Bai Fu stopped.
Following close behind her, An Ya stepped forward, nervously clutching the hem of her jacket.
"Boss."
"Minor issue, don't worry."
Bai Fu gripped An Ya's hand in return, signaling her not to be anxious.
She knew the man standing under the sign all too well.
Martin, Wildfire Gang's junior manager and her direct superior, with combat power roughly equal to 20 Ya, wasn't much stronger than her after her upgrade.
With his abilities, he normally wouldn't qualify as a junior manager, but he had one special skill—
He had rudimentary knowledge of first and second-grade elementary education!
Yes, he could not only write his own name but also quickly add and subtract numbers up to a hundred and could easily multiply and divide single-digit numbers.
In the Wildfire Gang, where the vast majority of members were hopelessly illiterate, Martin with this skill stood out like a Foundation Establishment expert among Qi Refinement novices.
So, naturally, he was promoted to junior manager.
At first, he was quite proud of this accomplishment, but soon he noticed a problem.
"If I can do math, how am I supposed to cook the books and embezzle by miscalculating or making errors?"
"Do those at my level who seem incapable of counting really not know, or is there a chance they're feigning ignorance while being calculating geniuses?"
Martin was splitting hairs.
He racked his brains.
He had worked hard to become a junior manager, not to earn money, but rather to make Wildfire Gang great again, right?
Since the path of embezzlement was cut off, the only option left was to squeeze his subordinates dry!
He kept assigning various tasks to his subordinates and preferred to rush them to death.
It was best if the subordinates could complete the tasks; if not, he would find ways to dock their pay and occasionally indulge in PUA manipulation.
"Why can others do it?"
Bai Fu's predecessor became a victim of this.
Debt collection was never simple.
Lending a hundred bucks to friends and family, one never knew how long it would take to get repaid, let alone collecting from Old Man, entangled with the Wildfire Gang in the wasteland.
"It was decided in the meeting that you would be the one to collect the debt. If you can reclaim the money, I'll personally give you 5 points!"
Bai Fu's comment on that was—
Damn it, only 0.5%, are you even worse than Huang Silang!
And the opinion of Bai Fu's predecessor—
Please find someone more capable.
The unintelligent Martin immediately threatened.
"Difficult?"
"Bai Fu, the organization's financial performance has been poor recently. Salaries might not be as punctual as before. If you don't earn some extra reward money, when the time comes..."
"Think about that child you picked up. She's so adorable; you wouldn't want her to starve because you're out of money, right?"
Bai Fu's predecessor had no choice but to pat An Ya's head and set out, only to end up lying flat for a solid two days from one punch.
There sure are a lot of origins!
It can only be said that in these times, one shouldn't be too sincere.
That's what Bai Fu thought.
Martin showing up now surely meant he was here to urge her to continue the debt collection.
And sure enough.
As soon as he saw her and An Ya, Martin approached with a cheerful smile.
"Why is your hair white now? Whatever, it's not important. I heard you got hurt before, I was quite worried, but thankfully you're not in serious trouble."
After the small talk, he immediately bared his fangs.
"Bai Fu, I know it's tough for you, but the deadline set by the higher-ups is nearly upon us..."
Ding!
Suddenly, two game prompts popped up in front of Bai Fu.
The first was—
[You have triggered the Camp Task "Repaying Debts".]
The task comes with a detailed explanation, so no worries then.
SKIP!
Although the game lacked a skip function for dialogue, Bai Fu actively ignored Martin's nagging and read the task details.
[Task Introduction: Your superior, Martin, hopes you can retrieve a debt loaned by the Wildfire Gang.]
[Task Objective: By any means necessary, recover as much of the owed money as possible. Details ← (Time remaining 47:59:36)]
[Reward: 2000 Experience Points, 10 Camp Reputation]
[Accept/Decline]
Bai Fu chose to accept.
A reward of 2000 experience points was no small amount; current players, if they only did mundane tasks like moving bricks and collecting bottle caps, wouldn't be able to accumulate 200 experience points in a day.
The rewards indicated this task was tough to complete.
But that was fine.
If she couldn't beat them, she would run away!
After all, this wasn't like some Main God Space where failing to complete a task meant punishment.
Bai Fu opened the second hint.
"You have unlocked the Camp System."
There was a dense block of explanatory text to follow.
The Stars Camp System was more or less the same as in other games; once players met certain conditions, they could join a camp.
By boosting Camp Reputation, players could unlock corresponding camp tasks, exclusive shops, Profession Knowledge, camp positions, and in some special camps, even receive attribute bonuses.
Joining a camp wasn't always beneficial; it could lead to hostility from NPCs of opposing camps, leading to many unfavorable consequences.
But none of that mattered to Bai Fu because her camp had already been set to the Wildfire Gang.
Looking at the current situation, she had no intention of deserting the Wildfire Gang.
Her view of the Wildfire Gang differed from other survivors of the Abandoned Cooling Factory. To others, the Wildfire Gang was a terrifying Demon King, known for their ruthless looting, evoking fear in all, but to her, the Wildfire Gang was as attractive as the Demon Kingesses in the novels.
Big influence meant the Wildfire Gang was wealthy.
Stealing lots meant the Wildfire Gang likely had a wealth of rare upgrade materials and Profession Knowledge Books.
Why not stay with the Wildfire Gang to reap a fortune in their gold coins rather than scraping off the struggling and impoverished?
There was no logic in that.
Those poor devils couldn't have much to offer.
Of course, you aim for the rich ones!
Playing an undercover role while garnering favor with the players and meanwhile looting the Wildfire Gang's coffers was the true path to ascendancy.
Concerning how to plunder the Wildfire Gang's gold coins, Bai Fu's thoughts first turned to Martin.
Although she had returned most of her knowledge to her teachers, she, after all, had legitimately studied and to compare her with Martin was like letting Tyson fight a child.
If Martin could be exceptionally promoted to a small-time supervisor, was it too much for her to be the logistics chief?
Yet, it wasn't safe to say.
In the eyes of others, not long ago, she had been an illiterate who could only write her name, but after sleeping for two days, she suddenly understood a bit of calculus, which was quite shocking.
Would she be grabbed to have her brain dissected?
Too bad.
Had she lived where people believed in a thing or two, she could have easily played the fortune-teller, shouting "The sky is dead, long live Bai!", and then made a fortune selling salvation vouchers to believers.
Damn it, why was making money so difficult?
Bai Fu sighed to herself and looked up, "I'll complete the task soon, but..."
"But what?"
Martin was a bit irritated to be interrupted.
Bai Fu made her request, "I'd like to have a look in the gang's library first."
The Wildfire Gang piled all the collected books in the library, whether they were useful or not, but not everyone was entitled to enter.
"The library? You barely know a handful of characters, and you want to visit the library?" Martin burst into laughter.
Bai Fu remained composed and pointed at An Ya, "Let her see, she's young, she can learn."
Hmph.
Martin didn't want to dwell on it anymore: "Mention my name, and you can freely enter the smallest public library."
That was precisely what Bai Fu wanted to hear.
After ensuring a few more times with a smile, she sent Martin away.
Although Martin was already courting death, the risk was still too high to act now; better to wait.
After dinner with An Ya, Bai Fu didn't delay and headed straight for the Wildfire Gang's library.
After stating Martin's name, the gatekeeper didn't give her trouble.
She stood beside the bookshelf, her eyes quickly sweeping over the titles.
"Bro, You Smell So Good," "Arithmetic Operations," "The Art of Being Human"...
"What is all this?"
Bai Fu had had enough.
No wonder this small library was accessible by just mentioning Martin's name.
Luck favors the persistent; after searching for a while, she still found the Profession Knowledge Book she had her heart set on.
"Three Minutes to Learn Spiritual Ability Prayer"
Bai Fu took the book from the shelf.
Even though it was full of symbols she couldn't recognize, this barely posed a difficulty for her.
"You have begun reading 'Three Minutes to Learn Spiritual Ability Prayer,' with a current progress of 0.3%."
This was the charm of the player panel all the time!
Three minutes later, Bai Fu received a new notification.
"You have unlocked the new profession [Spiritual Ability Apprentice], Spirit +1, Inspiration +1, attribute points +2."
"During the reading, you have comprehended new Skills [Fervor], [Hardening], [Spiritual Vision]."