“Already have them?” Xia Li asked in confusion.
“That’s right, look at the chest of your uniform.”
“Uniform?” Xia Li hurriedly removed her armor, revealing the sailor-style female middle-school-student uniform underneath—on the chest of the uniform was affixed a school badge that looked like a coin.
Although she had not paid attention when putting it on earlier, upon closer inspection one would discover that this was a gold coin printed with the pattern of a goddess holding a lily.
Moreover, with only a little force, it could be separated from the school badge.
“This gold coin is the only currency this gacha machine can accept. After inserting the coin, turn the key clockwise one full circle, and you can obtain a capsule,” Xushinige explained to the newcomers present, “The number of capsules is related to the player’s level number, but everyone has them!”
“Mm, should I say as expected of a Game? There is actually even a level setting…” Xia Li softly muttered to herself.
“That is of course.” Weeping of the Shadow, which she had rewrapped in tattered cloth and carried on her back, said, “As far as I know, in this kind of Game, the number of times of participation, killing enemies, solving puzzles, and even purely drawing special events from lottery can all be converted into experience points. The higher the experience points, the more various privileges… obtaining Game rewards through means such as gacha and lottery is also one kind of privilege.”
“In other words, I can also later…”
“Very sorry, the brand on your body had another name in the past: the Cheating Mark—although people of the present already no longer remember, a thousand years ago it was actually branded on the faces of players who had long-term cheated.” The black sword supplemented, “This kind of mark, unless one obtains forgiveness or pardon, will produce many debuffs. For example, starting from Level 1, the experience accumulation rate is one-fifth that of a normal player, and the luck value is fixed at the lowest. When special events occur, the hostility of the NPCs attracted is also the highest.”
“What the hell—doesn’t this mean…” Xia Li subconsciously touched the blood-red eight-pointed star mark covered by medicinal plaster.
“Don’t worry, with this great precious sword here, even in such a desperate situation, it is not impossible to turn the tables!” Weeping of the Shadow said with conviction, “The specific method is exploiting bugs.”
“How to exploit them?”
“This… you will know later.”
While the one person and one sword were conversing, under Xushinige’s arrangement, everyone had already begun successively walking forward, inserting the gold coins from their school uniforms into the coin slot, then turning the key.
The black-haired young girl who went up first, after completing this, immediately had her level, experience points, and luck value displayed on the screen installed on the gacha machine.
And a light-red sphere written with “R” immediately dropped out from the capsule outlet.
“Luck is not bad; it is Rare rank.” Xushinige nodded, “Please open it.”
The young girl took a deep breath full of hope, then opened the capsule.
Inside was a plastic stick written with characters.
“What is this… uh… one Pole-30MK2 type energy pistol.”
The moment the young girl finished reading the characters on the plastic stick, this stick suddenly turned into a wriggling ball of light, then further turned into a small black-and-white colored pistol.
Although it looked a bit like a toy, after she test-fired one shot at an old violin, that violin, together with a large piece of pure wooden floor around it, was actually directly turned into charcoal mixed with molten metal!
“Oh good fellow.” Weeping of the Shadow muttered, “The Pole series energy pistols, these were big fellows specially used in the past by special forces to assassinate targets possessing heavy personal protective devices. Production has already been stopped for over a thousand years; no wonder it is classified as R rank.”
“Is this rank very high?”
“Correct. In this kind of Game, whether it is gacha, card drawing, lottery, or slot machines, the probability of prizes appearing is the same. The lowest rank is ‘L’ (Low), probability 20%, mostly miscellaneous items of comedy level; drawing them one can only accept bad luck. Then is ‘N’ (Normal) with probability 60%—this is the most common and also practical, possibly precious metal currencies such as gold and silver, gemstone jewelry, safe food, finely crafted daily utensils, or standardized-production conventional weapons. After that is ‘R’ (Rare), better quality, but probability only 15%; this pistol counts as rather good among the ‘R’ rank.”
“15%? Not low either.”
“Further up are the two ranks of ‘SR’ and ‘SSR,’” after the second person went forward, Weeping of the Shadow continued speaking—the latter unluckily twisted out an “L” rank, the prize being a pack of toilet paper with a muscular strongman-shaped eraser attached as a gift, which could probably sell for five yuan at a flea market; the third person twisted an “N,” obtaining a box of twenty packs of high-grade nutritional food, “The probabilities of these two ranks are respectively 4% and a mere 0.99%; the former is an upgraded version of ‘R’ rank, while the latter has a qualitative change.”
“Qualitative change?”
“Yes. ‘SSR’ rank, or rather ‘Super Rare’ rank, is already not limited to providing materials. It may directly raise the player’s experience level, bestow spell skills upon the player—and ones that can be used even outside the Game. In addition, equipment possessing intelligence and consciousness occasionally also appears in ‘SSR’ rank… for example, me.”
“Fuck, after all that, you actually came out of a gacha?!”
“Uh… one cannot say it that way. I only, after being sold by my original master, after several twists and turns arrived at Elysia, then was bought by the Game operators. Although I myself strongly requested to join the ‘UR,’ that is, ‘Ultra Rare’ category, those fellows who do not know quality said something about me ‘talking too much nonsense,’ and in the end only gave me an ‘SSR.’”
“Hmph, I think this has no problem.” Xia Li coldly snorted.
“Mm… in short, the final rank is ‘UR,’ probability only 0.01%. The things that may be obtained at this rank are extremely unique.”
“What are they?” Xia Li grew curious—after all, a probability of one in ten thousand, no matter how one looked at it, was far too low.
“Servants.” Weeping of the Shadow said, “In short, they are similar to the pitchfork pumpkin heads and axe mummies we bumped into earlier, Game NPCs. However, half of them are flesh-and-blood humans manufactured by biotechnology and bestowed with fictional memories and artificial consciousness… usually related to personal background settings.”
“Ha? Then the other half?”
“The other half are ‘Summon Cards’… in short, under the condition that the other party agrees, permanently turning other Game players into ‘Servants’; the latter will obtain corresponding abilities and skills—of course, most of the time this kind of card is used by the one who draws it as their own upgrade item, mainly because all ‘Servants’ will absolutely be loyal to their master. Aside from hopeless masochists, few people like to go and be loyal to others.”
“Mm, is that so…”
“However, although the differences between different Servants are extremely huge, as long as it is UR rank, then it necessarily has its own different outstanding points, each with its own unique moves, combat techniques, and endurance…”
“This is not important; the key lies in, what exactly is the specific way to exploit the bug you mentioned?” As one person after another completed the gacha, the line in front of Xia Li and Lunene continuously shrank.
Because almost all were newcomers, aside from Xushinige drawing five times and his two assistants drawing three times each, only one other rabbit-eared loli drew twice; everyone else had only one time.
And the vast majority of what was drawn out were N-rank food, clothing, tools, as well as a small number of weapons and equipment.
Of course, because in this school aside from the clean tap water from the water tower there was almost no other supplies, these N-rank materials could be considered extremely useful at present.
Xushinige’s two assistants quickly distributed the drawn materials to everyone and collected a small number of weapons—the reason being that their “power was too great, and holding them was very dangerous for newcomers.”
However, at least in Xia Li’s view, the power of these things was not particularly great… after all, aside from a countable few R ranks, most people drew only N-rank and L-rank capsules; as for SR and SSR ranks there was not even one, let alone UR.
The energy pistol from the beginning was already the best piece of equipment.
“Mm… I really am a bit nervous…” The Lunene who was pursing her little cat mouth stood in front of Xia Li, becoming the second-to-last person to participate in the gacha, and the stick inside the capsule she obtained was actually an SR!
“Capybara Angel Body Pillow, Purpose: After hugging it and adopting a lying posture, one can fall asleep within thirty seconds and obtain full rest within thirty minutes, the effect equivalent to eight hours of high-quality sleep (Note: This product is extremely sturdy and cannot be destroyed by ordinary means)… eh?” The moment Lunene finished reading the text above, the plastic stick turned into a cartoon capybara body pillow with a size similar to her height and a pair of cute little wings.
Although they were in the midst of a Death Game surrounded by demons and monsters, after seeing Lunene draw this kind of prize, quite a few people still could not help laughing.
However, Xushinige did not laugh, but instead patted Lunene’s shoulder: “Congratulations, fortunate Miss. In adventure, the ability to quickly sleep and recover energy can be said to be a priceless treasure! May this body pillow become an important aid on your future adventure journey!”
“Is that so… meow-hehe… then that’s great…” Lunene laughed foolishly while taking the body pillow and retreating to the side.
In this way, the only one who had not yet received rewards was Xia Li alone.
“Very good, it’s your turn.” Weeping of the Shadow said, “Now, let you take a look at what is called a surprise!”
The instant Xia Li’s hand touched the gacha machine, she felt a kind of energy fluctuation difficult to describe with language spread out from the black sword carried on her back.
Then, as the key was turned a full circle, a red capsule dropped out from inside.
The letter representing the rank on it was… L.