Chapter 127 | After Rebirth, I Became the Dungeon's Hidden Boss

On her third day of being locked in the cell, Luo Jiuge finally confirmed one thing.

Vevran indeed had no intention of letting her die, but only to the extent of keeping her barely alive.

One meal a day, consisting of a piece of black bread so hard it could be used as a weapon, and a bowl of barely clean water, ensured she remained in a state of biting hunger at all times.

Sitting on her straw mat, Luo Jiuge used her molars to slowly grind away at the hard bread in her hand.

The surface of the bread was dry and white. When broken apart, it crumbled into dust. Forget meat—there wasn't even a trace of grease to be found.

After gnawing on it for a long time, she finally managed to tear off a small piece.

“How thoughtful,” Luo Jiuge chewed expressionlessly. “They're so afraid of me starving to death that they made the bread this hard, forcing me to chew more to trick my stomach into feeling full.”

“Is this the Holy Court's advanced inmate management experience?”

No one answered her from outside the cell. Only the torch at the end of the corridor occasionally crackled.

Luo Jiuge swallowed the bite of bread, took a sip of water, leaned against the cold stone wall, and let out a long sigh.

She hadn't actually spent the last three days entirely in vain.

At the very least, she could confirm that the capital still needed her alive for the time being. Vevran wouldn't let her go, but she wouldn't easily let her die either.

While this didn't sound like great news, looking at it from another angle, it wasn't completely without value.

She was indeed no match for Vevran right now. To be precise, she didn't even have the right to fight back.

Last time, after Vevran arrived, she had knocked her unconscious in just a few strikes.

The gap in stats, attributes, and actual combat experience was clear as day.

But being unable to win now didn't mean she never would.

Luo Jiuge looked down at her hands.

During these past few days of mining froststone in the mines, her Strength attribute had indeed shown a slow increase.

Although the increase was small each time, it proved that this body could strengthen its base stats through continuous labor and exercise.

Since mining worked, she would keep mining.

Others treated her as convict labor, but she would treat the mines as a free strength training ground.

Mining to build strength by day, and sparring with Vevran by night.

Since she couldn't leave for now, she would utilize everything she could.

Familiarizing herself with a high-tier knight's fighting style while getting beaten up was much more cost-effective than practicing against thin air on her own.

Back when she was learning combat at the police academy, she had trained the exact same way.

In the beginning, her back would go numb from being thrown, and she couldn't even lift her arms.

But after enough repetitions, she gradually learned how to disperse the impact, find her center of gravity, and protect her vitals before taking a hit.

“Practice is the sole criterion of truth.” She understood this saying well.

Luo Jiuge took another bite of bread. The more she thought about it, the more feasible this plan seemed.

It didn't matter if Vevran refused to teach her, as long as she was willing to beat her up.

If once wasn't enough, she would go every day.

One day, she would be able to see Vevran's movements clearly and steal those flashy, powerful skills one by one.

Luo Jiuge finished her last sip of water, a spark of energy returning to her eyes.

She turned her head to look at the thick cotton coat she had taken off nearby. Traced on the inside of the coat was the text she had copied from the mine's mural.

Originally sketched out bit by bit with charcoal ash, it had become quite blurry after being repeatedly rubbed by sweat and dust over the past few days.

A few strokes were even on the verge of blending together.

Luo Jiuge's expression shifted. She immediately set down her hard bread and dragged the coat over.

“Almost forgot about this.”

She didn't recognize the ancient script on the mural, nor did she know what was written on it.

But her instincts told her it had to be an extremely important quest clue.

Luo Jiuge stared at the blurry traces for a moment, then picked up a small pebble with a sharp edge from the corner.

Not daring to carve the text in a conspicuous place, she crawled behind her straw mat and chose a spot near the corner of the wall.

The pebble scraped against the wall, making a faint scratching sound.

Following the remaining shapes on the inside of the coat, she carved them onto the wall stroke by stroke.

Some of the symbols were incredibly complex, with intricate bends.

Luo Jiuge made mistakes twice, forcing her to smooth them over with stone dust before carving them again.

By the time she finished the last symbol, her fingers were rubbed raw and red.

Luo Jiuge blew away the stone dust on the wall and took a step back.

It was a bit crooked, but at least it was fully preserved.

Even if the traces on her coat disappeared completely in the future, she could copy them again from the wall before leaving.

Just as Luo Jiuge let out a sigh of relief, she suddenly heard a rustling sound behind her.

She whipped her head around and saw a furry hand squeezing through the iron bars with great difficulty.

Five long, slender fingers groped around on the ground, stopping just short of her remaining half-piece of hard bread.

Luo Jiuge reacted quickly, snatching her remaining rations back.

The hand grabbed empty air.

Outside the bars, Kaka crouched on the ground, his bead-like eyes staring intently at the bread in her hand.

Luo Jiuge immediately bit down on the bread and mumbled:

“Mine.”

Kaka's hand remained inside the bars, his fingertips twitching reluctantly.

Luo Jiuge warily shuffled half a step back. “Stop looking. This is my only meal of the day.”

Kaka stared at the bread for a moment, then suddenly grabbed the iron bars and shook them violently.

“Mooncrown Lock!”

The shrill voice echoed repeatedly down the corridor.

Veins popped on Luo Jiuge's temples. Impatiently, she said, “Can you stop howling?”

“Mooncrown Lock!”

“Shut up!”

Kaka suddenly stopped. He tilted his head and stared at Luo Jiuge for a second.

“Shut up.”

Luo Jiuge was stunned.

As if discovering a fun new word, Kaka grabbed the bars and continued to shout:

“Shut up!”

Luo Jiuge took a deep breath. “You're clearly a monkey, so why do you act like an incredibly annoying parrot?”

Kaka continued to shake the bars.

“Annoying!”

“Parrot!”

“Shut up!”

Luo Jiuge closed her eyes, feeling her blood pressure rising steadily.

She endured it for a moment, but unable to take it anymore, she was about to use her straw mat to cover her ears when she noticed Kaka's eyes had never left the hard bread in her hand.

He obviously hadn't come all this way just to torture her.

Just hungry.

Luo Jiuge looked down at the remaining bread, and an idea suddenly popped into her head.

She broke off a small piece of bread, held it between her fingertips, and waved it at Kaka.

Kaka let go of the bars and reached out eagerly.

But Luo Jiuge pulled her hand back slightly.

Kaka grabbed empty air and let out an unhappy screech.

“Don't rush,” Luo Jiuge said, pointing her index finger at herself and slowly uttering two words. “Boss.”

Kaka looked at her and tilted his head. Luo Jiuge repeated it.

“Boss.”

Kaka looked at her, then at the bread, a sound grumbling from his throat.

“Bo... ss.”

Luo Jiuge responded.

“Yup.”

After repeating this a few times, Kaka went from clumsy imitation to saying it more and more naturally.

Eventually, without Luo Jiuge even needing to prompt him, he would actively shout “Boss” the moment he saw the bread.

Luo Jiuge nodded in satisfaction.

A teachable monkey indeed.

Although he was currently just a monkey recognizing anyone as his boss for a bite to eat, it proved he could be trained.

Since Kaka could eavesdrop, mimic, and run around the knight outpost at will, he might actually come in handy in the future.

Just as Luo Jiuge was about to put away the last bit of bread, footsteps echoed from the other end of the corridor.

Kaka's ears twitched, and he quickly looked back.

In the next second, he let go of the bars like a thief, scrambling away on all fours and quickly disappearing around the corner.

A moment later, a knight in charge of guarding the cells walked over.

He first glanced down the empty corridor and muttered with a frown:

“Why is that monkey running around again?”

Luo Jiuge stuffed the remaining bread into her mouth and sat back down on her straw mat with an innocent look.

The knight didn't suspect her. He took out his keys and opened the cell door, the iron lock releasing with a crisp click.

“Your three days are up.” He gestured with his chin toward Luo Jiuge. “Get out. Go back to the mines to dig up froststone.”

Luo Jiuge stood up and stretched her stiff shoulders.

Hearing the words “dig up froststone,” there was no trace of dissatisfaction on her face; instead, she looked quite energized.

The knight gave her a suspicious look. “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing.” Luo Jiuge picked up her thick cotton coat and draped it over her shoulders, covering the blurred rubbings on the inside. “I just thought of something happy.”

The knight had no idea what she was talking about. He turned and prepared to walk out.

“Wait.”

Luo Jiuge suddenly called out to him.

The knight turned back impatiently. “What is it now?”

“Give me another piece of bread.”

The knight frowned. “Daily rations are strictly budgeted.”

“Then you'd better pray nothing happens to me while I'm mining today.”

Luo Jiuge leaned against the cell door, deliberately putting on a weak appearance.

“The mines are prone to cave-ins. If I end up crushed to death by a rock because I didn't have the energy to run...”

She looked at the knight, her tone incredibly sincere.

“How do you plan to explain that to Vevran when she asks?”

The knight's expression instantly changed.

Seizing the opportunity, Luo Jiuge added, “Will you tell her you indirectly caused the death of someone the capital explicitly demanded to keep alive, all to save a single piece of hard bread?”

“You—”

“I'm just giving you a heads-up.”

Luo Jiuge patted her empty stomach.

“After all, when I'm hungry, my limbs tend to lose strength. Let alone mining froststone.”

The knight stared at her for a few seconds, clearly wanting nothing more than to slam the cell door shut.

But at the thought of Vevran's terrifyingly cold face, he ultimately turned away with a dark expression and muttered a few instructions to his subordinates.