Chapter 29
What’s going on? Is the Wish Fulfilment Grocery Store trying to fleece the Cube World again?
[Special Task: Please complete the “Color Master” game challenge as an external assistant.]
[Would you like to participate?]
[You have five minutes to decide.]
[Task Details:
This is a designated order, issued only to taskers whose vision surpasses that of ordinary people.
The issuer requires the receiver to act as an off-the-record participant in the “ Color Master” game.
Task location: A 100-square-meter Color Workshop
Task duration: 90 minutes
Task requirement: Reproduce the pigment formulas of the items on the turntable.
A similarity level of 95% is required, along with a complete color-mixing plan.
Within the time limit, each successfully copied color formula awards 10 points.
Each incorrect copy deducts 10 points.
Copying all nine items’ color formulas awards 200 points, one Wish Star, and a game souvenir.
During the game, the tasker must not destroy any items in the venue, must not use supernatural abilities, and must not use any tools outside the provided pigments and mixing materials.
Taboo: Do not contaminate the color of the reference object.
If the failure rate exceeds the success rate, the tasker will randomly lose an organ.]
“Play.”
If overtime pay is available, everything is negotiable.
Having rested for half a day already, Jiang Jitang accepted the task immediately. He appeared inside a colorful, fairy-tale-themed workshop.
There was a U-shaped turntable, and a cute-but-ugly blue-and-yellow baby dinosaur waddled out of an arched doorway. It let out a soft “rawr” toward Jiang Jitang and wiggled its chubby body.
Only now did Jiang Jitang notice the baby dinosaur was holding a small bucket in its tiny claws, with a droplet-shaped blank label on it.
Behind him was a row of pigments and tools.
This was clearly customized for him!
To most people, a small amount of blue and yellow mixed evenly would appear green. But to someone with abnormal vision like him, green is green, and blue + yellow is blue + yellow.
Now the challenge would be his technique.
He glanced at his hands—slender, fair, and capable of precise control, whether in cards or dice. No problem.
“Eee, rawr.” The baby dinosaur handed him the bucket.
Jiang Jitang took it, unable to resist examining the fat, cartoonishly ugly dinosaur. He wondered what it looked like as someone’s actual meal.
Color mixing began. He picked up the little bucket.
There was even a measuring scale inside—how thoughtful.
First, he poured 5 ml of opaque blue, then 5 ml of opaque yellow. Too yellow. Adjust. Add 1 ml of blue. Too blue. Add yellow with the dropper.
These pigments required no stirring; they automatically blended into a perfectly even solution. He checked again and again—the droplet-shaped label disappeared perfectly against the bucket’s interior color.
Perfect! Color scheme confirmed!
As soon as he confirmed it, the droplet-shaped label on the bucket displayed the mixing plan: X% of color-code yellow, X% of color-code green.
[Similarity: 99%. Baby dinosaur’s color restored. Success.]
The baby dinosaur holding the bucket was rotated away. A cornflower-blue, crystal-clear slime appeared. This time he would need transparent pigments.
Jiang Jitang rolled up his sleeves and began selecting colors.
Looking closely, the jewel-toned slime even contained sparse purple particles—purple must be prepared too.
Holding the bucket and the dropper, a mysterious smile appeared on his face.
Drip, drip. Magic colors, transform! Come forth, Cornflower Gem Blue!
This was practically an anti-stress mini-game!
Homebody Jiang Jitang was completely absorbed, unable to stop.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the colorful fairy-tale wall…
As the cute baby dinosaur walked through the archway, it transformed into a sticky, wet green lizard. It opened its bloody mouth and extended a tongue coated in corrosive fluid.
“Ahhhhh—wait?”
A player who felt no attack slowly opened one eye, only to see a departing tail and some pixel bits the green lizard dropped behind.
“Huh?”
“Don’t ‘huh’! Hurry up and mix the color according to the formula!”
Other players shouted behind him as they filled water guns with the mixed pigments.
The reason the green lizard had fled earlier was because the correct color had been sprayed on it.
In this Cube World’s instance, monsters sprayed with the exact same color would be soothed and lose aggression. But spraying them with the wrong color turned them into violent fiends who would kill the player that “contaminated” them before leaving.
Newbies might dodge and avoid provoking the monsters, but the problem was—only correctly colored monsters dropped pigment blocks, the key to clearing the level.
“Where did this formula come from?”
“External support.”
“But isn’t this still green?”
The player who narrowly escaped death was confused. Why had the monster run away with a bucket without even looking back?
It was the same color green—isn’t it?
At this moment, a fluorescent-blue transparent slug emerged, spreading its membrane in the player’s direction and sticking out a toothed tongue. If touched, they’d lose a layer of skin.
Inside its transparent body were remains of previous players—and a pigment block.
“Biubiu.” A jet of blue liquid shot over.
“Eee?” The slug froze, slowly withdrawing its tongue and membrane, its body wobbling as it crawled away. Its tail twitched occasionally to a rhythm.
With a ding-dong, a blue, semi-transparent pigment block dropped.
Color… matched successfully?
The player stared at the happily departing slug, stunned.
Was this game even capable of having a “successful color match” outcome?!
Smack!
The previous player slapped himself hard. It hurt. Totally real.
“External support is real!”
[Tasker has completed all monster color replications within 90 minutes. Players obtained color formulas, successfully cleared the mutated version “Mad Artist” instance and received extra rewards.]
[Game ended. External support personnel have 3 minutes 32 seconds remaining in the area.]
[Congratulations, tasker, for completing the ‘Color Master’ challenge. You have obtained 200 points, one Wish Star, and the Color Master souvenir: Color Bomb.]
[Color Bomb: Throw it at a target. The explosion will dye the target entirely in the ball’s color for 8 hours. Contains 12 color balls. One-time-use item.]
Ninety minutes truly passed quickly. It felt like he had just started, yet all monsters were already color-matched, and the souvenir dropped from the sky.
Jiang Jitang deeply regretted that he couldn’t play another round. Meanwhile, in the expanded fairy-tale-style game castle, the surviving players collapsed on the ground.
“Big bro… sob sob… thank you! I thought I was doomed when we got the mutated dungeon!” The East Asian player looked at mask-wearing Jiang Jitang like she had met a savior. She used all her strength to shout:
“External support is the strongest!!!”
“…” Such sudden social awkwardness.
Good thing the mask sealed his face.
There were eleven survivors. They all carried paint stains, but despite their ragged appearances, none were missing limbs or poisoned. The worst-off had large patches of corrosive damage on his skin.
Small problem. Jiang Jitang healed him on the spot.
“Big bro, this guy is anti-C Nation!” The enthusiastic player pointed at the man he had healed. His newly restored face flushed with anger, shame, and a bit of fear.
“Thanks for telling me. Did he do anything?”
“No, but…”
Jiang Jitang nodded. Since the game world provided automatic language translation, he politely doubled down on his act.
“A gentleman judges deeds, not identity.”
He looked toward the foreigner, glowing with holy light.
“Seeing is believing. You came to C-Nation to play.”
While speaking, he casually healed other severely injured players.
Ah, I’m truly a good person. These 200 points are well deserved, he thought.
Before he left the game, he heard the anti-C Nation man whisper an anxious apology.
But Jiang Jitang didn’t care. One or two anti-C Nation people had zero effect on society, the country, or his own life. Why waste emotions on irrelevant individuals?
Helping them didn’t hurt him. Not helping might hurt future side-income opportunities— What if people thought he was extreme and refused to call for external support?
Points! He could lose points!
Besides, he didn’t enter the game to save them—he was there for money. Saving was just a byproduct. And using healing magic helped him train while also satisfying his compulsion to “finish what he started.”
He was careful not to let personal likes and dislikes dictate his actions. Someone who can manipulate others’ emotions and safety must maintain a clear mind—or risk dying from arrogance.
All of this held true as long as the Cube World didn’t involve national conflict. Though he had memories of two lives, Jiang Jitang was a native son of C-Nation and very satisfied with its living environment.
Therefore, the moment it involved national-level confrontation— “Those esteemed neighbors become my nation’s immediate opponents.”
—
“Yay, got three Wish Stars today.”
Only five minutes had passed in the real world. Jiang Jitang kissed the Wish Star. It was huge. No doubt—he would be stronger tomorrow!
This sense of accomplishment was his motivation to get up for work every day. Unlike stupid companies that only draw pretty dreams, the system actually fed him meat.
His points finally reached 440, enough to buy lots of trinkets—powerful anesthetics, smoke bombs, all sorts of things. Not that he needed them.
“Today’s work was so hard,” —despite spending half the day happily playing— he shamelessly said while opening a food delivery app.
“What should I reward myself with? How about… kiln-roasted chicken!”
“Meow?” The Golden Eye snapped awake at the mention of food. Where?
“Kiln chicken, kiln chicken, kiln chicken~”
The picky eater only liked the most sincere restaurants. The small shop Jiang Jitang selected had much higher prices than other delivery options and mixed reviews.
Some customers said it only tasted slightly better but cost 1.5× more—felt like a scam. But most said it was worth every penny.
“This one uses an authentic free-range rooster. The texture is incomparable to cheap white-feather chickens.”
Other shops used white-feather chickens, whose loose texture required heavy spices and frying to taste good. But kiln chicken used minimal spices and a simple technique, requiring much better-quality meat.
That’s why he was willing to pay 10 yuan more.
No—actually 25 yuan more, because he bought two chickens and paid an extra 5 yuan to upgrade the packaging to insulated boxes.
Living in the southwest corner had its downside: many highly rated restaurants were far away. High delivery fees were one thing, but long delivery times ruined food quality.
After placing the order, he lay on the sofa playing with his phone. Eventually, he opened his private messages and casually sent a text.
[Have you eaten lunch?]
This typical C-Nation “hello” received a quick and confused reply, [Steak. …Do you need a more detailed answer?]
Neither in this life nor the previous one had Parsons ever used “Have you eaten?” as a greeting. Frowning, he pondered:
Why would IlIman ask that?
What did Illman want to know?
Was their relationship now harmonious enough to care about each other’s meals?
Parsons had a vague sense that he was about to be scammed, but wasn’t sure.
[Just a greeting. C-Nation style.]
Jiang Jitang calmly replied.
[But actually, I want to know how much you know.]
So it was just me overthinking.
Parsons felt ashamed.
Unlike Jiang Jitang, who loved messing with people, Parsons had higher expectations for himself—reflecting on himself three times a day, treating others generously. So even though the conversation felt odd from the start, he still tried to think of an appropriate answer.
Perhaps something more shocking, to show he genuinely tried to understand his former close friend.
[No answer? Or don’t want to say?] Jiang Jitang asked again.
Wasn’t Parsons supposed to be seeing his true face? He was curious—how much did Parsons know about him? Thinking carefully, he didn’t really leave behind much black history…
[The Love Affairs of the Sun King.] Parsons sent a short reply.
A famous 18+ themed banned book from the magic world.
[You wrote it.]
Clatter. Jiang Jitang’s phone fell to the floor.
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