Chapter 173 – Game-Addicted Florida Man Sued Game Company as Game’s “Quest” Forced Him to Touch Grass

At night, Leo was still inside the shopping mall, rearranging the first floor’s goodies. All shelves and showcase refrigerators were concentrated on the northeast corner, leaving the other area empty.

He did this for a reason.

After the shopping mall upgrade, a new area opened up at the back of the shopping mall – A large cargo elevator emerged, connecting to the underground warehouse zone. It became easier to transfer items from granaries and warehouses to the shopping mall.

With this setup, Leo could directly resupply his “supermarket” goods without leaving the shopping mall.

“Whew. Next!”

Leo chose not to sleep for the day as he had a hundred tasks to complete. He entered the cargo elevator and descended to the shopping mall’s underground warehouse.

Getting into the warehouse, Leo discovered four closed shutter doors and a massive empty room with a tall ceiling. On the shutter doors, labels told Leo where the doors would lead him to.

[Granary 1]

[Granary 2]

[Warehouse 1]

[Warehouse 2]

It wasn’t hard to guess. Leo opened the “Warehouse 1” door.

Opening the shutter door, the interior of Leo’s first warehouse building was in front of him. He inspected the warehouse’s items and collected weapons, clothes, and pills that he and his subordinates had plundered from the dead cultivators.

After gathering a bunch of junk items in his spatial rings, Leo walked toward the exit. When Leo came out, he appeared outside of the first warehouse building.

“Alright. Neat! What about the security?”

Leo looked around and searched for a volunteer to test the security feature. It wasn’t hard to find a trustworthy guy around here.

The first warehouse’s mannequins and a disciple helped each other pushing a large trash bin full of iron pine barks toward Leo’s warehouse. When they saw Leo, they stopped to greet him.

“Hello, senior!” The Life Sword Sect’s disciple politely cupped his fist. As for the mannequin, it creepily stared at Leo’s face.

Leo waved his hand and called the disciple, “I have a favor to ask you. Can you go into that warehouse and try to get inside the new area over there?”

“New area, sir?”

“Mhm. I’ll give you an essence stone for the trouble. Can you do it?”

Hearing that he would get an essence stone for a simple job, the disciple repeatedly nodded in excitement, “Of course, sir!”

“Good. Now, go in there and return if you can enter that area.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“Yup!”

The disciple cheerfully rushed into the warehouse. When he reached the deepest part of the building, he discovered a new shutter door, which led to a new area.

He was astonished and excited. After all, he always worked around here, helping the warehouse mannequin storing goods from the harvesting team. He knew this warehouse like the back of his hand.

“Wow.”

The disciple cautiously walked toward the open area. But as soon as he reached the boundary of the underground shopping mall’s warehouse, he hit an invisible wall.

“Huh?”

The disciple was confused. He reached out toward the new zone and tried to get there. However, he touched a transparent wall instead.

He panicked. He thought that Leo wouldn’t give him an essence stone if he couldn’t enter the area. Thus, he tried to punch it.

BONK

The punch bounced back. He felt like he hit a bouncing rubber instead of a hard wall.

Confused, the disciple tried again. Second attempt, third attempt, tenth attempt, he failed to break the invisible barrier.

In the end, he gave up. The disciple was crestfallen as he returned to Leo. He reported his failure.

“…Sir, I couldn’t get inside the new area. I’m sorry.”

Leo raised his eyebrows. Instead of being disappointed, he was overjoyed.

“Really? Okay. You did a good job. Here is your bonus.”

He tossed an essence stone to the disciple. The latter caught it and blankly stared at the stone for a moment. When he came back to his senses, he deeply bowed to Leo.

“THANK YOU, SIR! I’LL WORK EVEN HARDER!”

Leo waved his hand and dismissed the young man.

As long as no one but Leo could access the warehouse from the other entrances, the shopping mall warehouse was secure. However, Leo might have to manage the entire warehouse himself.

‘This might be a headache. For now, I don’t need to restock my supermarket. I’ll leave it empty for now unless Cat threatens to empty the granary again. How much does she eat every day?!’

Leo wanted to go check the granaries to see the carnage. However, he stopped the thoughts as he had another thing to complete. He returned to the alchemy workshop. Then, he ordered the mannequin to use the sixth cauldron to make more grain pills.

Although Leo planned to keep this cauldron to research other materials, he postponed the idea. After all, his main quest’s first phrase was almost completed.

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Entity Fate Crystal Quest – Phrase 1/13

Mission Objectives: Complete 10 tasks to complete this phrase.

Phrase Completion Rewards: 100,000 Years of Lifespan, One Guaranteed SR Lucky Draw (Building), and Increase Sub-Building’s Max Level to 12

Phrase One Tasks (8/10 Completed)

– Evolve Humble General Store into a Shopping Mall. (Done)

– Move any building into the main store’s building. (Done)

– Set up a new store in the main store’s building. (Done)

– Complete a mystic realm expedition once. (Done)

– Upgrade any building to level 10. (Done)

– Harvest at least 10,000 of any crops from Basic Farmlands. (Done)

– Concoct at least 10,000 pills by using Alchemy Workshop. (3,380 / 10,000)

– Recycle at least 10,000 items by using the Recycling Center. (4,057 / 10,000)

– Summon at least 10 automatons to work in your domain. (Done)

– Sold at least 1,000 products in your store. (Done)

*For each completed task, you will receive one Lucky Draw (Building), and one Lucky Draw (Automaton).

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Leo needed two more to complete the first set of quests. Then, he could enjoy the two batches of lucky draws. Moreover, there was something new in the gacha section.

Aside from the building and the automaton, there was a new banner that Leo could try his luck.

[Gnosis Lucky Draw]

This feature had been unlocked after Leo evolved the general store into a shopping mall. This was foreshadowed in chapter 106. However, like the other gacha banners, it required lucky draw tickets, and Leo couldn’t purchase it with his lifespan.

Although the system gave Leo multiple restrictions and forced him to work, it was not heartless enough to not give him hints. Under the 10+1 draw button, there were tiny texts underneath.

<Gnosis Lucky Draw Tickets can be obtained from the PVP mode.>

“…”

Leo narrowed his eyes after reading the hint. He deeply inhaled, preparing his heart to explore the unknown. While walking toward the recycling center, Leo opened the menu that he had never explored yet – The PVP tab.

DING

When Leo pressed on the PVP tab, a tutorial screen appeared.

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PVP Mode

Welcome to the PVP Section, where you can enjoy competing against other fate crystal bearers and comparing your strengths. You can climb ladders in the ranking matches or spar against your friends in a private lobby. At the end of every season, you will obtain many rewards based on your rankings.

This feature has three subcategories – Offline Ranking, Real-Time Ranking, and Casual. Only the Offline Ranking Mode and Real-Time Ranking Mode offer rewards.

Offline Ranking Mode lets you fight against shadows of crystal bearers from the past and present. Every week, you can participate in a ranking match once. Every time you defeat your opponent, you can obtain one gnosis lucky draw.

Real-Time Ranking Mode allows you to match up against fellow crystal-bearers of your peers in real time. Both you and your opponent may wager your wealth in the match if both sides agree to the terms. In addition, combat in this mode yields five times more rewards than the offline mode due to its high mortality rate. Please be advised. Killing is not forbidden in this mode. Similar to the Offline Ranking Mode, you can participate in the ranking match once a month.

As for the Casual Mode, it is for private matches. If you have friends, we suggest you try this out to have fun. Of course, this mode is 100% safe as no one can die during the fight.

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Leo was skeptical about this feature. Even though the participating right was limited to one fight per week or month, he wasn’t that interested in the activities. Instead, he only checked this feature because he was curious about the lucky draw tickets.

‘This is the same as those evil gacha games. If you don’t PvP, your progress will fall behind the others because you can’t get the exclusive rewards. This is where the P2W part comes in. But does system allows P2W?’

While reading the tutorial screen, Leo arrived at the recycling center. He gazed at the acid pool, where the workers disposed of junk.

Standing near the pool, Leo rubbed his spatial rings, which he had used to store junk items from the warehouse earlier. Old clothes, regular grain pills, old weapons, and random tools were poured into the pool.

Everything was instantly dissolved. Then, the machine hummed, producing hundreds of spirit stones.

Leo ignored the machine and kept pouring more items. After Leo had removed all clothes and junk items from the spatial rings, he checked the quest progression.

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Recycle at least 10,000 items by using the Recycling Center. (7,133 / 10,000)

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They were not enough. Leo needed more junk to dispose of.

He turned around and placed all spatial rings on the ground, piling into a small mountain. Roughly estimated, about 1,000 rings were in front of Leo.

After putting everything in place, Leo rechecked everything one by one.

All empty storage rings were tossed into the pool behind Leo. He kept scanning and tossing it away when he was done.

10 rings, 50 rings, 100 rings, Leo kept discarding them. He didn’t show remorse for throwing such precious items away as he had too many.

When Leo checked the 138th ring, he found a storage, full of books and furniture. It seemed that the previous owner was a librarian or a book enthusiast.

Leo mercilessly ejected the books to the ground and dumped all the bookshelves into the pool. Then, he skimmed through the books.

“Come to think of it, my place doesn’t have a library. Should I keep these?”

Leo flipped a random book. The pages showed images of humans doing various poses. At the side of each image, Chinese texts described the techniques.

Reading the martial arts manual, Leo tilted his head to the side as he found the poses weird and illogical. He closed the book and checked another one.

When Leo reached out for a new book, he finally looked up to check how many books he had ejected earlier. Then, he noticed the anomaly.

The pile was a lot bigger than the small mountain of spatial rings. The total books and scrolls were more than enough to fill the entire acid pool.

“Oh, boy. I guess I can dump these to complete the quest. But is that really a good idea?”

Leo looked around, but he couldn’t find any elder. Without a choice, he shouted, calling Hua Jiashan and Dongfang Mei over.

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The two portal guards rushed down from the flying platform. They arrived at the recycling center and found a mountain of books, which was taller than them.

“Senior, what are these?” Asked Hua Jiashan.

“Books, of course.”

“I know, but where did you get these?”

“I forgot. I killed too many people, and one of their rings contains these. Well, help me sort these things. Throw every useless book into the pool and keep the useful ones.”

“W-What?!”

Hua Jiashan gulped. He rushed over and picked a random book nearby. After flipping a few pages, he was astonished.

“Swift Monkey Footwork?! Isn’t this the Beggar Sect’s technique?”

Hearing Hua Jiashan’s comment, Dongfang Mei was astonished. She waved her finger and pulled a scroll to her hand. Opening the scroll, she read it out loud.

“Mountain Cleaver Strike Technique. This is a blade technique from the Death Sword Sect! Wait, that too!”

Both elders were shocked and excited as their organizations lacked resources to collect as many technique books. They looked like nerdy children who had seen a bookstore for the first time.

Looking at the duo, Leo pursed his lips. He thought of another business model.

“I guess I have to add a bookstore to my wish list. I hope the building gacha will grant me this.”