Chapter 79 – Florida Man Raids Empty Police Station While Cops Raids His House
Leo upgraded every facility to level 8. He also built a new warehouse and a granary, expanding his storage, and spending additional 27,500 years of lifespan.
With a clothing store, a recycling center, three alchemy workshops, three farm plots, three houses, two warehouses, two granaries, a general store, and a mystic realm portal, Leo got 17 facilities in his domain. Although upgrading cost was cheap, leveling everything was costly.
<Current Lifespan: 80,572 Years…>
Leo had a heartache. In a flash, he lost 97,500 years to the system. However, Leo hadn't had enough. He eyed the new building.
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Employee Apartment
Requirement – Humble General Store Level 8
Price – 10,000 Years of Lifespan
Space – 20 x 50
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This was necessary. It cost a lot, and it took a lot of space. However, Leo needed a place for his workers to live as he couldn't let them sleep in the general store for too long. It was a place for business, not a hotel.
Leo swallowed his saliva. He was afraid that the apartment upgrades might cost him 10,000 YOL per level. If that were the case, he would need to spend 80,000 YOL.
*YOL = Years of Lifespan*
As this was a big project, Leo contemplated the pros and cons for a long time. He sat on the edge of the flying island, looking at the sunset and the scenery.
The sun escaped, and the night arrived. Leo's glowing green pupils scanned the forest below and spotted the heat signature of a hundred lurkers around his domain.
'Hmm?'
Strangely, they were too close to the domain boundary. They crept into bushes, crawling while hiding from plain sight.
Leo smirked as he found their actions amusing. He took a long leap from the platform and glided toward the back of the junkyard, where the two vulnerable warehouses and the recycling center were.
While gliding, Leo calculated how he would bait them to attack him first. He had a general idea of what he should do.
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As soon as the sky turned dark, 20 spies crawled out of the forest, approaching the junkyard. As their uniforms were black and they wore masks, they had no issue with their disguise.
They were golden core cultivators from the Death Sword Sect. They were weaker than the previous group as they were the supporting team. However, their current mission was not to fight - They only needed to snatch one or two of Life Sword Sect's disciples from here so that they could use them to blackmail Florida Man and enslave him in the process.
Their group was the first to cross the boundary, and everybody jumped out of the bushes. They sprinted toward the recycling center. As the mannequins in yellow jackets were busy, none of them patrolled the facility, making it easy for the spies to infiltrate this area.
Next to the recycling center's junkyard, two warehouse buildings stood next to each other. Five of the spies stopped and looked at the front entrances of these storehouses. One of them whispered to his colleague.
"Let's grab some treasures."
The other spy shook his head, "Let's not. We need to complete our missions first. We're infiltrating the nest of a quasi-immortal and a 6th-stage monster plant. There's also a nascent soul alchemist in the area. We have to hurry."
"Shame."
The spies looked at the warehouse buildings in pity. They looked away and sneaked closer to the back of the west alchemy workshop.
BOOM
While they sneaked to the back of the first alchemy workshop, they heard something loud from the North of Sword Saint Forest, where they had come from. Everybody looked back as they had concerns.
The location of the noise was their operation headquarters. At the camp, they left behind golden core cultivators to act as a messenger and a logistic officer. They were in charge of handling their escape routes.
"Is someone attacking our camp?" One of them muttered.
"…"
Everyone was shaken. Thus, their captain ordered them, "Three of you, go back and check our camp. If something happens, abort the mission and retreat."
"Yes, boss."
Three of the spies rushed back to their base. As for the rest, they proceeded toward the back of the general store.
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The Death Sword Sect's agents weren't the only ones who managed to reach the store building, the Fatui Cult's agents and Ouyang Clan's cultivators dispatched 100 men and surrounded the building as well. However, they came from the south and the east.
The Fatui Cult's agents brazenly waltzed from the front, ignoring the mannequin workers who had been working on the farms and the fish pond. They gathered in front of the general store, where the disciples were hiding inside.
The team warily looked at the nearby house, five meters away from the store. Similar to the Death Sword Sect's agents, they were not confident that they could take on the alchemist and the plant monster.
As they didn't want to waste time, one of them tried to open the front door to get inside.
CLICK
It was locked from the inside.
The team of 70 agents looked at each other. One of them drew a sword and swung at the glass windows.
CLANK
The sword was broken in one hit.
The cultivator frowned as he didn't notice the 1mm thin transparent wall in front of the glass windows. He didn't understand why his steel sword broke because of the fragile-looking glasses.I think you should take a look at
The other agents also tried. They inserted their Qi into the door, trying to break whatever array that sealed the door. However, as the door was never locked by an array, their Qi injection failed.
A smarter agent had keener eyes. They noticed the keyhole under the door handle. Thus, he injected his Qi into the hole, trying to figure out the mechanism behind the lock.
CLICK
Modern locks were no match for psychics and cultivators. He safely unlocked it and opened the door.
Everybody sneered. They believed that this raid would be a walk in the park.
But as soon as the lockpicker pulled the door open, he found a layer of red curtain wall. He couldn't see through the red light.
"What's this?"
The cultivators stood in front of the energy curtain. They looked at each other as if they were afraid of trap arrays. As everybody didn't dare to make a move, they asked their colleagues if anybody was trained in arrays and formations.
Soon, the agents from the Ouyang Family caught up and discovered the Fatui's group. The Death Sword Sect's spies also gathered in front of the store and found everybody.
They were on guard at first. But since they came here for the same goal, the leaders of each team negotiated their terms and came to an agreement – They would cooperate and try to snatch Florida Man's people. As for the blackmail scheme, they would leave it to their bosses to decide.
As the Ouyang Clan's agents were well-versed in formations and arrays, their people inspected the red curtain energy behind the front door. The agent was one of the few nascent soul cultivators alive. He scanned the energy curtain with his Qi.
A few seconds later, the agent informed them of the good news.
"This is not a trap or a killing array. It's just there to remove infectious germs from the visitors."
"Really?"
"Yes, there is no mistake."
The crowd let out a sigh of relief. They sneered and waited for the Ouyang Clan's agents to get in first.
The Ouyang agents took responsibility and got in first. After crossing the red energy curtain, they found a new world inside. The interior of this building was larger than the outside, but they couldn't get to see everything.
There was another hurdle they had to get through.
Beyond the front door, there was a glass room. They were surrounded by glass walls and glass doors with white metal frames. However, there was no door knob or a handle. In addition, behind the glass doors and the walls, another layer of shutter curtains blocked the entrance.
One cultivator entered the small room one after another, but they couldn't open the weird glass doors.
The Ouyang agents tried to pry open the door, but they didn't budge. The nascent soul cultivator earlier tried to use brute force and Qi. However, they stood firm like a mountain. The cultivators behind the nascent soul array master were confused.
"What now?" The agents were baffled.
"Let's just hurry and destroy the walls."
The cultivators could see the movement inside behind the shutters. The lights were on, and the disciples were still touring the empty mall.
As the intruders came from the front door, the disciples already noticed them. They started shouting and warning the others. Then, they started running toward the second floor.
"They've noticed us. We have to hurry!"
They sent their strongest men in and kicked the weaker guys out. Then, they started attacking the glass walls and the doors.
BOOM
BOOM
Punches and kicks ended up hurting the assailants. Some of them brought out hammers. However, they bounced back upon impact.
"SHIT! ATTACK HARDER! THEIR MASTER WILL COME SOON!"
The crowd panicked as they were afraid of Leo and the monster plant. Everybody began channeling their Qi and attacked the store from the front.
Beams, energy balls, flying weapons, and energy spirits hit the glass walls, causing explosions and sparks everywhere.
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DING
<Warning! The humble general store is under attack!>
<You may use the emergency defensive order to eliminate the intruders.>
Leo stood in the middle of a small camp. His right foot stepped on a half-dead golden core cultivator from the Death Sword Sect. As for the others, they were squirming, twisting, and turning as their skins and bodies swelled. Their blood blackened while their guts replaced their outer skin.
He looked back at his domain. At the moment, he was outside the boundary, and he couldn't execute order 66.
"I didn't expect those fools to attack my store. Hey, system. Can the store be destroyed?"
<As long as the humble general store is level 9 or lower, the buildings cannot be destroyed.>
"Wait. Does that mean, if I raise the store level to 10, my buildings can be destroyed?! What the hell?!"
Leo learned something scary from the system when he least expected it. Because of the revelation, he had concerns.
"Dammit. Does that mean I have to stockpile lifespan before I raise the shop to level 10? Am I playing a freaking city-building game or something?!"
Leo spat on the injured cultivator under him. Then, he kicked the ground, heading back to the general store.
The saliva landed on the injured golden core cultivator's face. His entire face instantly turned brown as his blood turned black. Blood vessels swelled, and his eyes were ejected from the eye sockets. Like the others, he squirmed in agony as the cancer cells rapidly grew and expanded.
Nobody could hear his scream or understand their pain. He stopped moving 10 seconds later. However, the soil under him soon turned black. The weeds, bushes, and trees nearby slowly mutated, just like the trees and plants in Leo's domain.
The mutation slowly spread toward the north.