The panel was as simple as that, just four bare-bones stats.
Henry, then. So be it, Zhang Tianyuan thought. If he was going to be stuck here, he'd better get used to the new identity. From now on, he was Henry Bruce.
If his three years as a mercenary had taught him anything, it was how to adapt.
No matter what, you survive.
Living—and living well—was the only thing that mattered. As for the purpose of it all? That was a question you figured out after you'd managed to stay alive.
The feedback from "Constitution: LV 1" suggested he was at the level of an ordinary adult man.
Henry focused his thoughts on the progress bar and the green pearl.
The green pearl was a Level 3 Release Pearl, equivalent to ten Level 1 pearls. That's why the panel had activated and his Level was set to 1. To reach Level 2 required one hundred Level 1 pearls, which was why his progress was now at 1%.
The pearl he'd gained from "releasing" Bryan was a Level 3.
It had to be because of who Bryan was—his strength, his status as Sheriff, his reputation, his wealth. The sum of the man was far greater than that of an ordinary person.
And the strange, profound energy swirling within it... it was a skill, extracted from Bryan himself.
Like an elite mob in a video game?
Henry couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing some kind of twisted game. Before all this, he'd loved playing Red Dead Redemption 2, doing whatever he wanted in its vast world.
Sometimes he'd play as a lawman, hunting down criminals. Other times, he'd become a villain himself, leaving a trail of chaos. He'd hunt legendary wolves and cougars, feeling a strange kinship with the cowboys of old.
Back then, he'd felt like a modern-day African cowboy, roaming a different kind of wilderness but living the same life of adventure, freedom, and restraint.
Who would have thought he'd one day end up in the real thing?
If Arthur Morgan exists in this world, he mused, he'd be seventeen right now, born in '63.
But as Henry looked around at the blood-soaked dirt and the silent, cooling bodies, it was all too real. There was no pop-up, no tutorial telling him this was the world of Red Dead Redemption 2.
Whatever this was, he only had one life. He had to be careful.
Pushing the chaotic thoughts from his mind, Henry swung back onto his horse and rode toward the three outlaws a hundred meters away. His first priority was to see if there was anything else to be gained here.
Sheriff Bryan had been generous, holding on to life just long enough for Henry to touch him and grant him a green pearl.
The truth was, Sheriff Bryan had always looked out for the young Henry. But for Zhang Tianyuan, who now possessed all of Henry's memories, it felt like watching a television show. He was an outsider looking in, feeling no real emotional connection.
The outlaw in the middle, the one propped against the hill, was a man of about thirty. He had a massive hole in his hip, but his chest was still faintly rising and falling.
Overjoyed, Henry raised his rifle, aimed for the blond-haired man's heart, and fired. Instantly, another vibrant green pearl appeared in his vision.
The progress bar lit up to 11%.
Perfect.
Henry rode over to the outlaw on the right. A large hole was punched through the man's brow. Decidedly dead.
Still, unwilling to miss an opportunity, he put another bullet in the corpse's chest.
You never know, he thought. Might get a surprise.
The outlaw's chest exploded, but nothing happened. Disappointed, Henry rode over to the last body on the other side.
He didn't bother checking the man's condition. He just fired a round straight into his torso.
Huh?!
A milky-white pearl materialized, swirling with that same profound energy.
It was a Level 2 Release Pearl. The progress bar jumped by 5%—now sitting at 16%.
A thrill shot through him. Henry spurred his horse, circling the bloody battlefield like a fisherman searching a drying pond for every last crawfish, eel, and bass.
Over the next ten minutes, he reloaded his 15-round rifle twice. He put a bullet in every one of the remaining 40 outlaw bodies, harvesting another six grey pearls and four white ones. None of these lesser pearls had the strange, swirling energy of the others.
He made sure to aim for their chests, avoiding their heads. A bounty was no good if the face was unrecognizable.
When he was done, his progress bar was lit up to 42%.
Henry then noticed something new. Hovering faintly above the bar was a dark, golden sphere, etched with intricate, arcane patterns.
"Why do those patterns look so familiar?" he muttered to himself.
Suddenly, it hit him. The dark gold sphere was a pendant he'd picked up in his past life, found in the ruins of a destroyed indigenous village during a mission.
He'd taken an instant liking to it, later having a jeweler set it on an 18-karat gold chain to wear around his neck.
Could this be the reason he was here?
The more he stared at the sphere, the stronger the feeling grew.
Abruptly, his vision shifted. He was in a circular space. He understood instinctively that he was at the center of the sphere, in a space with a radius of one meter. This was the inside of the golden orb.
With a thought, his consciousness snapped back to his body.
Could it be?
He focused his will, and the Winchester rifle in his hands vanished, reappearing in the void of the golden sphere, suspended in empty space.
Another thought, and the rifle was back in his hands.
It was a legendary storage space.
A radius of one meter meant a volume of over four cubic meters. More than enough space to hold a massive amount of supplies.
More than enough to hold all the guns and ammo from these dead men.
And so, like a farmer methodically harvesting sugarcane, stalk by stalk, Henry began to loot the dead.
"This gold-plated Elgin watch isn't bad… these two Colt M1878 double-action revolvers are nice, too—same .44-40 caliber… and this Gurkha knife is a fine piece of work."
Henry muttered to himself happily as he worked.
It took nearly an hour to finish the job. Every weapon, money pouch, and wallet he could pull from the forty-four bodies was deposited into the space. He also took miscellaneous items like cookware, dry rations, raincoats, greatcoats, and tinderboxes.
The prize was the pouch on the belt of the outlaw leader—the one who'd given him the green pearl. Inside was a thick stack of 50 and 100-dollar bills. Just by the feel of it, Henry estimated it was at least several thousand dollars.
In this era, that kind of money was staggering.
An ordinary laborer earned two or three dollars a week. A good salary was maybe ten dollars a month. A skilled professional might make five or six dollars a week.
In terms of pure gold value, one dollar in 1880 was worth about twenty-nine dollars in 2024. But factoring in inflation and the cost of goods, its actual purchasing power was closer to 100 or 150 times that.
The contents of this one pouch were worth nearly a million dollars in 2024 terms.
Henry remembered from the bounty board at the Frisco Sheriff's office that most outlaws had a price of four or five hundred dollars on their heads. Only a legendary, nationally-known bandit would fetch a bounty of three thousand or more.
This nameless outlaw leader, Henry thought, must have had a hole in his head. Who carries that much cash with them into an ambush?