Start with the hidden role of the Great Emperor of Fengdu, and immediately unleash 100,000 Yin Soldi

As Chu Jiang walked out of the gate of Jiangcheng No. 1 Middle School, the noise behind him was still surging.

Twenty minutes later, in the old residential area.

Just as Chu Jiang turned into the apartment building, a figure rushed out of the stairwell and almost bumped into him.

Dr. Zhang.

The old military doctor looked unwell.

His forehead was covered in sweat, his collar was not buttoned up properly, and he was still clutching a silver needle that he hadn't put away.

"Xiao Chu!"

Dr. Zhang grabbed his arm, his voice low but each word clear, "Your mother just coughed up blood, three times, and then she passed out. I gave her an acupuncture to stabilize her, but..."

He paused for a moment, as if unsure how to begin.

"The spread of the poison is at least three times faster than I predicted. Originally, there was a two-month buffer period, but now it's at most three weeks."

Three weeks.

Chu Jiang stood still, his expression unchanged.

But his right hand hung down by the seam of his trousers, his knuckles clenched so tightly they turned white.

"The Blood Jade Ganoderma must be used within three weeks, otherwise the spiritual poison will invade the core of the internal organs, and even a god couldn't save him." Doctor Zhang sighed, patted his shoulder, and said, "I've done all I can. The rest..."

"I know."

Chu Jiang nodded and rushed upstairs.

Pushing open the door, the smell of medicine was even stronger than yesterday.

On the bed in the inner room, Jiang Yingxue wore an old, simple breathing mask, her face ashen and almost bloodless.

There were a few dark red bloodstains on the side of the pillow, which had been hastily wiped away with a damp towel, leaving faint traces.

Her hand rested outside the blanket, the veins on the back of her hand clearly visible, as thin as a withered twig.

Chu Jiang walked to the bedside and stood there for a few seconds.

He reached out and tucked the blanket in, pushed up his slipping breathing mask, then left the inner room and gently closed the door behind him.

In the living room, he sat in a chair and took out his phone.

Eight hundred thousand.

Entry requirements for Tier B dungeons.

He has neither now.

But he had another path.

My finger swiped rapidly across the screen, scrolling through several Awakened Ones information forums, finally stopping at a post.

Qingzhou Hunters Guild.

One of the largest mercenary organizations in East China, with a high volume of high-level bounty missions and generous commissions; missions of C rank or above often yield rewards of hundreds of thousands.

It is 30 kilometers away from Jiangcheng.

Chu Jiang locked the screen and got up.

He rummaged through the cupboard and pulled out the Ghost Cloak, stuffing it into his schoolbag. He placed a note next to the medicine bottle on his mother's bedside table.

"I'm going out to run some errands. I'll be back tonight."

Go downstairs, leave the city, and head east.

……

Qingzhou City Hunter Guild Headquarters, 2 PM.

The hall was noisier than Chu Jiang had imagined.

Under the six-meter-high dome, dozens of task handover tables were crowded with people.

Warriors in heavy armor, spellcasters in robes, and assassins with double blades at their waists huddled together in small groups, the air thick with the smells of sweat, blood, and rust.

The walls were covered with monster skulls as decorations, the largest of which was as big as a millstone, with dried black blood still clinging to its teeth.

When Chu Jiang pushed the door open and came in, he did not attract any attention.

He walked to the registration desk for new occupants and handed over his ID card.

The receptionist was a young woman in her early twenties, her uniform was neatly pressed, and her name tag read "Li Wen".

She took the crystal card and swiped it on the reader.

The screen lights up.

"Jiangcheng No.1 Middle School, F-rank Soul Guide, Lv.10".

The red lettering was so glaring it looked like an alarm.

Li Wen paused for a moment.

She looked up at Chu Jiang, then looked down at the screen, and pushed the crystal card back.

She tapped her fingernail on the table.

"Student, the guild only accepts combat-type Awakened individuals with practical combat skills. F-rank life professions are not within the recruitment scope."

Her tone wasn't harsh, but there was a hint of unspoken contempt in her businesslike indifference: "Your profession... is not relevant to us."

Chu Jiang did not accept the crystal card.

"Wow."

A hoarse voice cut in from the side.

A four-person squad had just walked over from the mission handover platform, their clothes still covered in the undried monster blood.

The leader was a burly man with a hideous old scar running from his eyebrow to his jawbone on his left cheek. His C-rank warrior nameplate hung on his chest, still dripping blood.

Scarface glanced at the information on the screen and let out a loud sneer.

"An F-rank Soul Guide?"

He deliberately raised his voice so that people at the surrounding tables could hear him, "Young man, have you come to the wrong place? This is the Hunter's Guild, not a funeral home."

Several team members laughed along.

Scarface crossed his arms, looked Chu Jiang up and down, his slender frame smirking. "The monsters of the wilderness won't line up for you to ferry their souls."

"With your small frame, you're not even good enough to be cannon fodder or bait; you wouldn't even be enough to fill a monster's teeth."

Upon hearing this, several hunters who were waiting to complete their quests also turned around.

When the red text on the screen was clearly seen, a burst of laughter erupted in the hall.

"F-rank? Really? An F-rank dares to come to the Hunter's Guild?"

"What the hell is a Soul Guide? Is it used to exorcise demons?"

"Alright, alright, stop bullying the kid. He's probably just awakened and doesn't know the rules, so he's wandered off to the wrong place."

Li Wen sighed, pulled out a flyer with a tombstone image from under the table, and handed it over.

"A cemetery outside the city is hiring a caretaker. The monthly salary is 2,300 yuan, and room and board are included."

Her tone was as if she were giving directions to a stray cat, "It's better than you getting in the way here."

Chu Jiang remained silent throughout the entire process.

He didn't look at the flyers, he didn't look at the scarred captain, and he didn't look at the laughing hunters.

He stretched out his right hand and pressed it against the spiritual energy testing device on the right side of the counter.

That device was for specially approved high-level awakened individuals; its outer shell was cast with an alloy frame, and a fist-sized crystal ball was inlaid at the top.

Li Wen was stunned for a moment: "What are you doing...?"

A thought subtly stirred within me.

Deep within the shadows, a trace of the Ghost General Xiong Po's aura leaked out from his fingertips.

Just a trace.

A dark gray storm suddenly surged up inside the crystal ball.

The gray cyclone spun wildly inside the sphere, causing the entire instrument to vibrate violently, and the alloy base rattled on the counter.

boom.

The indicator light on the top of the instrument jumped abruptly from red to a glaring green.

Drip—drip—

C-level spiritual power certification passed.

The crisp notification sound stood out starkly in the noisy lobby.

The smile on Scarface's face looked as if it had been scraped away with a knife, disappearing layer by layer until it was completely gone.

He stared intently at the crystal ball, which was still churning with a dark gray storm, his pupils filled with disbelief.

The laughter in the hall stopped abruptly.

Dozens of people turned their heads in unison, their eyes all fixed on the testing device.

The F-rank Soul Guide's panel triggered a special green light for C-rank spiritual power intensity.

Putting these two things together, something just doesn't seem right.

"This...how is this possible..." Li Wen's hand hovered in mid-air, clutching the cemetery flyer, her mouth opening and closing several times.

Chu Jiang withdrew his hand.

"register."

One word, no further explanation needed.

Li Wen stammered as she completed the system entry, handing over a Black Iron Hunter Badge with both hands. Her hands were trembling so much she almost dropped it.

Scarface Captain gritted his teeth, his face extremely grim.

He snorted coldly and bluntly retorted, "What's so great about using props to disguise spiritual power? According to guild rules, Black Iron Hunters can only take F-rank sewer cleaning jobs, which only earn them a little more than a cemetery caretaker a month..."

Chu Jiang has already left.

He took the badge, put it in his pocket, turned and walked across the hall, heading straight for the giant holographic bounty board in the center.

Newly registered Dark Iron Hunters do indeed have limited access to good quests and need to level up their Hunter rank, but there are no restrictions on quests on the bounty board.

The bounty board was four meters high, densely covered with task lists from top to bottom.

At the bottom are rows of white Class F clearance notices, followed by green Class D notices and then blue Class C notices, with the number decreasing in that order.

There was only one hanging at the very top.

The mission sheet glowed with a dark red light, with a skull warning symbol printed on the edge, and the large characters on it flashed repeatedly in the holographic projection.

[C-Rank Extreme Bounty: Clear Out the Monster Nest in the Bone Wasteland]

[Reward Amount: 1,000,000 Federal Credits]

[Order duration: 17 days]

Mortality rate assessment: Extremely high

[Received records: 0]

The ad was hung up for half a month, but no one answered.

Chu Jiang raised his hand and ripped the red bounty poster off the list.

The holographic image flickered twice because the top task list was missing.

The sounds in the hall seemed to be abruptly cut off by a hand.

Hundreds of eyes were simultaneously fixed on the red-glowing piece of paper in Chu Jiang's hand.

Two seconds later, gasps of shock erupted from all directions.

"That's the ultimate bounty in the Bone Wasteland?!"

"A quest that's been hanging there for half a month, and even Old Chen's D-rank team doesn't dare touch?"

"A newly registered Iron rank newbie? F-rank?"

"The most important thing is that this guy didn't team up; he took this bounty alone? Isn't that just suicide?"

Scarface Captain's face turned completely green, and he sneered, "Another penniless wretch who has no self-awareness about his own abilities."

Chu Jiang walked back to the front desk and slammed the reward notice on the table.

"Register."

This time, Li Wen did not hesitate or try to dissuade her.

She stamped the guild confirmation stamp as quickly as possible and handed the quest sheet back with both hands.

Chu Jiang took the task sheet, folded it, put it in his pocket, and turned to walk towards the gate.

The eyes of hundreds of hunters followed his back, and the hall was so quiet that even breathing could be heard clearly.

Chu Jiang pushed open the guild door, and the afternoon sun shone on him.

He didn't turn around, but strode out the threshold and headed northeast towards the Bone Wasteland.

The cloak of the underworld inside the schoolbag was lifted by a corner by the wind, and then fell back down.

The shadow beneath his feet followed him silently, revealing nothing unusual.

But deep within the shadows, the phantom of the Gate of Hell floats, behind which five hundred Yin soldiers and a ghost general are asleep.

Be ready to obey orders at any time.