442: Chapter 442: After going around in circles, are you kidding me?

A machine had appeared in the center of the Supreme Tower lobby.

It was square, with a metal casing painted in tacky red and yellow stripes, and a thick lever on the front.

Hill was wearing grease-stained overalls, half of her body poking into the maintenance hatch on the side of the machine.

She held a large wrench in her hand, forcefully tightening some component.

"Click, click."

Hill was humming, her words slurred, but her tone carried obvious pleasure.

Chen You walked up to the machine.

The front of this thing had three rolling windows, with a huge tray underneath.

Is this damn thing a slot machine?

"Hill, I have a question for you." Chen You knocked on the slot machine's casing.

Hill backed out of the maintenance hatch.

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, which was stained with black grease, leaving a clear smudge.

She put down the wrench, wiped her hands casually on her overalls, and winked playfully.

"Boss, what is your question?"

Chen You stared at the grease on Hill's face for two seconds.

"What do you mean, 'what is my question'?" Chen You pointed at his own nose.

"I'm in good health and good spirits. Aside from being disgusted by the system rollback just now, I have no problems whatsoever."

Hill laughed, "Boss, don't get excited."

She walked to the front of the slot machine and patted the lever.

"I meant, what kind of business do you want to consult about, Boss? Equipment reinforcement, skill upgrades, or..."

Hill rubbed her thumb and index finger together, "Purchasing some high-end services that the system isn't convenient to provide directly?"

Chen You pulled over a chair and sat down.

"The hidden quest for Cangxing City." Chen You got straight to the point.

"According to normal logic, I became the acting city lord and caused such a huge commotion, so I must have triggered a hidden quest."

"What about the promised monster siege? The experience? The equipment?"

"Sander, that person with a head full of singing and dancing, told me that not even a fly could fly into Cangxing City!"

Hill pulled over a towel to wipe her hands.

"Boss, you have a misunderstanding about the underlying logic of the 'Source Realm'." Hill draped the towel over her shoulder.

"Monster sieges are a conventional mechanism established by the system to balance regional energy and test player strength."

"I didn't see anything conventional." Chen You tapped the table.

"Because you broke the convention." Hill placed her hands on the table and leaned toward Chen You.

"That talent show you held in Cangxing City triggered a server-wide 'Artistic Judgment'."

"The system determined that the energy fluctuations in the Cangxing City area have far exceeded the carrying capacity of physical monsters."

Chen You frowned.

"Simply put, the system thinks sending tens of thousands of low-level monsters to their deaths is not cost-effective." Hill stood up straight.

"So, when the system performed the rollback reset, it 'optimized' the hidden events for Cangxing City."

"Where did the optimization go?" Chen You asked.

Hill turned around, grasped the slot machine's lever with one hand, and pulled it down hard.

"Ding-a-ling!"

The three windows on the front of the slot machine spun wildly.

A few seconds later, the windows stopped, displaying three gold coin patterns.

"Clatter, clatter," a dozen copper coins fell into the tray below.

Hill bent down to pick up the copper coins and stuffed them into her pocket.

"It was optimized into 'fate'." Hill patted the slot machine's casing.

"The system packaged the hidden event that should have erupted in Cangxing City into a high-dimensional 'Crisis Blind Box'."

"It won't trigger automatically; you need to find it yourself."

Chen You looked at the tacky slot machine.

"Don't tell me this is that blind box." Chen You pointed at the machine.

Hill looked in the direction of Chen You's finger.

Her mouth twitched twice.

She raised her right foot, wearing a work boot, and kicked the side of the slot machine hard.

"Bang!"

The slot machine's casing dented.

Internal parts scattered everywhere, and a few copper coins rolled along the tray to Chen You's feet.

Chen You looked down at the copper coins.

"Are you destroying the evidence?" Chen You asked.

Hill brushed the dust off her pant legs.

"Boss, you underestimate yourself. The maximum payout for this piece of junk is only a few hundred gold coins."

"This kind of low-end stuff isn't worthy of your status."

Chen You pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs.

"Don't butter me up. Where exactly is my hidden quest?"

Hill walked to the table.

She pulled a transparent crystal tablet from her overalls pocket and swiped her fingers across it quickly.

"I said just now, the system optimized your hidden quest. This 'Crisis Blind Box' is not a specific item."

Hill pushed the crystal tablet toward Chen You. "It is now a 'state'."

Chen You glanced at the crystal tablet; it was full of garbled code.

"Speak human."

"It exists in every corner of the Source Realm." Hill took back the crystal tablet.

"It might be at the bottom of a treasure chest in some dungeon, in the casual complaint of some NPC, or even under the floor tile beneath your feet. The trigger conditions have changed."

"And, this blind box isn't something you can just open by spending money."

Hill held up an index finger and shook it.

Chen You opened his inventory panel and directly withdrew ten thousand gold coins.

The gold coins piled up on the table, their luster blinding.

"Really can't?" Chen You asked.

Hill stared at the gold coins, unable to resist swallowing her saliva.

She forcibly tore her gaze away from the gold coins.

"Really can't, Boss. The system patched you." Hill looked sorrowful.

"It added a restriction rule to the underlying code: prohibiting forced quest settlements exceeding fifty thousand gold coins at once."

"You caused too much of a commotion in Cangxing City, and the system determined that your cash flow poses a risk of disrupting the balance."

Chen You put the gold coins away, and the tabletop dimmed again.

"Targeting me?"

"Obviously." Hill spread her hands.

Chen You leaned back in his chair.

"Then how am I supposed to find it? Flip floor tiles all over the world? I have hundreds of thousands of things to do every minute; I don't have time for that."

"You need to find it yourself." Hill smiled professionally.

Chen You stared into Hill's eyes.

The two stared at each other for five seconds.

"Need a certain level?" Chen You guessed randomly.

Hill snapped her fingers.

She pulled up Chen You's character panel.

"I don't know if it's a level requirement either, but in the Source Realm's high-dimensional judgment, you are currently level forty-six, which counts as a mid-tier player." Hill pointed to the level number on the panel.

Chen You stroked his chin.

"Level fifty is a watershed in the Source Realm." Hill continued.

"Once you reach level fifty, you might be able to touch things at the 'rule' level. Since the system hid the blind box within the rules, you might discover something once you reach level fifty."

"So I have to reach level fifty first?" Chen You frowned.

Isn't this just going in circles?

I wanted to trigger the monster siege to level up quickly, and now you're telling me I need to level up first to trigger it?

Chen You took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to flip the table.

"Is there anything like that thing from last time where I could feed it gold coins to gain experience?"