CHAPTER 14: THE PRICE OF INDEPENDENCE
The inbox hit triple digits by morning.
I scrolled through the messages while the café's coffee machine gurgled its first brew of the day, sorting recruitment offers from congratulations from thinly-veiled threats. The PRD catalogued everything automatically—guild names, offer amounts, communication styles, the subtle tells that revealed each organization's internal priorities.
[Tyrannical Ambition: 50,000 yuan signing bonus. Elite squad access. Equipment priority.]
[Blue Brook Guild: No monetary offer. "Exclusive partnership" proposal. Access to guild dungeon data.]
[Herb Garden: Rare crafting materials. Guild-sponsored equipment upgrades. "Flexible independence" arrangement.]
Three major guilds. Three different approaches. Three attempts to buy or bind Lord Grim before the next record made the price go higher.
Fifty thousand yuan.
The number sat in my head like a weight. That was more than Ye Xiu's severance from Excellent Era. More than Happy Internet Café made in a slow month. More than enough to fund the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella's material requirements for the next three upgrades.
And completely worthless if it comes with guild strings attached.
I typed the same response to all three:
"Not interested in guilds. Happy hunting."
Send. Send. Send.
The deliberate uniformity was strategic. Give them nothing to analyze—no price point they could exceed, no benefit they could match, no angle they could exploit. Let them wonder what Lord Grim actually wanted.
The answer is simple: I want to build a team without corporate interference.
I just can't tell them that.
[PRD: Guild leader response patterns logged. Tyrannical Ambition: persistence likely. Blue Brook: may attempt alternative approach. Herb Garden: withdrawal probable.]
The fourth message was still sitting unread in my inbox.
Chen Yehui's probe from last night.
I opened it again and studied the phrasing.
"The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella is an unusual choice—where did you learn to use it? The technique reminds me of someone."
Every word was calculated. The compliment was designed to lower my guard. The question about the Umbrella was designed to extract information about my training history. And the final line—"reminds me of someone"—was a direct signal that Excellent Era suspected Lord Grim's connection to Ye Xiu.
He's fishing.
He doesn't have proof yet.
But he's smart enough to be looking.
In the source material, Chen Yehui was Excellent Era's shadow operator—the man who handled the guild-level politics while the professional team focused on tournaments. He'd spent years building intelligence networks, cultivating informants, and sabotaging rival organizations through manipulation rather than direct confrontation.
And now he's pointing that machinery at me.
I typed a response:
"Self-taught. The Umbrella seemed interesting. Thanks for the congratulations."
Vague enough to give nothing away. Direct enough to show I wasn't intimidated by his probing. A message that said "I see what you're doing" without actually saying it.
[Message sent to: Chen Yehui (Excellent Dynasty)]
Let him chew on that.
The café door chimed and Chen Guo emerged from the back office with an expression I'd learned to recognize over the past nine days: curiosity mixed with confusion mixed with the determination to understand something that didn't make sense.
"Morning." She set a cup of coffee on my desk—the good stuff, from the premium machine Tang Rou had access to. "Busy night?"
"Server record."
"I saw." She leaned against the counter, her eyes tracking to my screen. "The whole café saw. World chat was going crazy for an hour after you logged off."
She's watching more closely than I realized.
Owner's prerogative, I suppose.
"Boneyard dungeon," I said. "Four-person clear. Beat the old record by thirty-seven seconds."
"And you're turning down..." She paused, clearly doing mental math based on something she'd overheard. "Fifty thousand yuan to join a guild?"
Ah.
She heard that.
I minimized the inbox and turned to face her. Chen Guo's expression was the same puzzle-solving look she'd been wearing since the first night I walked into her café—like she was trying to reconcile the man who worked the night shift with the player who broke server records.
"Guild politics are a waste of time when you can set records independently."
"Fifty thousand yuan isn't politics. That's money."
"Money with strings attached."
"What kind of strings could possibly be worse than fifty thousand yuan?"
The kind that put a corporation between me and my team.
The kind that give someone like Chen Yehui leverage.
The kind that turned Ye Xiu's career into a contract negotiation.
I couldn't say any of that. So I shrugged.
"I don't like being told what to do."
Chen Guo stared at me for a long moment. Then she shook her head and walked back toward the counter.
"You're the strangest night shift employee I've ever had."
That's one way to put it.
The afternoon brought more messages.
Tyrannical Ambition increased their offer to 60,000 yuan. Blue Brook Guild proposed a "trial partnership" with no formal commitment. Herb Garden withdrew entirely—exactly as the PRD had predicted.
And Chen Yehui sent a second message.
[From: Chen Yehui (Excellent Dynasty)]
[Subject: A clarification]
"Self-taught is impressive. The Umbrella's weapon-swap timing suggests extensive practice—the kind that usually requires a teacher. Excellent Era has training programs for talented independents. No guild commitment required. Just professional development opportunities."
He's not giving up.
He's adjusting his approach.
The message was softer than the first—less probing, more recruitment-adjacent. But the subtext was clear: Excellent Era wanted Lord Grim inside their organization where they could watch him. Where they could confirm or deny the Ye Xiu connection. Where they could control the narrative.
I typed: "Not interested. Thanks anyway."
Send.
[PRD: Chen Yehui persistence flagged. Excellent Dynasty approach escalating. Recommend: monitor for hostile actions.]
The warning felt prophetic.
World chat shifted around dinner time.
The congratulations had faded, replaced by a different kind of conversation—guild leaders discussing Lord Grim's rejection in semi-public channels. The PRD tracked the pattern automatically, flagging phrases and cross-referencing speaker identities.
[Blue Brook representative: "Anyone else get turned down by Lord Grim?"]
[Tyrannical Ambition representative: "Same message. Word for word. 'Not interested in guilds.'"]
[Herb Garden representative: "We withdrew our offer. Not worth the chase."]
[Blue Brook representative: "The chase might be the point. Independent record-breakers are a shared problem."]
A shared problem.
They're already coordinating.
In the source material, the major guilds had eventually united against Lord Grim—not because they liked each other, but because an ungovernable independent threatened all of their interests equally. I'd known this was coming. I'd planned for it.
But I didn't expect it to happen this fast.
Two records. Nine days. And they're already talking about me like a threat.
[PRD: Guild coordination pattern detected. Multiple organizations discussing unified response to Lord Grim. Threat level: Elevated.]
I closed world chat and pulled up the party interface.
Tomorrow was Desolate Lands preparation. The next record. The next step in building something that could survive what was coming.
But tonight, I need to check on the team.
Tang Rou was offline—probably sleeping after the marathon grinding session. Cleansing Mist showed as idle, Su Mucheng likely doing professional team obligations. Steamed Bun was...
[Steamed Bun Invasion: Online. Location: Wild Zone (Boneyard Perimeter)]
What is he doing in a wild zone at this hour?
I opened the direct message interface.
Before I could type anything, a notification popped:
[Steamed Bun Invasion: THERE ARE PEOPLE FOLLOWING ME IN THE WILD.]
My hands froze on the keyboard.
Following him.
In a wild zone.
The guilds aren't coordinating against me.
They're coordinating against my party.
I logged into the 10th Server and started moving.
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