Ding! Hidden quest complete.

Ding! Main quest complete.

...

...

[Ding! Initiating plane settlement...]

[Settling plane...]

[Main quest: complete]

[Hidden quest: complete]

[Current Karma: -100000010000]

[Current Item: the Sorrow of the Queen of Time]

[Current Points: 35]

Staring at the LCD’s frosty glow, Nana Toki’s heart stayed a still lake, moonless and flat.

Heh. Main quest, hidden quest—she did both with her own two hands, like rowing through fog.

This brat of a System only tossed her five thousand Karma, like a cutpurse slipping through a crowded night market.

System: “...”

“Forget it. Where’s your faceless idiot of a master? Drag him out. I’ve got words to grind like whetstone on steel.”

She’d given up haggling over Karma with the System; her debt was a mountain ridge under snow, not something a measly thousand or two could melt.

Nope, not a chance.

And Trollop’s last words in the previous plane still tugged at her like a thorn in the boot. What was that so‑called experimental subject? From the sound of it, that trash System’s master knew something and was hiding it behind painted screens.

“Uh... well, Master gave himself a vacation,” the System stammered from the LCD, voice like a guilty cat under eaves. “He’s probably sunning at some beach on some planet. Host, tell me your message, I’ll pass it on.”

Sure enough. Two idiots, one lie, a cloak of smoke. They were hiding something under the floorboards.

Fine. This feud’s carved in bamboo.

Nana Toki narrowed her eyes at the LCD and muttered, breath like winter mist.

Once I’m out of this pocket space, I’ll beat both idiots black and blue, like storm rain on a tin roof.

“Forget it. We’ve got nothing to say anyway. Tell him I wish him blessings as vast as the Eastern Sea, and a lifespan as fleeting as a night‑blooming epiphyllum.”

So be it. If answers were a well, she’d draw the water herself.

These people were reeds in the wind—couldn’t lean on them.

System: “...”

“Oh right, one more reminder,” the System chimed, voice sugar over grit. “Due to unknown interference detected in the last plane, the next plane’s difficulty auto‑downgraded to a lower tier of Stage Two. Also, Nesting Phoenix, being an upper‑plane entity, won’t be able to meet you for a while. Please understand.”

“?”

“Understand my ass. You think this is server maintenance? Say ‘please understand’ and I’m supposed to bow? Why don’t you go die?” Nana Toki’s temper flared like dry straw, and her hand nearly reached for an axe to shatter the LCD like brittle ice.

Not only were they hiding things, now they wanted to bar Nesting Phoenix from seeing her?

They thought she was a stone without fire?

“Master said he can compensate you with five thousand Karma. Please be magnanimous,” the System peeped, emojis like cheap confetti.

“No. My Nesting Phoenix isn’t something you weigh with five thousand Karma.” Nana Toki’s eyes snapped open like thunder. “At least ten thousand.”

System: “...”

So in the System’s mind, Nesting Phoenix ranked below ten thousand Karma. What a joke drifting like ash.

Spare me the chatter. It’s not life and death. A while apart won’t shave off flesh. I can even milk free Karma while we wait.

Why not?

Of course, if you dare do anything weird to Nesting Phoenix... heh. Wash your necks clean and wait for me to take your dog lives like a winter blade.

“...”

“Deal.”

With that, the numbers on the LCD flipped like falling leaves, and Nana Toki’s Karma became -100000000000.

“Commencing teleport countdown: 3... 2... 1...”

“Whoa, so fast this time?!”

A white flash cut the pocket space like a knife of lightning, and silence pooled back in like night tide.

“Master, the Host’s getting suspicious. How long until that thing is fixed?” The System slid open a metal door in the pocket space, its hinges sighing like old wind, and called to the figure in black behind it. “Nesting Phoenix’s mental world has suffered heavy incursions. Keep this up and she may go berserk.”

“It’s fine. A little more time,” murmured the System’s master, gaze anchored on the place where Nana Toki vanished, like an arrow lodged in wood. “That man called Trollop is dangerous. We must guard against him in future planes. He might be sent by those above...”

Let this plane be a rest stop for Nana. A pavilion in rain.

“Move! Go, go!” The shout cracked like a firecracker. “Don’t let those bastards from Legendary Odyssey snatch all the Treasure Imps!”

Nana Toki’s eyes snapped open, and from afar she saw flashy beams—effects like festival fireworks—hurling straight at her.

On instinct she backflipped, a clumsy swallow under eaves, barely dodging. Before her breath settled, a few men and women rushed in, weapons raised, steel whistling like winter geese.

Nana Toki: “...”

Are you trying to murder me in broad daylight?

She blink‑stepped and sidestepped in a string of flashes, body moving like a fish through reeds, and only then did she notice health bars and mana bars floating above heads like lanterns.

Is this... an MMO?

Her mind went fog‑blank, a paper fan hit by rain.

Since when did MMOs feel this real? Is this full‑immersion?

No time to think. A burly man, shoulders like boulders, hefted a warhammer and brought it down toward her face like a falling star.

Nana Toki reached for her trusty axe by sheer habit—but her fingers closed on a slender dagger, pale as carved jade, cold as moonlight.

Nana Toki: “...” Where the hell is my Axe‑chan?

Why a dagger?!

Boom—

The hammer smashed air, and the skill’s shockwave slapped her back a few meters, wind kicking up like sand in a gale.

“Look! That Treasure Imp’s holding Thorn!”

The shout rang like a bell. Nana Toki barely found her footing when every hungry gaze snapped to her like hawks to a hare. Skills flashed brighter than before, pouring toward her like a meteor shower with no price tag.

“Fast, fast! It’s the last Treasure Imp! Charge! Don’t let the Legendary Odyssey guys steal it!”

Nana Toki: “...”

Could you people be any more deranged?

The crowd surged like a tide under a storm moon, and she fled in a tumble of rolls and blinks, crawling through stone and shrub until she finally shook off the diehards snapping at her heels.

What the hell kind of plane is this?

Treasure Imp?

Were they talking about me?

Great. Not even human this time. Next thing you know, I’m a ghost drifting through bamboo.

Nana Toki, as usual, wanted to headbutt a wall over her assigned identity.

She hid behind a fake rockery, a garden mountain painted with moss, and fumbled with the game’s controls. At last she learned how to open her status screen.

Name: Treasure Imp

Background: Unknown

Race: Human, Demon

Level: 100

HP: 100/100

MP: 100/100

Attack: 0

Defense: 10

Spirit: 10

Agility: 20

Huh?

Attack... 0?

Zero?!

Nana Toki pressed her pretty face close to the panel like a curious cat to glass.

Attack zero, my ass!

She flung the status panel to the ground like a hot coal. The numbers nearly scared her soul out of this lovely world, like a kite cut loose.

This panel was even more ridiculous than the trash figures her System spat out.

Maybe it’s some game restriction.

The panel she’d thrown bounced like a rubber ball—snap—and smacked her right in the face.

Ding! Treasure Imp took self‑inflicted damage. HP −1.

A big bold [CRIT] sprang above her head like a red banner.

Nana Toki: “...”

Damn it!

She swallowed the urge to hurl the panel again, teeth grinding like grit on a millstone, and summoned the System in her mind.

Talk. When this plane ends, how do you want to die?

System: “...”

Host, please calm down!

Stats are a little bad this time, but we’ve got gear!

Calm down, my foot! Can gear patch a canyon like this?

Her voice almost broke into a shout, sparks in winter air.

A normal MMO character starts at level 1 with two‑digit attack. I’m level 100 and it’s still zero!

And the HP is a terrifying one hundred!

You call this “a little off”?!

Well, yes—off by... a few orders of magnitude.

Nana Toki’s composure cracked like thin ice on a river.

A‑anyway, the rest won’t be bad. Host, check your bag first...

What kind of loot can a common mob have? I’m telling you, if you don’t balance this, I’ll suicide and reroll planes right now.

System: “...”

Then—

Equipment: Thorn (droppable)

Inventory: Cloudstrider Boots (droppable), Eight‑Treasure Purplegold Jade (droppable), Jade‑Glow White‑Crane Robe (droppable)...

Two whole rows of golden legendaries lit up, and the shine nearly blinded Nana Toki like sun on fresh snow.

Whoa. Why are there so many level 80‑90 pieces?

And every single one scales with the wearer’s level. All golden legendary gear, glittering like a dragon’s hoard.

Did this Treasure Imp rob the devs’ armory?

How obscenely rich can you get?

She did a quick tally. If she walked out wearing this whole set—forget those players who were chasing her. She’d turn into the final boss in a heartbeat, thunder rolling over the map.

While she was still staring, the plot download finished, slotting into place like tiles in a courtyard.

This plane’s story brief was shorter than all the previous ones, a slip of paper in a summer breeze.

In short: the newbie gamer Xie Yiyao, guided by the Protagonist Lord Yan Jingze—her golden cheat—climbs step by step to become No. 1 on the server, reaping fame and fortune like harvest in autumn.

Hm?

And what’s that got to do with Nana Toki the Treasure Imp?

Oh, it does.

In the original, the cannon‑fodder Treasure Imp—Nana Toki—should’ve died in that earlier melee to the heroine. The heroine would get Thorn, couldn’t use it due to her class, and gift it to the hero—kicking off the prologue of their fated meeting.

Damn. So in the end, I’m still cannon fodder, and all this gear on me belongs to the leads.

Nana Toki felt herself split like a dry reed under a footstep.

Could this plot be any more outrageous?

The System, somewhere, nodded. It could.

Never heard demands so over the line, like a bridge built into fog.

Thorn, as the drop from a level 100 Treasure Imp, was worth far more than a mere weapon.

In an era where the game’s level cap sat at 70,

Thorn—a golden legendary that required level 80—would, upon dropping, trigger the hidden storyline “Divine Arm Descends,” raising the cap to 85 across the server. Then a chain of server‑wide leveling events would unfurl like banners in wind.

You could say it was a key gear piece that pushed the story wheel forward.

But now, the Treasure Imp hadn’t died to the heroine.

The lead couple failed to meet. The follow‑up plot couldn’t latch. And Nana Toki had no clue what weird currents would churn up next from this river.