Chapter 51: The New Plant, the Pea Wishing Well!

The group, including Zhou Lu who had been joking around, suddenly fell silent, staring dumbfounded at the title "Lan City Grave Blaster."

Lan City Grave Blaster, description: A title earned by blowing up graveyards. (Note: So far, two graveyards have been destroyed.)

The system was thoughtful enough to highlight this note in bold red, as if afraid some might miss it.

“Lan City Grave Blaster? Already destroyed two graveyards?” Zhou Lu’s face showed shock and complexity.

No way!

He vaguely suspected that one of the destroyed graveyards might be that of his ancestors, now counted among the achievements under the Grave Blaster skill.

Those two graveyards probably included his family’s plot...

Zhou Lu and the others recalled the sudden meteor shower from the other day.

Could it really be the work of Bai Wan?

Everyone was filled with suspicion.

When Su Yuen saw Bai Wan’s title, she almost burst out laughing.

“Hmph, serves him right for being exposed, huh? It’s always bad luck when you’re with Bai Wan.”

Su Yuen had already begun to understand Bai Wan’s abilities.

Just then, as everyone exchanged glances, there was a knock at the door. Zhou Lu, curious, opened it to find a man and a woman standing outside.

The girl smiled warmly and said, “Captain Zhou Lu, hello. I’m Roy Meng from the Headquarters Special Evaluation Department.”

The man also smiled and introduced himself, “I’m Zhao Jie.”

Zhou Lu was momentarily stunned, then pleasantly surprised.

“You’re here to find ‘family,’ right?”

The Special Evaluation Department was responsible for assessing promising newcomers and awarding rewards based on their evaluation.

Their appearance here meant Bai Wan had caught Headquarters’ attention!

Roy Meng nodded with a smile, “That’s right. Under Captain Wang Ye’s instructions, we are conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the player’s ‘family.’ Do you have any contact information? Since time is tight, could you help us get in touch?”

“No problem, no problem!” Zhou Lu was visibly excited. Bai Wan was one of theirs from Lan City. If Headquarters took him under their wing, it would be a great boon for Lan City. He didn’t even want to think about whether Bai Wan had destroyed their ancestor’s tombstone—surely their magnanimous ancestors wouldn’t care about such a trivial matter.

While the Headquarters personnel were visiting Zhou Lu, Bai Wan was busy upgrading his skills.

---

This time, Bai Wan had two skill points to allocate. He planned to put one into Mario’s Coin House.

The other would go to the Glowing Sunflower.

---

Clicking to upgrade, Mario’s Coin House splendidly advanced to level three.

[ Ding! Congratulations! Your skill Mario’s Coin House has been upgraded to level 3. ]

[ Mario’s Coin House
Description: Allows entry into Mario’s coin room through any sewer in a dungeon, usable once per dungeon.
Current level 3: Unlocks the hidden Starry Room and Mario’s Creation. Detects the player’s possession of Strange Artifact: Painted World. The player can use Mario’s Creation to spend Mario coins to modify the terrain of the Painted World, adding special monsters and stages. ]

Bai Wan read through the description with some surprise.

Unlocking the Starry Room was expected—inside was the hammer he had long desired—but Mario’s Creation was unexpected.

Painter Lin Yuan had given him a painting that could materialize its scenes into reality.

This was a powerful ability, excellent for survival, though with a clear drawback: the materialized Painted World only slowed enemies down.

But now, combined with Mario’s Creation, it was a different matter.

He could create complex terrain to confuse the strange entities, set traps, and even spawn monsters to block them.

Bai Wan felt excited; this meant the Painted World had fully evolved into a Mario World.

However, he was short on Mario coins for now, so he set Mario’s Creation aside.

Next, he upgraded the Glowing Sunflower.

[ Ding! Congratulations! Your Sunlight-Absorbing Sunflower has reached level 2. ]

[ Upgrading the Sunflower also randomly unlocks a rare hybrid plant… ]

[ Ding! Congratulations! Your Sunflower has evolved into a Two-Headed Sunflower! ]

[ Ding! Congratulations! You have obtained a new hybrid plant, the Pea Wishing Pool! ]

Bai Wan eagerly checked the message. The original Sunflower now had an extra head sprouting from nowhere.

[ Two-Headed Sunflower
Description: Doubles the sunlight absorption ability and starts with a certain amount of sunlight to summon plants. ]

Seeing the description, Bai Wan nodded in satisfaction.

This was excellent. Previously, in the early stages of the “Letter” dungeon, the lack of sunlight had limited his combat power. Without a large Sunlight Mushroom, he couldn’t defeat the Strange Burial Mound and had to rely on the Blood Skull Statue to survive and escape.

Large Sunlight Mushrooms weren’t always available and were scarce in the Mushroom Shop.

Now that the Sunflower had upgraded, though it couldn’t fully replace the large Sunlight Mushroom, his early combat strength would definitely be enhanced.

---

After examining the Two-Headed Sunflower, Bai Wan turned to the Pea Wishing Pool.

This was an even greater delight.

Before him appeared a plant entwined with numerous peas.

[ Pea Wishing Pool
Description: The Pea Fountain can launch a circle of peas in 360 degrees with no blind spots and can also target specific directions. ]

Bai Wan had once played a hybrid version of Plants vs. Zombies.

The Pea Wishing Pool was ferocious—more than ten peas intertwined, firing peas in all directions.

It was a formidable weapon for group battles.

Bai Wan thought that if he had had this during the earlier battle with the Strange Burial Mound, combined with his Nether Crops and the Strange Fire Nut, the mass of burning Strange Fire Peas raining down on the strange horde might have forced it to surrender on the spot.

Just imagining the scene thrilled him; next time he entered a dungeon, he would challenge some strange entities to a duel.

Then, Bai Wan eagerly learned a new bug skill.

[ Ding! Congratulations! You have acquired Bad Luck.
Description: Can cast bad luck on any target, causing them to be extremely unfortunate for ten minutes. Cooldown: 10 hours. Can be upgraded. ]

Seeing “Bad Luck,” Bai Wan recalled when he was a child, his parents had taken him to a temple to pray for blessings. He accidentally drew the worst fortune slip and then suffered bad luck for a month. Not only him—everyone who drew the worst slip that day was unlucky for a month. The temple even gained a reputation for spiritual power because of this.

“I wonder if this skill is strong... maybe I should try it on Liu Tong sometime...” Bai Wan muttered quietly.

Next, a prompt popped up in his mind asking whether to keep the level one temporary bug skills, Kun Flash and River God.

The level one temporary bug skills cost 50 Strange Coins each. Now flush with cash, Bai Wan didn’t hesitate to spend 100 Strange Coins to acquire both.

Level one bug skills were very practical—usable immediately upon entering a dungeon, with almost no cooldown.

That was different from his level four skill Door Vanish, which required three to four days of cooldown.

Of course, Door Vanish was indeed very useful; if wielded properly, it could completely lock away strange entities.

Bai Wan stretched lazily, having reviewed everything he needed, ready to take a nap.

Just then, Liu Tong suddenly messaged him.

[ Bai Wan, are you there? Headquarters people have arrived looking for you. Come quickly to our Lan City branch; it’s urgent! ]