Chapter 83: Chapter 83 – Almost Scammed
Over the last two days, Ren Suo had attempted to pa.s.s Round 2 of the training in the game 77 times.
But he never got into the top ten. Not even once.
Ren Suo’s guess was right—many people chose to purchase the Team Contract to form teams of four in Round 2. The worst round was when Ren Suo randomly chose a gathering point to land in but realized four other separate teams landed there too.
All four of the members of the teams landed in the same area!
In that round, Ren Suo did not even dare to search around for items and ran out of the gathering zone immediately, where he found Hades’ Cerberus. It was the map of Fiery Black Land, the training ground of eternal warmth.
An active volcano that constantly spewed lava was at the center of the map. Grey clouds of ash covered the sky and burning lava flowed between the cracks of the earth. Furthermore, electricity could be generated with the thermal energy from the earth, so a lack of light for vision was not a problem. From afar, the human city there looked like interconnecting spider webs.
However, if a player came into contact with the flowing lava, the Protection of the G.o.ds would be activated which could cause the health to increase significantly and result in termination of the training.
The modes of transport in the Fiery Black Land map were Hades’ Cerberus (four-seater), the Blackhorn Cow (two-seater), and the Fiery Spider (6-seater), all of which sounded like mythical beasts, completely opposite of the fairytale-like style of White Snowy Field.
However, while Ren Suo tried his best to stay alive in the game, his training was terminated when he was in 25th place. He had encountered a small two-men team who perhaps lost two of their original teammates after an intense battle. Regardless, they were very well-equipped and even had “Wind and Rain AUG”, which was an airdropped weapon. Ren Suo was sandwiched between the two of them and could not escape, and his character was sent to the skies.
Ren Suo had overestimated himself and underestimated the other trainees.
Even though Ren Suo was more skilled than an average player, his opponents were still stronger as a group. No matter how many times he tried, there was a 100% chance that he would fail if he encountered the unavoidable four-men teams.
The trainees in Round 2 were those who managed to grasp the training rules quickly and who survived with luck and ability. Even if they were not as proficient in battle as Ren Suo, they would still not be a burden to their team.
Furthermore, there was even an in-built translation system which made communication seamless. Only one team captain was needed to organize everyone and all four members of the team would be able to work together easily.
After failing 77 times, Ren Suo could either form a team or… devise another strategy.
The Golden Ranger naturally was one of his options.
If Ren Suo formed a team, even if he could pa.s.s Round 2, he still had to battle alone in Round 3. Even though he could not do so at present, what would happen if a trainee was able to pa.s.s Round 2 alone?
Without a doubt, those who were able to pa.s.s Round 2 alone would have sufficient Talents to dominate the battlefield in Round 3.
For example, the power of the “Avalanche Lv 1” Talent that Ren Suo’s character was equipped with could barely be felt. However, if it were a maxed out Avalanche Talent, the power of the pistol could become as great as that of the rifle, and the power of the rifle could become as great as that of the sniper rifle. Two recovery shots from the weapon would be sufficient to send anyone to the heavens, regardless of the protective armor that was equipped.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that those who survived Round 3 were G.o.d-tier priests.
Rather than struggling hard to survive in Round 3, it would be more strategic to think of ways to pa.s.s Round 2 alone and gain unparalleled advantages.
After all, it was a game with a 2-star difficulty, which would reward up to 150 merit points, so sacrifices had to be made—at least to people like Ren Suo who were not the best at devising strategies. Hopefully, in the end, the spent merit points would be regained from an excellent appraisal.
The only other game that Ren Suo had played which had in-app purchases was [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10000 Meters], and making in-app purchases was an almost certain requirement to succeed in that game.
As such, it is very likely that in-app purchases were needed to pa.s.s the mission and achieve a high score in games with in-app purchases.
Since in-app purchases was a must, it would be better to do so earlier on in the game!
In employing the Golden Ranger, the player could choose how many merit points were to be spent. From the very start, Ren Suo recalled his player privilege.
“Meticulous Player: When making any purchases using merit points in the Mini Worlds, there is a 50% chance of -1 merit point required for your purchase (each purchase cannot be lower than 1 merit point)”
It would be unfortunate for Ren Suo if in-app purchases did not const.i.tute “any purchase”.
But Ren Suo was even luckier. The first time he employed the Golden Ranger, the player privilege was invoked and he only spent 1 merit point to achieve an effect worth 2 merit points!
As Ren Suo watched the screen eagerly, two s.h.i.+ning stars were drawn out by the Golden Ranger in his fist.
The next second, the Golden Ranger swung his right hand in a tossing motion and a glowing diamond blade appeared.
“Here we go!” the Golden Ranger said.
The next moment, he swung the blade towards Ren Suo’s character!
The diamond blade sliced through his character’s body.
Then, a message appeared on the screen: [Your character, ‘Zhao Zili’ suffered a Holy Attack!]
[Your character, ‘Zhao Zili’ had been slain!]
Ren Suo was stunned and stared as the screen turned black.
Nonetheless, the merit point had indeed been spent, and he was only left with 10 merit points.
Ren Suo loaded the game save again and similarly summoned the Golden Ranger. He turned on his microphone and asked, “How on earth are you going to let me acc.u.mulate points?”
The Golden Tanger replied, “Eh? Do you wish to know? Telling you this would not do any harm… Acc.u.mulating points is actually when the ‘holes’ created in your body by the G.o.ds are ‘filled’ by the Talents bestowed by them. However, those holes would not affect you, nor will you feel them.”
“Fundamentally, the Exchange System detects the number of holes in your body, then fills the holes with the Talents you need.”
“Acc.u.mulating points is essentially creating holes in your body,” the Golden Ranger said. Despite his body was covered in a golden-colored glow, he talked in a joking tone. He continued, “Opening holes is actually not difficult. Rather, it is controlling the holes that is a challenge. As such, failure to open holes means that the holes could not be controlled.”
“Empty holes would not affect you in any way, provided they are controllable holes. On the other hand, uncontainable holes would only… devour you.”
Ren Suo was so perplexed that there was still information that he did not know in the in-app gamble that his teeth chattered. He asked, “Would the chances of success increase if I give you more merit points?”
The Golden Ranger replied, “The base success rate is 50%. For every addition of the thing that I want, the energy I gather would increase slightly and the success rate would increase by about 3%. At the same time, the minimum number of holes that would be opened in your body would also increase.”
The system prompted: [You received the detailed description of the Golden Ranger Attack System.]
[For every 1 merit point spent, the success rate of the Golden Ranger’s attack on the Exchange System would increase by 3% (the base success rate is 50%). The minimum number of points gained would increase by 1000 (the base minimum number of points gained is 1000, up to 10000). If the attack fails, the Golden Ranger would kill the player’s character directly.]
It was actually an informative description that would not have been known if he had not asked!
No, the Golden Ranger must have wanted to con the player of his merit points and so purposely did not divulge the information.
If Ren Suo had succeeded the attack on the Exchange System the first few times and failed on the last time, he would have suffered a huge loss—he would have nothing left even if he reloaded the game save after he died.
His failure this time was also a reminder to him that he should return to the room to save the game whenever the attack on the Exchange System was successful.
What he should do next was naturally to continue spending his merit points. Although the chance of success of 56% was not high, even if he spent all of his 10 merit points at once, the success rate was only 80% and there was still a chance he would be killed instead.
If not for “Meticulous Player”, Ren Suo would definitely have spent all of his merit points at once to maximize his chances of earning 10000 points. However, with the player privilege, Ren Suo felt that it was alright to make a gamble.
If he won, he would receive at least the base of 2000 points, with an upper limit of 10000 points!
Ren s...o...b..tted thrice consecutively, of which the player privilege was invoked once. He spent 5 merit points and was left with 5 merit points.
Since he betted consecutively, naturally his luck was decent for the first two times where he succeeded, and then, he failed in the third round. He received 3000 and 5000 points respectively in the first two rounds, adding up to 8000 points!
In addition to the wasted 1 merit point at the beginning, Ren Suo had received 8000 points from spending 6 merit points, which was actually decent.
But, was 8000 points sufficient?
Should he spend the last 5 merit points he had?
Ren Suo pondered for a while and returned to the resting room to save his progress. With the initial 1000 points he had, in addition to the 8000 points he won, he decided to attempt pa.s.sing Round 2 and surpa.s.s the advantage that the four-men teams had.
With his 9000 points, he could exchange for 9 Talents, or even max out the “Avalanche Lv 1” Talent that his character was equipped with.
The fully-leveled Avalanche would be able to send even opponents equipped with level 3 armor to the heavens in two recovery shots from an a.s.sault rifle;
The level 9 Rage of the Wind would be able to send a bullet almost instantaneously towards the target as long as the target could be seen in the 4x scope; the fully-leveled Rage of the Wind would be able to eliminate an opponent definitively, even if the target was running, as long as the target is focused in the 8x scope. On the other hand, the “Stars of Glory” of the Master of the Holy Light would be required for the same effect with the 15x scope—after all, that distance would now have been the range of a sniper.
The level 9 Curtain of Rain would be able to decrease the reload time of affected recovery weapons to 0.05s, allowing 20 shots per second with minimal recoil; the fully-leveled Curtain of Rain would be able to decrease the reload time to 0.03s, allowing 30 shots per second.
Or perhaps…