New Skills
Wang Ming's avatar silently went gray. A few ripples briefly passed through the channel, but a few cheap expressions of mourning were quickly drowned out by more practical discussions about survival.
[People are dying so fast...]
[Yeah, more than 3,000 people have already died.]
[Stop whining. Why aren't you going out to find supplies while you still have the initial six hours of light? When your light goes out, you won't have a new one. Once you're trapped in a vicious cycle, you'll die sooner or later!]
[No argument there]
[But I haven't found anything...]
[It's okay, at least you have a Sanctuary.]
[Doesn't everyone have one? @Su Luo]
[Doesn't everyone have one? @Su Luo]
[Su Luo: ...]
Interrupted in his studies, Su Luo pursed his lips, sat on the ground, and carefully took out his AD calcium milk. After drinking half, he carefully tucked it back into his crotch.
[Appraisal Level 3 (67/300)]
[You can currently appraise relatively complete information about targets of the same level]
The speed of his progress was terrifying. Some survivors on the forum were deliberately casting skills to grind levels, and they had only just reached Level 2.
His hands felt as though they were filled with lead, and he could barely lift them. They had been bleeding for a while, and he had rubbed them with dirt a few times to mask the smell, leaving them at great risk of infection.
But he didn't even know if he would live long enough for them to become infected and rot.
Su Luo raised his head and looked at the distant point of light.
"I've crawled for two and a half hours... and made it... halfway?"
In the darkness, time and distance had both lost their usual measures, and Su Luo couldn't tell.
He decided to sit where he was and recover his strength, keeping an eye on the channel and forum while he read.
[Qin Lang: Anything unusual?]
[Su Luo: No, I'm in great mental shape]
Qin Lang hesitated. He was beginning to suspect that Su Luo had gone mad. After spending three hours in absolute darkness, a normal person would probably have begun to develop mental problems.
[Qin Lang: Really?]
[Su Luo: Really. The Skill Books you sent are a great read, especially the part on Appraisal]
Qin Lang was becoming certain that Su Luo had gone mad. He had glanced at those obscure, incomprehensible texts before, and even with a translation, he hadn't understood a thing.
[Qin Lang: ...All right, you're in great mental shape. I'm here to warn you to be careful.]
[Su Luo: Mm]
[Qin Lang: Several players sent us information about monsters, but their avatars all went gray halfway through. In the end, a player with a stealth Talent managed to take a photo.]
[Qin Lang: (A photo of a giant)]
[Qin Lang: If you get lost, be careful not to stray too far from your Sanctuary. Our preliminary assessment is that monsters of this level usually roam more than three kilometers from Sanctuaries. They're nothing like the monsters on the forum; they're on a completely different level. They're more like... boundary guards, meant to keep players from going too far from their Sanctuaries.]
Su Luo looked at the giant monster, which stood nearly ten meters tall, and his temples throbbed.
His Sanctuary wasn't even in this world! Let alone staying close to it.
[Su Luo: Okay, got it]
[Qin Lang: We're compiling information on monsters of this level. Once we're done, we'll post it on the forum. If you discover anything new, please send it to me immediately!]
[Su Luo: ok]
After ending the chat, he sat and rested for an hour, grinding Appraisal to (256/300) before getting up and starting to crawl again.
[@Su Luo, I have an extra oil lamp. Do you want it?]
[@Su Luo, I have one too!]
[@Su Luo, me!]
[Su Luo: I want them all. Save them for me]
After replying, Su Luo opened Qin Lang's chat window again to read.
The item trading function could only be used inside a shelter.
People in the Regional Channel had already begun treating Su Luo like a mascot of their own accord, tagging him for fun.
It had gotten to the point where Su Luo couldn't even lurk anymore.
Fortunately, after another three hours of arduous crawling, the point of light was close at hand.
[Appraisal Level 5 (198/500)]
[You can now appraise partial information about targets one level higher than you]
The ordinary monsters previously recorded on the forum were all level zero, and everyone had appraised them easily.
Now Su Luo could appraise the status panels of level-one monsters. It didn't seem all that useful...
But Su Luo's gains went far beyond the effects shown on the system panel.
His powers of observation, ability to pick up on details, and ability to estimate distances in space had all taken a qualitative leap!
Su Luo had learned it step by step!
"I just don't know if other people's skills have these effects when they level up." Su Luo crawled along slowly.
As he drew closer, he finally straightened up and stood for the first time in a long while. Ignoring the wounds from crawling, he carefully examined the light source before him.
It was a dilapidated stone entrance standing abruptly amid barren, scattered rocks, like a foreign object forcibly thrust into the world. No road led to it. Above the entrance floated an orb of light, soft yet extraordinarily penetrating.
As he approached, information appeared over the point of light:
[Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]
[Recommended level: 0~5]
There were just two simple lines, and nothing else.
[Enter?]
"No." Su Luo refused without hesitation.
He had come to borrow its light, not throw his life away. With no information at all, he chose to be cautious.
Su Luo opened the forum and began searching for information, only to find that no survivors had shared anything about Dungeons yet. There were just a few speculative posts.
[@Su Luo, I've got a beautiful girl's worn nk. I'll send it to you!]
[Su Luo: Send it over]
[Yay! Su Luo replied to me!]
[@Su Luo, I've got my own worn...]
[Su Luo: No men's]
[Damn it!]
Most people in the entire region knew Su Luo's name by now. After all, he was the only survivor who had spent so long in the darkness without dying. Of course, it also helped that Su Luo had nothing better to do and replied to them.
The goofy group members tagged him whether they had anything to say or not.
Su Luo sat beside the Dungeon, in no hurry to enter. He would wait until his supplies ran out.
He would die sooner or later if he stayed in this place, so he needed to go somewhere new.
Su Luo had two choices.
One was the Dungeon in front of him, whose challenge level was clear and about which he had more information.
The other was the mysterious Story Instance Scroll. He had no information about it, and Su Luo didn't think the system had given him anything good.
When he ran out of supplies, he would enter the Dungeon in front of him first.
"I need to improve my ability to handle risks..." Su Luo mused, opening Qin Lang's chat window.
[Su Luo: Do you have any Skill Books?]
[Qin Lang: We do... but we only had a few altogether, and most were used on the spot]
Su Luo couldn't trade anyway, so why was he asking about Skill Books?
Qin Lang was puzzled.
[Su Luo: Could you take pictures of the contents and send them to me? It won't consume the Skill Books anyway]
[Qin Lang: Well... that's not very convenient, haha.]
[Su Luo: Important information, Dungeon]
Su Luo saw the chat window go quiet for a while. Qin Lang had probably gone to ask his superiors.
[Qin Lang: Please, tell me more! How many Skill Books would you like to see?]
[Su Luo: As many as you have. We can keep trading afterward. I'll give you information from inside the Dungeon, and you help me photograph Skill Books]
[Qin Lang: Good!]
Su Luo briefly described the light orb's properties and the Dungeon's appearance, and attached a photo.
Soon, Qin Lang had someone else send over photos of four Skill Books, apparently for fear that a flood of messages would bury the important information.
[Basic Body-Strengthening Technique]
[Frostbolt]
[Raise Shield]
[Meditation]
Four Skill Books, radiating the allure of unknown power, slowly unfolded before Su Luo in the form of pictures.