Lu Li practically swaggered out of the prison. The guards in this world were pathetically under-equipped and paralyzed by fear. Even if they had rallied a full-scale tactical response to block him, he was absolutely confident he could have butchered his way out unharmed.
Breaking out of prison hadn't been a spur-of-the-moment whim. Even though the Terminus Space clearly intended for him to politely wait around, get recruited, and formally enter the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, he had zero interest in playing along with that specific narrative arc.
The sad reality was that while a significant portion of the martial artists participating in the tournament genuinely just wanted to fight strong opponents and experience glorious combat... the fundamental nature of the Kengan Matches completely corrupted that purity.
These bloody deathmatches were merely corporate proxy wars. To put it bluntly: the fighters were nothing more than bloody toys for the ultra-rich.
The corporate executives sat safely in their pristine VIP suites, sipping tea and eating pastries, casually laughing as the martial artists butchered each other for their profit margins. It was exactly like the corrupt nobility of ancient Rome watching gladiators bleed in the Colosseum. Every cheer and laugh reeked of blood money.
That was not Lu Li's definition of a sacred martial arts tournament. Furthermore, given his current raw combat power, he had absolutely no interest in wasting time slowly grinding his way through the preliminary qualifiers just to reach the finals.
He fully intended to go to the Kengan Annihilation Tournament. But he wasn't going as a humble challenger, nor was he going to act as a corporate lapdog. If he fought, he fought on his own terms.
However, aside from his personal pride, there was a far more pragmatic reason for his violent jailbreak: his missions.
[Main Mission (Phase 1): Ashura]
Objective: Secure first place in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament ten days from now, displaying the true might of an Ashura.
Difficulty: Easy ~ Hard
Reward: 10,000 Terminus Coins
Failure Penalty: All core attributes -1
This was his only Main Mission. The reward was incredibly generous, and the failure penalty wasn't actually that severe. Although the difficulty ceiling was flagged as "Hard," Lu Li felt this mission wasn't his primary concern right now.
[Hunt Mission: Execute Violator 41213802]
Objective: During your deployment in this World, execute Violator 41213802. If the Violator enters a ten-kilometer radius of the Pioneer, the Pioneer will automatically receive their exact coordinates.
PS: Pioneer, you absolutely must execute the Violator before they make physical contact with the 'Seed'.
Difficulty: Normal ~ Certain Death
Reward: Bronze Pioneer Medal x1
Failure Penalty: All core attributes -2
Lu Li hadn't expected to be handed a hitman contract the literal second he signed the Pioneer agreement.
Didn't the contract explicitly state that executing rogue Explorers was the job of 'Adjudicators'? Lu Li grumbled internally. The Terminus Space really knows how to squeeze free labor out of its employees. Just how many goddamn jobs am I supposed to juggle in one deployment?!
The primary reason he was so irritated was because of his final, exclusive mission.
[Pioneer Mission: Origin Seed]
Objective: Locate the source of the World's mutation. Execute the current host of the Origin Seed and forcibly transfer ownership of the Origin Seed.
Note: The host of the Origin Seed will experience an explosive, continuous increase in combat strength. The Pioneer can utilize this anomaly to identify the host. If the Pioneer's Mark makes direct physical contact with the host, explicit verification will be provided.
Difficulty: Normal ~ Certain Death
Reward: The Origin Seed
Failure Penalty: Eradication
Yes. This was the mission that was giving him a massive headache. Not only was the difficulty ceiling flagged as "Certain Death," but failing it meant instant, permanent deletion.
Based on the brief description, he could safely assume the Origin Seed was a parasitic artifact that continuously granted its host catastrophic power boosts. The longer he dragged this out, the stronger the host would become. If he waited too long, the host might eventually eclipse his own stats, making the mission genuinely impossible.
He realized that if he didn't secure the Seed before or during the tournament, completing this mission would be practically impossible. Once the tournament concluded and the fighters scattered across the globe, tracking the host down would be a logistical nightmare.
He strongly doubted the Origin Seed had randomly fallen onto an ordinary civilian. If it had, the Terminus Space would have provided some sort of tracking beacon; otherwise, searching for one random civilian among billions was an absurdly stupid mission design.
Therefore, he deduced the Origin Seed was definitely hosted by one of the named martial artists participating in the canon storyline. That meant the host would inevitably show up at the tournament, bringing them directly into his crosshairs.
"Alright, let's organize these thoughts. In a situation like this, what exactly would Sosuke do...?" Lu Li muttered to himself under the moonlight. He followed the riverbank, trying to figure out exactly where the hell he was, as the manga never explicitly stated the geographic location of Saishu Prison.
...
The next morning. Inside a small ramen shop in Tokyo.
Under the completely shell-shocked gaze of the waitress, Lu Li aggressively inhaled his final, mega-sized bowl of tonkotsu ramen. Satisfied, he grabbed a massive bottle of cola and chugged it down in seconds.
Cola really is a nectar of the gods, Lu Li sighed happily. It was a damn tragedy that authentic soda didn't exist in his dystopian era anymore. All they had was synthetic, neon-colored corporate sludge.
He wiped his mouth and tossed a wad of cash onto the table.
Where did the cash come from? A group of local yakuza thugs he ran into last night had graciously "sponsored" his meal. They had cried tears of joy, desperately shoving their wallets into his hands and begging him to take their money. He couldn't exactly refuse such heartfelt generosity, right?
With his stomach finally full, Lu Li focused his mind and opened a highly specific system interface.
It was the localized World Public Chat Channel. After lurking and reading the logs for a while over breakfast, Lu Li finally understood why the Terminus Space had temporarily unlocked this feature.
[Public Chat Log]
[Sniper King]: "Holy shit. There's an Origin Seed in this world. Are you kidding me? They actually exist?! I thought that was just a myth!"
[Gacha Addict]: "Sounds super badass, but the quest the system gave me to find it only offers a mediocre reward. It's probably not that great of an item."
[Lone Wolf]: "You don't know shit, Gacha. I had the honor of hearing the Grandmaster of our Adventure Brigade tell a story once. He specifically mentioned the 'Seeds' when talking about the absolute core legends of the Terminus Space."
[Gacha Addict]: "Wait, seriously? What's the legend? Tell us! I promise I won't try to steal the Seed from you!"
[Lone Wolf]: "Tch. 'Steal' it? Even if it is the real deal, if any of us manage to secure it, we're just acting as delivery boys to hand it over to the Space. Did you seriously think the system would let a Tier 1 Explorer keep something that broken?"
[Horny Bard]: "What the hell are you guys talking about? What does the Seed actually do? Does it let you download premium adult VR vids?"
[Lone Wolf]: "Shut the fuck up, you degenerate. This is an ORIGIN SEED. It's one of the nine absolute, mythical artifacts in the multiverse! Even our Grandmaster talked about them like they were religious fairy tales. No one actually believed they existed. And now one has spawned in a low-level Tier 1 World?!"
The chat fell silent for a moment as everyone eagerly waited for the 'lore-master' to continue.
[Lone Wolf]: "According to the legends passed down to our Brigade, there are exactly nine absolute, unique Seeds scattered across the infinite multiverse. No one knows how they were created or what they fully do. We only know they possess terrifying, reality-warping properties and are heavily theorized to be directly linked to the very origin and creation of the Terminus Space itself."
[Sniper King]: "Damn... If the Seed in this world is genuinely one of the nine, then it makes perfect sense why the Space temporarily unlocked the Public Chat and spammed the retrieval quest to everyone. The Space is panicking! It wants this thing secured ASAP. If it wasn't bound by its own deployment regulations, it probably would have dropped a squad of max-level Demigods in here to retrieve it."
Lu Li continued lurking for a bit longer, completely grasping the gravity of the situation. Simply put: the Origin Seed was an artifact of unimaginable, apocalyptic value. Whether for his own future growth as a martial artist or to satisfy the brutal demands of his Pioneer Contract, he had to secure it.
The nineteen Explorers dropped into this world had been assigned completely random starting identities and scattered across the globe. By opening the Public Chat, the Terminus Space had effectively crowd-sourced global intelligence gathering, accelerating the hunt for the Seed.
But Lu Li was currently pondering a far more insidious question: Is the Violator also reading this chat right now?
He had previously asked the Terminus Space about "Violators." The system explained that Violators were originally standard Explorers who had discovered critical exploits or loopholes in the Space's regulations. After repeatedly abusing these exploits and ignoring final warnings, they were flagged for termination. Only then were Adjudicators—or in this specific case, a Pioneer—deployed to hunt them down.
Therefore, a Violator fundamentally remained an Explorer operating within the overarching systemic framework. The Space still deployed them to Mission Worlds. Consequently, it was highly probable the Violator had full access to the Public Chat Channel.
Why the hell is the Terminus Space so convoluted? Lu Li grumbled internally. If someone breaks the rules, just hit the 'Smite' button and instantly eradicate them! Why bother dispatching physical hitmen to do the job manually?
For a supposedly omnipotent, multi-dimensional mega-structure, its code is surprisingly full of spaghetti loopholes. The Space has to have been operating for eons, right? Has nobody ever bothered to patch the TOS? Even the Megacorporations rewrite their dystopian laws every year...
Regardless, Lu Li felt the very existence of Violators—and the Space's reliance on manual labor to execute them—was deeply peculiar.
Is this somehow a deliberate feature of the Space's ecosystem?
Lu Li shook his head, forcefully cutting off that line of thought. If he kept trying to unravel the existential coding of a multi-dimensional god-machine, he was going to give himself an aneurysm.
He tapped on the holographic interface and sent his very first message to the Public Chat.
(Pioneer 008) [Qiu Mo]: "Does anyone know the quickest route to the Kure Clan Compound?"
He used 'Qiu Mo' as his chat alias. The system only displayed nicknames, ensuring absolute operational security and anonymity.
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