Trial Quest

Main Quest Activated: Trial

As a mage who traveled between dimensional Planes, you had to possess keen observation and judgment to be qualified for the position. Every world had its own core value. Find and obtain what you believed to be the most valuable item in this world. Completing the quest would grant a random reward (the reward varied according to the quest completion rating). Failure would reduce all attributes by 1 level.

This quest was actually rather difficult.

Looking at the quest description floating before him, Fang Zheng could not help but frown. On the surface, the quest seemed very flexible. As long as Fang Zheng obtained what he believed was the most valuable item in this world, he could complete it. But upon closer consideration, it was clear that things were not that simple.

There were two difficulties involved.

First, the value had to be high.

Second, he had to be able to obtain it.

There were plenty of things Fang Zheng considered valuable in this world—Satellite Nuke Fusion, Mechanical Power Exoskeletons, and so on. All of them were extremely valuable to him. Unfortunately, even if he knew about them, he had no way of acquiring them. Of course, if it were a Luxury Car Plane, he might be able to figure out a way to steal one. But Fang Zheng could guess with his ass that even if he used such things to make up the numbers and completed the quest, his evaluation probably would not be very high.

After all, the quest had made it very clear that it was testing his abilities as a Dimension Mage.

With that, the target had already been decided.

To Fang Zheng, there was only one thing of greatest value in this world: the Alien Boss. After all, the doctor in the movie had said that the Alien Boss possessed the ability to manipulate time! The male protagonist had gained the ability to repeatedly Save Load after being infected by the blood of a Boss Clone. Even when he perished together with the Boss at the end, he had returned to the very beginning of the movie because he had been infected by the Boss's blood.

That was the power to manipulate time!

Any ability related to time manipulation was unquestionably precious and rare. What excited Fang Zheng even more was that, if the movie was accurate, the Boss itself had no combat ability whatsoever. It could only summon its underlings and use its time-resetting power. If that was really the case, dealing with the Boss would be much easier for Fang Zheng.

The only problem was that the aliens had already occupied all of Europe, and Fang Zheng clearly could not cross the occupied territory alone and capture the Boss directly.

But for Fang Zheng, this problem was not entirely unsolvable.

Before that, though, he ought to properly enjoy some modern food!

Fang Zheng naturally did not have money from this world, but fortunately, those three kind-hearted thugs from earlier had been very willing to sponsor him with some funds. He accepted without the slightest hesitation, then found a fast-food restaurant and had a hearty meal. As he enjoyed the familiar flavors, tears streamed down Fang Zheng's face. Junk food was unhealthy, but... at least it reminded him of the taste of home.

Next came the question of how to act.

While eating his hamburger, Fang Zheng watched the television in the fast-food restaurant and pondered the matter.

His grasp of the timeline in Edge of Tomorrow was somewhat hazy. He remembered that the male protagonist had gone to the battlefield after only a few days of training, but the later timeline was rather strange. Repeated Save Loads aside, in the latter part of the movie, when the two went to see the general, the general told Tom Cruise, "You used to be a deserter. I never expected you to return here as a war hero." That meant Tom Cruise had won the beach battle against the aliens more than once, and that made the timing difficult to estimate. After all, a battle was not so easily concluded, and Tom Cruise still had to return to London afterward. It was hard to judge how much time that would take. Since the movie only focused on Tom Cruise repeatedly loading saves and reviving, it never gave a clear explanation of the timeline.

Besides that, another issue gave Fang Zheng a headache: would Tom Cruise's Save Load affect him? If it did not, then after Tom Cruise died, Fang Zheng would have to face a completely unknown future—though in truth, there was not much unknown about it. In fact, it would be better if it did not affect him. Save Load might be great fun for the person involved, but for people like Fang Zheng who were dragged into it, it was far from pleasant.

But if it could affect him, then that would be a serious problem.

In fact, Fang Zheng had always found one part of this movie incomprehensible. The protagonists believed that the Alien Boss used its power to manipulate time, constantly resetting time to achieve victory. But Fang Zheng doubted that. On the surface, the Alien Creatures were far stronger than humans, and there was barely any strategy involved in their battles. The Alien Boss did not seem particularly intelligent either. At least in the movie, the only sign that it had prepared anything was the ambush against humanity on the beach. But in Fang Zheng's eyes, that was nothing more than, "Holy crap, the enemy plans to attack from the beach. Let me load a save and place some troops here." It was basically the sort of reaction any player with normal intelligence would have.

There was another issue: how was he supposed to capture the Alien Boss?

Fang Zheng had no intention of following the protagonist. Tom Cruise could recklessly throw his life away because he had the ability to load saves. He could revive after dying, but that was rather dangerous for Fang Zheng. The best method was to control an army. That way, most problems could be solved.

As for where to get that army... Fang Zheng glanced at his Soul Stone again.

Since there were already aliens here, adding a wave of Zerg should not make much difference, right?

Fang Zheng had not teleported to London, but to a small city near the border. Since all of Europe had already been occupied by those aliens, he naturally could not go to London to find the male protagonist. But he did not care much. To be honest, the aliens had displayed considerable strength, yet they seemed to have no air force. That was another thing Fang Zheng could not understand. The aliens did possess anti-aircraft methods in the movie, but no air force... was that really okay?

Of course, those were not problems Fang Zheng needed to worry about. The more idiotic the enemy was, the easier things would be for him. So after eating and drinking his fill, he found an opportunity to sneak out of the town. The town lay behind the front lines of the war against the aliens, so security was not particularly tight. Leaving it was not difficult for Fang Zheng.

"Now then, let me see what this Soul Stone can do."

Standing in the dense forest, Fang Zheng took a deep breath. He had already switched out Arthas, whom he had equipped previously, and replaced him with Kerrigan.

The instant he equipped Kerrigan's Soul Stone, Fang Zheng felt as though the world before his eyes had changed. Strange knowledge emerged in his mind—mysterious power he had never encountered or used before. The scenery before him also began to look different. At first glance, nothing seemed unusual, but when Fang Zheng focused, he found that the entire world appeared to be covered in a dark crimson layer, its edges blurred and indistinct. Not only that, he could see several moving patches of light at varying distances.

Fang Zheng closed his eyes, then opened them again. The world before him returned to normal.

"Doesn't seem quite like the game..."

Fang Zheng flexed his fingers and frowned. Then he stretched out a hand toward a distant thicket and clenched it.

"-----!!"

With a low cry, a deer rose from the bushes. It struggled desperately to break free, but Psionic power had firmly seized its body, leaving it unable to escape. Fang Zheng made another gesture, and the deer flew before him. He extended his right hand, and a mass of green substance formed in his palm before he pressed it onto the deer's body.

"---!!---!!!"

Very quickly, the deer began to thrash its head wildly and flail its limbs. As it moved, veins bulged beneath the skin where Fang Zheng's palm had touched it, gradually spreading across the deer's entire body. When the veins reached its head, there was a bang, and the deer suddenly exploded. Its body twitched a few times before becoming a motionless corpse.

"Holy crap!"

The sudden explosion gave Fang Zheng quite a fright. He hurriedly released his hand and retreated several steps. At that moment, the Psionic power dissipated, and the deer's shattered corpse fell to the ground with a thud. Then, something appeared to be wriggling inside the corpse. Before long, a Parasite bit through the deer's belly and crawled out.

Seeing the Larva happily crawling around by his feet, Fang Zheng was completely speechless. He had previously wondered how Kerrigan would create a Zerg army without any Zerg, but he had never expected there to be such a method.

This works too?

Looking at the Parasite hopping around on the ground, Fang Zheng did not know what to say. The little creature was not as terrifying as he had imagined. Instead, it looked rather cute. Just as Fang Zheng tried to communicate with the Parasite, a gunshot suddenly rang out behind him.

Bang!