This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Chapter 299 I Shall Call You Little Hecipah

Rita poured an antidote for the sleeping potion into Rick's mouth, roughly shook him awake, and handed him a gold coin as he groggily stared in confusion and fear.

"Here, it's for you."

Without waiting for his reaction, Rita turned away. Imagine Rick's state of mind: in the middle of the night, an owl crashes into his villa, smashes a brick over his head, and when he wakes up, he's in a dungeon, handed a gold coin by the same person. Dazed, Rick clutched the coin in silence.

Moments later, his jaw was forcibly dislocated, and another bottle of sleeping potion, along with a significant amount of seawater, was poured into his mouth.

As he fell unconscious again, Rita finally activated [I Just Want to Improve So Badly].

It took her eight tries before she felt like she successfully stole something. Excitedly, she opened her character panel.

Luck: 10 (Base [1] - Recovery in progress: 21:36:17)

It worked!!!

She glanced at Rick's stats: his Luck had dropped to 0.

This method was viable!

At that moment, Rita felt the same satisfaction as an elderly lady who had hoarded plastic bags for decades, only to finally use them at the perfect moment. See? See! I told you keeping all this junk would come in handy one day!

Even if her 1 frozen Luck point disappeared after the recovery timer ended because her stat was already maxed, she wouldn't care. As long as Rick wasn't absurdly lucky anymore, it was a win!

Opening [Renovation], she prepared to consume another point of Luck. However, something surprising caught her eye: Rick's equipment was glowing. Wait—did this skill let her disassemble the equipment he was wearing?

She gave it a try on the necklace around his neck—and it worked!

Overcome with excitement, she systematically disassembled all of Rick's gear. Unfortunately, none of it was particularly remarkable. Once her cooldowns reset with a [Melting Time] potion, she lowered Rick's Luck to 2. With his Luck still relatively high, she worried it might be harder to steal from him.

Then she repeated the process: announcing new rules → feeding him the antidote → waking him up → giving him a coin → knocking him out with a potion again → rinse and repeat.

Rita spent the entire night at the bottom of the sea, working methodically until 9 a.m. [Renovation] alone took 30 minutes per use, and she used it eight times, costing her 4 hours in total.

While using [Renovation], she even checked all her blank skill crystals just in case something else could be upgraded. Everything was fine.

She spared no expense with [Melting Time], even shape-shifting into a goblin to squeeze out her three daily gold coins.

Black Jade's ultimate obsession was becoming a true dragon. He often emphasized that if Blue Star helped him evolve into a divine dragon, he'd protect the planet for 500 years—recently raised to 600 years.

Eclipse Vanguard wanted to help him. If Nivalis weren't tied to Rita, they might have already taken action. Even Shadow.Q frequently warned against making rash moves for Black Jade's protection, reminding them that dragonkind was neutral and pursuing this path might bring more trouble than it was worth. But was Blue Star's situation not already dire? Countless underwater dungeons had already been unlocked...

The idea of helping Black Jade ascend to a dragon form now, then working to restore Nivalis' power later, wasn't entirely off the table.

The real obstacle was Rita. Her honor points kept skyrocketing, increasing by tens of thousands at a time. While she claimed she didn't know the reason, Eclipse Vanguard believed her. After all, the game invasion had only been happening for less than a year, and there were too many mysteries left unsolved.

Still, the game-certified honor points proved her actions were benefiting not just the U.S. but possibly all of Blue Star. Even the most aggressive faction within Eclipse Vanguard refrained from targeting Nivalis for Black Jade's sake.

Instead, there was talk of using this situation to bait him. They could have Black Jade locate underwater dungeon barriers, promising that if his honor points reached a certain threshold, they'd fetch dragon blood from Lania Kaia to help him evolve. And if they couldn't deliver? They'd just keep stalling...

Unaware of Eclipse Vanguard's schemes, Black Jade pushed Rick again, letting out an annoyed sigh. His pet was in shambles but thankfully not dead—otherwise, he might've perished as well.

So fragile, he thought. Wrapping Rick up in his tail, he promoted him from a low-tier snake servant to a third-tier one. Within six months to a year, Rick's legs would transform into a snake tail, and in two more years, he'd fully become a black snake.

Perfect! Much more pleasing to the eye. Black Jade wondered why he hadn't done this earlier—it was such an easy fix.

After going home for a quick nap, Rita headed straight to Polar City to attend lessons with Lucia. She also wanted to check if Nivalis' Expert Account had sold yet.

Nivalis? She'd gone from an ice dragon to a mahjong-playing dragon, and Rita couldn't even be bothered to call her by name anymore.

After class, Rita couldn't resist showing Lucia her homemade [Melting Time] potion.

Lucia, delighted, examined the potion before pulling Rita into a powerful hug. "You're a genius! When I taught you at Eternal Night Fortress, I thought it'd take you until next year to succeed."

That's a bit of an exaggeration!

Rita couldn't hide her grin. "Hecipah said Melting Time was actually pretty simple."

"She says everything's simple once she's mastered it." Lucia laughed and knelt to meet the small owl's gaze. Handing Rita a high-grade potion recipe, she said earnestly, "A reward for your progress. Though I've only taught you a few lessons and can't truly call myself your teacher, I'm proud of you."

Dazed and glowing with joy, Rita left Lucia's home and headed straight to Dark City to show the potion to Hecipah.

After examining the finished product, Hecipah gave a reserved nod of approval. "Not bad. I shall call you Little Hecipah."

Rita: .........