After the plan had been made, they disbanded the team. Feng Bujue could still see Wang Tanzhi’s status in his friend list, and the ’free’ soon turned to ’in game’, but what kind of mode, the system did not show. This was probably to prevent the players’ information from being leaked.
For the social option in Thriller Paradise, there were currently only three choices: recent teammates, friends, and blacklist. When a player was in the scenario, they were unable to send friend requests or blacklist someone. Those were only doable from the log-in lobby.
How to ’politely’ reject others had always been a problem online, and Dream Inc. had spent a lot of effort on this issue. The gaming hub provided the function of improving one’s appearance. One need not log into the game to enjoy this function, but Feng Bujue did not use it because he did not care about that. This went to show how self-adoring our MC could be. However, even though the players realized that the ’female gamers’ in-game might not really be that beautiful in real life, it did not stop girl gamers from receiving many friend requests.
Other than that, there was the phenomenon of ’thigh-hugging’. In the future, Feng Bujue would run into this problem quite often. He would receive plenty of friend requests after completing a scenario. Of course, this was quite normal. Compared to the uncertainty of random players, people naturally preferred to work with strong players because it could decrease the difficulty of the game.
Regardless of the reason, being rejected was an embarrassing thing. To that end, Dream Inc. came up with the solution of only allowing friend request to be sent in the log-in space. If you were rejected, it was private knowledge between the two of you. Furthermore, the scenario would have ended by then, and the rejected player would have no chance to do something stupid to ruin the experience.
Only players who were friends were able to communicate like on the phone in the log-in lobby. There was no video call, and the other person would not be able to see your expression. For players who were not friends, the only means of communication was through mail. Within twenty-four real-life hours, the maximum number of mail messages that could be sent was three, and if there was no reply, then the fourth message could not be sent. Each message had a maximum limit of one thousand words, and the content would be scanned by the system as well. Messages with questionable content would be blocked by the system, and the system would send a message to the recipient, informing them that a player had written a harassment letter to them and provided them with the option of blacklisting the offending player.
Once a player was blacklisted, it meant that they were completely screened. They would not be paired up in the same scenario, and the harassed player would not receive any mail from them. If the team that invited them to join contained a member from their blacklist, they would be notified by the system.
With all those limitations, it could prevent players from gaming with those that they did not want to interact with.
Of course, reality was more peaceful than that. Most of the players, after their friend request was rejected, would not do anything about it and continued to the next game; they would not write messages to harass the other players. After all, gaming was to have fun.
…
Feng Bujue did not hurry to start a new game. He inspected his status first. He noticed that, thus far, he had only unlocked one mastery, which was the general ability; the other five options were still grayed out.
Based on the game manual, the six masteries were fighting, marksmanship, sleuthing, workmanship, medic, and general ability. Mastery was the condition for activating and learning skills and the core to a character’s power. Even though Feng Bujue was not leaning toward a combat-type player, just focusing on one mastery was not going to work. Therefore, his plan was to unlock as many masteries as he could in the next scenario. The best was workmanship and sleuthing. During the closed beta when most players had low combat points, avoiding combat was the best method with the highest success rate.
The other thing he did was inspect the items in his inventory. The stack of painting papers could not be taken out of the scenario, so they had disappeared. The syringe that he had found was still there.
———
Item Name: Single-use Syringe
Item Type: Consumable
Quality: Normal
Function: Draw out and inject liquid.
Remark: Stay away from drugs, love your life.
———
Feng Bujue’s inventory was empty, and the log-in space could keep thirty items at most. Temporarily, he did not have any storage issues. He thought that this syringe could prove useful, so he took it with him. In any case, it was better than a rock.
Analyzing his situation, he had neither equipment nor skills. He had to depend on himself for this upcoming Solo Mode. If he did not succeed, things would be more difficult after he advanced beyond level five. The Training Mode would be closed then, and the difficulty of the scenarios would increase according to character level. Then he would really become a dead weight to others. Feng Bujue had high hopes for the upcoming scenario. Preferably, the scarier the scenario the better. As long as the reward was proportional to the level of scariness, then he was willing to accept it.
“Feng Bujue, level 4. Please select the game mode that you wish to join. You’ve selected Solo Survival Mode (Normal), please confirm. Confirmed. Generating scenario…
“Download initiated, please wait a moment.”
After Feng Bujue selected the mode, he thought that the elevator would start to move, and the door would open to the new scenario. This time, however, he was transported.
The world before his eyes turned black, and he floated off the ground like he was suddenly deposited in zero-gravity space. He tried to grab onto something when the voice began next to his ears. “Welcome to Thriller Paradise.”
The voice had changed again. It sounded like a lazy middle-aged man. It looked like this greeting had nothing to do with the actual content of the scenario, and the voice was randomized each time.
“Download complete. You are currently playing Solo Survival Mode (Normal). Scenario introduction is provided in this mode, and there is a chance to trigger a side or hidden mission and special world-building.
“Reward for clearing the scenario: A random draw of a usable Skill Card.
“Playing the scenario introduction soon. The game will start right after.”
The background before Feng Bujue’s eyes turned into a picture. It looked like a room or the corner of a big warehouse. Due to the angle at which the picture was taken, he could only see a corner, so it was difficult for him to tell how big the whole space was. The walls seemed to be metallic, definitely not wooden. There was no paint or decorations on the walls, or the paint had faded. The ground was cement, and there was no furniture in the picture. Then, a paragraph rolled up, and the familiar system audio began the explanation.
“Your name is Ash Ciga, a famous reporter. You have a happy life, a lucrative job, and respected social standing. One Christmas night, you wake up blurrily and find yourself inside an unfamiliar warehouse. The last thing you remember is going to your car in the car park after work…”
The introduction was not long, and it provided limited information. After it finished, a flash of light blinded Feng Bujue, and the next time he opened his eyes, he was inside the picture. He was seated on the ground with his back to the wall. Before he could explore the warehouse, he lowered his head subconsciously because he realized he was holding something in his left hand—a silver Walkman.
This was a portable stereo. Naturally, it had become obsolete long before the year 2055. Feng Bujue had not seen this thing in person before, only in movies, and this situation did remind him of one particular movie.
Pressing the play button, a gravelly male voice said something in English, and that single sentence made Feng Bujue instantly understand the basic set-up of the whole scenario. “Hello, Ash, I want to play a game with you…”