I'm a Farmer, This is a Beet!

"Cough, cough, cough… Wrong… Wrong!"

On the balcony of a seaside villa.

The hanging hammock was empty. In its place, a slender, strange woman lay painfully on the floor, a thick pool of blood staining the once-pristine tiles.

Her expression was contorted in agony, her mouth muttering a single word.

"Wrong."

Nearly half an hour passed. A crust of dried blood had formed on her body before she finally managed to push herself up, her hands trembling. The pain felt like her entire body was exploding.

She picked up her phone and began to type.

"A bounty on Mingyang City's police captain, Li Guoqiang! I want him alive, or his body if he's dead!"

"Find out what the hell happened to him!"

"Set the bounty at ten million! US dollars!"

The strange woman's fingers jabbed at the phone, making the device click and creak. By the time she sent the message, the smooth screen was covered in cracks.

She was furious. She was baffled.

That supreme existence reveled in death and blood. This sacrifice was only meant to use fifty lives to imbue the uniform's aura with a wisp of power. That was all.

But when she had transferred her consciousness through the special Spirit Tablet, she had seen a projection of That Existence!

Why would He personally descend as a projection?

She had pieced this Instance together with her own hands. She knew its inner workings better than anyone.

This was as ridiculous as Jack Ma taking a private jet to a remote mountain village just to steal a pile of cow dung.

Since there was nothing wrong with the item, the problem could only be the person!

"Why wasn't that bastard sacrificed?"

The strange woman gasped for breath, her impressive figure trembling pathetically.

The scene she witnessed inside the Spirit Tablet replayed in her mind.

She had clearly seen a shell, its form already twisted into a monster, defiantly raising its head to meet the gaze of the red sun in the sky.

It shattered into a bloody mist the next second, but the monster's maniacal laughter still sent a chill down her spine.

"Could this madman have been sent by some organization to destroy the 【Advent Item】?"

"The Calamity Cult? The Tarot Society? Or the Abnormal Affairs Bureau?"

The strange woman's mind was in shambles.

The bastard who cleared the Instance had Li Guoqiang's Spirit Tablet. He had somehow ignored the sacrifice. He had attracted a projection of That Existence. And he had caused the 【Advent Item】 to vanish, completely disrupting the plan she had been preparing for so long.

Not only that, her only death-substitute item was gone.

Across the entire Spirit Calamity Game, there weren't even a handful of players who owned such an item!

The terror of that existence was far beyond imagination. It had killed her once, even across the chasm separating the Instance and the real world, even as a mere projection, and even without its gaze fixed on her.

"No matter who you are…"

"I will cut you into a thousand pieces!"

This was the first time the strange woman had hated someone so much.

It was also the first time she had so despised the livestream restrictions of the Spirit Calamity Game.

The restrictions were a protection mechanism for newcomers. Due to the different flow of time between the Instance and reality, players watching a livestream were also in a similar time-stopped state.

They couldn't remember any personal characteristics of the newcomers, such as their appearance or voice.

So she had no way of identifying the person who cleared the Instance. She didn't even realize that Li Guoqiang had never entered in the first place.

Fortunately, she could narrow down the investigation.

That person held Li Guoqiang's Spirit Tablet, which meant he had to be in Mingyang City!

"Ethan, book a flight back home."

"This old lady is going to dig three feet deep and unearth him myself!"

"Achoo!"

Unaware that his head was now worth ten million US dollars, Wu Wang let out a sneeze.

He rubbed his nose.

"Who's cursing me?"

"Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!"

Three more sneezes followed.

"Damn, they're really cursing up a storm," Wu Wang grumbled. "Believe it or not, I'll put a hex on you after I finish eating."

He used a plastic fork to pick up a clump of nearly solidified instant noodles, slurping them down without the slightest disgust.

He had just returned to reality.

Based on the wall clock and the mushiness of his noodles, he easily determined he had been gone for thirty minutes.

That was the time he had spent studying his personal panel in the dark space. In other words, no matter how long he spent inside an Instance, only a single moment passed in the real world upon his return.

"Is Grandpa Wang cursing me? Did he find out I swapped his public square dancing speaker's USB with one full of cringey moaning sounds?"

"It can't be Aunty Li. She isn't still holding a grudge because I shaved her cat bald to knit a sweater, right?"

"Meow~"

As Wu Wang contemplated who to hex, a fawning meow came from the bedroom doorway. One listen was all it took to identify the manipulative little sycophant.

Glancing over, he saw the black-and-white dairy cow cat his Second Sister owned padding in with light steps.

The patch of white fur near the cat's nose was an abnormally abstract shape.

Wu Wang had always called it "Dick Cat."

Watching it slowly approach, Wu Wang pulled a cat treat stick from a drawer.

"Meeeoow~~"

The cat's voice became even more cloying. It stared intently at the cat treat, practically drooling.

But Wu Wang wasn't falling for it.

He stared sternly at the cat and barked, "Dick Cat! Have you forgotten what I taught you!"

Hearing his low voice, the dairy cow cat halted. It tried meowing a few more times, testing the waters.

Realizing it was useless, it compromised.

Whoosh! Thump!

The dairy cow cat expertly pushed off with its front paws, launching into a magnificent backflip like a black-and-white pinwheel before landing perfectly.

When the acrobatic performance was complete, a smile appeared on Wu Wang's face.

"That's right! Just like that!"

"We don't raise useless things in this house. You reap what you sow. Only a valuable cat gets to eat!"

"From now on, I want a flip every time I come home before you get food. Understand?"

With that said, he put the cat treat back in the drawer.

He never said this performance would earn a treat.

"I can even train a cat. I'm a goddamn genius."

Completely ignoring the cat's low, disgruntled growls, Wu Wang praised himself. He then picked it up, tossed it into the living room, and went back to his room, locking the door.

He turned on his computer. The eerie glow of the screen made his face look exceptionally pale.

There were about twenty-three hours left until the mission's deadline.

He needed to review his knowledge of the supernatural.

He clicked on a folder in his browser's bookmarks. It was named "Metaphysics."

Inside were files like "Compendium of the Occult," "The Use of Witchcraft," "A Collection of Daoist Incantations," and more.

Other bookmark folders on the side revealed his terrifyingly vast knowledge.

His library spanned from the smelting of chemicals to architectural analysis, from literature and poetry to advanced mathematical theory. It covered fitness plans, martial arts breakdowns, astronomy, geology, wilderness survival, financial investment, human medicine, criminal cases, and more.

He had sorted and categorized all sorts of miscellaneous yet comprehensive knowledge.

The most crucial part was that he had learned it all.

A normal person's energy was too limited to delve into so many areas.

But Wu Wang was a little special.

"A full stomach really does lead to idle thoughts. And drowsiness after a meal."

Not long after he started studying, Wu Wang felt his eyelids grow heavy as waves of sleepiness washed over him.

He subconsciously took a fruit knife from the drawer and skillfully aimed it at his own heart.

Then he stabbed down viciously.

Puchi!

He died.

In the blink of an eye, the lost blood vanished, flowing back into his body. He opened his eyes, all traces of fatigue gone.

After reviving, his body would return to its peak state.

This method allowed him to maintain high-intensity learning without rest. Whenever he got sleepy, he would just give himself a stab.

This applied not only to studying but also to physical training and combat practice.

Whenever his muscles reached their limit, he only needed to revive once to continue. The effects of the workout were retained, essentially skipping the recovery process and directly reaping the results.

Wu Wang hadn't slept in five years.

It was just as he'd said.

"I'm a goddamn genius!"