Bonus chapter! Thank you to Ele3 for the donation! ^^
***
Ruan Qing lightly laughed with a hint of meaning, ‘Two instances, at least I should be given two items.’
System: [None.]
The system seemed helpless too. It had never seen the ‘Eye of the Demon,’ and even this ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ was something it had just negotiated to retrieve from the main system.
The main system of clearly wouldn’t return the ‘Eye of the Demon’ to the players.
Ruan Qing didn’t seem to be fixated on the absence of one item. Instead, he asked, ‘Is the ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ obtained by killing Wang Qing?’
[Yes.]
The system immediately provided the information about the ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ to Ruan Qing.
[Item: Illusion Soul Bell (A-grade item).
Function: Allows entry into another person’s body.
Limitation: The higher the target’s mental strength, the shorter the entry time. If it’s more than ten times higher, entry would fail.
Uses: 0/3 (Note: Only one use per instance).]
Entering another person’s body?
As the exchange between Ruan Qing and the system occurred in his mind, the female player was unaware, continuing her explanation, “You can check these on the player forums. There are many strategies there, and they can be quite useful.”
“But when reading, be sure to discern whether the information is genuine, as not every player has good intentions.”
Ruan Qing looked at the female player. “Has something similar happened before?”
The female player nodded. “Yes, there was an incident where a player posted misleading information on the forums, leading to a wipeout of players.”
However, she didn’t specify the details, and Ruan Qing didn’t ask further. After all, he could investigate these things on his own.
The two had been exploring for a while, gaining a basic understanding of important things in the game’s main city area.
Ruan Qing was feeling a bit tired, so the two of them casually found a place to eat and sat down. Ruan Qing then took out his phone and, under the guidance of the female player, registered an account and logged into the player-exclusive forum.
Seeing Ruan Qing’s serious expression as he read, the female player didn’t disturb him. After logging into the forum, Ruan Qing quickly browsed through the posts.
There were several pinned player guides, and the thread count was relatively high. Ruan Qing directly clicked on one.
Mostly, the posts covered common knowledge questions and advice for newcomers. Some even emphasized not trusting other players too much. Not every dungeon was a cooperative situation; some players were naturally in opposition to each other. Some players even sacrificed others to gain power.
Additionally, dungeon side quests were randomly refreshed and varied in difficulty. Without clear information, players might mistakenly become targets for other players.
Ruan Qing searched for side quests. They weren’t available in every dungeon and generally refreshed on the second day inside the dungeon with randomized difficulty.
After learning about side quests, Ruan Qing paused and directly searched for livestreams.
The situation in the livestreams was not vastly different from what the system had told him. Players earned points mainly through audience donations. They could also upload their livestream videos to the forum, but uploading required five hundred points, and the higher the dungeon level, the more points were needed.
If the video had value and attracted many viewers, it could pay off. However, if there were few viewers, the points spent would be wasted. Therefore, most players wouldn’t risk uploading their dungeon videos casually.
Ruan Qing scrolled through the videos and noticed that the advanced players mentioned in the forum mostly didn’t livestream. Livestreaming could earn a considerable amount of points through audience donations, but advanced players seemed indifferent to accumulating such points. Was it because they already had enough points?
As Ruan Qing appeared contemplative, the system that was probably feeling guilty, spoke, [As long as you don’t open a live stream room, the main system won’t be able to monitor your thoughts.]
In other words, as long as he didn’t open one, he would be fine.
Ruan Qing paused for a moment and casually said, ‘What about you? You can also monitor me, right? Whether it’s my heartbeat or my thoughts.’
The system remained silent for a few seconds before responding, [Whether you believe it or not, I have never monitored you.]
Ruan Qing didn’t confirm or deny the system’s statement and continued to browse the game forum.
After watching several popular videos, Ruan Qing searched for the dungeon he had just completed, <Bloody Love>.
Originally, Ruan Qing didn’t have high hopes, but surprisingly, there were players who had uploaded videos.
Compared to him always maintaining his persona, players were much more straightforward in their investigations.
Although they didn’t find anything significant, they focused on Ning Mufeng, suspecting him, even wondering why they didn’t know how the instance was completed.
Players had noticed something was off with ‘Huayue’, so they all investigated ‘Huayue’.
That’s why they came with the manager and Chu Yi.
When they arrived, they only saw him and Ning Mufeng falling off the building and naturally didn’t know what had happened.
Players watching on the forum were confused.
[How did they complete the level inexplicably? I’m a bit lost. I didn’t understand anything. Is there something wrong with my IQ?]
[The culprit must be Ning Mufeng, right? The completion prompt showed up when he was killed.]
[Are you seriously watching? Two players submitted his name as their answers when the bridge exploded. Ning Mufeng is obviously not the culprit, okay!]
[Then the culprit can only be Wang Qing, right? At the end, they both died.]
[How is it possible that it’s Wang Qing!? The culprit tried to kill him twice already. Did the culprit kill himself?]
[Maybe he’s just pretending to be a victim!]
[His foot was injured like that the first time he survived because someone pushed him away. How could he predict the second time and arrange for that truck to come in advance? I don’t think it’s possible for it to be Wang Qing.]
[That does make sense.]
Ruan Qing looked at many players confidently excluding Wang Qing and fell into silence.
How should he put it? The two words <Bloody Love> were, in fact, a kind of hint for the instance.
Although Ruan Qing had also suspected Ning Mufeng, he was merely exploring that possibility.
If Ning Mufeng was really the culprit, there would be a particularly obvious problem.
The clearance rate would be too high.
Just any player trying it out could easily pass and earn a substantial amount of points.
Obviously, this was unlikely.
The main game system was never that benevolent; there were no easy answers in any of these four instances.
The difficulty of this instance was actually quite high.
Bonus chapter! Thank you to Ele3 for the donation! ^^
***
Ruan Qing lightly laughed with a hint of meaning, ‘Two instances, at least I should be given two items.’
System: [None.]
The system seemed helpless too. It had never seen the ‘Eye of the Demon,’ and even this ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ was something it had just negotiated to retrieve from the main system.
The main system of clearly wouldn’t return the ‘Eye of the Demon’ to the players.
Ruan Qing didn’t seem to be fixated on the absence of one item. Instead, he asked, ‘Is the ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ obtained by killing Wang Qing?’
[Yes.]
The system immediately provided the information about the ‘Illusion Soul Bell’ to Ruan Qing.
[Item: Illusion Soul Bell (A-grade item).
Function: Allows entry into another person’s body.
Limitation: The higher the target’s mental strength, the shorter the entry time. If it’s more than ten times higher, entry would fail.
Uses: 0/3 (Note: Only one use per instance).]
Entering another person’s body?
As the exchange between Ruan Qing and the system occurred in his mind, the female player was unaware, continuing her explanation, “You can check these on the player forums. There are many strategies there, and they can be quite useful.”
“But when reading, be sure to discern whether the information is genuine, as not every player has good intentions.”
Ruan Qing looked at the female player. “Has something similar happened before?”
The female player nodded. “Yes, there was an incident where a player posted misleading information on the forums, leading to a wipeout of players.”
However, she didn’t specify the details, and Ruan Qing didn’t ask further. After all, he could investigate these things on his own.
The two had been exploring for a while, gaining a basic understanding of important things in the game’s main city area.
Ruan Qing was feeling a bit tired, so the two of them casually found a place to eat and sat down. Ruan Qing then took out his phone and, under the guidance of the female player, registered an account and logged into the player-exclusive forum.
Seeing Ruan Qing’s serious expression as he read, the female player didn’t disturb him. After logging into the forum, Ruan Qing quickly browsed through the posts.
There were several pinned player guides, and the thread count was relatively high. Ruan Qing directly clicked on one.
Mostly, the posts covered common knowledge questions and advice for newcomers. Some even emphasized not trusting other players too much. Not every dungeon was a cooperative situation; some players were naturally in opposition to each other. Some players even sacrificed others to gain power.
Additionally, dungeon side quests were randomly refreshed and varied in difficulty. Without clear information, players might mistakenly become targets for other players.
Ruan Qing searched for side quests. They weren’t available in every dungeon and generally refreshed on the second day inside the dungeon with randomized difficulty.
After learning about side quests, Ruan Qing paused and directly searched for livestreams.
The situation in the livestreams was not vastly different from what the system had told him. Players earned points mainly through audience donations. They could also upload their livestream videos to the forum, but uploading required five hundred points, and the higher the dungeon level, the more points were needed.
If the video had value and attracted many viewers, it could pay off. However, if there were few viewers, the points spent would be wasted. Therefore, most players wouldn’t risk uploading their dungeon videos casually.
Ruan Qing scrolled through the videos and noticed that the advanced players mentioned in the forum mostly didn’t livestream. Livestreaming could earn a considerable amount of points through audience donations, but advanced players seemed indifferent to accumulating such points. Was it because they already had enough points?
As Ruan Qing appeared contemplative, the system that was probably feeling guilty, spoke, [As long as you don’t open a live stream room, the main system won’t be able to monitor your thoughts.]
In other words, as long as he didn’t open one, he would be fine.
Ruan Qing paused for a moment and casually said, ‘What about you? You can also monitor me, right? Whether it’s my heartbeat or my thoughts.’
The system remained silent for a few seconds before responding, [Whether you believe it or not, I have never monitored you.]
Ruan Qing didn’t confirm or deny the system’s statement and continued to browse the game forum.
After watching several popular videos, Ruan Qing searched for the dungeon he had just completed, <Bloody Love>.
Originally, Ruan Qing didn’t have high hopes, but surprisingly, there were players who had uploaded videos.
Compared to him always maintaining his persona, players were much more straightforward in their investigations.
Although they didn’t find anything significant, they focused on Ning Mufeng, suspecting him, even wondering why they didn’t know how the instance was completed.
Players had noticed something was off with ‘Huayue’, so they all investigated ‘Huayue’.
That’s why they came with the manager and Chu Yi.
When they arrived, they only saw him and Ning Mufeng falling off the building and naturally didn’t know what had happened.
Players watching on the forum were confused.
[How did they complete the level inexplicably? I’m a bit lost. I didn’t understand anything. Is there something wrong with my IQ?]
[The culprit must be Ning Mufeng, right? The completion prompt showed up when he was killed.]
[Are you seriously watching? Two players submitted his name as their answers when the bridge exploded. Ning Mufeng is obviously not the culprit, okay!]
[Then the culprit can only be Wang Qing, right? At the end, they both died.]
[How is it possible that it’s Wang Qing!? The culprit tried to kill him twice already. Did the culprit kill himself?]
[Maybe he’s just pretending to be a victim!]
[His foot was injured like that the first time he survived because someone pushed him away. How could he predict the second time and arrange for that truck to come in advance? I don’t think it’s possible for it to be Wang Qing.]
[That does make sense.]
Ruan Qing looked at many players confidently excluding Wang Qing and fell into silence.
How should he put it? The two words <Bloody Love> were, in fact, a kind of hint for the instance.
Although Ruan Qing had also suspected Ning Mufeng, he was merely exploring that possibility.
If Ning Mufeng was really the culprit, there would be a particularly obvious problem.
The clearance rate would be too high.
Just any player trying it out could easily pass and earn a substantial amount of points.
Obviously, this was unlikely.
The main game system was never that benevolent; there were no easy answers in any of these four instances.
The difficulty of this instance was actually quite high.
