42. Mother Mint and Her Inexperienced Child (Please Follow for Updates)

Since the very first time they met, Mint had always had money on the tip of her tongue. Yet, she never made the members of the Border of Illusion and Reality feel that she was vulgar or mercenary; it somehow felt entirely natural, as if her shouting "I am adorable, give me money" was just how things were supposed to be.

This time was no exception. The driving force behind her assuming a false identity to attend the duke's banquet was, once again, money.

This thoroughly piqued Jiang Heyi's curiosity. After scaring off a flock of clueless monsters with a Molotov cocktail, he couldn't help but ask.

"With all the money you want, what on earth are you planning to do?"

Mint replied without missing a beat, "To become a grand potion master, obviously. Do you even have to ask?"

"Can you be more specific? Once you've earned a huge, huge pile of money, how exactly does that turn you into a potion master?" Jiang Heyi pressed further. "Are you going to apprentice yourself to a master, or buy your own materials to invent and improve new formulas?"

This time, Mint paused to think for a moment.

"Apprenticing is completely out of the question. There are hardly any decent potion mentors in the Anna Empire; they’re just old fogies taking up space and living off their positions."

"They occupy high ranks, yet instead of thinking about innovation and improvement, they only form cliques and engage in factionalism. Even if an exceptionally talented student occasionally appears, they inevitably end up reduced to a mere tool for those people, completely suppressed and held down."

Brother Jailer tutted, "Quite a rebellious statement. You claim to be a genius with zero achievements to your name so far, and the quality of the potions you brew exhibits an absolute wave-particle duality—they're either explosively effective or disastrously shoddy—yet you look down your nose at long-established potion masters."

Despite being teased like this, Mint didn't get angry at all. Instead, she grinned broadly.

"I just look down on them." Mint clenched her fist with utter confidence. "In the future, my achievements will surpass all of them combined!"

A brilliant smile, an overwhelmingly confident declaration, and a full score in infectious charm.

"So, you guys should sponsor me generously. Once I become the most powerful potion master on the continent—nay, the entire world—you'll have an endless supply of potions to use."

The members of the Border of Illusion and Reality sighed in unison.

Whenever they were moved by the emotion in Mint's words and intended to show her a bit more respect, she always managed to shatter that newly applied filter with her own hands, reminding everyone of her embarrassing nature.

The journey to the city of Sweetwind was far from peaceful. In just a single morning, they were ambushed by five or six waves of monsters.

Fortunately, actual fights were avoided. A single toss of Mint's Molotov cocktail, with its billowing heatwaves and boiling elemental aura, was enough to help the monsters' not-so-bright brains regain some calm.

They were just out looking for a meal; there was no need to fight to the death.

Upon arriving at Sweetwind, a major trading city, and seeing the magnificent grayish-white walls stretching across their field of vision, Zhong Zemo involuntarily muttered, "Is this the royal capital? It's so magnificent."

What awaited him was Mint's merciless mockery.

"The royal capital? Just how impoverished does your imagination have to be for you to think this could be the capital of Anna?"

Watching Mint leap around, wantonly radiating cognitive superiority, everyone's fists clenched.

Jiang Heyi rubbed his knuckles.

*I'll let you act like a country bumpkin and mock us for now. You had better make sure you don't do anything embarrassing yourself later, or we'll return it tenfold!*

However, regarding the lack of imagination part, Jiang Heyi was willing to concede once they entered Sweetwind.

It was simply too bustling here, with a population density comparable to a commercial street during major holiday festivals in the real world.

According to Mint's explanation, when this millennium-old empire of Anna was founded, it established the tone for peaceful coexistence among various races. This philosophy had stood unshaken for a thousand years, using inclusivity to cement its position as the overlord of the continent—the greatest cornerstone that other factions found difficult to shake.

Therefore, in the trading city of Sweetwind, aside from the dominant human race, the Border of Illusion and Reality could spot all kinds of beast ears.

Yes, the quickest way to identify different races here was by looking at their ears, followed by their skin, and then their tails.

For those whose race couldn't be determined by visual inspection alone, an appraisal scroll called a Lineage Atlas would be used.

For Brother Jailer, this place was practically paradise.

Compared to the sparsely populated Windpod City, the streets filled with hybrids of various exotic races kept his eyes endlessly occupied.

It was just that his gaze tended to drift a bit low, constantly aiming toward their feet.

Familiar with the place, Mint led the group straight to a carriage agency.

The carriage agencies of the Anna Empire were somewhat like semi-official passenger stations, offering both direct chartered carriage services and hop-on-hop-off shared omnibus services.

This was a well-developed service exclusive to hub cities closely linked to the beating heart of the empire—the Anna royal capital.

When it was Mint's turn in the queue at the front desk, she stepped aside slightly and nudged Jiang Heyi with her chin.

"Pay."

The game system automatically converted the value of Jiang Heyi's inventory into a barter-style currency exchange, allowing him to intuitively see the prices of different services.

Most locals chose the hop-on-hop-off shared omnibus service for travel. The price was quite reasonable, costing only three fresh aquatic catches.

A fisherman's ultimate joy.

However, if one opted for a direct chartered carriage, the price was exorbitant; the top-tier option actually required investing a piece of purple-grade material.

Following Mint's recommendation, Jiang Heyi chose the top-tier configuration with a twinge of heartache.

This was the only setup that could reach the royal capital within half a day.

If they didn't want to waste too much game time on the road, they simply had to spend the money.

During the transaction, Jiang Heyi suddenly noticed that aside from the purple-grade material, an additional green-grade material was required on the trading panel.

What was the meaning of this? Was it an insurance fee?

Mint urged, "Don't ask, just check out. I'll tell you all about it once we're on the carriage."

While he had initially felt a pang of regret over the cost, the moment he laid eyes on the nearly eight-meter-long ultra-extended carriage and pushed open the door to reveal a surprisingly luxurious interior, even Zhong Zemo—who usually valued practicality above all else—couldn't help clicking his tongue in wonder and wandering around touching things.

"Sigh, why are you guys so uncultured? If you act like this, you're bound to be laughed at in the royal capital."

Mint plopped down onto the soft bench, bounced slightly, and then comfortably melted downward bit by bit.

Four hybrid winged pegasi fell into position under the driver's command, their magic resonating with the array embedded in the carriage body.

Even without any mastery of magic, they could see the illusory white lines connecting the carriage body to the pegasi.

Seemingly aided by a magic array, when the pegasi took off with the carriage, the interior felt completely stable, remaining as level as solid ground.

No noise, no shaking. The water in the cup on the table only formed a gentle layer of ripples in response to everyone's movements.

If not for the semi-transparent glass windows showing the scenery rapidly flashing backward behind them, they wouldn't have even realized the pegasi were picking up speed and the carriage was hurtling forward like the wind.

Ever since entering the game, the Subterranean Temple of the Limpid had consumed a massive amount of their time, leaving them with no leisure to calmly appreciate this fantastical game world.

Sitting inside the carriage now, looking down at the fleeing earth below, countless vibrant and magnificent sights flickered past like a slide show. Every blink felt like pressing a shutter, imprinting them onto their minds.

The members of the Border of Illusion and Reality fell silent all at once.

This was no different from children taking an airplane for the very first time.

Mint sighed helplessly, suddenly struck by the bizarre sensation of being a mother taking care of a bunch of kids...

Thinking of this, she simply rested her chin in her hands and gazed indulgently at the five goofy troublemakers before her.

Only after everyone had slowly grown tired of the scenery did she give a cough to draw their attention back to her.

"That extra fee you asked about earlier? It's basically just a kickback."

"Wasn't it mandatory?"

Mint rubbed her brow, thought for a moment, and said, "That depends on whether the receptionist you run into is a difficult person. If you encounter some obnoxious character, you'll end up wasting a lot of time. To ensure everything goes smoothly, most people are willing to spend a little money for peace of mind."

"So blatant, and the empire doesn't care?" Orange Tea asked in confusion.

"Care?" Mint was amused to the point of laughter. "People have to make a living, you know. With so many people up and down the chain benefiting from it, how could they care? Who would even care?"

In Mint's words, this phenomenon wasn't something that had just started recently; it had begun five hundred years ago. It was just that back then, the demands were made much more subtly and occurred far less frequently.

In recent years, however, it had become a blatant "rule." If you didn't pay, you would be given a hard time and treated as an oddity among the crowd.

"I know you guys haven't seen much of the world, but take my advice: don't romanticize the Anna Empire too much." With that, Mint closed her eyes to rest.

As Jiang Heyi was nearing the royal capital, the guild system notified them that Four-Element Archetype had joined the guild.

By this time, a full day had passed in-game, which translated to 3:00 AM in the real world.

"Mackerel, your friend's sleep schedule is a bit terrifying," Brother Jailer remarked. "What kind of job does he have?"

"I haven't looked into it closely. All I know is that he's been grinding away at intense overtime for two years. There was a period where he survived on energy drinks just to push through all-nighters, messed up his heart rate, and almost ended up in the hospital."

Four-Element Archetype greeted everyone in the guild channel and, upon learning that everyone was busy mapping out coordinates and charting territory, announced he was heading out to the wilderness to farm monsters to stockpile materials in the shared chest.

For a corporate slave, not a single second of game time could be wasted; it was one of their few remaining comforts.

By evening, the pegasi slowed their pace and began a gentle descent.

This was a densely populated village on the outskirts of the royal capital. Due to the flight ban, they had to land here and switch to traveling by land.

As night fell and stars filled the sky, the Border of Illusion and Reality—having sped all the way and taken just over a day—finally laid eyes on the royal capital's city walls, which towered over the earth like a mountain range.

The mottled play of light and shadow around the city walls momentarily made them mistake it for an ancient dragon coiled upon the land, with the bright and dark bricks resembling scales.

The Starry Sky Jade artifacts vibrated in unison, signaling that they could now select the Anna royal capital as their new resurrection point.

Jiang Heyi let out a long breath. "No wonder the others haven't managed to get here yet. The distance is just too far."

"Didn't the people from the Azure Sky Guild think of renting a carriage?"

"Wake up, Sweetwind is on the outer edge of the imperial hub. They have to reach that point before they can access carriage services," Jiang Heyi said. "Let's share the info with them after logging off."

The Azure Sky raiding party had unselfishly shared the in-game experience they gathered ever since the game launched. Nowadays, people willing to generate electricity out of pure love were becoming scarcer by the day, so a guild like that deserved to avoid some detours.

"No need to wait for logoff, let's share it right now." Brother Jailer brought up his friends list, where someone notably remarked as the guild leader of the Azure Sky Guild was listed.

Jiang Heyi was stunned; Brother Jailer's social network truly was vast.

As expected of a social butterfly who could strike up a conversation with literally anyone.

Not long after receiving the message, the Azure Sky Guild leader, [Crimson Music Box], replied immediately.

"Thanks for the help provided by Brother Jailer, truly appreciate it."

"By the way, aren't you guys raiding the Subterranean Temple of the Limpid? How do you know all this?"

With tacit permission, Brother Jailer sent over a screenshot of the Anna royal capital.

"I am utterly convinced. Please convey my thanks to Guild Leader Potato."

"See you in the royal capital."

"Naturally, we also want to witness the heroic postures of the big shots from the Border of Illusion and Reality with our own eyes."

After getting out of the carriage, Jiang Heyi looked around but didn't see Mint anywhere.

"Where is she?"

"Hey, hey, time to get up."

Following the sound of Original-Flavor French Fries's voice back into the carriage, they found Mint curled up in a blanket like a child, sleeping so soundly she was drooling.

Original-Flavor French Fries shook her several times, but she showed no reaction at all. Only after a loud shout did Mint blearily open her hazy eyes and murmur...

"Let me sleep a little longer..."

Original-Flavor French Fries pinched her fingers and grabbed Mint's soft cheek meat.

"Ah!!!!!!!!"

Mint tumbled off the bench in one swift motion, poking her head out from under the table like a groundhog.

Ah, there it was—their cute little witch and tour guide had finally managed to pull her soul back into her body.

"Let's go, Tour Guide Mint."

Before Mint could bare her fangs and brandish her claws, the two of them grabbed her by either side and hauled her out of the carriage.

At the exact moment they entered the royal capital, a piece of news was already spreading among the players via the Azure Sky raiding party:

"The Border of Illusion and Reality has become the first to arrive at the capital city of the Anna Empire."