Arya moved quickly—faster than usual—and Natasha was not far behind her.
Their trade requests arrived almost at the same moment, one after another. Without wasting time on conversation, Arya placed the Gang Siqiu stones she held onto the Magic Desk, accepted the stone slabs Natasha sent, and spread them neatly across the floor. When the first floor was no longer enough, she covered the second and even the third, stacking and arranging until everything was in place.
Once finished, she began drawing Alchemy Arrays on each slab—an exhausting process that took nearly an hour to complete for all one hundred. Only after the last array was drawn did she start placing the large iron pots Natasha had traded over onto the newly drawn formations.
It was at times like this that Arya felt the true advantage of being able to fly. The room was stuffed to the brim, every free space occupied, yet because she hovered above the crowded floors, her movements remained light, efficient, and unrestrained.
Weighing herbs.
Adding water.
Lighting fire.
Stirring mixtures.
Up and down she moved, from the first floor to the third, the jade-green stirring rod in hand glowing under the dim mage-lights. Tonight would be a sleepless battle—not only for Arya, but for everyone still fighting to survive the Mana Tide.
Rogers sat in her Level 3 Shelter—decorated warmly with a strong ethnic aesthetic—unable to do anything except wait. At first she tried to stay patient, but eventually she could no longer sit still. She tossed a piece of wood into her core, earning only a meager one point of energy for her effort, then opened her friends list and found Natasha.
Rogers: "Do you still have any meat? I need Volcano Beast meat."
Natasha: "What do you need it for?"
Rogers: "To make a late-night snack for Big Sister Arya."
Natasha already knew the relationship between the two; after all, Arya had been the one to introduce Rogers. She didn't question it further. Instead, she immediately butchered the Volcano Beast she had slain earlier in the day and sent over everything—meat, organs, bones—without hesitation.
And Rogers began preparing Arya's late-night meal.
For a group of longtime solo players like them, this was their first real taste of teamwork. Surprisingly, it wasn't a bad feeling. But even so, none of them wanted to experience this situation again. Enduring it once was stressful enough; repeating it several times? They couldn't imagine it.
Arya worked nonstop through the night. Halfway through, she even flew up to the third floor to inject fresh magic power into the core, preventing the defensive shield from running dry. Only when the sky outside began to brighten, and pot after pot of potion emitted a faint golden glow, did she finally pause.
Her limbs felt heavy, her mind foggy, her exhaustion bone-deep. All she wanted was sleep—deep, uninterrupted sleep. But she still couldn't rest yet. The potions had to cool and stabilize before she could trade them away.
Slumped over the Magic Desk, head ringing and vision slightly blurred, Arya listlessly rubbed the smooth surface of the Gang Siqiu with her fingertips. One night. One hundred and five pots. Forty-one thousand potions. She suddenly felt like some kind of overworked superhero—or more accurately, like a student rushing to finish all their summer homework on the final night. Except this pressure was far more intense.
By her earlier calculations, one person needed 8,666 potions—about twenty-one pots—to last through three full days of the Mana Tide. But more than ten hours had already passed, so they wouldn't need the full amount now.
At least, those whose shelters were still intact wouldn't.
Still, something about this Mana Tide felt off. Why was it this fierce?
How could a bunch of newcomers who had barely spent a month in this world possibly be expected to endure something like this?
Muttering to herself, Arya forced her heavy eyelids open and checked the number of people in the regional channel.
Twelve hours had passed. The channel that previously held more than nine thousand survivors now had a little over three thousand.
The casualties were devastating.
She scanned the regional chat. Everyone was furious. But the curses and accusations were mostly aimed at one person—Tyrion.
"Tyrion, you bastard! Even if I die and become a ghost, I'll haunt you forever!"
"Damn it! He ran off with all our materials! Didn't he say we'd get through this together?"
"Those Silla dogs can't be trusted!"
"It's over. Without materials, we're all dead for sure."
"If you ever see Tyrion, kill him to avenge the two hundred plus he got killed!"
"Wait—Tyrion is Silla?"
"I knew it! There was something off about him from the start!"
"I told you all he was suspicious, but none of you listened. Now look at you—scammed and crying."
"How did he even fit hundreds of people in a Level 3 Shelter?"
"I saw it before—he connected five Level 3 Shelters together."
"Insane. Tyrion invited me too. Good thing I didn't fall for it."
"Tch, typical for Silla. What else can you expect from them?"
"Honestly, I respect how ruthlessly he played everyone."
"I thought District 666 already had two monsters—Arya, who loves looting crises, and Roy, who profits off chaos—but it turns out there was a hidden tiger lying in ambush. My worldview is shattered."
Arya couldn't help laughing when she read these comments.
She knew who Tyrion was. In District 666—the so-called Evilman Valley—he was unusually normal. During the last Magic Turbulence, he had genuinely helped many people, earning himself the nickname "Timely Rain of District 666." Afterward, when people began forming groups, he immediately started recruiting those who wanted a team.
Most of them were petty criminals and small-time rogues, but when gathered together, they formed a notable force. Rumor had it that his shelter had been the second in the district to reach Level 3, supposedly built through the collective effort of his team. This rumor attracted even more people.
But now, seeing the results, it was clear that the rumors were probably spread by Tyrion himself.
One man wiping out over two hundred people by slipping away with their materials—now that was ruthless.
District 666 truly was a place of hidden talents.
Though Arya frowned at one part of the chat. Looting during a crisis?
Her potion prices were always fair, based on equivalent exchange!
Why were they accusing her?
Arya was offended. Arya felt wronged. Arya immediately blocked the speaker.
Of course, she knew even if she blocked people, they would still end up buying potions from Roy. And Roy was a merchant—the kind of middleman who would squeeze extra profit from every deal. His prices always matched black-market levels.
In fact, it was entirely possible that Roy himself ran the black market behind the scenes.
If those complainers had to buy from him, well… they'd bleed money. And Arya didn't mind watching that happen.
About an hour later, once each pot had cooled and the potions settled, Arya squeezed the leftover moisture from the dregs, added a bit of the concentrated liquid from each pot, and then sent all one hundred pots to Roy.
Of course, she first set aside the twenty-one pots she needed to get through the next few days of the Mana Tide. Even if she had the capacity to make more, her shelter could not hold any additional cauldrons.
How Roy planned to distribute the potions afterward was none of her concern. She had already informed Rogers and Natasha, and she trusted they had coordinated with Roy by now.
After everything was done, she looked around at the broken slabs littering the floors and sighed helplessly. She would have to wait until she woke up to clean up the shattered Alchemy Array bases.
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