Lu Qiuchen looked down. The streets of the small town below were deserted, no different from the usual curfew hours.
She considered the remoteness of this place and decided to head toward some larger cities.
After passing through the Capitals of two small countries in a row without spotting any signs of players, Lu Qiuchen decided to ask the System.
The System appeared at her call. Lu Qiuchen asked, “Why can’t I see any other players?”
“Insufficient permissions. Unable to answer. You may ask other questions.”
As expected, it was the same answer. It seemed the game company really was hiding a lot of secrets. Lu Qiuchen changed her question: “If there are no players, how am I supposed to cooperate with you to complete the main storyline?”
The System immediately replied, “Players only need to follow the task instructions. Please note, if a player commits a violation during the task, they will automatically be managed by Beta.”
‘What a crappy System! My task only tells me to go somewhere, it doesn’t even specify a time, so how am I supposed to know what counts as a violation!’ Lu Qiuchen complained inwardly.
“Will there be any rewards for cooperating with you to complete the task?” Lu Qiuchen knew there was no point complaining to the System—it was just a rigid artificial program after all. She might as well care about what benefits she could get.
“The rewards have already been distributed.” After saying this, the System Beta disappeared, and no matter how much Lu Qiuchen called, it did not reappear.
This left Lu Qiuchen both angry and speechless. Why was the System acting like it was going through menopause today? Yesterday it was all “dear player” with her, but today it couldn’t care less—what kind of attitude was this! And what right did the System have to ignore her calls? What did she ever do to it!
And what was that about rewards already being distributed? She’d turned her Talent Space upside down and hadn’t seen a thing!
Could it be sulking? Could a program even sulk? No way… It’s not even a carbon-based life form.
But Lu Qiuchen couldn’t help but have some outlandish thoughts. It really did seem possible. After all, if even something as ridiculous as transmigration could happen, then a program developing feelings might just make sense.
The more Lu Qiuchen thought about it, the more muddled her head became, so she used one of her problem-solving methods—avoidance. Enough! She’d gotten nothing solved on this trip, and only ended up with more questions in her head.
She flapped her wings, preparing to visit the locations required by the task, to see if there were any players in the continent’s center, and to try completing the task as well.
*****
In the morning, Zhang Cheng interacted with his colleagues in the Community Operations Department, and through some indirect questioning, learned that Operator 9527 from the Forum was a regular company employee—one who was highly competent, of good character, and humble, with a great reputation in the community operations team.
After learning this, Zhang Cheng didn’t probe any further. He had two reasons for this decision:
First, if the other party was exactly as they appeared, and yesterday’s answer had just been a spur-of-the-moment whim, then further investigation would be pointless.
Second, if the person was indeed hiding something, then making a big deal out of approaching them now would only backfire. Not only would it draw their attention, but it might also put himself in danger, and alert the mastermind behind the scenes, making future investigations even more difficult.
It seemed the investigation should still focus on the game itself. If there really was some conspiracy in the company, he just needed to pay more attention to the posts from that player on the Forum.
Acting as if it had been a casual chat, Zhang Cheng left and returned to his workstation.
After finishing a day’s work, Zhang Cheng declined his colleagues’ invitation to a get-together and hurried home.
After a quick dinner, Zhang Cheng entered the game.
Seeing that his in-game status was the same as when he logged off—no burly men surrounding him—Zhang Cheng let out a small sigh of relief.
He glanced at the Level Leaderboard. The top ten were already level 24, but he was still at level 16. Taking a deep breath, he resolved to grind hard today and hopefully change classes by tomorrow!
Thinking of his level, Zhang Cheng remembered he still hadn’t checked his level 15 skill or the Purple Loot he happened to grab yesterday. He opened his Inventory, and a ring with a shining purple border appeared before him.
Lucky Ring: Luck +2.
Item description: Wearing this slightly increases the chance of good things happening!
Seeing this luck attribute, Zhang Cheng opened his character panel to look for it, but couldn’t find any luck stat listed there.
A bit puzzled, Zhang Cheng opened the game’s built-in Forum and searched for information about the luck attribute.
In a post introducing hidden attributes, Zhang Cheng found a description about luck:
Luck attribute: currently extremely rare, initial value unknown, effects and scope unknown. Currently speculated to be related to the probability of triggering rare or special quests, pending verification. More information to be added.
Zhang Cheng was speechless—this told him basically nothing. Still, the ring was at least purple-quality gear, and its description didn’t mention any negative effects, so he might as well wear it and see. If it actually worked, that would be a real bonus.
He also looked at information about other hidden attributes and found that the game had quite a few. Besides luck, there were also hidden stats like endurance, mental strength, and willpower. These attributes were basically unchangeable by players, so a ring that boosted luck really was very rare.
Speaking of which, the game’s quest system was pretty strange, too. Other games always threw the main storyline at players right away, stuffing their playtime full of quests.
But in “Eternity,” there were no classes or quests before level 20. Players had to grind on monsters to level up, and all quests needed to be triggered, which was extremely unfriendly to lazy players!
Maybe the company wanted a more realistic experience, so they had to sacrifice some traditional gameplay?
He remembered overhearing colleagues say that the main quest in this game had to be triggered by players, and once someone triggered it, the whole server could join in. There were even massive world boss battles where everyone gathered. Other side quests and hidden quests had similar trigger rules as the main storyline.
Zhang Cheng shook his head to clear these thoughts. Why worry about all that now? His main goal was still to find Lu Qiuchen!
Walking down the street, Zhang Cheng searched the Forum for nearby Leveling Areas. He needed to find a high-level Dungeon. After “accidentally” stealing someone’s boss kill at dawn, if they were still camping there for revenge, running into them would be a headache.
Found it! 10KM north of Knight City, a level 15–30 Dungeon: Deep Spider Cavern! Wait a minute, spiders again? Does Knight Nation have something against spiders?
Suppressing the urge to complain, Zhang Cheng quickly walked to the stables at the north city gate, paid 5 silver to rent a horse, and mounted up for the destination.
The map in “Eternity” was huge and teleportation fees between cities were very expensive, making travel much less convenient than in traditional games. Still, players put up with it for the beautiful scenery and realism. Plus, once a Dungeon was unlocked, you could teleport there directly in the future—a very player-friendly feature.
As for Private Mounts, “Eternity” certainly had them, and every player had a Mount Storage. The storage didn’t care about the mount’s size, only the number: each player was limited to one Private Mount and one temporary mount. Any extras had to be released.
But since players were still in the newbie phase, they didn’t have the chance or strength to catch those cool-looking mounts. Buying a horse from the stables was expensive, and all the ordinary horses were monopolized by ranches and stables. Wild horses were extremely rare, so most players chose to rent horses for travel.
As for why Zhang Cheng could ride, it was because players automatically acquired the Riding skill at level 1 as soon as they mounted up, and could level it up by spending more time riding.
Knights had an extra advantage here—their Riding skill was automatically upgraded to Riding Mastery. Without any player input, the System would calm the mount and make it more responsive, providing a much better riding experience.
Zhang Cheng soon arrived at the Dungeon entrance. Looking at the familiar cave mouth, he was at a loss for words. After storing his rented horse in the temporary space, he stepped inside.
Same old formula, same old visuals—the Dungeon was just a brighter version of the previous dark cave, with some minor tweaks to the spiders’ appearance.
Zhang Cheng was speechless at this lazy design. He thought of those popular memes from recent years—he felt just like the people in those memes, whacking different-colored crawfish with the same stick.
Charge! Leveling up was the most important! Zhang Cheng swung his Greatsword at the spider in front of him. With one strike, he emptied the little monster’s HP bar. Zhang Cheng was startled—when did he get this strong?!
Then he remembered his level 15 skill. He opened the menu and, sure enough, it was the cause!
It was a passive skill called Knight Sword Mastery. When wielding a one-handed weapon and shield, a Knight’s attack and defense increased; when wielding a Greatsword, attack power increased significantly.
After a round of fighting, Zhang Cheng found that the outermost level 15 spiders posed no pressure at all, so he gripped his sword and advanced deeper into the cave.
With just one swing needed to kill a spider, Zhang Cheng’s leveling speed was amazing. He soon reached the level 20 spider area, and leveled up to 17.
After another two hours of hard fighting in the area, he reached level 18. Slaying the spider before him, Zhang Cheng plopped down on the ground without caring about his surroundings, gulping for air.
Thinking of the massive experience gain from killing the boss yesterday, Zhang Cheng was a bit dissatisfied with his current leveling speed. But what could he do? Yesterday’s luck was a one-off, and as a solo player, even if he ran into a boss, he couldn’t beat it alone. Better to just grind monsters here honestly.
Just as his stamina recovered, a new wave of monsters spawned in front of him. Zhang Cheng raised his Greatsword to fight, but at that moment, he heard footsteps coming from the distance.