Li Ang really wanted to give Mule a thumbs-up, wishing him good health and half-price groceries.

That’s the good thing about communicating with smart people who know themselves—both sides understand communication and compromise. They can propose solutions under unfavorable conditions of mutual suspicion, without tearing up their faces and resorting to violence.

After signing the oath, temporarily resolving future worries, Li Ang returned to the Wanhe residential area, opened the door, closed the curtains, turned on the air conditioner, and plopped down on the sofa.

Chai Cuicao immediately crawled out of his chest. Because this was the real world, her actions could easily leave traces of Yin energy, so she had been holding back from playing on her phone these past few days.

Lying on the sofa, Li Ang turned over, ignoring Chai Cuicao, who was eagerly chasing manga, anime, and catching up on dramas. He began to review the rewards from this mission.

Reward settlement in progress

Player overall performance: S+, game coins and experience points increased to 160%

Mission Reward 1: 300 experience points

Mission Reward 2: 600 game coins

The difficulty of this mission wasn't particularly high. "Resolving the spirit anomaly in Dusheng Village" was originally an open-ended mission objective, with multiple ways to complete it.

The first way was to obtain the truth by bangjiàing the villagers, and assist Lu Gui and his three sons in completing the ritual, completely expelling Meng Qixi and the nameless female ghost.

This solution was the most efficient, as it could be easily achieved by betraying ordinary out-of-town passengers. After all, the out-of-town female ghost wouldn't actively attack innocent passengers.

As long as you were fast and ruthless enough, the whole process would be relatively safe.

Naturally, the completion rating would be slightly lower.

The second way was to stand on the side of Meng Qixi and the nameless female ghost.

Whether it was assisting them in their revenge or personally eliminating all the villagers, including Lu Gui, the difficulty was much greater than the first method.

This high difficulty not only referred to the difficulty of resisting the Dusheng Village formation's attack,

but also included the additional difficulty of escaping the pursuit of official organizations after causing significant casualties.

High difficulty, high risk, high reward.

After multiplying by a factor of 1.6, Li Ang received a total of 480 experience points and 960 game coins.

Before this regular mission, his level was Lv8, with an experience bar of 579/800. After completing the mission, he had met the conditions for leveling up again.

Confirm level up, current level Lv9, experience bar is 259/900.

Adding the 960 game coins from the mission reward and the 45 coins from the commission balance, Li Ang's total number of game coins rose back to 3990.

After reading the first two mission rewards, it was time for the most anticipated unboxing session again.

Mission Reward 3: Random quality random item *1

"I've completed so many S+ missions, System, if you don't give me something good this time, may your groceries always be super expensive..."

Li Ang muttered to himself, clicked on the treasure chest, and as a ray of light flashed, a... rectangular metal block appeared in the box?

Name: Damaged Alchemist's Magic Box

Type: Portable Item

Quality: Excellent

Effect: Opens a damaged alchemist's workshop. Except for the basic infrastructure "Forging Furnace," the rest needs to be built by the player.

Usage conditions: Intelligence attribute greater than or equal to 9, Perception attribute greater than or equal to 9

Remarks: This is a magic box that hides many secrets. It is written in foreign characters: "The pursuit of truth is the lifelong pursuit of us alchemists, and also the predetermined tragedy of us alchemists."

Remarks: After the player's alchemy skill reaches intermediate level, pay 10,000 game currency to try to repair the magic box and upgrade its level to "perfect."

"Hiss—"

Li Ang gasped. This was the first time he had directly obtained an excellent-level item, and according to the remarks, this equipment also had the potential for improvement.

He took out the magic box and carefully examined it on his lap.

This magic box, made of black-gray metal, was about the size of a large pencil case.

After careful observation, you could see that all the planes were covered with dense, ethereal red stripes like curled beams of light.

These red stripes changed with the light, sometimes visible, sometimes not.

The magic box was quite heavy in the hand. At the top was a curved depression the size of a bottle cap, surrounded by several layers of silver metal rings with a modern industrial aesthetic.

"This should be the button..."

Li Ang muttered to himself, checking the next system prompt.

In view of the player's overall performance, a new trait has been triggered.

The system projected three scenes: first, Li Ang digging open a tomb to examine the corpses;

second, him reaching into Lu He's chest and rummaging around;

third, him standing gloomily on the edge of the pigsty, using a lamppost to dig through the sludge, and finding bone fragments and long black hair.

Bone Tracking: +1 Perception

The new trait added one point of Perception, not bad, not bad.

Li Ang added the one free attribute point from the level up to his Intelligence attribute, just meeting the attribute requirements for using the magic box.

He breathed a sigh of relief, stood up from the sofa, and placed the metal box in the center of the living room.

Under Chai Cuicao's curious gaze, Li Ang pressed the button on the top of the magic box.

"Ka"

With a crisp sound, the rectangular magic box began to disassemble itself.

A huge amount of gears, racks, bearings, chains, rivets, pistons, springs... incompatible with its volume, poured out continuously,

expanding and extending outward from the magic box, automatically building various mechanical structures with a strong industrial aesthetic.

A few seconds later, the magic box expanded into a large metal box with a length, width, and height of 2 meters.

The surface of the box was full of Baroque-style relief decorations made of metal, gorgeous, elegant, exquisite, steampunk.

Li Ang walked around the box and found a metal door embedded in one side.

Twisting the cold doorknob and pulling the door open, inside was a square room with a volume clearly much larger than Li Ang's living room.

This room, or workshop, covered an area of about 200 square meters and was 3 meters high. The walls and floor were all made of dark metal, which was quite oppressive.

The entire workshop was spotless, dark, and empty.

Only the innermost wall was a metal device as tall as a person.

This device was similar to a combination of a material grinder and a furnace, and its construction style was the same as the magic box itself, elegant and exquisite Baroque steampunk.

Name: Forging Furnace

Type: Workshop Facility

Quality: Excellent

Effect: By inputting two or more materials with extraordinary elements, equipment and props can be produced according to the material compatibility. The quality of the final product will inevitably be one or several levels lower than the Forging Furnace itself.

Usage conditions: Pay 1000 game coins each time

Remarks: Equivalent exchange is always the first rule of alchemy.

Remarks: The quality of the Forging Furnace is determined by the magic box itself.

Fearsome Player