Lu Yin descended to the ground and approached Russel, "Empty out your cosmic ring before I have to force you."
"You have to be the leader at some school, why are you robbing me instead of finishing the mission? Won't you lose points?" Russel's face twitched, but Lu Yin responded by raising his arm and leveling a cold glare. As the air started to distort from a Shockwave Palm, he urgently spoke up, "No! D-Don't attack, I'll do it, I'll do it!"
Russel removed everything from his cosmic ring as he spoke, revealing a wide array of items, but Lu Yin only grabbed the star crystals and a few of the more useful ones before leaving.
"Hey, what's your name?" he called out, but upon being ignored he could only curse at the existence of such a bastard among the trainees. He suddenly remembered something and hurried to check the network on his watch, but the only thing displayed at the top of the map was 'Russel has been defeated.' This left him coughing up blood again; if there was no name, the thief had even stolen his gadget!
Once he was far away from Tongcheng, Lu Yin glanced at the network on his gadget and nodded in satisfaction. He was aware that the people monitoring the trial on Earth knew who he was, but they had still hidden it to keep things fair. Who next? That was answered by a quick glance at his map; he didn't take much time to choose someone before hurrying off.
...
Lu Yin robbed more than ten students around China over the next three days, all of whom had thought they were safely hidden. Each one was about the same level as Jeraldine, content with occupying a piece of land, harvesting some rare materials, and just surviving to the end. They had no interest in disrupting the status quo, but they had been unfortunate enough to come across someone in desperate need of star crystals. After all, no matter how small it was, even a mosquito had some meat on it.
High up in the sky, he was currently reorganizing the contents of his cosmic ring. Although its capacity was quite large, it was still far from sufficient for his current needs. He had picked up too many random ores and ingredients during his hunt, leaving him with no choice but to throw out some of the less valuable items. He wasn't too concerned since most of these students carried things of little value, but he was frustrated by just how poor these students were. Even after robbing so many, he had only managed to gather two cubic meters of star crystals!
The truth was that all students with the courage to participate in planetary trials were the cream of the crop, and were thus also much wealthier than ordinary students. Lu Yin likely wouldn't have found a single cubic meter of crystals even among a thousand ordinary students; across the universe, star crystals were as valuable as gold was on Earth. Even the extremely wealthy hesitated to use them to advance their training and preferred only having them around as a life-saving measure in case of an emergency; their star energy came from absorbing the latent energy in the surroundings.
"This is too slow. Looks like I have no choice but to rob school leaders like Veron," Lu Yin muttered to himself. He had already robbed everyone within a reasonable distance, and information was quickly spreading on the network about a planetary thief that had mixed in with the students. They were starting to panic.
More and more students were heading towards Tianzhu to take up Eddy's proposal, and at least thirty had gathered already. Ten of them were the strongest in their academies; after all, only someone in the top three of their school would have the confidence to pursue the criminal. The group left all of Tianzhu trembling in fear.
Five days later, Eddy announced that there was no need for any more people to gather at Tianzhu; he would now be heading to Beijing. This lit the network aflame; the battle with the natives was officially about to start.
'Is it starting? Guess I need to get busy too,' Lu Yin stood up from where he'd been hidden and soared into the sky.
"Ian has been defeated." Two days later, another notification appeared on the network that left many students in despair. They had already seen this message ten times over, and the rumors were that this thief had a stolen gadget so no one could know who he was. They had first assumed he was only robbing common students, but Ian was the strongest in his academy. This left many terrified.
On a piece of barren ground, a young man coughed up blood as he glared into the distance, watching Lu Yin use some of that crimson to gain access to his cosmic ring. Lu Yin's eyes lit up as he saw the contents, "Nice, you've got some pretty good things in here. As expected from a school leader."
"Who the hell are you?! What academy are you from? Give me a name!" Ian roared with fury. He had been unfortunate enough to meet this guy, and before they could even begin talking, he'd been rendered speechless by a Spacerender Palm. Another had closed in before he could recover his senses, and this one had beaten him into the ground.
Lu Yin tossed the ring back, "Call me Seven."
"Seven?!" Ian was infuriated, but could only watch as Lu Yin left.
...
At the westernmost part of China, Qinghai, Eddy, Hayden, and a group of at least ten students looked grave.
"Ian was robbed too, Eddy, we have to take care of this guy before we go to Beijing; there's still fifteen days for the second batch, we have enough time," someone suggested.
"Yeah, it's no good to let a rat like that stick around to cause more trouble," someone else said, looking annoyed. A classmate of his had been robbed as well, and knowing the thieving bastard was even targeting girls left him mad with rage.
Eddy and Hayden exchanged looks, "Fine. We'll work in pairs and search around Beijing while slowly closing in to isolate his gadget's location. If you see anyone alone who has the power to match a school leader, just attack. It's better to get the wrong person than let the thief go free."
"If only the network hadn't blocked photo share, or we could recognize him right away," someone said begrudgingly.
....
"So they're working in pairs?" Lu Yin checked the gadget locations on the map, "Interesting, one of each has to be a school leader. Alright, come at me!"
Half a day later, he was floating amidst the clouds when two students appeared on the horizon and checked their gadgets. "Only 1,700, just trash," one of them said disdainfully.
The other person gestured towards Lu Yin, "Get over here, kid."
Lu Yin calmly flew towards them, his eyes showing nothing.
"Did you see the person who robbed you?"
"Yup," Lu Yin nodded.
"Draw me a picture."
Lu Yin shook his head, "I never learned how to draw."
"Are you dumb or something? Just use your gadget and you'll be able to draw whatever image you imagine!"
"Oh. Well that's pointless, the person is right here."
"Here? Where?!" The two were astonished.
"Me," Lu Yin pointed at himself. A clap of the Shockwave Palm distorted the air around him, knocking one of the students out.
"So you're the thief. DIE!" the second managed to resist, drawing his sword to attack. This was the top student of his academy, and while he couldn't compare with those like Veron, he was much more powerful than people of Terence's ilk. Unfortunately for him, that was nothing in the face of Lu Yin's Cosmic Palm; one attack snapped his sword and swatted him to the ground.
Just like that, Lu Yin had successfully robbed two more students and created another ruckus on the network. Eddy took the news in with a grim face; someone had already been robbed after such little time. Where had this bastard come from?
"Remember not to get close to any strangers," he messaged everyone, but this was a pointless suggestion. The students had already started keeping their distance regardless of power.
"Hmm… Half a cube more… I can use this to cultivate," the thief commented as he checked his cosmic ring. He then removed his gadget, threw it into a stream, and dashed away to an abandoned farm. Crushing the crystals, he immediately activated his Cosmic Art to absorb all of the energy.
Far away, Zhang Dingtian and the others in Beijing watched the network speechlessly.
"I guarantee that's Lu Yin." Bai Xue determined.
Zhang Dingtian looked confused, "Why?"
She told him of how the youth had robbed Parlie and Veron, "So who else could it be?"
Zhang Dingtian was perplexed, while Lu Yin looked ordinary, he was someone who went completely overboard at times. He had robbed more than 15 people so far, many of whom were the strongest of their academies. What was he planning?
If Bai Xue could determine the robber was Lu Yin, Jeraldine was naturally able to come to the same conclusion. The news left her far more amazed than Zhang Dingtian and the others; she knew that Lu Yin had only been a Seeker she could crush the first time they met, and that same bug had now grown to the point where he could overwhelm school leaders. He was simply a monster.
While Lu Yin leisurely absorbed astral energy at the farm, Eddy and the other students were going crazy searching for him. They fruitlessly continued their search for five days without a single clue, but all they found in the end was an ownerless gadget in a stream.
"Keep searching. If we can't find him in the next seven days, we'll go straight to Beijing. There are only ten days before the next batch arrives, we can't afford to screw up the plan," he said sternly.