This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Chapter 101 Idle Hands Are the Devil's Workshop—Time to Settle Some Scores

On April 29th, after selling her entire batch of 600,000 bottles of **Ginseng Essence**, Rita finally stopped. Though she had sold anonymously, everyone knew it was the wealthy "anonymous big shot" at the top of the wealth leaderboard who was behind the Ginseng Essence.

This was because her assets had been skyrocketing every minute, eventually stabilizing at **52,339 gold, 17 silver, and 89 copper**.

The well-known second-place holder was the Special Affairs Bureau's financial officer, marked by a small golden dragon beside their avatar. Their ranking fluctuated frequently, sometimes even hitting first, but once the anonymous big shot surpassed 50,000 gold, they never managed to climb back up.

Rita didn't feel much about being ranked first in wealth; after all, she earned and spent her money quickly. What she was more excited about was creating the **Rare Ginseng Essence**.

- **Rare Ginseng Essence (91 points):** Restores 120 HP immediately, and over the next 10 minutes, restores 1% HP per second.

Experience more on empire

This high-end version was made using 30-year-old ginseng and intermediate healing potions. She only had 93 bottles, and once used, they were gone for good. She planned to save them until at least level 10, as the higher her max health, the more valuable these would become.

Three days after she finished her Ginseng Essence operation, on May 1st, the market was flooded with more Ginseng Essence, available not just at auction houses but also in hospitals. While Rita had been a one-person operation with limited production, the Special Affairs Bureau, after figuring out the recipe, could mass-produce tens of thousands of bottles per day, quickly saturating the market.

Soon, prices dropped to 4 silver per bottle, and the price of basic healing potions also fell to 1 silver, 80 copper.

Rita filled her automatic vending machine upstairs with 100 bottles of **Ginseng Essence**, priced at 5 silver each. She didn't care whether they sold or not and went off to grind in a dungeon.

By April, she had already reached level 2, but between brewing Ginseng Essence and attending classes at **Rania Kaya**, she only made it into the dungeon once every few days. And since she was now level 2, grinding level 3 monsters no longer gave her much of an XP bonus for fighting higher-level mobs. Even when she cleared all 700+ enemies, it barely earned her 9% experience.

Sometimes, when Apache felt generous and lectured longer, she'd stay up all night learning, skipping the dungeon the next day.

As the dungeon portal closed and then reopened a few seconds later, indicating it had refreshed, Zoey and her team prepared to head back inside. After a few more moments, when the guards relaxed and sat back down, Rita flew down from the tree, darting low to the ground and slipping past the guard playing on his phone. She zipped through the portal just before it closed.

Inside the dungeon, she didn't move immediately, instead peeking around to spot Zoey's team in the distance. Only their backs were visible, so she flapped her wings and soared upwards until she reached a safe altitude, where she could watch from above.

Below, Rick and the others had reached the first wave of monsters and were preparing for battle. The dungeon enemies were **Draenei**, a blue-skinned race that looked a bit like avatars from an old movie and specialized in jewelcrafting.

Rita observed their fighting style for a while. Zoey provided healing and support damage, Rick handled finishing blows and additional damage, Aaron was on offense and crowd control, and Su Wu acted as the tank, drawing enemy aggro.

Though the Draenei had intelligence and knew to target healers first, Su Wu effectively blocked their attacks and even used abilities to redirect their attention when they couldn't be physically stopped.

Rita perched on a tree, used two **Another Happy Day** skill stones, reducing Rick and Zoey's luck to 1. She then flew a distance away, transformed into human form, and ate a dish that granted +300 HP regeneration per minute. Thanks to her **God of the Culinary Arts** talent, the triple crit meant she would heal 900 HP per minute for 30 minutes—the best dish she could currently make.

With her current health at 350, even without equipping items that increased her vitality, she would lose 70 HP each time she used her stealing skill. To keep her HP above 80%, she needed to steal about once every five seconds.

Rita swooped down, transforming into a **Draenei** and blending in with the group of enemies Rick's party was fighting. She even changed her name to **Draenei Warrior**.

From there, she carefully maneuvered closer to the group and used **I Want This, This, and This** to siphon their stats. Thanks to the evasion skills she'd honed during her grinding, Rick's team couldn't land a hit on her.

Whenever the Draenei were on the verge of being wiped out, she'd shout some of the few phrases she knew in Draenei and flee the scene. Then, once Rick's team pulled another group of Draenei, she'd slip back into their ranks to continue stealing.

Each time she fled, she'd grab a couple of Draenei to "escape" with her, leading Rick and Zoey to believe that the Draenei were a race that loved to run away when they couldn't win.

Draenei: **Our reputation has been ruined.**