Fatal Shot

“These materials dropped by the scorpions are good. The Doctor players would definitely like them.”

When the team had reached the beach of Silver Leaf Island, Big Pineapple was the first to reach out and to pick up the material dropped from one of the Mutant Sand Scorpions. Feng Luo also picked one up to check the properties.

The venom glands of the Mutant Sand Scorpion can be used to produce a refined toxin that causes attenuation of the optic nerve, resulting in temporary blindness.

As expected, unexplored maps often dropped good stuff.

In War, apart from the beneficial potions, there were also a variety of potions with negative effects. For example, players from the Doctor profession would usually cast attacks through all kinds of negative potions commonly known as “poisons,” which would cause monsters or enemies to be poisoned in order to obtain a kill.

The toxin from the Mutant Sand Scorpion could cause “blindness,” and it was definitely an excellent potion material. It would be as useful like flash grenades if put to good use. After all, although flash grenades were easy to use, they could also be avoided or prevented. However, this kind of toxin, which could directly react with the human body, was difficult to dodge.

However, it required the life skills from the Doctor profession to extract and produce such toxins. Therefore, it would be less useful for average players to have it on hand. Moreover, those were Red Queen’s prizes for killing the scorpions. Therefore, some of them collected the materials and passed to White Crescent while she opened up her own portable medical box to put in the scorpion venom glands.

A Doctor’s field kit was also a kind of toolbox that could carry simple pharmaceutical tools so that the Doctor could configure some simple drugs at the battlefield. Of course, the drugs produced this way would not work as effectively as those made with specialized equipment in the pharmaceutical lab.

Strangely, the NPC scientist, Aike, came forward with his eyes staring at the scorpion venom gland on her hands. “Miss White,” he said. “Sorry to bother you. Can I have some venom please?’

“No problem…”

White Crescent looked at Red Queen, who beckoned her yes. This that might be the flow of the mission.

“Great! Just a moment, please.” Aike opened the silver case in his hand and took out a small instrument with a glass tube. He then carefully extracted some of the poison from the scorpion’s venom gland into the container. He and his assistant, Lin, stared at their instrument’s screen as if they were expecting something to happen.

Big pineapple leaned his head closer to Feng Luo. “What are they doing?”

Feng Luo shook his head. “I don’t know!”

It could be assumed that only Red Queen, among the three of them, would know. In fact, it was quite clear that only Big Pineapple and himself were freelancers among the seven players.

If the seven were positioned in a company, the two of them would have been regarded as temporary blue-collar workers. They were only charged with finishing the task assigned without understanding the objective of the mission.

Red Queen, Black Panther, and Glazed Ice were familiar with each other, but Red Queen’s status was obviously higher than the other two. Therefore, Red Queen must have been the boss while the other two were the white-collars at the top management level of the company.

Moreover, White Crescent and Neutron Star seemed to be new to the team, as they did not talk or work as quickly as Black Panther and Glazed Ice. They behaved themselves in front of Red Queen; they could have been considered newcomers still in a trial period.

This ranking of positions was not groundless. In fact, judging from the way Red Queen spoke and her various habits, she was definitely a person of status who was rich in reality. Glazed Ice was likely her assistant or secretary, while Black Panther must have been a driver or a bodyguard. As for the White Crescent and Neutron Star, they must have been the professional players recruited by her in the game.

It was completely normal for the wealthy from the Star Federation to hire people to play games with them—and in War, in particular. War was almost 100 percent realistic in-game, and the business opportunities were almost limitless. Many people who spent a lot of money initially would actually make more money.

***

Since the NPCs were doing an experiment, everyone had to wait and watch. After over a minute of waiting, the middle-aged NPC scientist and the female assistant looked disappointed, as if they had failed to discover what they sought in the venom of the Sand Scorpion.

Afterward, the players were asked to obtain a living Sand Scorpion for Aike. This was not a difficult task to do. Although the scorpions underneath the beach where they had landed were all killed, there were still many living scorpions outside the Meteor Rain attack range.

However, average players would not be able to accomplish this. The majority of the players feared a scorpion when it came to dealing with it. White Crescent Moon and Glazed Ice turned pale upon hearing the words. Black Panther remained calm. He was the company’s white-collar, and he was a high-level one. Therefore, he would not do such dirty work. Although Feng Luo and Big Pineapple were temporary workers, they only did as stated in the contract. The rest of the tasks were none of their business. So the task fell to Neutron Star.

Even this Light Armor Warrior with sharp fighting skills was still afraid of the scorpions. However, he had to accept the mission under the boss’s orders. As a result, when Neutron Star managed to grab a Sand Scorpion, he was stung by its tail and went “blind” for five seconds and lost 100 HP per second, unfortunately.

Five seconds was not long, and 100 points per second of HP damage was low enough. Therefore, it was observed that the Sand Scorpion’s neurotoxin was not all that potent. But it soon became clear why these Sand Scorpions had a level of 40, as their blindness effect was stackable.

The blinded Neutron Star was stung once again by another Sand Scorpion crawling out of the sand as he made his retreat. Imagine if they had come ashore and been attacked by these Sand Scorpions, and everyone had gone blind! Due to the multitude of Sand Scorpions—and under the constant refreshing of the blindness state—everyone would have likely died here.

Luckily, Feng Luo had noticed this. Then the middle-aged scientist carefully put the captured Sand Scorpion into a small container and placed it into his own silver case.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Aike?” asked Red Queen. “If not, let’s go straight to the base.”

“Er… Okay, let’s go to the base!” the middle-aged scientist replied after a pause.

Feng Luo thought this was a little strange. When the NPC Aike spoke, his eyes seemed to look at Lin, but he only gave a quick reply.