“He got away again… No, I never even caught up to him in the first place.”
Lailong let out a bitter laugh, stood up, and looked around.
He strained his eyes to look into the distance, but where was Yize’s shadow now?
The other party had clearly left without the slightest hesitation after completing the task.
With a belly full of questions and growing interest, Lailong turned around once more and hurried back towards the Adventurer’s Guild.
When Yize’s figure appeared in the Adventurer’s Guild hall for the third time, the attention it garnered was far greater than the previous two visits.
The originally noisy hall fell into a brief silence. Many pairs of eyes turned towards him in unison, filled with curiosity, scrutiny, doubt, and even a trace of barely perceptible awe.
Low murmurs spread rapidly like ripples on water:
“Look! It’s him! That human with black hair!”
“I heard he just registered this morning, and now he’s already doing the Silver Rank promotion mission? Is that true?”
“A thousand times true! I saw Miss Emily handle his paperwork myself! And both times he came back before, he brought back huge piles of Goblin Magic Crystals each time. Miss Emily was completely stunned!”
“More than stunned. I heard the first time he submitted enough for twenty-one Iron Rank quests, and the second time he had enough points to go from Bronze to Silver!”
“How is that possible? Even if he bought the crystals, he couldn’t acquire so many so quickly, right? Besides, promotion missions have supervisors watching!”
“And it’s not just him. There’s also a little girl with silver hair. Her speed is ridiculously fast too. She just came back with a huge bag of Wind Demon Wolf crystals and also ran off to do the Silver promotion mission!”
“Just what are these two newcomers…?”
Among the murmurs, there were also doubters.
After all, the performances of Yize and Vivian had already exceeded many adventurers’ understanding of “newcomers” or even “geniuses.”
Some even suspected they had acquired large quantities of crystals through other channels.
However, the answer would soon be verified.
The result of the Silver promotion mission would be the most powerful proof.
Yize seemed completely oblivious to the surrounding gazes and discussions, walking straight to Emily’s workstation.
This time, he didn’t even say much. He simply silently poured out his haul from this trip from his Storage Ring.
Clatter—
The crisp sound of Magic Crystals colliding rang out again, quickly piling up into several small hills on the worktable.
They varied in color, size, and energy fluctuations. From the most common grayish-white E-rank ordinary Goblin crystals, to the slightly darker, more condensed D-rank elite crystals, to the particularly eye-catching C-rank chief crystals emitting a faint greenish glow—everything was there.
Emily looked at the familiar “scene” before her. The initial shock and astonishment on her face were gone, replaced by a kind of near-numb calm.
She didn’t even check the mission proof first, but habitually began sorting and counting, her movements so practiced it was almost heartbreaking.
Her gaze subconsciously flicked towards the Guild’s main entrance—sure enough, Chief Lailong’s figure hadn’t appeared yet.
‘Work.’
‘Looks like he lost track again.’
Without needing Yize to remind her, Emily proactively began the tedious but procedural processing work.
She separated the crystals by rank, then began submitting them in batches and categories according to the Guild’s task list:
Eradicate E-rank Goblin quests (requires 10 crystals each), submitted 82 times.
Eradicate D-rank Goblin Elite quests (requires 1 crystal each), submitted 27 times.
Silver Rank Promotion Mission (requires 1 C-rank chief crystal), completed 1 time.
Additional kills of C-rank Goblin Chiefs (repeatable subjugation quest of the same type), submitted 7 times.
The counting and recording took nearly half an hour.
When the final tally came out, even though she was mentally prepared, Emily’s hand holding the recording pen still paused slightly.
E-rank Goblin Magic Crystals: 820 total.
D-rank Goblin Magic Crystals: 78 total.
C-rank Goblin Magic Crystals: 8 total.
According to the Guild’s Magic Crystal Clearing Mechanism, the adventurer points Yize obtained this time were a staggering 2,300!
This far exceeded the accumulation of an ordinary Silver adventurer over several months or even a year.
Added to his previous 790 points, his total points reached 3,090.
Emily, like a machine executing a fixed program, accurately entered the points into Yize’s Identity Token.
The light on the token flowed, its patterns changing once more, transforming completely from bronze color into a bright silver-white, marking Yize’s official promotion to Silver Rank Adventurer.
“Congratulations, Mister Yize. You have successfully been promoted to Silver Rank Adventurer. This is your new Identity Token, please keep it safe.”
Emily handed over the token, her voice steady, but the complex, hard-to-define emotion deep in her eyes ultimately couldn’t be completely concealed.
Just as Yize took the token, a small commotion seemed to occur within the Guild.
Adventurers who had just accepted Goblin-related eradication quests began returning one after another, faces filled with confusion and dissatisfaction, complaining to other front desk staff:
“Damn it! The Goblins in the northern forest seem to have gone extinct! I checked several spots, couldn’t find a single one!”
“Me too! I saw plenty of corpses, freshly dead, but not a single live one!”
“How are we supposed to do our quests?”
Soon, similar complaints multiplied.
The front desk staff were overwhelmed, only able to keep recording and trying to soothe them.
It was foreseeable that, in the short term, Goblin eradication-type quests in the Stana vicinity would likely have to be temporarily taken down or adjusted.
And the “instigator” of all this was standing calmly in the center of the hall.
At that moment, a figure squeezed through the crowd and came before Yize.
It was the demi-human girl with light brown cat ears and a tail from the morning, Elfie.
The previous liveliness and slight condescension were completely gone from her face now, replaced by intense suspicion and disbelief.
“You… your Elemental Affinity is really only five percent?”
Elfie pointed at Yize, then at the not-yet-fully-cleared mountain of crystals on the worktable, her voice trembling slightly.
“These… these Magic Crystals, how on earth did you get them? Forget you, even a fully equipped Gold Rank adventurer team couldn’t possibly clear such a massive number of Magical Beasts in such a short time! It simply doesn’t make sense!”
Yize looked at her, a slightly helpless expression appearing on his face, as if she had asked a very obvious question.
“By killing Goblins. What else? Did they line up and hand them to me?”
“Impossible!”
Elfie shook her head vigorously, her cat ears twitching.
“That’s absolutely impossible! You must have used some method we don’t know about! Or… or these crystals aren’t even…”
She wanted to say “aren’t even ones you personally hunted,” but remembering the supervision mechanism for promotion missions, she swallowed the words back, her face alternating between red and pale.
In the morning, she had thought Yize was a weakling who needed “guidance,” and had even felt somewhat resentful towards him for the interruption by that scar-faced human, feeling he had wasted her chance to “unearth a potential star.”
But now, reality had given her a hard slap in the face.
This guy she had looked down upon was not only not a fool, but had displayed a terrifying efficiency surpassing even Gold Rank teams.
This massive cognitive upheaval was hard for her to accept.
And she herself was only a Silver adventurer now.
Just then, the Guild doors were pushed open violently as Lailong rushed in, wind and fire in his steps.
His gaze instantly locked onto Yize, who was holding the silver token, and a burning light erupted in his eyes.
He completely ignored the surrounding crowd and the questioning Elfie, taking several large strides to stand before Yize, placing his hands heavily on Yize’s shoulders.
“Kid!”
Lailong’s voice was somewhat loud due to excitement, and he stared intently into Yize’s eyes.
“Good! Well done! Damn well done!”
He paused, took a deep breath, as if making a major decision, and his tone became extremely serious and full of temptation.
“Listen, I’m Lailong, a Diamond-level Adventurer. I carry some weight in the Guild. I’m formally inviting you—to join my team!”
“Not some temporary, cobbled-together party, but a real core operations team! Resources, intelligence, high-level mission permissions, even special training channels within the Guild… as long as you nod, none of these are a problem! So, interested?”
He didn’t deliberately lower his voice, and adventurers nearby heard him clearly.
Instantly, a wave of sharp intakes of breath sounded.
A personal invitation from a Diamond-level Adventurer!
And to a core team!
Countless gazes filled with envy, jealousy, and scrutiny once again focused on that black-haired youth who had just been promoted to Silver and still looked unnervingly calm.
“Also, I can apply to the Guild for a resounding title for you.”
A title was something every adventurer dreamed of, a symbol of strength.
Only those with exceptional strength or some outstandingly remarkable ability were qualified to receive a unique title.
“Let me think…”
Lailong had a flash of inspiration.
“What do you think of the title… ‘Goblin Slayer’?”
Yize: “……”