Hei Fan's Immense Pressure

The white-haired high elf ranger, who was half a head taller than Mo Tan, turned to look at him, puzzled. "Mana?"

"Uh... yeah, mana." Mo Tan gave a sheepish nod. To be honest, his mental fortitude was pretty average at the moment, and his lying skills were only slightly better than when he was in [Lawful Good] mode. Although he knew that the plan he'd come up with on the fly a few minutes ago shouldn't have any loopholes in theory, he still felt a little unsure.

But that was only in comparison to his other personalities. Being ordinary and mediocre in character didn't mean his abilities were the same. After all, Mo Tan possessed a vast amount of knowledge and had personally experienced countless crises. He could handle this kind of small scene.

Sure enough, Yinna didn't suspect anything and casually replied, "Yeah, we elves have a little mana in our bodies to varying degrees. It gradually accumulates with age, even if we don't do anything. But I mainly specialize in being a ranger, so I've never cultivated or meditated, unlike you."

"And..." she glanced at Mo Tan dangerously, "I'm still young, only about seventeen in human years. You better watch your wording, okay?"

Mo Tan chuckled dryly and nodded quickly in agreement. Then, he calculated the time in his head and tentatively asked, "So, about charging the magic crystal lamps, I wonder if you can handle that, Yinna?"

"Why?" Yinna immediately looked at him suspiciously. "Trying to slack off?"

As they spoke, they had already moved some distance away from Rockpile City. However, because this was the main road leading to the northern metropolis of Granite City, there were still many travelers coming and going. Every two hundred meters or so along the road, there was a magic crystal lamp placed on a short pillar. They didn't operate during the day but provided lighting and warmth for travelers after nightfall, while also serving to drive away low-level beasts.

It could be said that they were a common lighting fixture in Innocent World.

The two of them had just walked to the first magic crystal lamp.

"Not trying to slack off~" Mo Tan gently placed his hand on the thin crystal sheet that was attached to the stone base, gave Yinna an embarrassed expression, and then tried to sense the mana in his body without activating any skills. He immediately started sweating.

As mentioned before, the game [Innocent World] was quite unfriendly to players. There wouldn't be any of that stuff where you stand near a quest objective, and the system automatically pops up a box in front of you, with 'Inject Mana?' and 'Yes' and 'No' options below, and then selecting one counts as completing a certain percentage of the quest progress.

Don't even think about it!

Need to inject mana for a quest or something else? Okay, then figure out how to inject it properly. Don't expect any 'one-click completion' kind of good stuff.

As for even more excessive auto-pathing, AFK grinding, and the like... even web games wouldn't be that tasteless these days, okay...?

This world is a little too real.

But the truth is, this isn't even the most excessive part. The players who are currently in the novice stage don't yet know that not only are these regular operations, but even some of the more advanced skills require a certain level of skill to activate. Currently, everyone can master low-threshold, low-consumption, idiot-proof skills that don't require any skill from the player and can be activated with just a thought. But as the career level increases, this situation will completely change...

By the way, Mo Tan was already able to skillfully use a variety of advanced skills, especially in Black Witchcraft... but he himself didn't have the relevant memories.

"What are you doing?" Yinna asked curiously. "Are you treating this thing as your dream lover? Touching it so carefully..."

Mo Tan shrugged and said helplessly, "I've never done anything like this before. Seriously, praying and singing hymns are much harder..."

Then, he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, sensing the 'mana' that didn't really exist. This was undoubtedly a bit difficult, like we can never imagine what it would feel like to have an extra tail or a pair of wings. But it must be said that human adaptability is very~ very~ very amazing...

Soon, Mo Tan, who was turning red in the face from holding his breath, felt two inexplicable presences dwelling within him, concentrated in his limbs and brain respectively. If he carefully sensed the former, he would find that the power seemed to be subtly resonating with the surrounding environment, changeable and extremely unstable; while the latter constantly gave him a feeling of peace and warmth.

[First time triggering mana and faith power perception, Intelligence +1, Faith value limit +5]

A gentle system prompt rang in Mo Tan's ears. After a moment, the scale on the basic magic crystal in his hand gradually lit up.

When Mo Tan's mana value consumed 20 points at a rate of 5 points per second, the crystal's energy was completely saturated.

"Not bad~" Yinna patted him on the shoulder and smiled, "For someone who only knows how to pray and sing hymns, you're already outstanding enough. But actually, you don't have to fill it up completely. Seven percent mana and ten percent mana don't really have much difference in duration, it's just that the latter is brighter."

Mo Tan nodded, and then, instead of immediately going to the second magic crystal lamp two hundred meters away with Yinna, he looked at the apprentice ranger with a slightly ingratiating expression and lowered his head, saying, "Remember what we were talking about just now?"

"About slacking off?" Yinna raised an eyebrow.

"Not entirely." Mo Tan sighed. "I've run into a little trouble. If you can help me keep it a secret..."

Saying this, he glanced at Yinna and kept muttering in his heart, 'If you were a woman... if you were a normal woman...'

"Of course!" Yinna's eyes lit up, and she said quickly, "I'm happy to share secrets with others and keep them buried in my stomach!"

As it turned out, she was indeed a normal woman. It seemed that even elven women, even just NPCs, could hardly resist the temptation of gossip.

"I want to prepare something, in about forty minutes." Mo Tan whispered, "I might be leaving for a while then. If you can help charge the rest and tell everyone when you go back that I didn't slack off, that would be great... especially Shuangye, don't tell her..."

Yinna leaned against the stone pier with interest, her eyes sparkling with a brilliance that could kill several truckloads of cats, and chuckled, "That's not a big deal, but what's your reason? And why specifically hide it from Shuangye~?"

Mo Tan didn't speak, but gave Yinna a 'you know' look.

Yinna immediately nodded: "I understand~ I understand!"

[What exactly did you understand from that look I just gave you? I don't even understand it myself!! What a strong ability to fill in the blanks...]

Mo Tan roared inwardly while chuckling sheepishly. However, his intention was actually to make the other party run off track and complete a self-completion of a content that no one knew what it was, ok.

"Then I'll trouble you, Yinna." Mo Tan scratched his head and smiled foolishly. "If I haven't found you to meet up when everyone gathers, say I went to preach for the priest, I promised him before and it's hard to refuse."

Yinna blinked: "So well prepared? Seems like you're very confident?"

[What plane! What kind of confidence are you talking about!!]

Mo Tan twitched the corners of his mouth, nodded, and chuckled dryly, "So-so... so-so..."

"Then is the date set? Is there anything else I can help with!?" Yinna seemed to have completely forgotten about the task.

[What date!]

Mo Tan's heart was already in an orz state, but on the surface, he breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head: "I'll continue to take care of these magic crystal lamps first, try to leave you as little as possible."

"You can leave now, it doesn't matter~" Yinna waved her hand generously: "Business is the most important thing!"

[What business! So in your eyes, routine patrols to maintain law and order are nothing! Sister, your position is very dangerous!]

Mo Tan waved his hand weakly: "No need, no need, there's still time... Let's continue..."

Yinna shrugged indifferently: "Whatever makes you happy."

So for the next half hour, the two continued to carry out the task assigned to the Fenrir Squad by the Autonomous Army, completing about 70% of the work thanks to Mo Tan's efforts. This was still because his mana limit was low, otherwise he could have done a few more...

Then, at around 7:25 PM in real-time, a chat box suddenly popped up in Mo Tan's field of vision.

Sender: Shuangye

Content: "Hey! Still busy?"

Mo Tan quickly replied, "Yeah, I've only managed to get a little over half done after all this time. Speaking of which, don't you have work?! Why are you online?"

Of course, he could see in his friend list that Shuangye had indeed been offline for a while and had only just logged in, but he was just pretending not to notice.

"Getting into the game during break time doubles the rest time! Okay, that's about it, I'm logging off now, you keep going!"

Shuangye replied even faster and logged off immediately after speaking.

Although the friend list in Innocent World doesn't have statuses like 'online', 'offline', 'invisible', or 'visible only to xx', Mo Tan could still guess that Shuangye had probably really left the game.

And then...

"What are you spacing out for?" Yinna, seeing Mo Tan standing still, gently patted his shoulder and asked, "Did it take too much out of you?"

Mo Tan quickly nodded, then pretended to look up at the sun and exclaimed, "Ah! I should get going..."

This world doesn't have watches, so Yinna's calculation of time wasn't as accurate as Mo Tan's, who had been constantly counting his pulse to keep track. She could only guess how much time had passed, so she immediately said, "Okay! Then good luck! I'll help cover for you with the team~"

Five minutes later

[You have voluntarily disconnected. Do you want to reconnect?]

"No."

[Execute the wake-up program?]

"As soon as possible."

[Received. The time is now January 1, 2049, 7:30 PM. You will awaken in one minute.]

When Mo Tan opened his eyes, the time on his phone was exactly 7:30 PM.

"The time is about what I expected..." He got up and poured himself a glass of water, then complained without resentment, "Ah~ I feel like whether it's working part-time as a hacker or dealing with hackers, it's all dangerous, and super troublesome!"

But his sighs at this time shouldn't be taken seriously. In fact, none of his sighs should be taken seriously when it comes to 'Mo Tan'.

After all, he's sick...

After closing his eyes and resting for about two minutes, when Mo Tan opened them again, the feeling he gave off was completely different.

He was still him, but he wasn't the same him as before.

"Scratch that~" With excitement and joy sparkling in his eyes, Mo Tan chuckled to himself, "If this world didn't have any trouble at all, it would be too boring."

Without a doubt, he didn't mind trouble finding him at all at this moment, and he was more than happy to cause trouble for others~

Although actively switching personalities took a lot of energy out of Mo Tan, he still didn't rest much, but went straight to the game pod and lay down inside.

[Mental connection detected]

[Entering [Innocent World] - Player Public Space]

[Please select the area you wish to log in to.]

"Thirteen~"

[Received. Accessing Public Area Thirteen. Welcome, Chaotic Neutral Tan Mo]

After a brief moment of dizziness, Mo Tan found himself in a not-so-spacious space, and after a preliminary assessment the moment he opened his eyes, it seemed to be a prison cell.

The iron door in front of him, which was faintly glowing, was the exit.

"The game is called [Innocent World], but the public space where only players exist is an environment designed for 'prisoners' or 'criminals', huh~" Mo Tan shook his head and smiled, "That's quite the blatant irony..."

With that, he reached out and pushed open the half-open iron door.

[You are about to enter a public area. Do you want to blur your appearance?]

"Definitely~" Mo Tan whistled and answered the system sound very naturally.

Unlike the game world, the official introduction to the player public space was relatively detailed. You could find out about things like being able to blur your appearance by looking at the information, without even needing to consult the forums.

As for why consult the forums instead of customer service? It's simple, because [Innocent World] doesn't have a customer service phone number!

This has to be said is the most bizarre of the bizarre in the gaming world...

There's no customer service phone number, no customer service email, you have to take care of all problems yourself, and you can't even get a refund after 24 hours!

This is Innocent Company's attitude towards players. Even though it's just a new company, it has an air of arrogance that says 'your grandpa is still your grandpa', which can't help but make many players look at it with new eyes.

And then curse up a storm...

After being covered in a layer of mosaic, Mo Tan finally left the 'prison cell' and entered Public Area Thirteen.

Strictly speaking, he was refreshed into it, after all, if the system put a door on this place, not to mention anything else, it would be possible to get squeezed to death when there were too many players! If some unlucky gnome race player ran into a peak period, tragic events would be almost inevitable...

So, although the system is your grandpa, it's still very considerate in most cases~

Mo Tan was still wearing the equipment he had as Tan Mo, but all his skills had been locked, and his physique had become that of an ordinary person in reality. Equipment and attribute bonuses were obviously meaningless here.

After glancing around, he almost immediately found the girl in the mage robe, with orange hair, long hair, and round glasses.

"Hey~" He crept up to Shuangye not far away, and whispered to a very tall and strong orc man next to her, "What do you think about adding Erguotou to the water?"

"???"

Chapter 15: End