This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Rita first headed to the Wilson family villa. This time, possibly because she had told them about the game ahead of time, her fingerprint was registered, and she even had a key to the front gate. She could come and go as she pleased, and they had even left her a room on the second floor. Unlike in her previous life, where despite having paid for the house, her fingerprint wasn't even registered.

Rita went straight to the wine cabinet, grabbed two bottles of wine, and on her way out, spotted an unopened pack of high-quality cigarettes. If she remembered correctly, each cigarette in that pack cost over ten bucks. She casually pocketed a pack.

All thanks to the **Thief God** gift! It had her picking up some bad habits!

Carrying the wine and cigarettes, she returned home. After confirming there was no one around using **Hunter's Eye**, she headed to her rooftop safe house, intending to level up in the dungeon.

Her current experience was at 89.46% of level 0. Killing 300 level 3 trolls earlier had boosted her experience by 6%. That's the perk of soloing dungeons—she could take the entire dungeon's loot for herself. In a five-person party, each member would only get around 1.2%, and even that wasn't guaranteed in three hours of grinding.

Rita, now familiar with the layout, quickly cleared out the scouts and headed straight for the troll camp. To hone her combat skills, she avoided eating any power-boosting food and purposely pulled groups of three troll squads at a time. She only used her ultimate skills in critical situations.

Trolls were much more agile than undead, and they had full control over their faculties, working in coordination. With three squads, that made for 15 trolls, and though they were only level 3, Rita found herself getting some good practice by limiting her skills.

By the time it was 5 AM, Rita exited the safe house, freshened up, and cooked two meals: one for herself, seasoned with spices, and a bland one for the cats in her backyard. After eating, she made two more meals to take with her to Lania Kaia.

Once more ensuring that everything was safe with **Hunter's Eye**, she retreated to her bedroom, disguised as a goblin, and headed to Lania Kaia.

The time zones of Lania Kaia were slightly different from Earth's, but there was no time difference between the Dark City and China. When she arrived at the alchemy shop in the Dark City, the shop had just opened, and the undead assistant, now familiar with her, let her in without a word. Rita handed one of the breakfasts to her and entered the shop.

The undead teacher, sleepy and groggy, stumbled downstairs, running her hands through her messy hair. Rita placed the other meal on the table, along with a bottle of wine.

Rita had her reasons for being so respectful to her mentor. Recently, she had noticed something peculiar. She always stored her self-made potions in the potion bag Apache had given her, as it could hold up to 999 potions. But one day, one bottle simply wouldn't fit. The bag showed she had 998 bottles, yet this one wouldn't go in.

Upon closer inspection, the name was the same, but the description had changed—the potion healed 61 health points instead of 60.

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It was just one point, but to her, that single point meant more than brewing a high-grade potion.

She took that potion to Apache, and that was the first time the teacher asked for her name.

After thinking about the two wanted posters at the city gates, Rita decided to keep her distance. "I'm Ravenclaw," she said, making up a name.

Apache's gaze turned somewhat odd when she heard the name, but she didn't question it further. The conversation moved on.

The lessons continued. Although Apache had never directly taught her any recipes, Rita wasn't in a hurry. She knew she had hit a bottleneck because her fundamentals were flawed. It was like cooking—no matter how clearly someone explained the steps, if your knife skills were off, or your control over heat was lacking, each step might look right, but it'd still go wrong.

So, whatever Apache taught, she listened carefully.

Today's surprise was enough to excite her, but Rita wasn't thinking of switching sides. Just like one internal beta player had once said, they might still be enemies on the battlefield in the future, but Apache would always be her teacher.

As Apache drank the wine and finished breakfast, she curiously picked up a cigarette. She wasn't stupid—after sniffing it and inspecting it closely, she used fire magic to light it and took a drag.

In the next second, her undead eyes gleamed, almost as if the dark circles under her eyes had faded a bit.

Tapping the cigarette pack with her fingers, Apache rasped, "From now on, your tuition is this."

A phrase popped into Rita's head: "She smokes and drinks on the side, huh?"

"Do you still want the wine?" Rita asked.

"Bring both," Apache replied with a smoky voice. "And make it a regular thing."

"...Got it."

Rita couldn't help but think that corrupting high-ranking aliens with Earth's vices should count as a contribution to humanity!

Today's lesson went longer than usual. Fifty-five minutes in, and they still hadn't covered everything. Rita, not wanting to miss out, quickly transformed into a chubby orange-white cat and sat at Apache's feet. This particular form was inspired by the fattest cat she'd recently met in her backyard. Though it was unhealthy for a cat to be that fat, it was absolutely adorable.

Apache glanced down at her, pausing briefly before continuing the lesson. "After grinding the lionfish bones into fine powder, it's best to lightly roast them over a residual fire... You only need three drops of armadillo bile. If you accidentally add too much, it's fine. I've taught this before. How do you fix it?

Answer, if you can."

Rita was speechless. **Why are you quizzing the cat?!**

"Meow…" she tried, meaning to say, **Neutralize it with the juice from Moonlight Flowers**.

She tried her best, but it still came out as a meow.

Surprisingly, Apache seemed to understand. Nodding in approval, she said, "Not bad."

Rita: "..."

Since her cat form seemed to please Apache, she didn't rush to leave. In fact, Apache was so in a good mood, perhaps thanks to the cigarette or the cute fat cat, that she went into great detail about her potion-making process. She explained the techniques and underlying principles for every step. Whenever the undead assistant finished with customers, she hurried over to listen as well.

Apache didn't mind.

At noon, when Apache stopped for lunch, Rita hurried back to Earth. She was determined to milk this rare moment of goodwill for all it was worth. She rushed out of her house, drove straight to the Wilson villa, and swiped all five packs of premium cigarettes that Samuel had stashed.

Samuel wasn't home, but Scarlett was. "What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

Without missing a beat, Rita lied, "Pulling strings to get medicine. Yesterday, I hooked the Lopez family up with 2,000 potions and helped Rick settle things with The Jones Family. I need these smokes for a deal."

Scarlett didn't argue. In fact, she pointed out another cabinet. "There are two more packs in there."

Rita grinned. "You're the real deal, Mom!" She swiped those too.

Returning to Lania Kaia, Rita placed two packs of cigarettes on the table. Thanks to those cigarettes, she managed to stretch out her lesson for the rest of the day, absorbing every bit of knowledge until her head spun. It wasn't until the shop was ready to close that Apache grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and threw her out. Only then did the day's lesson finally come to an end.