Who gave you permission to travel through time with Earth?

Chapter 71 "Lingering Stars"

After the business deal was settled, the atmosphere between the two sides relaxed. Someone came over and cleaned up the pile of rotten flesh lying in the middle, then threw it onto the mound of corpses. The atmosphere was almost cheerful.

The group took stock of the goods scattered throughout the chessboard space. Aside from the advance base, the scavengers had moved at least half of their accumulated spoils into the chessboard.

Firstly, it was to use this equipment to defend against the soju party; secondly, it was to divide the spoils among the teams, so that even if one of them lost, the whole thing wouldn't benefit outsiders.

"The quantity of these goods is a bit insufficient. The base outside probably has more, and the quality might even be higher. Shall we still split the profits 50/50?"

"Those are probably out of reach. Chen Yuanqing has put his eggs in three baskets: the headquarters chessboard, and the forward base of the Sixteen Directions. He has probably already taken the biggest and most lucrative share."

"...So that's what he was thinking. He was outmaneuvered by his own boss, and even my thoughts were used by Lao Chen. It seems the scavenger was doomed from the start."

"He's both shrewd and greedy. Scavengers are just tools for making money. Now that his source of income is gone and his tools are useless, do you think he'd be happy to put some lubricant on a broken wrench?"

Fang Jin said, and Xu Hao nodded in deep agreement. Then, under the gaze of his passing subordinates, he turned his head away, his old face flushed red from the alcohol.

But then, as if he had finally remembered something, he looked at Fang Jin with a strange expression and asked:

"That's not right. Why would he only take the third basket? What about the second basket, and the novelist's pawn itself? Is he just going to bury it in the ground and let it go?"

"Speaking of which, the chess piece should be in your hands now. All the scavengers on the chessboard have been killed. Even if it wasn't Chen Yuanqing, there must have been some equipment users who came in as guards."

"Could it be that he's dead... but the spatial lockdown hasn't been lifted yet?"

"..."

"No, I haven't killed that person yet."

Fang Jin waved his hand and explained, then strode towards the pile of corpses that no one dared to approach because of its excessive bloodshed, and kicked it hard!

"Bang!"

The corpses slid down one after another like leather pouches, and the gradually stale blood spread and burst on the stone wall. Only then did everyone realize that the mound of corpses was not entirely made of human bodies.

Instead, there was a gray, spherical rock mountain hidden underneath, which was just covered by the sticky flesh on the surface, giving people a strong visual impact while making them ignore the true nature of the rock mountain below.

Where this spherical rock formation meets the rock wall (the edge of the checkerboard pattern), there is a crevice hidden in shadow below. A thin man is digging a shallow pit and hiding beneath it.

Seeing the blood and flesh covering his body violently shattered, he frantically picked up the pieces of corpse on the ground and tried to cover them with his back, while his bleeding fingers continued to dig into the shallow pit.

"No...no...!"

"Ah...this person almost got away."

The old man sighed, then his upper body suddenly expanded, and his massive arms grabbed the man's head from a distance, enveloping his entire face and the back of his head in his palms.

"If he really waits until the next fifteen minutes and then opens the wall again, won't we all have to start another pointless chase? Especially since Chen Yuanqing is waiting outside?"

"..."

"...Brother Fang, what's wrong?"

Seeing that Fang Jin remained silent for a long time, Xu Hao turned around with concern and asked with great interest, eager to see what tricks Chen Yuanqing had up his sleeve that this kid had outmaneuvered.

But Fang Jin ignored him, staring blankly at the stone ball in a very strange posture, her shock unprecedented, so much so that she subconsciously asked:

"Grandpa... what is this?"

He hadn't considered this stone ball a treasure at all, because the system could identify the grade and characteristics of all the items in the entire chessboard, but this thing didn't elicit any response whatsoever.

But after actually getting to know them...

"This? Ah... such a treasure, such a treasure! If you want it, you can take another 10% of the profit..."

"Don't listen to his nonsense. This is just a piece of dead star debris. It's rare, but it's worthless."

The old man was still trying to fool them, but Guo Shi directly saw through his act. The young gang leader, who had reapplied his heavy makeup symbolizing freedom, patted the large stone ball and stared at Xu Hao, speaking unfriendly.

"After the copy fell to the ground, it shrank and decayed until all the radiation and residual energy were completely dissipated. Finally, this thing fell out from the layers of thin sheets."

"It seems the debris that broke off in Taipei has completely dissipated. No wonder Chen Yuanqing was in such a hurry to leave. Now that there's no danger or radiation in this place, there's even less money to be made..."

"...What the hell did you draw?"

"What's it to you if you're a pretentious woman? You should probably work on your own fashion sense first!"

Fang Jin no longer cared. He felt a throbbing in his heart, and a familiar warmth flowed from the point of contact into his heart, as if tiny bubbles were bursting one after another in his blood vessels!

The information within the iris trembled several times, from the initial deathly silence to the current high-speed processing, until Fang Jin was somewhat parched, and finally the line of small words was completely fixed in front of him.

[First-order stellar debris has been discovered; it can be absorbed, and complete digestion will accelerate Earth's recovery process by 1.2%]

……

The surprise came too suddenly, and Fang Jin was not prepared at all. He originally thought that the only way to recover Earth was to honestly run dungeons and farm evolution points, but now reality has given him a shortcut.

Devouring other celestial bodies... that is, the true star-eating, is the third authority in the star-eating system, and the root of the ancient taboo that star-eating is regarded as.

If absorbing the debris of the fallen Death Star can advance the recovery, then what about those that are still alive? These myriad worlds connected by the system, even the main world itself... could all be his food?

Even if he puts aside this dangerous idea for the time being, aren't the various types of dead star debris that frequently occur around the world the best way for him to advance the "Star Eater"?

Fang Jin finally discovered that the treasure that truly captivated him since arriving in this world was something that was considered a malignant tumor by the entire main world, but was a sweet honey to him.

Overwhelmed with excitement, he didn't even notice that the once smooth, spherical rock had developed swirling patterns that seeped into the surface of his foot.

Without hesitation, he pressed the "Confirm" button.