Ambitionist had entered the industry when he was just ten years old. He did not have any support or rely on a gaming studio and carved a way for himself through the gaming industry. The pressure from everyday life and the rolling eyes of his family members and friends were constant but expected. They were nothing, or at least, he would like to believe that…
He had been pressured into a lower standing, he had been scammed, he had been squeezed out by unfair competition or directly threatened… So, when he came into contact with new players and strangers, he would always be that bit much more careful. Decades of ups and downs, sweetness and bitterness, he knew it better than anyone else. As someone with years of experience behind him, as young as Ambitionist was, he was already a deep and careful thinker. Faced with Feng Bujue’s obviously fake explanation, he understood instantly that the man was either unwilling to share or was unable to share the truth.
However, Ambitionist was a man of quick intuition. He did not press for more information and did not point out his suspicion regarding the Anomaly. Soon, he collected his thoughts and continued to mingle with the other three players and chatted about other topic. Feng Bujue took five minutes to explain theory behind SCP-233 in more detail to his three teammates and then added a rather simple summary of the SCP foundation. That was just enough information to satisfy these players’ abundant curiosity. The four then walked together to the wall.
The part that was close to the wall was not fixed by the system, so a concave opening that was about nine meters long and one meter wide was left on the ground. Looking at it from further away, it was hard to tell its depth. But now that the four were right before it, they realized that the space underneath the opening was not that deep, and it looked to be less than one meter.
“Of the entire hall, only the distance between these two pillars is perfectly rounded up at nine meters. The other pillars and the objects on the walls have nothing to do with ’nine’. Be in terms of other measurement of units like millimeters, feet, or something else… If one had to draw a connection, then perhaps I might say that the angle of the walls and pillars to the ground are all at ninety degrees.” Feng Bujue added some explanation to his previous plan. “But from the perspective of problem-solving, the answer that sounded more realistic and had a higher chance of being correct was this one. Therefore, I made the decision to believe that the opening should be situated here.”
“Even thought it was me who suggested everyone pay attention to such details like the distance, weight, and height when we explored the hall, honestly… I have to admit that even I did not do it that seriously,” Ambitionist said. He turned to Feng Bujue. “I am surprised that you were able to pinpoint the distance between objects with such accuracy with just a glance, Brother Feng. That is just…”
“It is not with just a glance. I have my own technique of measurement,” Feng Bujue replied as he looked around. “Every half a year, I measure the length of my walk, and that is the ruler that I can carry with me at all time. For a building as large as this, the measurement might have some small mistake, but if it is a normal home, give me time to walk around and I will be able to give you the correct measurement of each individual room. If there is a hidden compartment between the walls or there is something strange about the structure of the home, I will basically be able to tell.”
When they heard the beginning of the sentence of ’Every half a year…’ Autumn Zither, Ambitionist, and Weighty Words’ expressions had already become quite surprised, but Brother Jue did not mind them. He still continued with his own explanation and ignored his teammates.
“Actually, the human body itself is a very useful measurement device. Like how your heartbeat, pulse, and breathing can be used to keep count of time, one’s height, the gait of one’s walk, and the length of one’s arm can be used to measure length. Through reasonable training, one can achieve a rather accurate degree of success at measuring weight as well.” Instantly, a pall of passion appeared on his face. “If any of you are interested, I can teach you how to calculate the basic density of a pail of sh*t without the use and aid of any tools…”
“Brother Feng… No… Big Brother…” Autumn Zither was in complete shock. “Do you mind sharing with us what your occupation is in real life?”
At that moment, he suspected Feng Bujue was some kind of mad scientist.
“I am an artist.” Feng Bujue had been holding this word inside his heart for a long time. He had been waiting for them to ask him.
“Hmm…” The three other teammates narrowed their eyes and used a deep and meaningful gaze to look up and down Feng Bujue. Their brains were as muddled as it could be.
“In any case, now that we know the location pinpointed by the quest is upstairs, our target is very clear.” Feng Bujue brought the topic back to the quest at hand and lifted his head to look up.
Corresponding to the one on the ground, there was also a concave opening on the ceiling near the wall. It was wide enough for the players to crawl through, but Feng Bujue naturally would not charge through it blindly. He had to give it a test first. Brother Jue picked up one of the larger building materials that littered the ground. With a wave of his single arm, he lobbed the material through the hole. The brick flew up at an angle, and two seconds later, it landed on the floor of the second floor. From the sound, one could see that it had not triggered any kind of trap.
“Sounds like it is safe for us to go up there. How about… I go up first?” Autumn Zither said. Under those circumstances, he would normally choose the more active option. From this choice, one could see the difference between the many strategists. They were all strategists, but ’Intelligent and Courageous’ and ’Steady Tactician’ represented two different individuals and two different styles of action.
For Weighty Words, he probably had the same way of thinking as Brother Jue. He would plan for the worst scenario and try to perform all sorts of trials. He would then wait until there was nothing else he could be do before he risked the journey with his own safety. As for Autumn Zither, when faced with an unknown situation, as long as he did not see any unsafe or non-beneficial elements, he could assume that the situation was safe.
With a crisp sound, Autumn Zither leaped up from the ground. Following a kick on the wall and the sound of the sole of the shoe brushing against the wall, he kicked another time and then leaped onto the second floor. When his teammates saw this, they were rather calm. Obviously, for these players who were all close to level thirty, this kind of action was nothing impressive. After level twenty, with a kick on the wall, if you failed to reach a height of more than five meters tall, you would be ashamed to greet other in a team survival mode.
“How is the situation up there?” Weighty Words shouted from below.
“Hmm… There should be no danger,” Autumn Zither replied. “Why don’t you all come up here?”
The three on the bottom shared a look; no one had any objections. Therefore, they all walked forward, kicked on the wall, and leaped onto the second floor. The second floor basically had the same layout as the first floor. Be it the pattern of the floor tiles, the locations of the pillars, the lighting devices, everything was the same as the ground floor. The only conspicuous difference was that the height from the ground to the ceiling for the first floor was about four meters while the height from the floor of the second floor to the ceiling was about eight meters.
There was no door on the wall that was furthest away from them. Of course, the players knew very well that behind that wall would be another twenty-three by twenty-three by twenty-three room. The four explored their surroundings briefly before their eyes all fell on the center of the ceiling of the second floor. There was a circular hole that was two meters wide in diameter and a bronze pillar that extended down from the hole until it reached the ground. Climbing on the pole, one could directly head up to the third floor.
“Based on everything that we have seen so far… the next step is for us to climb up this pole, right?” Ambitionist said darkly and deeply.
“Well, I don’t think they would have provided us with a pole to have us do some pole-dancing,” Feng Bujue added.
“Brother Feng, please do mind your words,” Weighty Words advised him with a sincere tone.
“My god, now that you’ve said it, the image has been planted in my mind,” Autumn Zither said. “This is definitely an unnecessary rise of my Terror Points.”
Ambitionist pushed on his glasses. “Brother Feng, your intellect is definitely approved by us and the system, but your way of thinking is indeed a bit…”
“Limitless?” Feng Bujue finished the sentence with a laugh. “Humor is something that you are born with and nothing something that you can change…”
He walked toward the bronze pole. “But I would not stoop low enough to say a joke like ’perhaps a fireman would slide down from here’.”
“So… what you are trying to say is that you have the ability to be elegant, but you would rather be vulgar…” Ambitionist was a clever person, and he got what Feng Bujue was trying to express almost immediately.
“You flatter me,” Feng Bujue replied rather shamelessly.
“Is that even a compliment?”
As the four spoke, they arrived at the space right underneath the circular hole. Raising their heads, they could see that there was no light source coming from the third floor; there was total darkness around the hole. Based on the light from the second floor, they could see that the top of the bronze pole was welded onto the ceiling of the third floor, and it did not reach to a higher floor.
“Even though this looks like we can use this to directly get up to the third floor, I think we should still take a look around this floor and explore it first.” Autumn Zither looked at his teammates. “I am sure you have noticed this already… Looking from outside the building, every floor of this building seemed to be the same height, and they all had windows, but one could not look into the building through the windows. Now that we are inside, the situation is…”
“That is not that hard to explain. The scene that we saw from the outside of the building was probably some kind of disguise,” Ambitionist explained, “and it is even possible that… since we stepped through the front door, we have already entered another space.”
“Because the wall of light showed up, we do not need to consider these problems anymore. That was before we encountered the SCP-233 and that NPC friend of Brother Feng’s,” Ambitionist added. “In any case, since I started playing games, I have not encountered a purely sci-fi scenario. Basically, each scenario will have some sort of supernatural setting.”
“What will be will be,” Feng Bujue said. “But I have a question. Can I go pick up that brick? I wish to throw it up to the third floor to see what will happen.”
“Ha…” Autumn Zither sucked in a dry breath and coughed. “Well, no one is stopping you…”
He was right. No one was stopping Feng Bujue, not that anyone could stop him.
After a brief conversation, the four still split up to look around. After all, they would not lose anything from more exploration. But since the second floor was so similar to the ground floor, they took even less time to confirm that there was no activatable device around the hall. It did not take that long for the four to gather around the bronze pole again. Feng Bujue raised the cement brick that he had tossed up from the ground floor and tossed it up again to the third floor. He heard the object falling on the ground, and other than that, there were no other strange sounds.
“If you still wish to be the leading one to go up first, I suggest you take a flashlight with you,” Feng Bujue told Autumn Zither calmly.
“Since I have volunteered once, you have decided to scam me till the end,” Autumn Zither replied rather helplessly.
“How about I volunteer this time?” Ambitionist chimed in. “Autumn Zither has taken on many different risks. From now on, it is more reasonable for us to take turns when it comes to exploring unknown spaces.”
He paused at this point. It was for his teammates to provide their comment and thought. Two seconds later, seeing as there was no response, Ambitionist continued.
“From the situation of the second floor, it does not appear like there will be danger on every floor, and not every floor needs to have a puzzle solved to pass it. My initial prediction is that… only floors with odd numbers will have problems, and floors with even numbers will be fine. They are used for resting and buffering.” He turned to look at Feng Bujue. “Brother Feng, you should have a usable flashlight on you, right?”
“I do,” Feng Bujue said and then took out a flashlight from his jacket pocket. Actually, when Feng Bujue told Autumn Zither to ’take’ a flashlight, Ambitionist had come to this conclusion.
“Oh?” When Ambitionist accepted the flashlight from Feng Bujue, he took a quick glance at it and then commented, “But the labels and explanation on it are all in German…”
Autumn Zither and Weighty Words both caught up when they heard that. Feng Bujue admitted quite shamelessly, “That is because I bought it from the nearby convenience store.”
“Didn’t you say you just bought some snacks to eat?” Autumn Zither felt cheated.
“Wait a minute, I did not say I ’only’ bought some snacks.” Feng Bujue shook his head. “I also bought a folding knife, a light, a notebook the size of my palm, a ballpoint pen, and these two flashlights, the kind that use battery.”
“So, the snacks are the actual extra purchase!” Autumn Zither roared at him.
Ambitionist cut in. “I say… you said you do not understand German, so how did you know how much you needed to pay at the register?”
“The number shown on the convenience store’s cash register was in Arabic numerals,” Feng Bujue said as he took out a wallet from his pocket. He took out a twenty Euro note and exclaimed with obvious pride on his cheeks, “See, even the numbers printed on the Euro bills are in Arabic numerals.”
“Why are you so proud of the fact that you robbed someone‽”
“Oh, by the way, the kid that I robbed had this Nokia phone.” Feng Bujue put away the wallet and took out a phone instead. “Look, it’s no wonder that it’s called a military grade communication device. It has signal even in here.”
“Not only have you admitted to theft, you have started to show off the stolen goods‽”
Autumn Zither, another victim whose soul of mockery had been awakened by Feng Bujue…
“Suddenly, I do not feel as nervous anymore…” Ambitionist was too lazy to stay and watch any longer. He used his right pinkie and middle finger to squeeze the flashlight while his palm gripped the bronze pole. Using the coordination of his left hand and both legs, he started to climb. The height that he needed to climb was only several meters, and Ambitionist’s upper body soon reached the floor of the third floor. However, he did not hurry to crawl into the darkness but hung on the pole. Using his both legs to steady his body, he gripped the pole in one hand and used his other hand to shine the flashlight around. The space of the third floor was equally spacious, and the height was similar to the ground floor, about four meters tall. Since there was no light source on this floor and the length of the light from the flashlight could cover was limited, Ambitionist could only see about ten meters away from the circular hole.
Ambitionist turned down to yell at his teammates who were downstairs, “At least within the zone that is visible with the flashlight, the space is empty. Oh, of course that is not counting the brick that Brother Feng threw up here earlier.”
He reached out with one of his legs and officially stepped onto the third floor. “Come on now. It’s safe up here.”
“Are you not going to consider taking a look around the place for a while first and exploring the floor briefly to confirm that there is no actual danger before calling us to get up there?” Feng Bujue asked.
Ambitionist felt Feng Bujue was getting more and more shameless, but he did not know how to be more shameless than Brother Feng. “If I had eyes in the back of my head and two flashlights, I might consider doing that.”
Feng Bujue laughed and took out another flashlight from his pocket. Without saying anything, with a leap, he jumped four meters into the air, and with a single grip on the bronze pole and a quick pull, he slithered up to the third floor.
With a click, Feng Bujue switched on the second flashlight that he was holding and shone it down the other direction, “To be honest, you’re afraid, right?”
Ambitionist was stumped by this question… Yes, he was afraid.
In this dark, spacious, and cavernous space, he had only a flashlight, and he was asked to look around the surroundings alone. Anyone in his position would feel rather fluttery in their heart.
“Hehe… then you can stay there. Don’t move. Be on alert, and I… shall take a look around,” Feng Bujue said with ease. This statement was out of Ambitionist’s expectation. Since the beginning of the scenario, Feng Bujue had basically been hiding behind the group and allowed his other teammates to take the risk. Who would have thought this time he would show surprising courage?
“Hey… Now is not the time to act brave and be a hero…” Ambitionist tried to advise him to rethink his decision.
“Do you think I am someone who would be foolish enough to do something like that?” Feng Bujue tossed the question back to him. Honestly, Ambitionist did not have that impression of Brother Jue. Fear was not just an expression that was written on the face. It was a signal of information that could spread, so a person who was acting brave and a person who was really not scared could be identified and differentiated quite easily. And Feng Bujue was obviously the latter…
When Brother Jue walked into this kind of environment that was permeating with the environment of eeriness and horror, the expression of his face was like a geek entering a maid café. This kind of person had a paradigm difference to the kind of boyfriend who would bring their girlfriend to the haunted house to play but would keep his brows creased the whole time, scream louder than the girl, and act like he would punch the innocent workers at the haunted house at any moment.
“I will be back after a quick stroll.” Feng Bujue turned to yell back down at the two who were down on the lower level. “Why don’t you two get up here first? Just stay beside Ambitionist next to the hole. If I run into anything and run back to you, at least you can provide me with back up.”
When Weighty Words and Autumn Zither climbed up the bronze pole, Feng Bujue turned to head into the darkness. He walked further and further into the inky depth and soon became a dot in the dark. Of course, Brother Jue had gone through layers of consideration before he decided to take on the task of exploring the space by himself.
First, he was someone who had Soul’s Eyes, and he had a Sorcery Weapon to protect himself. Even if he could not utilize the item in his inventory, his close quarter combat ability was at the top of the game, or at least, it should be better than the other three. Secondly, he would basically be immune to the influence from the environment. As suffocating and strange as the atmosphere could be, as oppressive as fearful as the darkness could bring, or a sudden scream, fleeting ghost… nothing would be able to faze him. Third, he would definitely not be lost. Because his mind was marking the location with every step. Be it the direction or the distance, he was as accurate as he could be. After all, no one knew what they would find on this floor. If there was something like a black wall that could move silently, perhaps after the player walked a certain distance and then decided to turn back, they would realize that the road back was no longer there.
In conclusion, it was completely reasonable and appropriate for Feng Bujue to explore the situation on this floor alone first. His observation skills and thoughts would be not affected fear. If he triggered the attacks of any monsters or traps, he would not be killed so easily; he would not be disconnected for getting too many Terror Points. So, the other teammates only needed to wait for him to return with news at the circular hole that they could instantly crawl back into and escape via. That was the safest solution that Feng Bujue managed to come up with on the spot.