Update Time: 2014-02-15
"You! What did you do, Youxi?!" Lin Zheng stared at Youxi in shock. He was stunned because Youxi seemed to have frozen the entire boss room. The whole room was a grayish-white, and the boss was still roaring with its mouth wide open, but it was now motionless like a statue!
"Section Lock. This is a method to prevent anomalous life forms from escaping!" Youxi replied, her tone devoid of emotion, yet it made Lin Zheng's mouth drop open in surprise. "GM? Are you a GM?" Lin Zheng pressed, "Only a GM could control the game! But does this game even have GMs?"
Youxi shook her head and said, "I am a Network Surveillance Administrator. Although I have an agreement with this game's Central Intelligence, I am not a GM!"
"No way! Is your chuunibyou-like profession actually real?" Lin Zheng was very surprised! Extremely surprised! He remembered Youxi's introduction; at the time, he thought Youxi had chuunibyou, but the current situation indicated that what she said seemed to be true! Lin Zheng was dizzy. What kind of situation was this? An Atlantis Civilization mission?
"What exactly is your job?!" Lin Zheng asked. "And what are those 'anomalous life forms' you mentioned? Is this perverted boss one of them?"
"A Network Surveillance Administrator is a human selected by the remaining sentient thoughts of Atlantis to prevent present-day humans from repeating their past mistakes. Atlantis was destroyed by anomalous life forms that controlled the network, so they are very vigilant about the activities of anomalous life. Thus, there is me, the Network Surveillance Administrator. My duty is to find anomalous life forms lurking in the network world, decompose those that affect the network world into raw data, and eliminate potential dangers in the network world! As for the origin of anomalous life forms, they are a special type of thought-based life form that arrived on Earth with meteorites from outside the galaxy. They are attracted to the network world and attach themselves to it, instinctively using the network to destroy its creators. The remaining sentient thoughts of Atlantis analyze that these anomalous life forms might be biological weapons against network-users created by some life-bearing planet outside our galaxy! They accidentally drifted to Earth—that's what they are!"
Youxi spoke at length, making Lin Zheng a little dizzy, but one thing he understood! These so-called anomalous life forms pose a great potential danger! The civilization level of Atlantis was far more advanced than the current world, yet it was destroyed by such things, which shows how dangerous they are! Hmm, speaking of which, these Atlanteans are really considerate! Remaining sentient thoughts? Probably something similar to souls, secretly helping present-day humans deal with this potential crisis. Good people! But is this job dangerous?! Is it okay for Youxi to do it?!
"No problem! This job is very safe! The harm of anomalous life forms lies in forming data viruses and infecting the computer systems of various equipment; they have no lethality towards the human body!" Youxi answered Lin Zheng, but Lin Zheng remained skeptical about whether it was true! Not dangerous? If it wasn't dangerous, how could all of Atlantis be destroyed?!
"Then what's going on with this boss? Was it infected?"
"Yes! The game world of phantom spirit ii has attracted many humans, and thus also many anomalous life forms. They disguise themselves as various monsters in the game, attempting to conquer Central Intelligence. This boss is an anomalous life form that has been replaced; it has already broken through some of Central Intelligence's defenses, so its abilities are higher than a normal boss. It must be eliminated immediately!" With that, Youxi rapidly chanted program language, waved her staff, and Lin Zheng watched in astonishment as the boss transformed into binary data chains, finally disappearing! After his initial shock, Lin Zheng quickly came to his senses and shouted, "No way! It was eliminated just like that by you? What about our mission?!"
"Do you still need to do the mission?" Youxi asked, blinking her captivating eyes.
"Of course! It's an A-rank intermediate mission! How high will the reward be?!" Lin Zheng had a pained expression. But soon, things took a turn for the better, as he heard Youxi say, "It's fine. This space has been sealed by me, so all information cannot be transmitted to Central Intelligence. I will now construct a boss, and after the section lock is lifted, the constructed boss will connect to Central Intelligence's management system, replacing the previous boss. As long as you kill it, the mission can still be completed!"
"This! This! Isn't this cheating?!" Lin Zheng exclaimed, astonished!
"It's not cheating!" Youxi looked at Lin Zheng. "This is my reward for helping it resolve a crisis!" Listening to Youxi's calm yet righteous reply, Lin Zheng sensed a hint of playfulness beneath Youxi's silent expression, and he was immediately relieved! It turned out his Youxi also had normal emotions, but it seemed she had forgotten how to express them! This was good news!
“Alright then! We’ll do as you say!” Lin Zheng agreed. To be honest, he really didn’t want to give up on this mission; even if it meant cheating, he had to complete it! Besides, no one would know about it! Not even Central Intelligence would know, so it wouldn’t count as cheating, hehe! At this moment, Youxi lightly waved her staff, and binary data chains reappeared, quickly intertwining to form a giant boss identical to the previous one. However, when Lin Zheng saw the boss’s HP, hehe! Youxi was truly clever! After constructing the boss, Youxi slowly lowered her staff. Instantly, the boss room returned to its original colors, and the boss roared as it lunged towards Lin Zheng and Youxi, “You lowly humans! Prepare to die!”
“Lowly your face!” Lin Zheng chuckled sinisterly, shooting an arrow that accurately struck the boss’s chest, dealing -890 damage. With just that single hit, the boss, which had been ferocious and arrogant moments before, let out a mournful cry, and its enormous body crashed to the ground! Hehe! Although it was a bit dishonorable, this boss had been cheating earlier, hadn’t it? A boss cheating, that was too outrageous. Now that it was secretly killed, it was a taste of its own medicine! Lin Zheng quickly found an excuse for himself and confidently went to loot the boss’s treasures. However, when he saw what the boss dropped, Lin Zheng almost jumped up and cursed! Only two items lay on the ground! One was an irregularly shaped piece of metal, and the other was an exquisite small dimensional pocket. And then there was nothing else!
“Central Intelligence detected it!” Youxi calmly stated the reason, and Lin Zheng immediately deflated. Forget it, it wasn’t exactly honorable anyway. These two items could be considered consolation prizes! He picked up the items and looked at them.
Frost Crystal Dragon Beast Core: The core formed within the Frost Crystal Dragon Beast after it, being a mineral-eating beast, consumed a large amount of minerals. It is extremely heat-resistant and an excellent material for crafting alchemy furnaces. Quest Item.
dimensional pocket: Level Requirement 30, Special Item.
Possesses a huge storage space, capable of storing anything, including yourself and your pets!
…
Lin Zheng looked at the two items, and the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but twitch. This feeling no longer felt like a consolation prize; it was practically mockery! Taking a deep breath, Lin Zheng thought to himself, forget it, he’d be a fool to genuinely argue with Central Intelligence! Of course, if the subsequent quest rewards were also withheld, Lin Zheng wouldn’t mind smashing the Central Intelligence.
“Let’s go back to Tianshuang City, Youxi. Liu Mang and the others must be worried sick!” Lin Zheng said spiritlessly. Youxi nodded, and then both of them took out their small Return City Orbs. With a gentle squeeze, the orbs shattered, and the two disappeared from the Frost Crystal Cave’s boss room.
At the Tianshuang City teleportation point, two flashes of white light appeared, and Lin Zheng and Youxi emerged. Yang Qi and the other two, who had been waiting, immediately surrounded them. Yang Qi rushed to the front, asking anxiously as soon as she saw him, “Lin Zheng! How did it go?”
“It’s alright, the boss had a bug and was deleted, but the quest item was given!” Saying that, Lin Zheng took out the boss’s core. Seeing the boss’s core, Yang Qi couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, then she cursed, “Damn it! It really was a bug. I knew that guy’s skills were too abnormal. Dammit! If it weren’t for that damned bug, we definitely could have killed that boss. That was a 4S! How many good things would it have dropped!” Yang Qi’s face twitched with heartache. Lin Zheng could understand; after all, based on the previous combat data, a boss without issues would definitely have been meat in their mouths. Now, it’s like the meat flew out of their mouths. Anyone would be depressed!
“What a pity! Otherwise, we could have killed that boss!” Xiao Meng also expressed her regret, though she wasn’t as heartbroken as Yang Qi. Lilith, on the other hand, was very open-minded. She said with a smile, “It’s alright, what’s gone is gone. We’ll encounter them again in the future, and we’ve gained a lot this time!”
Of course, it wasn’t small! First, their levels increased by several ranks, and they also obtained a lot of equipment and gold coins. It could be said that they earned a full harvest. If they had also killed the final boss, it would have been a perfect ending! Thinking of the gains from this trip, Yang Qi felt a little better. At this moment, Lin Zheng said, “Alright, everyone’s here. Let’s go turn in the quest! After we’re done, it’s time to sleep!”
“That’s right!” Everyone nodded and followed Lin Zheng towards the equipment shop. When Yang Qi saw that Lin Zheng was going to the equipment shop, she couldn’t help but complain, “Didn’t you say we were going to turn in the quest? We can repair equipment durability later, can’t we!”
“I accepted the quest here!” Lin Zheng glared at Yang Qi impatiently. As soon as he spoke, the others were surprised! They all repaired their equipment here, so how had they not discovered any quests here? And an A-rank medium one at that!
“How did you accept the quest? How come I didn’t find it?” Yang Qi asked in surprise.
“I saw a decorative sword in the shop and wanted to buy it. The shopkeeper offered it for 15 gold coins…”
“Damn it! You didn’t actually buy it, did you! 15 gold coins!” Yang Qi shouted, interrupting Lin Zheng. Lin Zheng glared at her to shut her up, then continued, “Just as I was about to buy it, the shopkeeper thought it was too expensive for me, and then he suggested a compromise: he asked me to do him a favor, and that’s how I accepted this quest!”
“Does this count as a fool’s luck?” Yang Qi asked, looking dumbfounded after hearing this. She had also researched the equipment shopkeeper, but she simply couldn’t have imagined that the key to triggering the quest was a decorative sword on the wall! This was truly a setting that made one feel a headache just hearing about it. Besides a fool, who would buy a decorative sword?! And coincidentally, there really was a fool here who bought a decorative sword!
“Get lost! You’re the fool! I just thought that sword was cool and wanted to buy it to play with!” Lin Zheng kicked Yang Qi, ignoring her feigned cries of pain, and led the several cute girls into the equipment shop.