovered the truth hidden beneath the Summer Palace ruins. Judging only by the infection numbers, they assumed the parasite was extraordinary and thus believed the killer must be extraordinary too…” Lin Huang smiled wryly.

Generally, even a golden-level parasite using seed parasitism cannot infect more than ten thousand hosts. The Pu Demon Vine was only silver-level, yet it infected over one hundred thousand—whether due to two mutations or other reasons was unclear. This anomaly led the Alliance government to mistakenly classify the Pu Demon Vine as an extraordinary-level monster.

Of course, their biggest mistake was not finding the battlefield where Lin Huang fought the Pu Demon Vine. Had they found the battle site, the residual aura alone would have clearly indicated the Pu Demon Vine’s silver-level strength.

Besides this, the Alliance government issued another notice.

[Around 11 p.m. last night, all fifteen escaped prisoners from the 7B61 Summer Palace City base have been captured. The curfew and martial law are lifted immediately.]

“They never told the whole truth from start to finish…” Lin Huang raised an eyebrow upon reading this.

After breakfast, Lin Huang returned to the room and found Lin Xin staring wide-eyed at him.

“Bro, did you do it?”

“Do what?” Lin Huang was baffled.

“The extraordinary monster in Little Summer City—did you kill it?” Lin Xin’s face was full of anticipation.

“Of course not, you’re overthinking. Do I look like an extraordinary to you?” Lin Huang denied outright, fearing Lin Xin might tell others at school if she knew the truth.

“But Bai disappeared at exactly the same time that the extraordinary appeared,” Lin Xin insisted, suspecting he was the one.

“It was just a coincidence—I happened to run into trouble then,” Lin Huang brushed it off and pinched Lin Xin’s cheek. “You really don’t know what you’re thinking about. I’m only at the Black Iron realm. If I faced an extraordinary monster, I’d run for my life, not provoke it.”

“Oh…” Lin Xin finally gave up.

“I just checked the spaceship. There’s one leaving tomorrow and tickets are still available. No adjacent rooms, but that’s fine—we can share a room if one opens up,” Lin Huang said, then looked at Lin Xin. “Are you sure you want to become a homebody?”

“I’ve thought it through. I’ll be in my final year starting September. If I want to have fun, I can do it after graduation next year. For now, I should focus on studies and combat training to get good grades,” Lin Xin reasoned.

“You’ve really grown up,” Lin Huang said, rubbing her head again. “Alright, I’ll book the tickets.”

~~~~~~

[Fourth update delivered, fifth is still being written, probably around seven o’clock~~]