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Bonus chapter! Thank you to Ele3 for the donation! ^^
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[Congratulations to player Ruan Qing for clearing the instance <Pen Spirit>, rewarded with 300 points.]
[Congratulations to the player for successfully destroying the instance <Pen Spirit>, rewarded with 2000 points.]
[Due to the player deviating from the character design, deducting points: 1300.]
[Points settlement: 1500.]
After returning to the system space, Ruan Qing did not immediately check the point settlement.
Because he felt a bit of a headache, even feeling weak and somewhat breathless.
His heart was uncomfortable, throbbing and aching.
It felt like a heart attack.
Ruan Qing absentmindedly reached out to rub his forehead, his delicate features showing a hint of paleness and fatigue.
Could this be the aftereffect of using that book?
After using the Grand Purification Technique, Ruan Qing lost consciousness and didn’t know if he successfully purified the ghost domain.
But since he was already here, so it should be a success.
Ruan Qing opened the system store, spent a hundred points to exchange for a potion to restore mental strength, and drank it directly.
But there was no improvement at all; it still felt very uncomfortable.
It seemed it was too strenuous, after all.
Ruan Qing didn’t bother to exchange for any more items; he directly spoke in his mind, ‘System, teleport me to the main city area of the game.’
The system didn’t respond; a white light flashed, and Ruan Qing appeared in the previous hotel.
Feeling an unprecedented weakness, he directly collapsed on the hotel’s bed and soon fell into a deep sleep.
Completely unaware that the game forum had exploded.
[Shocking!!! Advanced player Qi Muran died in the <Pen Spirit> instance!!!]
This headline had already soared, with an astonishing number of replies, and still many players continued to click in.
In this infinite horror game, some might not know who’s on the leaderboard, but no one didn’t know who Qi Muran was.
He was the player with the most fans in the infinite horror game.
In just three years, he had topped the fan count leaderboard.
And he also had a healing skill, cooperating with many advanced players, even those on the leaderboard had collaborated with him.
Such a person actually died in an instance?
[What exactly happened!!!? God Mu actually died!? How is this possible!? Doesn’t he always have high-level players protecting him every time he entered an instance?]
[Even without player protection, it shouldn’t be easy to die. With so many fans, just the points from rewards are enough for him to exchange for props to protect himself. It’s impossible for him to die so easily in a dungeon.]
All players felt somewhat incredulous. Qi Muran actually died in an intermediate level instance dungeon?
But players who were friends with Qi Muran could clearly see that his avatar had dimmed.
That was a status that only occurred upon death.
Once you died in this infinite horror game, your avatar darkened, as if you had gone offline.
All players knew that once the avatar darkened, it would never light up again.
The forum thread piled up with numerous replies, and finally, some players posted the recorded livestream of Qi Muran.
Although the viewing points were set quite high, most players didn’t hesitate to spend the points, clicking into the video, and commenting while watching.
[Scary, isn’t this an intermediate instance? How did the pen spirit become so powerful? It’s comparable to an advanced instance, right? Did the main game system make a mistake in the level?]
[It’s not a mistake; this instance is an advanced promotion instance. As long as you have an opportunity, you can promote it to an advanced instance.]
[But just now, I checked, and the instance stated ‘Key NPC Missing,’ indicating that the instance is under adjustment, not upgrading. If it were an advanced promotion instance, it should be upgrading, right?]
[I guess the promotion failed. It’s the first time I’ve seen a promotion failure.]
No player had ever seen such a thing. Advanced promotion instances either kept upgrading or succeeded, and there had never been a case of promotion failure.
Players became even more curious about what had happened, staring at the recorded livestream without taking their eyes off.
This livestream recording happened to be Qi Muran’s.
Presumably, a player had spent points to watch his livestream.
At the beginning of the recording, there was nothing strange, just ordinary ghosts and monsters. Although dangerous, they also provided players with a chance to escape.
It wasn’t until Qi Muran encountered a male classmate in the school infirmary that things started to get weird. He immediately faced the biggest boss of the instance, the pen spirit.
Players initially thought Qi Muran had died here.
It turned out that wasn’t the case.
He inexplicably survived.
Many times, players thought Qi Muran was about to die, only for him to survive unexpectedly.
Originally, players were watching with anxiety, but after a few times, the players became somewhat calm.
Then... Qi Muran died.
He died in a place players didn’t anticipate.
His death was extremely sudden.
A man named Qi Yunshen directly pierced him through the heart.
The screen recording ended there.
Because if the streamer died, the live stream would immediately plunge into darkness.
［Why did he die there? Did I miss something? I don’t even understand what happened.］
［What’s up with that NPC? What did he want to do in the end? What happened afterward?］
［Qi Muran really fooled me. Damn, does his healing skill not have a cooldown? I nervously waited for his cooldown time when we tackled the dungeon together, and now you’re telling me he deceived me?］
［I’m the same! I risked my life to save him, and this unscrupulous guy turns out to be faking it. I’m really frustrated!］
Many players have teamed up with Qi Muran in dungeons. Seeing the video, they felt like their previous admiration was misplaced.
Even though they thought Qi Muran was one of the few good people, reality slapped them hard.
Indeed, in this infinite horror game, nobody could be trusted.
［Well, he may have deceived people, but he did save lives. Otherwise, could those people have survived?］
［Anyway, if he hadn’t saved me initially, I definitely wouldn’t be alive now. Even if it was for his own purposes, he did genuinely save me. Now, I have one more goal: to resurrect Qi Muran.］
In the infinite horror game, danger and opportunity coexisted. As long as the points were sufficient, even resurrecting someone was not a problem.
It’s just that the required points for it had reached a terrifying number.
Many players saved by Qi Muran have joined the effort.
［Hey, don’t you find that NPC strange? Why do I feel like many people have different thoughts about him?］
[To be honest, I don’t really like his appearance. It feels quite artificial to me. However, at the moment he used the book, my emotions became somewhat complex, and there’s a feeling that I can’t quite put into words.]
It’s like happiness, so happy that tears couldn’t be held back.
Yet, it’s also like sadness.
Clearly, he had never been to this dungeon before, and it’s his first time seeing this NPC.
It’s really strange.
[To be honest, I also have that feeling. That scene made me very uncomfortable, and I constantly felt a tightness in my chest, almost like wanting to cry.]
Many players echoed this sentiment, but there were also many players who didn’t feel the same way.
[Maybe it’s influenced by that purification technique. Although it’s just a recording, everyone knows that if things in the video are too powerful, it can affect the viewers.]
[That makes sense, otherwise, it can’t be explained. I don’t know this NPC, so feeling close to it is too far-fetched.]
Other players agreed with this explanation.
Only a few players, after watching that scene, had a deep and mysterious look in their eyes.
Some were initially casual observers, but upon witnessing that scene, they froze, almost crushing their phones with the force in their hands.
Then they rewound the video to the beginning, watching it with a dark and unclear expression, not missing a single second.
Indeed, that person was a player...
The dungeon <Pen Spirit> had just ended, so it’s highly likely that he was resting somewhere in the game’s main city area.
Even though several men were in different locations, their actions were surprisingly synchronized. After tapping something on their phones, they immediately left their respective places.
The game’s main city area was said to be small, but it’s almost impossible to see any boundaries. Players were scattered throughout various parts of the main city, making it akin to finding a needle in a haystack for one person to locate another player.
It’s almost impossible.
But in this infinite horror game, points were everything.
As long as there were enough points, one could command numerous players to do their bidding.
The possibility of finding one person was indeed very low, but if it’s all the players in the game’s main city area, the likelihood of finding them within seven days was close to ninety percent.
Players were originally discussing things about Qi Muran, continuously refreshing comments and replies.
The players were brushing through the forum when they noticed several bulletin boards hanging at the top.
Any player could post on these bulletin boards, but it required spending five thousand points.
Generally, no player would be foolish enough to spend five thousand points on this.
However, this time, someone posted four of them at once.
Moreover, the content was almost identical.
All of them were tasks to find someone.
Who would be so extravagant to post four at once?
Players clicked in to take a look and found that although the content was similar, and they were all looking for the same person, they were not posted by the same individual.
Su Zhen.
Lu Rufeng.
Ji Zhiyuan.
Feng Ye.
Huh? Players paused when they saw the name Feng Ye.
Didn’t Feng Ye from the Yong’an Guild die?
[What the heck! What the heck! What the heck!!! Everyone, quickly check the bounty points! It’s a whopping 100,000 for each!]
[What!!!? 100,000!!!?]
[What the heck!!! It’s really all 100,000!!!]
The entire forum exploded, even more than when they saw the post about Qi Muran’s death. Even players who weren’t usually interested rushed to click on it.
One should know that clearing an intermediate dungeon would only give 100 points. 100,000 was on a whole different level; it’s almost the extent where many players could fulfill their desires.
And this bounty quest was different from others; there was no fear that the points wouldn’t be awarded even if the other party completed it.
Because the forum’s bounty tasks required players to first deposit the points to the main game system before they could be posted.
In other words, the person who posted these four bounties with a hundred thousand points each had already deposited the points with the game’s main system.
As long as the first person completed this bounty, the game’s main system would directly transfer the hundred thousand into the player’s account.
No, it’s four hundred thousand!
All the players went crazy, immediately putting aside all their work to find the young man mentioned in the bounty.
Whoa, I have suspions where the plot is heading to.
ReplyDeleteeven if qi muran deceived everyone, he still saved people. at least he even saved them.
ReplyDelete