The Polluted Dungeon

"It's just that from the looks of it, the officials don't seem to have publicly condemned players of the Con artist class!"

"Where did the title 'public enemy' for Con artists come from?"

While browsing posts on the forum, Qin Shang's permissions were insufficient, and he didn't know how to redeem points.

However, he did see many dungeon guides with "Con artist" in their prefixes.

Other players didn't show any rejection or resistance towards the Con artist class. So why would Sheriff 'Eagle of Justice' call Con artists the public enemy...

"Also, should I seek refuge with the officials?"

Qin Shang cupped his chin and pondered for a moment.

However, a sentence from his wife's memo, 'Don't trust anyone 100%', suddenly flashed in his mind, making him shiver.

Who knew if this was the officials' sting operation?

"If Qiqi is also a Path of the Gods player, would she get the idea of seeking refuge with the officials after becoming a player?"

"Most likely. Then what kind of attitude would the officials have towards her? Is Qiqi also a Con artist class?"

Qin Shang pursed his lips and started searching for related information.

He first tried searching for Jiang Qiqi's name on the forum, but it showed no such user.

He thought to himself, it's unlikely anyone would use their real name for a Path of the Gods ID.

As the saying goes, there are no wrong nicknames, only wrong names.

Jiang Qiqi was lively and cheerful, and she liked playing games, but she was purely a "Noob But Loves to Play."

After playing a few times with him, although Qin Shang didn't complain much, Jiang Qiqi, a gaming enthusiast, quietly spent six yuan to change her ID to "Noob But Loves to Play."

"Let me try 'Noob But Loves to Play'..."

No such user!

Qin Shang scratched his head and entered "Mother Guards Mid Lane."

This time, it didn't say "no such user," but "Your current permissions are insufficient to browse."

Seeing this, Qin Shang's face lit up with joy.

Although it wasn't impossible for others to use an ID that was a popular meme.

If Jiang Qiqi were a Path of the Gods player, the possibility of her using it was higher.

Because before she went on her business trip to Yanjing, she had told Qin Shang that she wanted to have a child with him and hoped Qin Shang would get better soon...

Furthermore, the images of most mid-lane heroes in MOBAs were cute and playful, which fit Jiang Qiqi's aesthetic.

So when she played games, she mostly used this ID to play as a mid-lane mage.

"What a shame. If I could view Qiqi's posting time and content, I might be able to deduce Qiqi's class and related dungeons."

"I might even be able to accurately determine the specific date of Qiqi's disappearance!"

Qin Shang felt a bit regretful.

However, his wife had been missing for nearly ninety days, and he had long given up hope.

Getting a clue now was undoubtedly a godsend. Having a clue was better than having none.

Next, Qin Shang searched for [Death Train] on the Path of the Gods Player Official Forum.

However, he didn't get much relevant information. In the dungeon guide section, there were no guides related to [Death Train] at all.

He only found some things in the casual discussion area.

But most of the posts were from 2018-2019, and the content was very ordinary, all narrated in the third person.

For example...

Player A:

"I have a good buddy who is a [Teacher] class player. One day, he told me, still shaken, that he had just finished a dungeon and was talking about [Death Train]. That's how I found out about this dungeon."

"I originally wanted to congratulate him on successfully returning from the dungeon. After all, this is an unexplored dungeon with no guide. The fact that he could return alive meant he could provide a dungeon guide, which is a huge fortune."

"But he looked dejected and had a bad expression, so I asked a few more questions. For the first time, he told me about dungeons that had rest periods and were divided into upper and lower sections. Then, twelve hours later, my brother entered this dungeon again."

"From then on, he never appeared again. He most likely perished in the dungeon..."

Player B:

"The [Death Train] dungeon is extremely strange. This dungeon must be contaminated, and many of the clues are incomplete. There was a Path of the Gods player with the ID 'Genius Con artist' who provided us with many Path of the Gods game guides. Then one day, he entered [Death Train], came out shaken, and left a suicide note."

"After the Path of the Gods opened twenty-four hours later, this player never returned."

Player C:

"This seems to be a Con artist dungeon. Other classes shouldn't worry; we won't be matched into this dungeon..."

Player B:

"No, [Death Train] used to be a solo exploration dungeon for Con artists. Players had cleared it before; it wasn't called this name back then. It was numbered 0927, a B-class Path of the Gods solo exploration dungeon, [Train Exploration]."

"Later, it became a multiplayer dungeon, and its name changed to [Death Train]. Its difficulty level inexplicably increased to A-class. Of course, as everyone knows, in multiplayer dungeons for Con artists, the dungeon difficulty for Con artists is one level higher than for other players."

"Anyway, it's said to be cursed and contaminated by some indescribable power."

Upon reading this, Qin Shang's expression froze.

The Death Train was indeed a dungeon split into two parts, and players could return to reality after reaching 50% exploration.

However, they would need to re-enter the dungeon twelve hours later.

After all, he was a newbie to the Path of the Gods, and he had originally assumed all other dungeons were the same.

But after looking at the posts in the casual discussion area, Qin Shang realized he had made a very subjective mistake.

Normal game dungeons didn't have mid-game breaks!

Moreover, he hadn't expected that even these official players wouldn't have a walkthrough for this dungeon.

In other words, the [Death Train] was an un-cleared dungeon that the administrator had mentioned in the moderator section.

He had specifically searched for 'un-cleared dungeons' when he was looking at the Dungeon Guide section earlier.

Basically, if it was a first clear, the title would be marked as a featured post, turning the text background brown, and would be rewarded with 10 points.

Although he hadn't figured out the use of points or how to obtain them yet, Qin Shang had already sensed the immense exchange power of points after browsing the forum for a while!

1 point was equal to 1 million RMB.

There were posts in the casual discussion section about acquiring points.

In other words, publishing a guide for a first clear of an A-grade dungeon would earn 10 points, which was equivalent to receiving ten million from the official source.

This showed how much the officials valued some of the unexplored dungeons in the Path of the Gods!

This was actually understandable; Path of the Gods players were still human.

Many of them were likely chosen to be players by the Path of the Gods for reasons unknown.

Who knew what the selection criteria were for the Path of the Gods, this supernatural game.

Human lives couldn't be measured in money!

And dungeons of A-grade or higher had extremely high mortality rates.

A guide for an A-grade dungeon might save the lives of countless future players who would enter that dungeon.

From a long-term perspective, A-grade dungeons were definitely worth the money!

At least so far, Qin Shang hadn't figured out the mystery behind the passenger information in the [Death Train].

Besides the four main sections, Qin Shang found a mini-program called Official Dungeon Records in the forum.

However, this mini-program was only accessible to official Path of the Gods players.

Now, he had a general understanding of the distribution of Path of the Gods players.

It seemed that all Path of the Gods players could log into this forum if they had an invitation code or an account.

Therefore, this included dungeons for the public enemy, the Con artist, and they could be traded freely in the Dungeon Guide section.

This was probably like a marketplace for a large group.

And within the forum, all player personal information was kept confidential.

Logging in only required verifying an ID and password; the officials didn't know their real-life identities!

It was just that to view guides for other professions' dungeons, or for one's own profession's dungeons, points were required for redemption.

The simplest way to obtain points was to exchange them directly with money.

1 point = 1 million RMB, and conversely, 1 million RMB could be exchanged for 1 point.

Qin Shang had roughly understood the branches.

Path of the Gods players could perhaps be divided into two major categories.

One category was players affiliated with the official organization, and the other was free players who hadn't submitted to the official organization.

Since the former had complied with the official organization, they would naturally use their superpowers to do work for them.

He currently had no points, so he couldn't view posts that required points.

He could only look at posts in the casual discussion area.

The information about the [Death Train] he had just obtained was also from the casual discussion area!

"The Path of the Gods players affiliated with the official organization seem to have exceptionally good treatment..."

"Someone posted that official players only needed to pay a small amount of points to browse all paid posts on a monthly basis."

"This means that the real target audience for those posts in the dungeon guide section are non-official Path of the Gods players."

"Since free players have left the dungeon, they don't care if the trading partner is the public enemy, so trading with the Con artist is also reasonable..."

While scrolling through the posts, Qin Shang had finished a pack of instant noodles and filled his stomach.

He was staring at his phone, rapidly flipping through.

He continued to search for content related to the [Death Train] in the casual discussion section.

"It seems other players who have entered this dungeon have all returned during the first round."

"According to feedback from quite a few players, those who entered the [Death Train] generally didn't encounter any life-threatening danger in the first round."

"Meaning, the real danger lies in entering the dungeon a second time?"

The second round involved exploring Car No. 3, so there must be something dangerous in Car No. 3.

This was what caused even official Path of the Gods players to never return.

Thinking of this, Qin Shang's brow furrowed tightly.

"A contaminated dungeon?"