108: Chapter 108: Tearing someone else's umbrella just because they got caught in the rain? They're all villains!

Lin Yuan arrived at the central region of the Dead Star.

Presented before his eyes was a canyon that had literally torn open the surface of the Dead Star.

The canyon stretched for dozens of kilometers, its rock walls on both sides cut as smooth as mirrors.

This was the 'Myriad Worlds Trading Street' that Bai Ye had mentioned, which was exempt from all federal taxes.

There were no neon lights, no electronic billboards, and certainly no warm greeters.

Along both sides of the street, blocks of obsidian were haphazardly piled up to serve as stalls.

Most of the stall owners wore armor or magic robes; some sat with their eyes closed to rest, while others used daggers to scrape bits of flesh from under their fingernails.

Another was directly pinning a still-twitching foreign great demon to a chopping board for a live dissection.

"Newcomer? Take a look at this Fire Crow Lord's heart. It was dug out less than two hours ago. Eat it while it's hot to increase your fire Law resistance."

"A damaged Mechanical Divine Realm core for only five thousand credits! Even buying it to use as an ashtray will give you plenty of Face!"

"High-tier pureblood succubus slave! Those who know, know! No bargaining!"

Lin Yuan ignored the bizarre cries of the vendors on both sides and walked forward through the crowd.

His goal was very clear.

According to the information in the Freshman Plane Plundering Guide, he walked straight to a relatively quiet stall at the end of the street.

There were no physical goods displayed on the stall, only a tattered wooden sign standing upright.

Crookedly written on it in dark red paint were several large characters: [Star Gate Key Specialty Shop].

The stall owner was a young man with hair like a chicken coop.

He wore a greasy, reflective gray magic robe and was slumped entirely in a lounge chair.

He was engrossed in a physical book with a heavily pixelated cover, a faint, lewd smile hanging on his lips.

Lin Yuan stepped forward, bent his finger, and tapped twice on the obsidian stall.

"Senior."

The young man's hand stopped turning the pages. Without raising his head, he replied lazily, "Check the list yourself for what you want. If you're not buying, don't block the light."

"Plane 093," Lin Yuan said calmly. "The coordinate key for the Abyssal Armor Bone Locust Zerg plane."

Hearing this name, the young man finally shifted his gaze away from the pixelated cover.

He sat up straight and sized Lin Yuan up.

"A freshman?"

"Yes."

"You have quite a sharp eye, picking something so intense right off the bat."

The young man casually tossed the book onto the table and flipped his hand to show five fingers. "One hundred thousand credits. No bargaining."

Lin Yuan frowned slightly.

One hundred thousand credits?

Instructor Wen Muxue had just announced in the classroom that the initial funds for freshmen were only one thousand credits.

This stall owner was asking for one hundred thousand right off the bat, and it was only for a one-time-use plane key.

"Are you robbing me?" Lin Yuan stared at him.

"Don't put it so harshly; that's just the price level at Starry Sky University." The stall owner shrugged, pointing righteously at the star key in Lin Yuan's hand.

"What I'm selling isn't those common public coordinates you find on the streets. It's a one-way Star Gate key encrypted and anchored with high-tier space Law."

The stall owner stood up, leaning his hands on the stall, and began pitching at a rapid-fire pace:

"Using this thing guarantees that your Divine Domain will descend perfectly into the Law blind spot of that plane, preventing it from immediately triggering a backlash from the plane's will."

"Most importantly, it has a reverse shielding function."

"No matter how much chaos you cause in there, even if you poke a hole in the sky of that plane..."

"...those bugs won't even dream of tracing back through the faith channel to locate the coordinates of your Origin Divine Domain."

The stall owner spread his hands, putting on an expression that suggested Lin Yuan was getting an incredible deal. "It's a total steal, alright! Although the Plane 093 is a bug's nest, the resources inside are extremely abundant."

"If you can actually conquer that plane, the resources you bring back couldn't be bought even with a million credits, let alone one hundred thousand!"

Lin Yuan sneered after listening to this extravagant boast.

"If it's really that easy to conquer and so rich in resources, would you be selling it? Why don't you go conquer it yourself?"

The stall owner chuckled, his Face as thick as a city wall, showing absolutely no embarrassment at being exposed.

"Your senior here is just a peace-loving guy."

Lin Yuan didn't feel like wasting his breath on him.

He was a freshman; he couldn't conjure up one hundred thousand credits out of thin air.

"I don't have that many credits," Lin Yuan said, looking at him. "Settle it in faith points, and make it cheaper."

The stall owner's eyes lit up, a mercenary gleam dancing in them.

"You should have said so earlier! Of course faith points will do." The stall owner quickly fished out an abacus-like item.

He flicked it a few times with a clacking sound. "The official exchange rate between credits and faith points here is one to one hundred."

"One hundred thousand credits is ten million faith points."

The stall owner pushed the abacus in front of Lin Yuan and said decisively, "No credit, and I can't lower the price even a bit."

"This key of mine is an anchor point tested with my life. I won't sell it for a single penny less."

Lin Yuan looked at the string of numbers and fell into a brief silence.

He asked tentatively, "Does the military not sell coordinates for these exclusive Star Gates internally?"

"Keep dreaming," the stall owner sneered. "The exclusive Star Gates of Starry Sky University belong to the academy."

"Even if military big shots want to enter, they have to go through the proper procedures and pay a toll."

"You want to use military privileges to get a free ride here? Dream on."

Lin Yuan stopped pressing after hearing this.

He brought up his star key and transferred ten million faith points.

Ten million faith points—he could still afford this sum.

But it still made him feel a bit of pain.

On the very first day of school, before seeing any return on investment, ten million had just evaporated like that.

"Transferred," Lin Yuan said, his tone somewhat cold.

"Boss is so generous!" The stall owner beamed with joy.

He grabbed Lin Yuan's star key and fished out a cracked, ancient compass from his sleeve.

Placing the star key in the center of the compass, he formed a seal with both hands.

A faint light flashed on the compass and was injected into the star key.

"Done." The stall owner threw the star key back to Lin Yuan. "Now your star key has the permission to open the Plane 093 once."

"It's valid for half a month. It will expire and become invalid after that."

Lin Yuan took the star key, feeling the extra spatial anchor point inside.

He cursed inwardly at how corrupt they were, then turned around, preparing to leave this place that devoured people without leaving even bones.

"Hey, junior, wait a second," the stall owner suddenly called out to stop him.

Lin Yuan stopped his steps and looked back at him suspiciously. "Is there something else?"

The stall owner fished out a cigarette from under the stall, a spark of fire appearing on his fingertip to light it.

He took a deep drag and blew out a grayish-white smoke ring, his expression becoming a bit more serious for once.

"Since you paid so quickly, your senior will give you a piece of information for free, as an after-sales service."

The stall owner pointed at Lin Yuan with his cigarette-holding finger. "Don't look at the Plane 093's overt combat capability assessment in the Guide as being only at the Diamond Peak level at most, and think it's an easy target."

"I'll give you the real deal: even the old hands in the sophomore and junior years don't want to mess with that ghostly place."

"Why?" Lin Yuan asked in passing.

"Because those bugs are disgusting to the extreme." The stall owner tapped the table, making a dull sound.

"Those Abyssal Armor Bone Locust things reproduce at an absurdly fast rate, and their numbers are enough to fill the entire surface of the plane. But that's not even the most lethal part."

The stall owner lowered his voice, a trace of lingering fear in his tone. "The most lethal part is that they possess the racial traits of Pain Link and Void Oscillation."

"The mental network of all the Zerg in that plane is completely integrated."

"If you are in there and crush even a single low-level larva..."

"...the billions of bugs across the entire plane will instantly sense your presence and share that pain of death."

"Pull one hair and the whole body moves."

The stall owner sneered. "What's worse is that at the moment of death, the glands in their bodies will erupt with a Void Oscillation."

"When tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of bugs die at the same time, the dense shockwaves will lock down the space around you like cement."

"This will prevent your Divine Domain channel from being deployed at all!"

"You won't be able to summon large numbers of your vassals, nor can you replenish your Divine Power in time."

"The final result will be getting worn down to death by the endless sea of bugs, with not even bone fragments left behind."

The stall owner flicked his cigarette ash and concluded, "So, this place is like a stone in a latrine."

"Smelly and hard, with an extremely low cost-performance ratio."

Lin Yuan remained calm after listening to this long speech.

He naturally knew all of this.

Although the introduction to this foreign plane in the guide was brief, the core mechanisms were written very clearly.

This was precisely the fundamental reason he had chosen this plane.

The Zerg are a race with an extremely strict hierarchy.

Superiors have unconditional control over subordinates. This control stems from instincts deep within their Bloodline and cannot be disobeyed.

The common way to conquer it is to rely on raw strength to push through the sea of bugs and then forcefully kill the Queen.

This approach is naturally thankless and exhausting.

But Lin Yuan didn't need to push his way through.

He only needed to sneak in and get a few royal larvae.

Extract conceptual traits like [Bloodline Suppression] or [Swarm Dominator].

And then use magic to defeat magic.

Looking at the talkative senior in front of him, Lin Yuan understood perfectly.

The other party was definitely not reminding him out of goodwill.

An unsolicited favor always hides a sinister motive.

"So?" Lin Yuan looked at the stall owner, his tone stiff. "What are you trying to do by telling me this?"

The stall owner chuckled, the wrinkles on his Face squeezing together to reveal the standard Face of a dishonest merchant.

"Junior, as your senior, I can't just watch you go to your death, can I?"

He pointed at the star key in Lin Yuan's hand and said earnestly:

"If you return this key to the school's official logistics department, they'll treat it as a secondhand consumable and at most refund you half of the credits."

"How about this instead?" The stall owner slapped his thigh.

"Your senior will be a good person to the end. Return this key to me right now, and I'll give you eight million faith points!"

He patted his chest, looking like a generous benefactor. "Just think of it as spending two million to buy a lesson. It's better than going in and losing your life, right?"

After listening, Lin Yuan was completely speechless.

A key bought for ten million, not even warm in his hand yet.

And he wanted to buy it back for eight million.

With this buy and sell, in just a few words, he would make a net profit of two million faith points from the price difference.

These people from Starry Sky University, their hearts are really so damn black!

No wonder people outside say this place is a concentration camp for monsters; they aren't just monsters in terms of physical force.

Even their business methods are on a damn vampire level.

If it weren't for the fact that the coordinates for exclusive Star Gates couldn't be bought on the military's internal network, Lin Yuan swore he would never spend a single penny here in his life.

"Get lost."

Lin Yuan said expressionlessly.

Not even bothering to spare him another glance, he turned and stepped into the crowd, his back quickly disappearing around the corner of the street.

Standing behind his stall, the owner watched the direction Lin Yuan had disappeared, not angry in the slightest.

He comfortably took a puff of his cigarette and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Junior! Don't have such a short fuse!"

"If you fail to conquer the plane but are lucky enough to come back alive, remember to come find me again to top up your key! Your senior will always welcome you here!"

After shouting, the stall owner sat back down on his lounge chair, feeling extremely pleased.

"Tsk tsk tsk, freshmen are just so easy to fool. Shearing this fat sheep really feels so damn smooth."

He recalled when he had just entered as a freshman.

Back then, he was also a hot-blooded youth carrying the dream of conquering the sea of stars.

As a result, on his first day of registration, he was tricked out of his entire net worth by a senior sister wearing gold-rimmed glasses using a pile of garbage blueprints.

He had even gone to borrow from loan sharks!

Thinking of this tragic past that he couldn't bear to look back on...

...the stall owner's eyes couldn't help but moisten, and he couldn't resist wiping away some crocodile tears.

"No way!"

The stall owner sat up, gritting his teeth.

"Since I got soaked in the rain, I must tear down everyone else's umbrellas!"

With a resolute look in his eyes, his fingers slid quickly across the control panel of the stall.

Beep.

The holographic projection above the wooden sign refreshed.

All the commodity prices at the stall were marked up by thirty percent on top of their original prices.

Only after doing all this did the grief and indignation in the stall owner's heart slightly subside.

He picked up the heavily pixelated physical book again and began reading with a clear conscience.