139: Chapter 139 The Endless Coffee Bottle and Mr. Huo's Convenience Spice Packet

Hu Jinsi had optimistically estimated that if they hurried, they might be able to take a bus back to Wei City from Daibei City by two or three in the afternoon. In the end, they were still bustling about until nearly 6 o'clock before the three of them finally exited the dungeon.

The problem arose at noon. Before everyone decided to exit the dungeon for lunch, Lin Rui did not rush to leave. He stared at the exchange list, his eyes flickering.

"Old Hu," Lin Rui leaned over and lowered his voice, "I just calculated it. The point rewards for the semi-finals and finals are more than the previous rounds. If I play through the semi-finals and finals this afternoon, my points should be enough to exchange for a skill."

Hu Jinsi raised an eyebrow: "Didn't you say yesterday that you wanted to lay a solid foundation for the Soldier class first?"

"Plans can't keep up with changes," Lin Rui grinned, "When I was eating breakfast this morning, I saw a screenshot on the forum that Kuwabara and Zhen Jin's [Spirit Sword] can condense weapons and change forms at will. This kind of skill is practically tailor-made for my class."

Hu Jinsi understood. The exchange points for [Spirit Sword] were indeed not low. Lin Rui's current points, even with the final rewards, were still far from enough.

"Then what is your target?"

"[Spirit Barrier]," Lin Rui sighed, "Kuwabara's other skill. The point requirement is lower, so I'll take this as a safety net first."

So, for the afternoon, Lin Rui participated in almost every battle. In the end, hard work paid off. After struggling until nearly 6 PM, Lin Rui finally had enough points to exchange for [Spirit Barrier].

And perhaps because Lin Rui's diligent efforts that afternoon moved some unknown entity, when he exchanged for this skill, [Spirit Barrier] resonated with Lin Rui's own class style, directly transforming from a skill into a class specialization.

[Steady Shield Charge: You concentrate all your focus, channeling the potential energy of your tense body into the shield you hold, strengthening the shield's ability to resist energy impacts. Effect: Adds 6 points of temporary defense to the shield. This value is only effective for blocking energy damage such as Demonic Qi impacts, explosive wind pressure, and elemental shockwaves. Conventional physical damage like ordinary swords, fists, feet, and arrows will still be calculated according to normal shield defense rules. 3 times per day, each lasting 1 minute.]

After the exchange, Lin Rui triumphantly showed this new specialization to Hu Jinsi and Su Wan. He raised his shield and focused his mind; a faint layer of golden halo flowed across the surface of the shield.

"Watch closely," Lin Rui grinned, "This thing can block Demonic Qi impacts, explosive wind pressure, and elemental shockwaves. From now on, you guys just need to hide behind me."

The two people on the side, watching Lin Rui gain an extra specialization for the price of just one skill, were also grinding their teeth in annoyance.

This guy's luck seemed a bit too Heaven-Defying during the May Day holiday.

But after finishing the dungeon matters, the three of them simply ordered food at the entrance of the dungeon. Lin Rui ordered a portion of roasted meat rice, Su Wan ordered a portion of seafood porridge, and Hu Jinsi bought two portions of fried squid for the Dire Wolf while eating a bowl of noodles himself.

The three people and one Dire Wolf finished their meal in a hurry and rushed to the bus pickup point in Daibei City. They finally made it back to Wei City before 12 o'clock that night.

...

As the bus drove into Wei City, the group took a taxi back to their residential complex and then returned to their respective homes.

After Hu Jinsi pushed the door open and entered, he couldn't be bothered to tidy up anything. He simply helped the Dire Wolf sweep the sleeping mat it usually lay on, poured a full basin of water for it, then went to the bathroom to take a shower. After drying off, he returned to his room to meditate and rest.

The next morning, as soon as he returned to school, Hu Jinsi was blocked at the classroom door by various classmates waiting for goods.

Originally, he felt a bit annoyed by this matter, but once he thought of Lin Rui's line of thinking—anyway, it was free experience—hey, although the potion didn't smell good, the class experience was truly delicious.

Helpless, he promised that as soon as the courier delivered the raw Materials to the guard room today, he would start working in the afternoon. This finally persuaded that group of eager classmates, or rather, small-time scalpers and future scalpers.

But just as Hu Jinsi finished dealing with the group of buyers outside the classroom and returned to his seat, he was surrounded by his own classmates.

The same demand, still that special cure for rabies. At the very least, Hu Jinsi considered himself thin-skinned and was embarrassed to refuse the requests of his own classmates, so he agreed to their demands one by one.

Of course, he still had to explain what needed to be explained, such as "This is just an ordinary potion to treat rabies" and "There has never been any such thing as a 'lesser luck potion'," and so on.

After explaining, he also told his classmates that the orders would definitely have to be queued because, after all, what had been promised before today hadn't been delivered yet. If they wanted it, they would have to wait two days; at the very least, he had to order the Materials today, and he could only start brewing once the Materials arrived.

The classmates in the class didn't really care about this, because after all, today was only Tuesday, and there was still a long time before Sunday, when they would go to the dungeon, so everyone could afford to wait.

After dealing with these messy things, Hu Jinsi finally had a quiet morning.

...

But at noon, a new order came from Daibei City. Although Hu Jinsi had been urging Zhen Jin not to continue spreading such false rumors after returning to Daibei City when he was free yesterday.

But clearly, Zhen Jin's mouth was sometimes just that unreliable. It made Hu Jinsi himself unable to tell whether the potion was really effective, or if the potion was so disgusting that Zhen Jin wanted others to taste it too, which led to this behavior.

For orders from strangers, Hu Jinsi could still decline them temporarily on the grounds that orders were saturated. He set up an automatic reply on his terminal: "Recent orders are full, not accepting new orders for the time being."

However, for orders from teams like Hu Jianguo's, whom Hu Jinsi had been to the dungeon with before, Hu Jinsi really couldn't decline. After all, they had fought side by side, and this kind of debt of gratitude was the hardest to repay.

In addition, some members of the Soldier class teams that Lin Rui and Su Wan had met in the [Unparalleled Hulao Pass] dungeon also had related needs.

Although Hu Jinsi felt that the probability of them contracting rabies in that dungeon was almost zero. But now he also had no idea under what circumstances people would drink this potion to treat rabies, and besides, this was another order he had to accept.

...

For the next three days, except for attending classes in the classroom in the morning, Hu Jinsi spent most of his time at noon, in the afternoon, and after school in the pharmacy room. The pharmacy room was filled with that pungent smell. Hu Jinsi wore a mask, stirring the potion in the large pot while watching the class experience numbers on the attribute panel jump slowly. Every time it jumped, he felt that his hard work was not in vain.

For two nights, dinner was even entrusted to Lin Rui and Su Wan to bring to the Dire Wolf. Those two nights, when Hu Jinsi returned to his residence, it was already past 10 PM. The Dire Wolf lay on the sleeping mat, looking at him with a resentful expression, as if complaining that this owner had become increasingly unreliable recently.

From Tuesday to Friday, these four days, Hu Jinsi brewed more than 10,000 bottles of this rabies cure. Similarly, he also farmed 10,000 class experience points for himself.

So much so that when the 10,000th bottle of potion was finished, he actually received a prompt from the attribute panel that he had acquired a new skill called [Unique Craftsmanship].

[Unique Craftsmanship: You have honed your crafting skills for a specific item. When crafting this item, your crafting difficulty is slightly reduced (-2), and the finished product's effect is slightly increased (+1). You can now assign a unique name to this item.]

(Note: Renamed items must not exaggerate their effects, nor use names unrelated to the item.)

Regarding this, Hu Jinsi himself felt a bit speechless.

After all, for students with life classes, not everyone can grind out this skill. Like some more troublesome life classes, they can't even produce a dozen finished products in a day. Let alone the workload of 10,000 of the same item.

Now, this group of people, including Hu Jinsi, had been Awakened for less than a year. That is to say, at most, for classes like jewelers or architects, even if they produced high-quality goods every time, they had only produced less than 3,000 products.

It was nothing like Hu Jinsi, who just put a big pot there and brewed it himself, living up to the progress of many life professionals.

But what's the use of this skill! Reducing the difficulty by two when brewing this potion—does this potion even have difficulty? It's the kind of zero-threshold item that doesn't even need a recipe to learn.

You just need to follow the reasonable ratio, put it in the big pot, and boil it directly. The only thing is not to burn it. There are no other techniques or methods; clockwise or counter-clockwise stirring is the same.

...

Of course, besides this boring skill, Hu Jinsi didn't have no other gains. Because the students in the school knew that Hu Jinsi was afraid that this potion would bring him trouble, most of them traded with Hu Jinsi through barter.

Early on, they mostly gave food for the Dire Wolf, but later, the Dire Wolf's food was so abundant that Hu Jinsi's backpack couldn't hold it, and even the freezer at home was full of the Dire Wolf's food.

Some people provided some raw Materials for this potion, but there were too many raw Materials, and he was afraid they would spoil if he couldn't use them up. In the end, everyone took out some strange, useful, or possibly useless props to trade with Hu Jinsi.

Although overall Hu Jinsi's credit points did not suffer a loss—after all, most of the herb costs in the later stages were traded to him by others through barter—Hu Jinsi always felt that he had become a strange miscellaneous recycling station for all the teachers and students in the school.

Hu Jinsi sat in the pharmacy room, looking at the mountain of various sundries in front of him, and sighed. If these things were in his previous life, they probably wouldn't sell even if they were listed on a second-hand trading platform for half a year.

Everyone really had a lot of strange things in their hands. Hu Jinsi tallied his gains: 2 potion recipes (useless), a dozen magic items with no found use, and a pile of Materials and daily necessities.

Among them, one magic item was a spoon that could sing. It was said that using it to stir any liquid would make the liquid "more delicious." Hu Jinsi tried it, using it to stir that pungent potion, and the result was that the potion's smell became even more pungent. He threw the spoon into the deepest part of the storage cabinet on the spot.

There was also an item that was a perpetually damp towel; no matter how much you wrung it out, it would never get dry.

Hu Jinsi studied it for a long time and discovered that apart from using it to wipe tables, it had almost no practical value.

However, the classmate who gave it to him swore up and down that this towel was absolutely a Divine Artifact in desert dungeons.

In order to store these useless items, Hu Jinsi had no choice but to add a storage cabinet to his home with an internal 3×3×3 space.

Because this type of storage cabinet had built-in space, it could not be placed inside a backpack and could only be used for storage at home.

One storage cabinet cost Hu Jinsi 1200 Credits, making his heart ache for several days.

Originally, living alone, Hu Jinsi could have just piled these things on the floor, but unfortunately, he had an energetic and extremely gluttonous Dire Wolf at home.

That guy was interested in anything it could put in its mouth, including those magical Materials that didn't look like food at all.

Those two potion recipes were likely stuck in the hands of his previous classmate for a long time; Hu Jinsi looked at them for a long time and couldn't find any use for them.

[Recipe: Gecko Potion]

[Gecko Potion: Gecko Potion is a viscous, yellowish-brown liquid with some sand grains suspended in it. Within 5 minutes of drinking this potion, thousands of extremely tiny bristles will grow on your fingertips, allowing them to adhere to objects. This provides a minor (+1) bonus to your climbing, hand-to-hand combat, and resistance to being disarmed.]

[Inferior Healing Potion]

[Inferior Healing Potion: The drinker's wounds will recover (+8 HP), accompanied by a stinging sensation.]

It was only because of this current barter situation that he accepted these two potions.

If you asked Hu Jinsi to spend Credits to buy these things himself, that would absolutely be out of the question.

As for this crappy [Gecko Potion], Hu Jinsi initially thought he had picked up a great bargain. When he read the description, he thought he could become a budget version of Spider-Man for 5 minutes.

As it turned out, after learning this recipe, the detailed description of the potion appeared in his mind. This was not some potion that would turn you into Spider-Man.

It had an obvious Cthulhu-esque style. The so-called thousands of extremely tiny bristles growing on the fingertips were indeed tiny, but it didn't explain the length of these bristles at all.

These bristles were completely visible to a normal person.

Therefore, unless the person drinking the potion naturally had body hair lengths different from everyone else, what awaited them after drinking this potion wouldn't be a buff, but rather social suicide.

As for the other [Inferior Healing Potion], Hu Jinsi's eyes were opened once again.

He had originally thought that [Lesser Healing Potion] was already the lowest-Rank item, but he hadn't expected there to be something even more inferior than 'lesser'.

This potion recovered 8 HP, and it even caused a stinging sensation while recovering HP; did the person taking the medicine have masochistic tendencies?

Why not just drink a [Lesser Healing Potion] instead of drinking this kind of potion?

Besides, there were so many healing potions on the market; this was the first time Hu Jinsi had heard of one that caused stinging while healing.

Plus, recovering 8 HP—what the hell is the use of that?

Any professional with healing abilities would have a skill with a healing effect greater than 8 points.

With 8 HP, this person might as well sit cross-legged and eat a steamed bun to recover more.

It's no wonder that items left behind definitely have their own reasons for being so. Although Hu Jinsi was also 'left behind' in his past life, he refused to be categorized with these types of items.

...

As for the remaining magical items, the one Hu Jinsi was most satisfied with was the [Endless Coffee Flask]. For this item, Hu Jinsi let the other party choose 3 additional items from the junk he had received as an exchange.

[Endless Coffee Flask: This metal flask contains delicious, warm coffee. The flask has a stopper connected to it by a small chain. Even when opened, the flask will not accept any liquid other than the coffee it produces. The coffee inside is always comfortably warm, and no high heat can be felt through the flask.

If you try to pour coffee out of the flask instead of drinking it, the coffee will disappear the moment it leaves the flask, and the flask will refuse to supply coffee for the next hour. This flask can provide up to 5 liters of coffee per day.]

Besides this, Hu Jinsi also thought the [Mr. Huo's Convenient Spice Pouch] was pretty good.

As for the other things, he couldn't find any useful purpose for them either; he could only leave them at the bottom of his backpack or slowly list them in the Professional Mall, though it was unlikely they would sell.

If they could be sold, they wouldn't have ended up in Hu Jinsi's hands.

[Mr. Huo's Convenient Spice Pouch: This pouch looks empty and has 10 charges. While holding this pouch, you can expend 1 charge, say the name of any non-magical food seasoning (such as salt, pepper, saffron, or cilantro), and take a pinch of the required seasoning from the pouch.

One pinch of seasoning is enough to flavor a single serving of food. The pouch recovers its expended charges at dawn every day.]

It was a pity that this [Endless Coffee Flask] could only provide the most primitive type of black coffee and could not provide various coffee variations according to Hu Jinsi's personal preferences.

Since the liquid inside could not be poured out, nor could other liquids be added to it, Hu Jinsi could not re-prepare it into other types of coffee according to his own preferences.

Perhaps it was because of so many inconvenient restrictions that its original owner abandoned it.

But at least Hu Jinsi himself didn't mind drinking this kind of pure black coffee.

Besides, maybe one day he could get an upgrade voucher or an enhancement voucher or some similar item, and then he could enhance this [Endless Coffee Flask].

Hu Jinsi sat on the sofa, holding the [Endless Coffee Flask] in his hands, feeling the warmth radiating from the flask body.

He tried taking a sip; the bitterness of the black coffee spread across his tongue, but there was a hint of mellowness in the aftertaste.

This taste reminded him of those nights working overtime in his past life, which he had also survived by relying on cup after cup of black coffee.

The Dire Wolf lay at his feet, curiously sniffing the flask, then turned its head away in disgust. Clearly, this bitter liquid was completely off its menu.

...

By the time Hu Jinsi finished all the orders on hand, it was already Friday, so he still didn't know which dungeon the team planned to go to this week.

After all, he had been busy in the medicine-making room for the past few days, and only Lin Rui and Su Wan had been in the training grounds.

It wasn't until Saturday that Hu Jinsi learned from Lin Rui and Su Wan that the dungeon they were going to this week was Double Dragon III, and they were going with Zhou Wen.

As for the reason, one was to change the mood, and the second was to take Zhou Wen to the fifth level to see if they could crack that space maze with Zhou Wen's help.

Actually, it was mainly because Zhou Wen himself was advancing too slowly now.

During May Day, Zhou Wen and Xiong Yue went to team up with others, and in 72 hours, they had barely managed to clear the second level.

But considering Zhou Wen's weak mobility, it was indeed about right.

After all, in a place like the Great Wall, all-terrain vehicles couldn't run at all.

That place was originally built to defend against invasions by different races, so there were no flat surfaces on the surface of the walls that could be used for all-terrain vehicles to crawl on.

With Zhou Wen's physical fitness, being able to crawl through it in a day and a night was already quite remarkable.

As for the later levels, there were ninja houses with traps ambushed everywhere, and that bodybuilder-esque, muscular-guy Ancient Roman gladiatorial arena.

Rather than waiting for Zhou Wen to spend two or three weeks slowly grinding his way to the fifth level, it was better for the team to just take Zhou Wen and quickly rush to the fifth level to save trouble.

Lin Rui had originally wanted to drag Zhou Wen's good brother, Xiong Yue, along, but fortunately, he hadn't greeted Xiong Yue in advance, because Su Wan suddenly reminded him that Xiaoquan Yilang now also occupied a team slot.

It was all because this Dire Wolf had too little presence during combat, which caused everyone to often ignore it when counting the number of people.

Hu Jinsi looked down at the Dire Wolf at his feet; that guy was napping on the floor, its iron-gray fur rising and falling slightly with its breathing, completely unaware that it had just ruined Xiong Yue's dungeon trip.

...

Needless to say, it's different when professionals take the field.

When the bodyguards of the Jack-of-All-Trades Squad brought the mage Zhou Wen and smashed their way to the space maze inside the pyramid at the fifth level, it was time for the professional, Zhou Wen, to shine.

The air inside the pyramid was hot and humid, and the walls were covered with dense murals.

Most of the previous team members treated these murals as decorative scribbles, taking a hasty glance before rushing to find the exit.

But Zhou Wen was different. He stood in front of the murals, his glasses reflecting the light of the torches, his fingers moving slowly along the lines of the murals, as if deciphering some ancient code.

According to Zhou Wen's research and analysis, the murals that everyone had treated as scribbles actually contained guidance about the space maze; it even hinted at what type of room each exit led to.

But as Hu Jinsi listened to Zhou Wen's explanation, he increasingly felt that this maze had a bit of a roguelike game feel, and he increasingly felt that this dungeon must have accidentally absorbed something to become like this; after all, the fifth level of the original game didn't have so many fancy tricks.

But regardless, Zhou Wen was very satisfied with the text and knowledge he learned in this maze.

The three members of the team were also very satisfied; at least they now basically knew how to identify these murals, and it turned out that as long as they walked in the right direction, they could see the final boss, the Pyramid Cleopatra, after passing through a dozen rooms at most.

Although the final Pyramid Cleopatra was very strong—able to turn into a snake and burrow underground, fly, and even use a budget version of Shinra Tensei—the three team members had, after all, been baptized in the Dark Martial Arts Tournament.

Dealing with this kind of boss that had many fancy tricks but insufficient personal strength actually became somewhat easy for them.

Plus, the space inside the pyramid wasn't very large to begin with, and the height this Pyramid Cleopatra could fly was at most 5 meters, which was still within the range of Lin Rui's shotgun.

This resulted in the boss, which had been hyped up to the heavens by other teams as having explosive difficulty, actually looking just 'okay' in their eyes.

Although they couldn't solo it for the time being, collective output was still a piece of cake.