Chapter 33

"You're going to help?" one of the lackeys sneered, as if he'd just heard the funniest joke.

"You?" the other lackey snorted, "What can you do?"

"Just stay put," Zhang Jie chimed in. "You're just a young girl, not even as capable as Xiao Wan. Why get involved? Just wait—we'll protect you."

Why couldn't she help?

Before, Yi Ying would have felt safe with someone protecting her, but now she felt nothing but frustration. She was admittedly timid; she wanted protection. But she also contributed to the team—she cooked every meal, inventoried supplies, cleaned up—she even helped write Zhang Jie's work logs.

She thought these people would at least appreciate her a little, but it turned out they thought she was completely useless all along.

Their words dripped with superiority, yet even she knew they should be helping, and not one of them dared to.

Yi Ying's heart raced, anger and cowardice tangling in her mind.

"Did you all go through a war or something? Got PTSD? Or are you just too kind-hearted and soft, unable to kill mutated plants?" Lin Tu mocked from a distance. She looked gentle, but sometimes her words could drive people insane.

Seeing they remained unmoved, Lin Tu said, "If you don't come help now, I'll throw you in there!"

Her cold, hard voice, the sound of her blade severing vines, and the fleeting glance she cast over—it made the few who had been joking tremble. She would absolutely do it—they were certain.

This time, no one stopped Yi Ying. One of the lackeys even gave her shoulder a push. "Go on then!" he shouted. "She's our representative!"

Lin Tu turned around, a little speechless.

"You don't need to push me—I'll go myself!"

As Yi Ying spoke, she pulled out a magic wand... more precisely, it looked like a flashlight with a handle a full meter long, appearing in her hand.

"A weapon-type special item?!" Luo Yongzhi glanced over, surprised. Weapon-type special items were prohibitively expensive; his steel rod with a crushing effect had cost ninety points, and it was only a half-finished weapon-type special item.

Luo Yongzhi didn't know how effective Yi Ying's was, but a weapon-type special item was definitely nothing ordinary.

Lin Tu asked curiously, "What does it do?"

Yi Ying said with some embarrassment, "Disaster Aura."

"Disaster Aura?"

"Creatures it shines on won't feel pain or get hurt, but they'll experience hallucinations based on the disaster world I imagine. The more vivid my imagination, the more the creature believes it, and the more the effect manifests in reality. For example, in a cold disaster, the creature would be frozen stiff and unable to move..."

"Really unable to move?" The few people behind her, especially the two lackeys, burst out laughing.

Luo Yongzhi also looked at Yi Ying with a strange expression. "This... is a bit useless, isn't it?"

It sounded intimidating, but on closer thought, that was about it. Not only did it require the user to have a good imagination, but it also required the target creature to believe it. The problem was, normal disaster monsters—like the zombies from the last disaster or the mutated plants in this one—what intelligence did they have to understand disasters, let alone believe in them?

As for using it on humans... leaving aside players, the locals might believe it, but... what use was casting Disaster Aura on locals for clearing a disaster world?

Yi Ying became even more embarrassed. She held up the magic wand, at a loss. "I... can I help?"

"Of course you can!" Lin Tu, a total novice whose points total couldn't even unlock weapon-type special items in the system shop, had never understood this kind of knowledge. When she heard there was something called Disaster Aura, she immediately said in surprise.

Hearing Lin Tu's voice, free of any contempt and even somewhat excited, Yi Ying quickly straightened up.

Lin Tu was only about a meter away from her at that moment. She turned on the flashlight and jogged down the steps to Lin Tu and the others.

"I've been through a severe cold disaster, so I'm good at imagining ice and snow worlds. But cold probably isn't very effective against plants..." Yi Ying muttered to herself, then said more loudly, "I've tried a disaster of being overstuffed before, and it seemed to work a bit. I think I can make them imagine they're overstuffed, so they won't attack anymore!"

Seeing Yi Ying's expectant look, Lin Tu asked, "Can this be used on players?"

Yi Ying immediately became wary and quickly shook her head. "I wouldn't hurt you!"

"That's not what I mean," Lin Tu said, slicing through a vine with one chop, then struck by a sudden idea. "Can you imagine a disaster where all humans become immune to fatigue, their strength increases to uncontrollable levels, and their bodies become as hard as steel... something like that?"

Luo Yongzhi: "?"

Yi Ying: "?"

Zhang Jie and the others sitting on the steps in the distance: "?"

—You really dare to think!

Yi Ying looked troubled. "I'm not sure if that counts as a disaster, or if it'll have negative effects. And it requires you to fully believe it... what if it ends up hurting you instead."

Her weapon-type special item, "Disaster Aura," didn't sound like a good thing just from the name. She didn't even dare use it on her own kind—how could Lin Tu willingly ask for it?

"Let's try," Lin Tu said. "I'll do my best to believe."

This time, Yi Ying felt even more pressure on her shoulders.

She stood beside the silent young man who was watching them, took a few deep breaths, then turned on the flashlight. After obtaining this weapon, she had deliberately practiced her imagination, so it didn't take long for her to sketch out this somewhat bizarre disaster world.

When the flashlight's beam fell on Lin Tu, she felt a faint itch in her muscles all over. Recalling what she'd said, Lin Tu immersed herself in the fight with the vines while emptying her mind, trying to believe it was happening.

Lin Tu said to herself silently—

"I don't feel tired now..." Her breathing gradually steadied.

"My strength has become enormous..." Lin Tu spun around, and before she even finished winding up, she sliced through a vine's branch.

"My whole body is as hard as steel..."

The effect seemed to grow more pronounced, and finally, Lin Tu reached out with her bare hand, grabbed a vine hanging from the ceiling, and yanked it down hard. The vine had no resistance at all—she tore off a section with raw force.

"Holy crap!" Luo Yongzhi was stunned, shouting, "I want that too!"

Yi Ying was even more shocked than Luo Yongzhi. She had never imagined that "Disaster Aura" could have such a powerful effect.

She had once created an ice-and-snow disaster, but at best it slowed people down. Her earlier claim of "unable to move" had been an exaggeration, which was why everyone thought her hard-earned item was useless, and she felt that way too...

Yet using this strange world she was completely unfamiliar with—something she'd never even thought of before—had produced such a great effect. It could only mean one thing—

The person being irradiated believed in herself more than anyone, even more than the item's user, believed in this imagined disaster world.

"Wait!" Yi Ying was afraid of making any mistake, staring intently at Lin Tu as she continued to imagine. "It needs to be continuously irradiated for at least three minutes to last for ten."

The three minutes felt endless, and Yi Ying felt a thin layer of cold sweat forming on her forehead.

"Thanks!" Lin Tu, now like an enhanced plus version of herself, moved through the tangle of vines with ease, taking out one vine after another in just over a minute without even getting winded. She praised, "You're amazing!"

"It was nothing." Yi Ying's face flushed a little.

Luo Yongzhi quickly rushed to Lin Tu's original position, eager to try. With Lin Tu guarding him, he simply sat down on the spot and began to meditate.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on him, especially the few on the steps. If Yi Ying's magic wand was truly that powerful, her value would undoubtedly need to be reassessed.

Three minutes later, Luo Yongzhi opened his eyes, a glint of light flashing within them. He jogged forward, raising his steel rod and charging at the nearest vine—

"Watch my rod!" With a bang, the vine... bent a little.

Luo Yongzhi cried out in disappointment, "Why isn't there much effect?"

The vine angrily lunged at Luo Yongzhi, who retreated rapidly.

Seeing this, Lin Tu made a quick turn, stepped in front of him, raised her blade with one hand, and with just a flick of her wrist, sliced through the vine effortlessly amid a shower of sparks.

"There's still a little enhancement," Lin Tu said as she kept cutting vines. "Maybe you didn't believe thoroughly enough, so the boost wasn't much."

"I tried my best to believe!" Luo Yongzhi rubbed his throbbing tiger's mouth, somewhat bitter.

There were some things he couldn't say, but fully believing in Yi Ying was too difficult—he simply couldn't bring himself to trust her, and he didn't know how Lin Tu managed it.

Zhang Jie and his crew on the steps also let out a sigh of relief. See, they'd said Yi Ying couldn't possibly be that impressive.

With such stringent conditions, probably only Lin Tu—or a rare few—could achieve it. Or rather, the impressive one was Lin Tu; what did that have to do with Yi Ying?

After helping out, Yi Ying returned to Zhang Jie's side.

Zhang Jie stared coldly at Lin Tu's direction, saying nothing and not even glancing at Yi Ying. It was as if to say, you didn't listen to me, so I just won't talk. The two lackeys also acted as if Yi Ying didn't exist.

After a moment, Yi Ying couldn't stand the silence any longer. "With my help, we should be able to reach the shelter more smoothly now, right?"

"With you?" Zhang Jie let out a cold laugh. "You really think you're useful now? Without Lin Tu, you're nothing. Who else can you buff besides Lin Tu? Don't get ahead of yourself."

Yi Ying's face went pale in an instant.

"I've seen more capable people than you've walked paths in your life. I know what capable people look like, and you don't even come close. I told you to listen to me more; without me, what are you?"

He rattled on and on, but Yi Ying couldn't hear a single word anymore. She only felt cold all over.

"You're full of crap!" She abruptly stood up and walked toward Lin Tu.

With the boost from Yi Ying's magic wand, within the roughly ten-minute effective window, Lin Tu cleared out all the mutated plants on the first floor.

The moment she stopped, she felt soreness across her whole body, guessing that the magic wand's effect was about to wear off. Using the enhancement without regard for her body's reactions would inevitably bring a backlash.

Lin Tu leaned against the wall, planning to rest a bit.

"Let's go, go, go!" The two lackeys seized the moment to hurry Zhang Jie toward the basement door.

"What's the rush?" Luo Yongzhi wanted to go too, but he stayed behind to wait for Lin Tu.

"Mind your own business!" the lackey snapped. For some reason, his emotions were churning violently.

Before anyone could react, he dragged Zhang Jie and rushed over.

An inexplicable impulse rose in Luo Yongzhi—he wanted to follow them too—but he held himself back.

"Something's wrong!" Lin Tu frowned deeply. A thought struck her, and she pulled out her phone. There wasn't a single message in the Anju App.