These Yellow Sand Soldiers looked like mummies, fragile and gaunt, numbering about ten—roughly the same as the three squads combined.

However, when they fought, it wasn’t as easy as everyone had imagined!

A few minutes later, the ten Yellow Sand Soldiers were all exterminated, turning into handfuls of yellow sand.

"Damn it, even the small grunts are so hard to kill!" a tenant from Dorm 40 cursed angrily.

Right now, he truly felt like he was playing a game.

Finally opening a new map, and it wasn’t just about looting BOSS gear—he couldn’t even beat the basic mobs!

Is this still something a person can play?

"Does the Mad King Building always have such huge difficulty gaps between rounds?" Bai Wuya looked at Su Yuan, baffled.

He could barely be considered a physique-focused player;he didn’t need to use skills to kill ordinary monsters, yet he had to use several skills to kill these Yellow Sand Soldiers.

"Not too bad, we did develop for fifteen days, so it makes sense the difficulty would increase this much." Su Yuan had adapted to the Mad King Building’s intensity and said he could understand it.

Bai Wuya’s mouth twitched;he felt deeply uncomfortable.

No wonder the Mad King Building fills up every round. This wasn’t recruiting people so much as recruiting fodder to trigger the Dorm Survival Game’s guaranteed payout mechanism!

Everyone knew that when a dormitory building's death toll got too high, the building would give players some compensation items. If you seized the chance, you could become the lucky beneficiary.

Many breeding dorms played exactly this way—rather than wait for the tide to turn, they killed off their own people first to trigger the safety net.

"How do we split the spoils?" Zhai Ren asked.

After the Yellow Sand Soldiers died, they turned into sand—apparently a raw material. Besides that, there were spears, though weapon drop rates were low, only two or three at most.

"Level ten weapons, the loot quality is so high!" a player exclaimed greedily as he picked up a spear.

The west campus was full of Yellow Sand Soldiers;if they cleared them all, every player in the Mad King Building would get stronger.

"Normal." Su Yuan picked up one of the spears and looked toward Kui Zi.

He still didn’t have a suitable weapon of his own.

"One weapon per squad, and materials go to whoever killed them," Kui Zi explained. "I know you think this is unfair, but if weapons are divided strictly by contribution, some people will become aggressive. That will cause trouble."

Someone was about to refute Kui Zi’s proposal, but after hearing the latter half of her sentence, they closed their mouth.

They continued grinding, and soon a small boss was drawn.

[Yellow Sand Bladefighter]

[Type: Undead Monster]

[Level: 10]

[Rank: Elite]

[Skills: Desert Sabre, Soul Return, Flashing One-Blade Strike]

[Description: Buried within the yellow sand are many...]

The Yellow Sand Bladefighter was tall and slender, wielding a long saber set with a red gem. With a single leap it landed before Su Yuan, the blade descending like lightning.

Su Yuan blocked with his spear, retreating several steps in succession, and the weapon’s durability dropped sharply.

The obvious durability difference of the blade stemmed not only from inferior quality but also from Su Yuan himself.

If he had master-level spearsmanship, perhaps it would have been the enemy weapon that lost durability.

Players could treat the Dorm Survival Game like a game, but its simulation engine was reality-grade. When strengths were close, it wasn’t a matter of simply comparing numbers—the calculations were very complicated.

The veterans first disrupted the boss, then concentrated their fire and killed the Yellow Sand Bladefighter.

After clearing that wave, some were lightly wounded and immediately used healing items.

In most dorms, healing items were precious, and players would tough out such injuries.

All it proved was that Mad King Building’s players were truly miserable but also truly wealthy.

"Do you know what this is?" Bai Wuya picked up a red gem dropped by the Bladefighter, his mouth twitching wildly.

"Huh?! It’s an Enchantment Gem!" a bald guy with a sakura tattoo on his forehead rushed forward, trying to grab it.

"Wu Da, don’t be rude!" Zhai Ren frowned and scolded.

The bald man sulkily withdrew his hand, protesting, "I clearly intimidated the Yellow Sand Bladefighter with my glare, and Old Bai swoops in to pick it up—this is too sly!"

Nobody paid the fool any mind.

Everyone knew Zhai Ren’s tenant wasn’t very stable upstairs.

"This seems like the first time an Enchantment Gem has appeared in the Mad King Building, not bad." Zhai Ren smiled.

Li Wenwen could make openings in equipment for them, so an Enchantment Gem would be immediately useful.

"Worthless garbage!" Bai Wuya finally couldn’t hold it in;he threw the calamity away forcefully and cursed, "Do you know at what stage these items start to appear? Tier ten—these are materials that only show up in tenth-cycle dorms!"

Wu Da immediately darted to pick it up, eyes shining.

Single-handedly suppressing a level-ten elite and bringing back the Mad King Building’s first Enchantment Gem, this would be his new achievement. Though a bit inflated, like a paper with padding—if it wasn’t checked, it wouldn’t show.

"Normal." Su Yuan repeated those two words.

"This 'normal' is bullshit!" Bai Wuya’s face was mortified. "I propose we return to the Mad King Building for now. Don’t wander around outside."

"You hoarded some transformation cards last round, why are you so afraid?" Kui Zi asked.

Bai Wuya replied:

"These monsters have a commander and are not unintelligent. If he discovers what we’re doing and commands his troops to charge, we’ll be the first players to die!"

"This isn’t cowardice, it’s a real possibility!"

"Last round I placed second, and I’ve even been Top Player before. Don’t doubt my judgment!"

At that moment, a call came from the sky.

"Move now, the main enemy force is coming!" Zhen Lu swooped in a circle and then began flying back.

Everyone panicked and dashed off!

After running a distance, they saw a huge group of Yellow Sand Soldiers rushing up behind them in the haze!

Among them were mounted Yellow Sand Soldiers;on spotting the players, they immediately spurred forward, swifter than a gale!

"They’re pursuit-type monsters. Return to the dorm, prepare for a defensive battle!" Bai Wuya drew a longbow to cover the others’ retreat.

Kui Zi sent out a self-destruct robot to obstruct the Yellow Sand Riders.

In the end, everyone barely escaped and made it back down beneath the dormitory building.