99: Chapter 99 It's time for the legal loli...

"Understood."

She turned and walked back to the command console, sitting back down.

The blue light from the concentration ice heart necklace was twenty percent brighter than before.

The folding table was covered with food.

Everyone gathered around, finding their own seats.

Chen Chen took the head seat, with Shen Wanxing beside him on the left and Su Xiaoqi snatching the spot on the right.

Jiang Yanxue and Blood Rose sat facing each other, while Qin Hongye moved a chair to block the stairs.

Shen Wanbing sat by the command console with a coffee cup, not joining them.

However, she turned her chair to face the folding table.

"Let's eat."

Su Xiaoqi was the first to move, grabbing a piece of roasted rhino steak and gnawing on it.

Shen Wanxing was also hungry, taking small bites of an energy bar, occasionally stealing a glance at Chen Chen before quickly lowering her head.

Jiang Yanxue forked a piece of meat, chewed a few times, and suddenly spoke: "There's new news on the channel."

Chen Chen looked up.

"Jiang Jiuyou posted a recruitment order on the regional channel half an hour ago."

Jiang Yanxue pushed the communicator over. "She's forming an exploration team targeting the outpost on the next map. She's publicly recruiting A-rank talent holders and above, offering vehicle cores and sanctuary protection rights as conditions."

Chen Chen scanned the channel logs.

Jiang Jiuyou's recruitment order was written very restrainedly; she didn't mention his name, nor did she mention Su Xiaoqi.

But between the lines, it sent a signal: 'I am growing rapidly.'

She was competing with him for people.

"Also," Jiang Yanxue bit her fork, "Iron Wall has made a move as well. The military posted a bounty mission on the public channel—a bounty on all players who possess A-rank equipment blueprints or higher. The reward is a mid-tier core plus military protection."

"Targeting me?"

"They didn't name names. But count for yourself how many people in the entire region have A-rank blueprints."

Chen Chen tossed the communicator back onto the table.

He had extorted eight thousand rounds of ammunition from Iron Wall at the Crimson Hive and rejected their alliance request to their faces.

The military clearly remembered that debt.

However, let them post their bounty.

With the Ghost Fortress's twenty-six and a half tons of armor plus three layers of energy shields, the factions on the wasteland that could actually crack it could be counted on one hand.

"How much further to the Rusted Waste City?"

Shen Wanbing's voice came from the command console: "Seven kilometers. It's completely dark now. The energy fluctuations in the direction of the wasteland city are more active than during the day. I suggest parking here and entering tomorrow morning."

Chen Chen stood up and walked to the front windshield.

It was pitch black outside.

On the distant horizon, several blurred clumps of fluorescence floated at low altitude, glowing green and flashing intermittently—that was the energy residue emanating from the wasteland city.

"Stop the car."

Jiang Yanxue pulled the brake lever.

The output power of the Ghost Fortress's maglev engine plummeted, and the eighteen-ton body slowly landed. The blue electric arcs on the chassis extinguished, leaving only the faint hum of the nano-repair units.

The mental shielding device was turned to maximum power.

A purple force field enveloped the entire vehicle, making it completely disappear from external perception.

Chen Chen turned around and scanned the people in the cabin.

Shen Wanxing was already dozing off against a sofa cushion, one high heel off and the other still dangling from her toes.

Jiang Yanxue was wiping the Shadow Instant-Kill Blade.

Qin Hongye was disassembling a gauss rifle for maintenance.

Blood Rose was huddled in a corner with her knees hugged to her chest, lost in thought.

Shen Wanbing was processing data at the command console.

Su Xiaoqi—

Chen Chen's gaze fell on Su Xiaoqi.

The little girl had just finished off her third piece of roasted rhino steak. Her cheeks were bulging, oil stained the corners of her mouth, and her big eyes looked back at him brightly.

"Brother Chen Chen?"

Chen Chen flipped through Su Xiaoqi's entry panel in his mind.

Lv.3 Gold Entry: Gluttonous Feast · Energy Feedback.

When devouring high-tier food, there's an eight percent energy conversion efficiency. The attribute points fed back to the host can be directed to a specific area.

The trigger condition for this entry was "devouring high-tier food."

But there was another hidden activation path—Su Xiaoqi's bond level.

She was currently Lv.3. If pushed to Lv.4 or Lv.5, the entry's conversion efficiency would jump higher.

The entries for Shen Wanbing and Jiang Yanxue had both undergone qualitative changes after their bond levels broke through.

And the effect of the new entry "Forbidden Domain Dual Cultivation" was that when having deep contact with a beauty inside the Ghost Fortress, attributes could be transferred one-way.

Su Xiaoqi's constitution would soar briefly after she was full, but in her daily state, she was still a little girl who could faint from hunger at any time.

If he could pour a wave of constitution into her through the entry, the upper limit of her Gluttony Evolution talent would also be raised.

Attribute feedback, bond breakthrough, talent evolution.

Triple benefits.

"Xiaoqi."

"Present!" Su Xiaoqi jumped up, nearly kicking over a plate.

"Are you done eating?"

"Finished! I can still eat more!"

"Go to the second floor."

The air in the cabin froze for 0.3 seconds.

Su Xiaoqi blinked her big eyes. "What are we going up for?"

Jiang Yanxue put down her blade. Shen Wanbing's hand pressing her necklace paused for a beat.

The gun barrel Qin Hongye was maintaining almost fell to the floor.

The energy bar in Blood Rose's mouth stopped being chewed.

Shen Wanxing sat up abruptly from the sofa, completely awake.

"Wai—Wait a minute!"

Shen Wanxing jumped up, her nude-pink high heels wobbling. She had to hold onto the armrest to steady herself. "How old is she! You—"

"Deepening the bond," Chen Chen threw out those three words.

Shen Wanxing's mouth hung open, unable to close.

"Her gold entry needs bond levels to pull up the conversion efficiency. From Lv.3 to Lv.4, the attribute feedback doubles. For every level after that, everyone benefits."

It made perfect sense.

But the expressions of the six women in the cabin uniformly wrote one sentence—

Everything you say is right, but she's still a loli.

An adult, legal loli!

Su Xiaoqi tilted her head, looking at everyone with an innocent face.

"Does Brother Chen Chen want to fight with me? I'm very strong!"

Chen Chen couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"No fighting. Just come up and chat with me."

Su Xiaoqi's eyes brightened even more. "Is there food while we chat?"

"Yes." Chen Chen pulled a whole strip of Icefield Mammoth tenderloin from his silver-grade storage ring. It emitted a faint blue energy glow, and the rich aroma of meat instantly filled the entire cabin.

Su Xiaoqi's pupils dilated to the limit instantly.

She grabbed the tenderloin and scurried up the stairs so fast she left an afterimage.

"Come quickly, come quickly! Brother Chen Chen, come up quickly!"

The sound of Su Xiaoqi impatiently tearing into the meat came from upstairs.

Chen Chen stood at the base of the stairs and glanced back.

Shen Wanxing's lips moved slightly, but ultimately she said nothing. She sat back on the sofa and kicked her half-off high heel under the coffee table.

Jiang Yanxue hugged her blade and closed her eyes.

Shen Wanbing turned back to the command console, and the Radar holographic projection lit up again.

Blood Rose lowered her head and unwrapped her seventh energy bar.

Chen Chen went upstairs.

The first floor returned to silence.

Thirty seconds later, Su Xiaoqi's muffled voice came from the second floor:

"Brother Chen Chen, your hands are so warm... Give me another piece of meat..."