Boom!!!
Accompanied by a deafening gunshot, a silver-gray giant wolf with a shoulder height close to an adult man's chin collapsed abruptly on the wasteland filled with withered yellow weeds.
Its body, covered in multiple blood holes, narrow wounds, and large areas scorched to the point of smoking, quickly vanished into the air like smoke, leaving behind only one close and two distant figures on the surrounding wasteland, along with vast traces of blood.
The closest among them was a young man lying flat on his back. The young man had already lost consciousness, his right hand tightly clutching a deformed and notched short blade, and his clothes were completely tattered, revealing strips of flesh gouged out by the giant wolf's sharp claws through the shreds of fabric, looking utterly miserable; only his slightly rising and falling, blood-blurred chest indicated that he was still alive.
A little over ten meters away from the miserable young man lying on the wasteland, there were two young people with expressions of having just survived a disaster.
One of them was a young man wearing a cowboy hat. He flicked the revolver in his hand, the muzzle of which was venting bluish-white smoke, and turned his head to speak to a pale-faced woman not far away who was leaning on a long brown staff with both hands:
"We finally beat it... Who would have thought this Lv2 monster would be so hard to kill? I almost ran out of bullets."
The tone of the cowboy-hatted young man at this moment was quite relieved, because he knew very well what a terrible plight he would fall into as a player with the gunner class once his bullets were exhausted.
"Yeah... This time we owe it all to the Warrior teammate up front."
The female player whose class should be Mage nodded upon hearing this, and then, together with the cowboy-hatted young man, walked forward to check the condition of the battered young man lying on the ground.
"He's not dead yet, just injured and unconscious... Do you have a healing spell or a Healing Potion?"
The cowboy-hatted young man quickly confirmed that the young man on the ground was still alive, though in very poor condition, and then he asked his Mage teammate nearby if she could provide any help.
"I don't have those things."
The young female Mage player shook her head accordingly.
"I hope he can pull through on his own... As long as he can briefly regain consciousness, he can return directly to the real world while completely recovering his physical state."
Just as the female Mage player finished answering the cowboy-hatted young man, a glowing square box appeared out of thin air beside each of them, and the outline of a box also emerged beside the young man lying on the ground. This was the most anticipated treasure-chest-opening phase after completing a dungeon.
Without any contention, the two people standing on the ground quickly bent down to open the lids of their respective treasure chests, eagerly checking their harvest from clearing this dungeon.
"A box of ordinary-tier bullets... An ordinary-tier dagger... Sigh... Barely acceptable, I suppose."
After tallying the harvest in his treasure chest, the young man with the gunner class immediately sighed with disappointment, simply because he found his luck truly mediocre, and the items in the chest gave him not a shred of surprise.
Yet when he turned to look at the female Mage player next to him who had also finished opening her chest, he found that her expression right now was quite delighted as she slipped a slightly glowing ruby ring onto the index finger of her right hand.
"Could the thing you dropped be..."
A trace of jealousy flashed in the gunner player's eyes at the sight, but for certain reasons he instantly suppressed the emotion again.
"It's a Fine Tier ring, and it just happens to have an amplifying effect on my Fireball."
The female Mage player nearby clearly wasn't worried that her teammate would suddenly turn hostile to snatch the treasure. She showed the ruby ring already worn on her right index finger to the gunner player and simply explained the function of this treasure to him, since the detailed attributes of such items cannot be directly viewed by non-owners.
"Your luck really is good; even Fine Tier stuff drops, and it's a rare ring-type item at that..."
Upon seeing this, the gunner player couldn't help but sigh with a somewhat jealous tone, but next he shifted his gaze to the ground—specifically, to the treasure chest beside the battered Warrior player lying on the ground.
"I say, you'd better not harbor any ideas about his treasure chest. He's still alive right now, and if you take his things, you'll definitely enter the Punishment Instance."
The female Mage player, currently engrossed in the joy of dropping a Fine Tier ring, immediately noticed the suspicious movement of the gunner player beside her and spoke up to warn him.
The Punishment Instance mechanic she mentioned was something all players knew very well and had been proven to exist countless times; otherwise, she wouldn't have directly opened her own treasure chest right here without the slightest worry that the gunner beside her would rob her.
"Of course I know that. I just wanted to help him see what his reward is."
The cowboy-hatted young man spoke to the female Mage player without turning his head at this moment, and then he walked over to the last unopened treasure chest on the ground, bent down, and reached out to open its lid.
If it was merely opening a treasure chest for another player without any plundering actions, such behavior was completely permissible. After all, quite a few players were rather superstitious about whether luck was good or bad, and would deliberately invite so-called "red-handed" players to help them open treasure chests.
With the opening of this very last box, the contents inside quickly revealed themselves, prompting the opener to utter a cry of shock and doubt:
"Huh? Why is this box empty?"
He was right. When he opened this treasure chest that didn't belong to him, he found that there was nothing inside at all—it was completely empty.
"This... That's impossible, right..."
Upon hearing this, the nearby female Mage player immediately grew somewhat surprised, for no other reason than that she knew very well how rare it was for a treasure chest to be completely empty; it was said to be a condition even harder to encounter than dropping Fine Tier items.
"It really is empty! There's nothing in here!"
The gunner player immediately stood up, raised his head, and assured the nearby female Mage. The female Mage also quickly approached to confirm that the chest they were inspecting truly contained nothing at all.
"Sigh... He really is miserable... He practically risked his life to fight that monster just now, only to end up with an empty treasure chest."
The cowboy-hatted young man now felt extreme sympathy for the teammate still lying on the ground beside him. Originally, he had been plotting to take his poor teammate's leftovers as a matter of course after the latter died a natural death, but now that thought of his directly vanished into thin air.
"Nothing to be done. Sometimes luck just plays tricks like that."
Seeing this, the female Mage player beside him also sighed with mixed emotions. She understood all too well how tremendous the effort put forth by this failing teammate had been during the battle just now, yet the result in exchange was so tragic. Who knew, maybe when he finally managed to regain consciousness and discovered his treasure chest was empty, he would be pissed to death on the spot.
"Let's go, let's go... We'll party up again if we get the chance next time."
"Okay, goodbye."
The cowboy-hatted young man and the female Mage player quickly bid each other farewell and left this dungeon, their figures vanishing directly into the air of this wasteland.
This was actually them using the return function possessed by all players. As long as a player had finished a dungeon and still retained a certain degree of consciousness, they could use their mental will to control their player panel and choose to leave the current world. Then, no matter how terrible their previous condition was, they could recover to pristine shape. This was a free perk universally owned by players.
Thus, on this wasteland covered with withered yellow weeds, only the miserable young man who was still lying on the ground remained, alongside an opened empty box beside him. As for the other two chests, they had completely vanished long ago after the items inside were taken away.
This state continued for about another quarter of an hour. The down-and-out young man, who looked as though he might die completely at any moment, suddenly slowly opened his eyes, and thereupon a look of shock flashed abruptly within those eyes.
So painful... Am I... time-traveled? And I became some kind of player?
Wang Zhifan felt extremely surprised inside right now; he was originally an ordinary working stiff from Blue Star's Celestial Empire, but he never expected that while working overtime, he would suddenly cross over to this bizarre place and have his soul replace an otherworldly youth with the same name, becoming a cannon-fodder Warrior player who kicked the bucket on his very first dungeon run.
"What are these things in front of me again... Please independently select your dungeon rewards?"
After confirming that his current physical condition was quite pathetic and not suited for too much activity right away, Wang Zhifan shifted his attention to other aspects—that was an invisible screen floating out of thin air before his eyes, displaying rows of dense text upon it.
Please independently select your dungeon rewards (up to 3 items can be selected)
Normal Tier (98% drop probability)
Long Saber (Normal) X0~3, Pistol (Normal) X0~3, Dagger (Normal) X0~3...
Wolfhide Armor (Normal) X0~3, Wolfhide Cap (Normal) X0~3, Wolfhide Shoes (Normal) X0~3...
Pistol Bullet Boxed (Normal) X0~3, Rifle Bullet Boxed (Normal) X0~3, Sniper Rifle Bullet Boxed (Normal) X0~3...
Ruby Ring (Normal) X0~3, Emerald Ring (Normal) X0~3, Sapphire Ring (Normal) X0~3...
Warrior Skill Upgrade Scroll (Normal) X0~3, Mage Skill Upgrade Scroll (Normal) X0~3, Assassin Skill Upgrade Scroll (Normal) X0~3...
Fine Tier (1% drop probability):
Long Saber (Fine) X0~2, Pistol (Fine) X0~2, Dagger (Fine) X0~2...
Wolfhide Armor (Fine) X0~2, Wolfhide Cap (Fine) X0~2, Wolfhide Shoes (Fine) X0~2...
Pistol Bullet Boxed (Fine) X0~2, Rifle Bullet Boxed (Fine) X0~2, Sniper Rifle Bullet Boxed (Fine) X0~2...
Ruby Ring (Fine) X0~2, Emerald Ring (Fine) X0~2, Sapphire Ring (Fine) X0~2...
Warrior Skill Upgrade Scroll (Fine) X0~2, Mage Skill Upgrade Scroll (Fine) X0~2, Assassin Skill Upgrade Scroll (Fine) X0~2...
Rare Tier (0.01% drop probability):
Blade of the Wolf Fiend (Rare) X0~1
Before you continue