Chapter 15 - Reality (2)
Why is it another cursed item?!
When he heard that the consolation prize was actually another cursed item, Cheng Zhi Chus heart went cold. He felt that he probably wont be able to live until the next instance.
At the same time, he heard a sudden clink in the bus as it waited at a red light. It sounded like something metallic had fallen onto the floor. Because the inside of the bus was so quiet, the sound was pretty loud.
A few passengers subconsciously looked down at their feet. One of them was quick to notice that there was something small sitting on the floor in the aisle. He pointed to it and asked out loud: Whose ring is it?
Cheng Zhi Chu looked over in that direction and saw that there was indeed a small ring lying on the foor. Under the dim interior lighting of the bus, he couldnt see it clearly and could only faintly make out that the ring is silver and covered in a layer of something that he couldnt make out.
The ring looked very simple, but with one glance, Cheng Zhi Chu could feel his heart become inexplicably cold. From the soles of his feet, he felt a chill run through him, and he instantly knew that it was the so-called consolation prize of his.
He felt uncomfortable inside and didnt dare to go pick the ring up. The other passengers similarly didnt go to pick it up so the person who pointed it out could only move to get up and pick the ring up himself. Cheng Zhi Chu naturally didnt want to watch an innocent bystander be put in dangers way because of him so he could only toughen himself up and go pick the ring up himself. He smiled apologetically at the passenger: Sorry about that, that ring is mine.
Vroom
The bus started moving again and Cheng Zhi Chu returned to his original seat. His hand holding onto the ring trembled and even his palms became sweaty.
He feared that he would be killed by the cursed item. After all, the atmosphere in this nearly empty bus in the middle of the night was already much like a horror movie. But after a few minutes nothing had happened so he gathered his courage and proceeded to check the rings properties.
Item Name: Blood-stained Ring.]
Item Type: Cursed Item.]
Description: A silver ring. It was specially customised by the original owner for the person he secretly loved. The initials of his object of affection is engraved inside the ring but before he had the chance to give it, the owner was met with a terrible accident and disappeared leaving behind this ring that is stained with his blood.]
Danger Level: Unknown]
Practical Level: D]
Effect: After wearing, the ring will heat up to remind the wearer when there is a ghost or monster within 5 meters from them.]
Side Effects: It may cause the holder to have some form of mistaken identity or relationship with the ghost or monster such as becoming its past lover, relative, enemy or any other possible relationships.]
Note: Bounded item. The holder cannot discard, trade or transfer it to others.]
At least it wasnt a cursed item that would directly kill.
After confirming this, Cheng Zhi Chu was able to breath a sigh of relief but then he soon realised that something wasnt right.
This chapter upload first at NovelUsb.Com
The Danger Level is unknown. This would mean that its Danger Level would change with the instance that he is in. As noted in the rings description, if his identity in an instance happens to be the Bosss enemy, then his outcome would be extremely terrible. At that time, it probably wont be as simple as just getting killed.
Also, the Practical Level is D, the worst level. This is simply a garbage cursed item. How can he be so unlucky?!
Cheng Zhi Chu stared at the dirty ring with a bitter expression. He randomly turned the ring around and suddenly saw something engraved inside the ring. It should be the initials mentioned earlier in the rings description.
Since he cannot get rid of it, Cheng Zhi Chu decided to lift the ring up and carefully examine it. As expected, the inside of the ring is engraved with letters. In total, there are three but the last one was covered by blood and couldnt be made out. As for the two letters at the front..
C and Z
When Cheng Zhi Chu managed to decipher what the first two letters are, a thought couldnt help but flash through his mind What a coincidence. How could the first two initials be the same as his? If the last one is a C, then it would be exactly the same as his.Wait. He shouldnt think nonsense like this, lest he raises a flag for himself.
He quickly threw away the thought and stored the ring inside his backpack. At this moment the bus had reached his stop and he proceeded to grab his bag and hurry off. He then headed straight for home.
Cheng Zhi Chu had already notified his family in advance and told them that he would come back tonight. His family is an ordinary family; his parents are white-collar workers and his sister is in her first year of high school. Although they are ordinary, they are happy. Although it may seem like he is just being attached, he actually loves his family very much.
Like this, Cheng Zhi Chu spent his weekend at home. Over the two days, he acted particularly good. He would rush to do the housework, he was no longer picky with his food, he tried not to squabble too much with his little sister, and he would even go out for a run early in the morning. All these actions of his made his family look at him with suspicion. He even overheard his parents discussing whether or not he was possessed or if he had done some something bad at school.
Cheng Zhi Chu: .. Is it wrong for him to be filial..
In addition to getting along with his family and running, Cheng Zhi Chu placed all of his remaining energy on the forum studying various strategy guides.
Of course, he would also chat with Bai Yi a few times during this time. Although he didnt know what was happening, Bai Yi seemed to always be free. Every message that he sent would be responded within seconds and it didnt seem at all like he was stuck inside a life-threatening instance.
He struggled for a moment and eventually concluded that Bai Yi was probably just too powerful and that he didnt hold onto the wrong thigh so he shouldnt think too much into it.
After surfing through the forums for two days, Cheng Zhi Chu who has difficulty making decisions finally decided on how he should spend the remaining 1100 survival points.
Of them, 700 would be used to level up his Clue Prompt skill to the second level so that he would at least be able to find the clues even in hard difficulty instances instead of running around like a headless chicken.
However, there are six levels of difficulty in the Infinite Escape instances. They are respectively, easy, normal, hard, expert, madness and extreme. The further you progressed, the more survival skill points you would need to upgrade your skills. To upgrade it until the highest level it would take a very long time.
As for the remaining 300 points, he used it to buy a bottle of low levelled luck potion and two bottles of blood tonics. The strategy guides had specifically mentioned that Luck is a very important attribute that would help players with finding clues in an instance more easily or help them out when theyre in a crisis.
After learning that there is something like a luck potion, Cheng Zhi Chu was filled with regrets. If only he had seen this post earlier, he would have definitely bought a bottle of it before he went for the lottery. This way he wouldnt be unlucky to the point that he picked up that cursed ring!
At this point, Cheng Zhi Chu only had 100 survival points remaining. It was kept for him to use to surf the locked strategy posts or in cases of emergency. As for his ability of text interpretation, he didnt have any survival points left to upgrade it so he could only temporarily put it to one side.
And so, his own properties had undergone a considerable change.
Player ID: Cheng Zhi Chu
Game Mode: Reality Mode
Level: 7
Blood: 120
Physical Strength: 40
Survival Point: 100
Ability: 1 [View Details]
Skills: 2 [View Details]
Cursed Items: 2 [View Details]
Weapons: 0 [Weapon Fragments x0]
Cards: 0
Items: Boss Photox1 [Bounded], Flashlight x1, Low level blood tonic x3, Joshuas Necklace, Blood-stained Ring, Low level luck potion x1
Bag Space: 7
Rating: D, the weakest of the weak.
Comment: Garbage. To be able to be bound with system K29 is the luckiest thing that would ever happen in your life. You should treat it well.]
Cheng Zhi Chu: [Say, can you hide the comment? Its very irking to see.]
System: No. This is to keep you alert and self-aware but if you dont like it, I can help change it.]
After it said this, it didnt wait for Cheng Zhi Chus consent and proceeded to change the comment.
Comment: Garbage gay. To be able to be bound with a cute system like K29 is the luckiest thing that would ever happen in your life. But remember, dont fall in love with it.]
Cheng Zhi Chu: .
Get lost. Even the original comment was better than this. Also, even if he is a gay, he wont fall in love with this dog system!
He was so angry, his insides writhed around but he knew that if he continued to argue with the system, he would change the comments into something even more unsightly. He could only swallow back his words and open the Boss Photobook up to check what the next possible instance could be.
As the photobook slowly opened, Qin Ji and Joshuas faces once again appeared before his eyes. They both smiled at him and their lines of sight followed every movement he made. Cheng Zhi Chu was scared to the point that his face went ghostly pale and he immediately turned the page over. It took a long time for him to be able to calm down from that initial scare.
Why does he have to suffer this kind of fate..
Cheng Zhi Chu cried without tears. He pitifully flipped through the remaining photos that had not been cleared until he finally found a level 8 instance with hard difficulty called Abandoned Hospital that seemed suitable for his current level. He logged onto the forum and proceeded to search for strategy guides for this instance.
Infinite Escape is extremely rich in instances to the point that it was difficult to even make a rough estimate but there was also a large number of players. In order to earn survival points by posting posts, everyone desperately shared their own strategy guides. After several years, the posts had accumulated to a considerable amount.
Of course, there is also a problem with this and that is, fraudulent acts. Players could not confirm whether the post is true or not so they would generally just choose to read the guides posted by the more famous players. If you encountered an unpopular instance that had no posts from famous players, you could only look at ordinary posts and consider yourself unlucky if you were cheated.
Most players however wouldnt lie. After all, writing up a fake strategy guide would likely lead other people to their deaths so most people wouldnt have the conscience to do that. But when Cheng Zhi Chu surfed through the guides, he still didnt dare to completely believe in the contents and would treat it with some doubt.
Unfortunately, there were no strategy guides available for Abandoned Hospital. Cheng Zhi Chi felt a little disappointed, but he then suddenly wondered if there are any strategy guides for Midnight Mansion.
There really wasnt any! His search results came out blank and this led to Cheng Zhi Chus eyes brightening up. If so, he can post the strategy guide and earn survival points from it!
He immediately typed like he was injected with chicken blood. Unfortunately, the content that he could write was limited as the system would review it to ensure that the contents of the instance isnt overly exposed.
Cheng Zhi Chu wrote about where some of the important items are located, the skills that are needed and even hinted on the existence of a very dangerous item which was Joshuas Necklace. But cursed items are all unique so after he had taken it out of the instance, the latter players would only encounter a dangerous instance prop when they touch the necklace and they wont get the cursed item.
After confirming that there were no mistakes, Cheng Zhi Chu submitted the post. The price for viewing the post was set at 1 survival point.
This price was extremely cheap. After writing for more than half an hour, he had gradually calmed down and understood that if a newcomer like him who does not have a reputation were to set the price to high, players definitely wouldnt read it.
And even if it is cheap, there wont be just a few people reading it. After all, there are so many instances, and no one would know when they would enter this instance.
He treated it like he was fishing and just leaving some bait first. If he became famous in the future, maybe he would be able earn some survival points off it.
But it seemed like Bai Yi didnt write a post. Thats true, hes currently in Death Mode so he probably didnt have the time to do it.
Cheng Zhi Chu rubbed his chin and thought that if he wanted to team up with Bai Yi for a long time, he shouldnt take advantage of him. If he took all the rewards from this post, then Bai Yi would be disadvantaged. After all, they had cleared the instance together.
Brrr-
Just as he was deep in thought, his phone suddenly vibrated. It was a notification telling him that he had received a new message on the forum. He had thought that it might just be a systems notification or something but when he picked it up and checked, he found himself stunned. In an instant, he sat up from his bed. Because he had done so with too much force, he almost fell from his bed.
[Your post Midnight Mansion Strategy Guide received a new reply.]
[2nd Floor: Winter Branch]
[What an interesting instance.]
***
Bai Yis Diary (Part 15)
Whats Zhi Chu doing? He hasnt sent me a message for the past 1 minute and 30 seconds.
If I cant see Zhi Chu, I dont want to do anything. Just want to wait for him to reply to me.