Feng Bujue activated body enhancement spell at the start of his jump. With a short running start, he leaped into the air and deactivated the skill while still flying. Of course, he activated the skill not because he wanted to look better in pose but to achieve a greater jump. In the air, he turned his head and opened his arms wide like he was trying to hug the pool of clouds. At that moment, all that was left in his ears was the howling of wind, and his eyes were shot with excitement and anticipation.
To get this feeling of jumping through the air, other than actually jumping off a building, one would normally have three means to replicate it: spring board jumping, bungee jumping, and sky diving. In any case, Feng Bujue did not know how to swim, and he had not gotten a chance to attempt the other two, but now, he finally got to experience the sense of free falling in an online virtual game. Even though this was just a simulation, the feeling of falling was no different from the one experienced in real life. Normally speaking, the jumper, even if they did not scream from fear, would curl up instinctively in fear. However, Feng Bujue was a person without fear. So, when he was falling, he could relax completely and enjoy the purest sense of falling. He could even keep himself from blinking and stare right ahead. He thought to himself, Even if I die, I have to see what is at the bottom.
Several seconds later, Feng Bujue entered the thick clouds. It was also at that moment that he understood he had not picked the wrong path; this was the correct way. The white clouds were like a buffer. They were softer than water but had a great buffering effect. When his body crashed through the clouds, it did not feel like he had hit something concrete. When Feng Bujue phased through the clouds, it was similar to walking out into a hot street from a cold room. His body was enveloped by a thin layer of air, and then the falling speed gradually slowed down. When he landed on the ground, Feng Bujue fell like a light feather. There was no impact, and his Life Points did not even drop.
There was another world at the bottom of the cliff. The clouds above him appeared to form a second layer of the sky. Sunlight filtered through the clouds, giving the place a misty look. The air there was especially wet, and around him was a sparse forest. Feng Bujue quickly looked around before titling his head up. In that posture, he waited for Passing Rain to fall so that he could pinpoint where the girl would land. In the next few seconds, Feng Bujue tried to give the area’s gravitational pull a test; the result was normal. He jumped where he stood, and the pressure he felt when landing was no different from normal. Therefore, he concluded, the layer of clouds was the reason he had survived. Perhaps when a person’s body passed through the clouds, there would be a speed lowering debuff, and it would disappear when one landed on the ground.
Passing Rain did not make Feng Bujue wait for long. She jumped two minutes later. Feng Bujue saw the figure flying through the air, gauged the landing spot, and moved toward it. Perhaps he was lucky, but where Passing Rain fell was not far from Feng Bujue. So, the latter soon reached her, and he immediately asked, “How was it? Told you we need to do a leap of faith.”
“When you jumped, that Miss Lu thought you’d gone mad,” Passing Rain replied. “When I said I was going to jump, she thought I was committing suicide out of love.”
“Hahaha…” Feng Bujue guffawed. “That can’t be helped. We can’t explain stuff like game menu and status bar to the NPCs, right?”
“But one does need tremendous courage to jump down like that,” Passing Rain commented. “With just speculation and logical thinking, you dared to take such a risky move. I have to say you are…”
“Incredibly sarcastic? Fine, I know that,” Feng Bujue said. He turned to the valley. “Come on, let’s go.”
“We aren’t going to wait for the NPC?” Passing Rain asked.
“Do you think she’ll follow us?” Feng Bujue asked. “Imagine it was you, and you ran into two strangers for the first time in real life. They were talking about these hard to understand concepts and proceed to jump off a building. Would you treat your life as a joke and follow them?”
Feng Bujue’s analysis was not wrong. When Lu Qingning saw the two jump into the abyss, her mind went blank. She started to suspect whether she had made the two up in her mind. Was this some kind of illusion that was played on her?
It was impossible to think that Lu Qingning would jump down to follow them, unless she could see the situation at the bottom clearly or could hear the two’s conversation from below. Otherwise, she would not do something that was no different from suicide. After hearing that, Passing Rain was silent for two seconds before nodding calmly. “Let’s go.”
…
The two walked for about twenty minutes. After they left the forest, they were greeted with a lake surrounded by greenery. The lake was huge, and in the middle of it was a small island. In the misty atmosphere, the island looked eerie and isolated. Even just standing by the shore, they could feel… a strong, invisible presence around the island. At the shore, Feng Bujue went down on one knee and reached out to test the water. The lake water was clear and cold; they could see fat fish frolicking in it.
Twenty meters behind them was the forest. The trees were interspersed with red and gold. Thinking about it, they had been walking silently without conversation, and around them, it was curiously quiet. This scene and atmosphere, it was hard to tell whether it was romantic or creepy…
“There’s a boat.” Passing Rain looked down the shoreline and saw a small boat anchored.
“Hmm… Looks like we don’t have much choice.” Feng Bujue shrugged and walked toward it with Passing Rain. It was undeniable that there was something about that island in the middle of the lake. It was probably where the ghost lived. Swimming there was too unrealistic; the distance was too much to cover, and thus, the system provided them with a boat.
After they got into the boat, Feng Bujue rowed the oars and said, “I believe something scary will happen on that island.”
“Are you trying to scare me?” Passing Rain asked.
“No…” Feng Bujue replied. “I just suddenly realized that… along the way, perhaps all the combat can be avoided, but if that’s the case, the system would have compensated with some scary factors.”
“Now that you mention it… It has been surprisingly easy so far.”
Feng Bujue nodded. “Until now, the system hasn’t thrown us into a fight we cannot avoid when it comes to the main quest about Ling Er. All the potential battles have been avoided.
“For example, the tree monster and monster monk, they could obviously be taken down with brute force. When we encountered the tree, we could have killed it to obtain the bell; when we encountered the monk, we definitely could have killed him to obtain the bell to reach this realm. Even Lu Qingning might have fought us due to a misunderstanding. We might have ended up killing her. That is possible. But if we really did that, we would have lost plenty of information like the Bell of Jin Gang and Lin Chang’s conspiracy…
“Therefore… if we bulldozed our way through the quest, we would have missed out on many plot points. At most, we would find out some details from the death recap. But most of the time, we would kill everything we encountered, and even if we cleared the scenario, we would have been none the wiser. That kind of playstyle is easy on the brain. There is nothing to consider. Just kill any character that shows any trace of hostility, but that kind of playstyle does not suit our team.”
Feng Bujue adjusted his posture so that he could row the boat easier as he continued. “Along the way, we tried to deal with things peacefully. Of course, there are instances like interrogation. In any case, we have not killed anything…
“In conclusion, our playstyle can not only obtain more information, it saves our resources. There is no unnecessary waste of resources. Consumables, ammo, Life Points, Sorcery Points… we have not lost any. Based on this game’s system… there is no reward without any risk or sacrifice, so I believe… if this supernatural plot line can be completed without any battle, then we will be facing problems like puzzles, scares, or instant death events soon…”
While they spoke, their boat finished half of the journey. Suddenly, a breeze started to blow, carrying with it a bone-shivering chill. At that moment, the sky that was covered in clouds became darker. It felt like the closer they got to the island, the darker the sky became. When the two reached the shore of the island, their surroundings were as dark as night. Only a little twilight showered from the sky, and their visibility was very poor.
Feng Bujue and Passing Rain got onto the land from a steep part of the shore. They got onto the island, and blanketing their sight was a forest of hemlock and cedar trees. The shadows among the trees were dark and thick like water. They felt palpably real like a blockade along the way or a living creature that was reaching its fingers toward the two players.
A more cowardly player would have their Terror Points hike up to thirty percent just standing at the edge, much less walking into the forest.