Chapter 167: The Rose Factory

Liu Jiayi didn't say anything, but she did think so too, otherwise she wouldn't have gone ashore to count the flowers with Bai Liu as soon as the hour was up.

"And the game has given us a clue." Bai Liu's tone is even. Bai Liu's tone is flat, "You don't have to work hard to get a productive promotion, or, rather, working hard is the stupidest route to promotion."

"In the real world, the most direct way to advance, is usually to plunder the fruits of someone else's labour."

"So when we can't get paid for our direct labour, we have only one way to go, and that is to rob other flower-pickers of their petals."

"But the problem is that these flower pickers seem to be NPCs at the moment, and offending most of them at the start of a game is not a very smart thing to do, just like in the workplace it's stupid to blatantly steal the fruits of someone's labour, because offending the people you work with is a recipe for trouble in your future career. "

Bai Liu sat up and patted the mud on his body, he looked sideways at Liu Jiayi: "From this point of view, then we have to choose a more reasonable channel of plunder."

"Stragglers." Liu Jiayi looked straight at Bai Liu with both eyes, and she replied quickly to Bai Liu's words.

Bai Liu stood up and he pulled Liu Jiayi to her feet, patting the dust from her body and explaining, "Yes, there is no better way to plunder than by stragglers."

"The stragglers could be monsters or npc's in this game, from what the processor who brought us here said, this group of stragglers do steal rose petals, we don't need to go up against the other flower pickers directly, we just need to grab the roses that the stragglers steal."

"But only if -" Bai Liu patted Liu Jiayi's shoulder with a smile on the corner of his mouth, the kind of smile that is particularly businesslike and hypocritical at first glance, and the stick read, "our little witch can perfectly snuff out these stragglers and snatch the rose from them."

Liu Jiayi silently looked at Bai Liu, the corners of her mouth couldn't help but twitch a little: "...... You planned this from the beginning, right?"

But immediately afterwards she frowned, "But this plan is not safe, you are in danger."

In fact, Liu Jiayi had also thought of this solution, but she just wasn't sure what the level of the monster in this Level 3 game was and whether she could fight it successfully, so she didn't ask for it - Liu Jiayi certainly didn't expect Bai Liu, a player with a level of F and now barely a C, to fight a Level 3 monster. player to fight a Level 3 monster.

Or maybe it has something to do with her personality, Liu Jiayi is too used to taking everything on by herself.

She subconsciously envisages herself as standing in Bai Liu's way, protecting the other companion - attacking and guarding, poison and antidote - this is the duty of a witch, and the reason Liu Jiayi will become one.

But Liu Jiayi hesitates when she's not quite sure she can protect her companion perfectly - she's the main attacker and Bai Liu is in an unprotected vacuum, which is risky in a level 3 game with a 90 per cent mortality rate.

But Bai Liu neutralises her hesitation.

Bai Liu smiles: "Of course I'm dangerous, but obviously you're more dangerous, but it's the most cost-effective path and we have no reason to hesitate."

He dropped his hand and casually wiped the mud stuck under Liu Jiayi's right eye with his thumb, interrupting her attempt to speak, "You just need to do what you need to do, don't think about me, I'll be around to match your attack, if you don't succeed we'll most likely die together, if you do, we'll pass together, in this game, we It's not cost effective for both to survive just one - because we have a bigger victory to win together."

Bai Liu looked directly at Liu Jiayi with those rose-hued eyes: "Do you understand what I mean? I will stand with you in the line of attack to cover you, we are in partnership."

Liu Jiayi was only slightly stunned as she opened Bai Liu's hand to wipe her stains, then looked away and took a deep breath, "Got it, so now what do we do?"

"Wait." Bai Liu looked off into the distance, "Wait for these rose-stealing stragglers to 'ripen' and then instead of picking roses, we'll pick these stragglers."

Liu Jiayi asks, "When do you think these displaced people will be considered 'mature'?"

"By the time they come to attack us, the two flower-pickers with the lowest crop, I think these stragglers will be almost ripe." Bai Liu gave a sidelong glance at the sacks containing rose petals that he had casually placed on the ground, "Normally, this kind of robbery is supposed to go from high to low, and when these stragglers come to attack us, it means that they have already attacked all the other flower-pickers with higher harvests than us - -even if there were unsuccessful raids, I think at least 80kg of rose weight was there."

"So until then, we'd better be prepared for the stragglers to attack." Liu Jiayi said this, but she did not go down to the ground at all, and stood a little further away from the rose fields.

They had been resting some distance from the field of flowers, but the moment Liu Jiayi stepped back, Bai Liu also stepped back in good faith, standing further away from the field.

-- Liu Jiayi's senses were more acute than his, and she must have heard something when she stepped back.

Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi are two people who don't have to say anything explicitly, they act in unison - like picking for an hour to count the number on the shore and simply stop working if they find it too small, like now away from the flower fields.

At this hour the stragglers would have started attacking the flower-pickers, but as far as I could see, the fields were calm and quiet, and apart from the floating glow dots and the workers, no strange people or monsters had appeared.

This counter-intuitive sight can only mean two things -

The first is that the stragglers had not yet begun to attack the flower-pickers in the fields around them.

The second scenario is that the stragglers did not attack from above the flower fields, they came down from the ground.

So Liu Jiayi and Bai Liu, the two men who don't go to the ground, have this added layer of consideration - they observe that the scene above ground is calm and excessive, so they have to consider whether something might be going on below ground.

The field of flowers in front of them began to undulate slowly, swaying into red waves in the moonlight, and the air began to spread over them with the sound of a seemingly unmoving, pattering vine.

Liu Jiayi alertly puts her hands behind her back, the black poison held in a glass bottle slowly taking shape in her palms.

[System Alert: Does player Liu Jiayi use the skill (Poison)?

[System Alert: Yes ...... poison is being generated in bulk, skill cooldown is 1 hour, player Liu Jiayi's stamina is dropping dramatically ......]

Liu Jiayi removes eight bottles of poison from behind herself, the neck of each bottle held securely between her fingers and stuck between them.

Each vial of poison was full and a deep black smoke filled from the vials, instantly enveloping her as the orange worker's suit she had been wearing was swept away by the smoke and turned into a long black robe that covered her body from head to toe.

" Bai Liu, my poison skill has gone on cooldown, it will be an hour before I can use it next time." Liu Jiayi approached Bai Liu, she and Bai Liu were facing the flower field back to back, her tone serious, " I also have a potential S overdraft skill called Poison Fountain."

Liu Jiayi opens his system panel and turns sideways to show Bai Liu the explanation of the skills on the panel.

[System Description: Personal Skill (Poison Geyser) - Deals indiscriminate slow damage to all players within range, after using this skill, player Liu Jiayi's stamina tank will be depleted. Severe stiffness effects such as immobility]

"The only two skills I can do as my main attack are these two." Liu Jiayi looked at the wave of roses slowly swaying over from the sky, his face and tone turned grave, "The monsters in a level 3 copy are usually above A+, a small number of monsters of this level I can take the main attack, but if it's a group attack of this size, there's no way my burst speed attack can sweep all the monsters at once! "

"I'll get stuck in a wheel stand and have to rely on blood back to hold out, but my skills are already on cooldown and the spirit bleach is ineffective, and it's not realistic to find these monsters' weaknesses to restrain them now that the city is under siege." Liu Jiayi looked up at Bai Liu, "The win rate is too low, are we still fighting?"

As a backline healer, Liu Jiayi's primary criterion when she is on a mission is to stay alive and have a chance to survive.

But Bai Liu's judgement criteria was different, he was very decisive: "Fight, we can try if we have a chance to win, you just take the main attack, I have an idea."

Liu Jiayi was too late to ask Bai Liu what could be done. Situations in the game are ever-changing, especially in a new game without any relevant information, and one can only develop a counter-measure based on real-time situations, combining the skills and reserves of the players - also called tactics in the league.

In a situation like this, where the monster had already attacked, Liu Jiayi had no other option but to trust Bai Liu's command and tactical skills.

Although Hearts intends to train Liu Jiayi to be the next generation of tactical masters, the games Liu Jiayi has practiced so far have been at least five S-ranked reserve players, and Liu Jiayi has never played a three-tier game with a C-ranked player like Bai Liu, plus an A-ranked support player of her own.

Or that Liu Jiayi would never have attempted a head-to-head in such a game - the odds were too low and it would have been too easy to roll over to suit her tactical aesthetic.

But now it is not she who is in control, but Bai Liu.

Bai Liu's tactical aesthetic is all about one word - gambling.

No matter how low the odds are, if it's a non-zero win and comes with a high return, he's going to take a chance on it.

Bai Liu draws a snow-white bone whip from his back without delay, the rose in his eyes lovingly stretching as he looks out over the field of roses that is beginning to surge.