22: top ten newcomers

After parting ways with the Intelligence Man, Li An casually found a quiet restaurant and sat down. He ordered some food first, then began to read the information he purchased from the Intelligence Man. The first thing that caught his eye was the currently most popular top ten Rookie King contestants!

They were Carlos, Lucas, Benjamin, Max, Sophia, Aidan, Lily, Payne, Nicholas, and Mark, a total of ten people.

What surprised Li An most was that the Intelligence Man's information actually contained relatively detailed descriptions of the ten individuals' basic personalities, as well as their relevant battle records or evaluations.

Seeing this, if Li An hadn't learned about the Paradise's regulations beforehand, he would have even thought the Intelligence Man sold him fakes. How could that guy know even their personalities so clearly?

Li An immediately realized the preciousness of this information and began to carefully examine it with full concentration.

A moment later.

When the dishes Li An ordered were successively served, he finally came back to his senses. By then, he had finished reading not only the Rookie King information but also the other two pieces of information he bought.

Aside from the information on the top ten Rookie King contestants, the 'Task World Strategy' was a compilation of different types of strategies—the fastest, safest, or most profitable—organized into files by previous Contractors after experiencing their respective task worlds. These were sold within the Paradise for new Contractors to use.

Of course, the worlds where strategies could be used were limited to 'Derivative Task Worlds,' because this type of world would be reset by the Paradise after Contractors completed their tasks.

Li An also learned about this from the Task World Strategy. Logically, as a new Contractor, Li An shouldn't have known these things; his 'privileges' were insufficient. However, because he purchased the Task World Strategy information, he learned these contents prematurely.

This behavior, in fact, complied with the Paradise's basic regulations and was therefore not considered a violation.

As for the last item, 'Departure Preparations,' this information was a bit cheap; it simply told him what items to prepare, and nothing more.

Although this last piece of information wasn't very useful, it could still help Li An a little, so he memorized its contents. It wasn't long until his next task would be issued, so he could try it out.

Ding! You have ingested food containing a trace amount of energy. Your physical strength has increased by 0.1 points.

Just then, as a prompt sounded in his ear, Li An's eating motion paused. He hadn't expected that merely eating a meal would result in a stat increase.

But Li An quickly realized that this was the Paradise, and perhaps this was one of the unique features of the Trading Area.

Thinking of this, Li An immediately started to devour his food. In just a few minutes, all the food on the table was completely eaten.

By this point, his physical strength had increased by 1 point.

"Better than nothing, I suppose."

Li An felt his body, which had barely changed, and smiled slightly. A mere 1-point increase in physical strength was hardly enough for him to notice any improvement in his power. More importantly, physical strength was not yet digitized, so he couldn't know the exact data of his physical strength.

"Should I order a few more portions?"

Looking at the 'battlefield' on the dining table, Li An sensed the capacity of his stomach. He didn't know if it was because he had evolved into a Devourer, but logically, the dishes he ordered were enough for three people. Yet, after he finished eating alone, he still didn't feel full, and even felt a bit hungry. This immediately made him consider ordering a few more portions.

Finally, Li An raised his hand to signal, and after calling the waiter over, he ordered another five-person meal. He estimated that this time he should be able to eat until he was half full.

Half an hour later.

The waiter, who was called over to settle the bill, stared dumbfounded at the stack of dishes piled high like a tower. He kept scrutinizing Li An's seemingly not-so-robust physique. He couldn't understand how Li An had eaten this five-person meal. If you added the previous meal, Li An alone had eaten eight portions of food!

My goodness!

In the end, even when Li An paid and left, the waiter remained in a state of shock.

This meal cost Li An over 50 paradise coins. If you included the previous expenses for setting up a safe house and purchasing information, Li An now had a total of 648 paradise coins remaining.

After eating his fill, Li An didn't choose to leave the Trading Area directly. Instead, he casually found a quiet teahouse and walked in. He planned to rest and, at the same time, see what the 'Trading Zone' was all about.

First, he ordered a pot of hot tea and closed the door of his private room. Li An leaned back on the soft sofa, then activated the relevant Trading Zone permissions.

The next second, the transparent panel page in front of Li An suddenly changed and simultaneously magnified several times. Immediately after, a brand new panel page appeared.

Ding! Because you are currently in the Trading Area, the Trading Zone will be displayed in a virtual form.

At this moment, the Paradise's prompt sounded in Li An's ear. Concurrently with this prompt, Li An immediately understood that the Trading Zone, like the Trading Area, should have its own independent spatial area.

It was just that because he was currently in the Trading Area, he couldn't directly enter the Trading Zone.

As Li An entered the Trading Zone page, just like with the Trading Area, Li An, upon his first entry, also received a message. This message explained in detail the basic functions and features of the Trading Zone.

The Trading Zone was an area composed of five major categories: Weapons, Equipment, Lifestyle, Special, and Knowledge. Within these five major categories, there were even more detailed subcategories, but Li An only took a quick glance for now.

Li An then began to carefully observe the Trading Zone. He found that the variety within the Trading Zone was truly extensive, dazzling him. From cold weapons and armor of ancient times to energy weapons and armor of the future era, the types were almost unbelievably numerous.

He even saw 'bloodline' transactions in the Special category. By undergoing bloodline replacement, one could even possess the bloodline of more powerful species, giving them a significant innate advantage over enemies.

And this was just the tip of the iceberg within the Trading Zone.

Li An continued to examine. He seemed very interested in the items sold in the Trading Zone, constantly checking various items across different categories, but the only strange thing was that he didn't buy a single one.

This peculiar behavior was actually a habit of Li An's. He was good at understanding and observing the characteristics and effects of different things, then memorizing them. Afterwards, he would select the most suitable items for himself from the things he had learned, based on his own situation.

Logically, with the vast variety in the Trading Zone, he shouldn't be able to remember everything. However, don't forget how high Li An's Intelligence attribute was, far exceeding his other three attributes. Therefore, he was able to remember a general idea of the items he had already seen.

But reaching this point was already Li An's limit. After he had viewed about one percent of the items in the Trading Zone, his head began to throb, clearly from overthinking.