He took a shower for a full half hour, and when he came out, Paul Reed was opening the window. “What the hell is that smell? Did someone step in dog shit?”

Jason Ford’s clothes were also stinky. The summer outfit he’d just changed into was a bit better, but those long johns and the thick leather jacket could practically suffocate a person.

He had no choice but to go out and take the clothes from his suitcase to the laundromat… The stench was so bad, even he didn’t want to wash them himself.

The female owner of the laundromat looked at him with obvious disgust, but for the sake of the money, she didn’t say anything unpleasant.

Jason Ford, on the other hand, went to a clothing store and bought a new set of summer clothes, a small name brand called “Nine Wolves,” spending over five hundred—he was about to reach the peak of his life, after all, so this bit of money was nothing.

After buying the clothes, he didn’t rush back to the Hongjie Club, but instead took his ID and checked into a budget hotel—he had a lot of tests to do next, and staying at the club would be inconvenient.

If he could get his first pot of gold quickly, he was even thinking of quitting his job.

After getting the room, he went out on a shopping spree, mainly buying thick clothes and food. He even bought a kerosene stove and, at a construction site, purchased a length of rebar with one end sharpened to a point.

The floor attendant saw this guest carrying all sorts of strange things into the room and felt quite puzzled. When she noticed the sharpened rebar, she took the initiative to report it to the supervisor.

The rebar was thicker than a thumb and sharpened at one end—it could easily be considered a weapon.

The supervisor pondered for a moment and then spoke slowly, “Keep an eye on him. Let me know when he comes out again, and I’ll ask him about it.”

Jason Ford didn’t come out again until an hour later. His brows were tightly furrowed, his hair was still damp, and he looked thoroughly unhappy.

The supervisor hurried over after hearing the news. “Sir, you brought a lot of things into your room?”

Jason Ford waved his hand weakly and said, “I don’t want any of it anymore. Just throw it away… Leave me the suitcase.”

He really wasn’t in the mood to talk. Others thought he’d just spent an hour in the room, but he had actually spent four whole days and three nights in that space.

He had searched every corner of the village and could no longer sense anything that would make the mark on his wrist heat up.

Although this was expected, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed—after all, he’d found the first spirit stone so easily.

At this moment, the mark on his wrist had already faded a bit. If that spirit stone had given him a hundred energy points, he’d already used up more than a dozen.

That’s right, over these four days and three nights, he had quantified all the relevant indicators.

Although Jason Ford was a liberal arts guy and shouldn’t be so sensitive to data, one of his double degrees was in business administration—how can you talk about management without data?

Even the ancient Qin Shi Huang knew to unify weights and measures, laying the foundation for a unified China. As a modern person, what reason did he have to ignore this?

However, even though Jason Ford still had more than eighty energy points left, he couldn’t afford to waste them anymore.

Worse yet, he realized that if he wanted to find more spirit stones, he’d need to prepare more and better equipment.

He would have to spend more time in the real world and earn some money. The ten thousand or so yuan he had left was really not enough.

He had originally thought he could quit his job and live a carefree life, but in the end, he could only sigh: ideals are full, but reality is truly skinny.

Since he had to go to work, he needed to look the part. Seeing that it was getting late, he rode a public bike to the club.

At the entrance, he ran into Mark Harris, who was also coming to work. Mark Harris looked him up and down, his mouth twitching, and finally couldn’t hold back, “Why do I feel like you’ve gotten taller?”

Of course I know I’ve gotten taller. Jason Ford was well aware of this. In fact, the pants he’d bought just over an hour ago were now too short to cover his ankles.

Luckily, his feet hadn’t grown any longer, or he wouldn’t even be able to fit into his shoes.

The gym had machines for measuring height and weight. Jason Ford took off his shoes and stepped on, and couldn’t help but gape in astonishment: Was he… 1.76 meters tall now?

Had he finally surpassed the “third-class disability” threshold?

What surprised him even more was that his weight had dropped to 70 kilograms.

As he passed the front desk, Little Smith couldn’t help but speak up, “Hey, how did you get so skinny in the blink of an eye?”

Jason Ford really wanted to joke: I looked at your photo and got this way from, uh, overexertion.

But, thinking that he was about to reach the pinnacle of his life, he restrained his inner mischief.

A successful person, after all, should have some class.

So, he replied with a hint of surprise, “Really? I just changed clothes… Looks like there’s a reason Nine Wolves is so expensive.”

Was it really just because he changed clothes? Little Smith looked him up and down, feeling it didn’t seem right, but didn’t ask any further.