A Contaminated Dungeon

"It looks like the official side hasn't publicly condemned Con artists as a profession at all!"

"Where did the title of Con artist, the public enemy of all, come from?"

Qin Shang browsed posts on the forum. Although he lacked sufficient permissions, he also had no idea how to redeem points.

However, he saw quite a few dungeon guides with the three-character prefix "Con artist."

Other players didn't seem to reject or resent the Con artist profession. So why had the law enforcer Eagle of Justice said that Con artists were the public enemy of all...?

"Also, should I join the official side?"

Qin Shang propped up his chin and pondered for a moment.

But then he suddenly remembered the sentence his wife had written in her memo—"Never trust anyone one hundred percent"—and felt a chill run through him.

Who knew whether this was an official sting operation?

"If Qiqi is also a Path of the Gods player, will she have thought about joining the official side after becoming a player?"

"There's an eighty percent chance she would. Then what kind of attitude would the official side have toward her? Is Qiqi also a Con artist?"

Qin Shang pressed his lips together and began searching for relevant information.

He first tried searching the forum for Jiang Qiqi's name, but the result showed that no such user existed.

He thought about it. Most normal people probably wouldn't use their real names as their Path of the Gods IDs.

As the saying went, you could give someone the wrong name, but never the wrong nickname.

Jiang Qiqi had an outgoing and lively personality, and she also loved playing games, though she was purely the type who was terrible at them but loved playing anyway.

After playing with Qin Shang several times, although he hadn't complained much, Jiang Qiqi, a gaming enthusiast, had quietly spent six yuan to change her ID to "Terrible but Loves Playing."

"Let's try Terrible but Loves Playing..."

No such user existed!

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

This time, the result wasn't that no such user existed. Instead, it said that his current permissions were insufficient and he couldn't browse the account.

Qin Shang's face lit up at once.

Although it wasn't certain that nobody else would use such a hackneyed ID,

if Jiang Qiqi was a Path of the Gods player, she was more likely to use it.

Before she had gone to Yanjing on a business trip, she had even told Qin Shang that she wanted to have a child with him and hoped he would get better soon...

On top of that, the mid-lane heroes in most MOBA mobile games were quite cute and playful, which fit Jiang Qiqi's tastes perfectly.

So whenever she played, she basically used this ID to play mid-lane mages.

"What a pity. If I could view the times Qiqi posted and the content of her posts, I might be able to deduce her profession and associated dungeon."

"I might even be able to pinpoint the exact date Qiqi disappeared!"

Qin Shang felt rather regretful.

But his wife had been missing for nearly ninety days, and he had long since stopped hoping.

Being able to obtain a clue now was undoubtedly a blessing from heaven. Having a lead was better than having nothing.

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

However, he didn't find much relevant information. In the Dungeon Guide section, he couldn't even find a guide related to Death Train.

It was only in the Casual Discussion section that he found some information.

Most of the posts had been published between 2018 and 2019, and their contents were quite ordinary. They were all retellings from a third party.

For example...

Player A:

"I have a buddy I'm close with. He's a player with the Teacher profession. One day, he told me, still shaken, that he had just finished a dungeon. Then he mentioned Death Train, and that was how I learned about this dungeon."

"I originally wanted to congratulate him on returning safely from the dungeon. After all, this was an unexplored dungeon with no guide. The fact that he had made it back alive meant he could provide a dungeon guide, which would be worth a fortune."

"But he was dejected, with an ugly expression on his face, so I asked him a few more questions. It was the first time I'd heard of a dungeon with a rest period, one where the guide was divided into an upper and lower segment. Then, twelve hours later, my buddy entered this dungeon again."

"After that, he never appeared again. There's an eighty percent chance he died in the dungeon..."

Player B:

"Death Train is incredibly sinister. This dungeon must have been contaminated. Many of its clues are incomplete. There used to be a Path of the Gods ID called 'Genius Con artist' that provided us with many Path of the Gods game guides. Then one day, he entered Death Train. After coming out, he left a suicide note while still in a state of shock."

"After twenty-four hours, when Path of the Gods opened again, that player never returned."

Player C:

"Isn't this a Con artist dungeon? Other professions shouldn't have to worry. We won't be matched into this dungeon..."

Player B:

"No. Death Train used to be a solo exploration dungeon for Con artists, and players cleared it back then. It wasn't called this at the time. Its number was 0927, a B-grade Path of the Gods solo exploration dungeon called Train Exploration."

"Later, it became a multiplayer dungeon, and its name changed to Death Train. Its difficulty level inexplicably rose to A-grade. 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 have been cursed and contaminated by some indescribable force."

Qin Shang's expression stiffened when he read this.

Death Train was indeed a dungeon divided into upper and lower sections. Once the exploration progress reached fifty percent, players could return to reality.

But they had to enter the dungeon again twelve hours later.

After all, he was a novice Path of the Gods player. He had originally assumed that all dungeons were the same.

But after reading the posts in the Casual Discussion section, Qin Shang realized that he seemed to have made a very subjective mistake.

Normal game dungeons didn't have mid-stage rest periods!

Moreover, he hadn't expected that even these official players didn't have a guide for clearing this dungeon.

In other words, Death Train was the unguided dungeon that the administrator had mentioned writing about in the moderator section.

When he had looked through the Dungeon Guide section earlier, he had specifically searched for "unguided dungeons."

Basically, if it was a first clear, the title would be highlighted as an elite post, with brown text on a brown background, and the poster would receive ten points.

Although he still hadn't figured out what points were used for or how to obtain them, after browsing the forum for a while, Qin Shang had already sensed their terrifying exchange value!

One point was equal to one million RMB.

There were posts in the Casual Discussion section offering to purchase points.

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

This showed just how much importance the official side placed on some unexplored Path of the Gods dungeons!

That was understandable, actually. Path of the Gods players were all human.

Most of them had probably been inexplicably chosen by Path of the Gods to become players.

Who knew what standards this supernatural game called Path of the Gods used to select people?

Human lives couldn't be measured with money!

Moreover, the death rate in dungeons above A-grade was extremely high.

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

From a long-term perspective, an A-grade dungeon was absolutely worth that much money!

At least for now, Qin Shang still hadn't figured out the mystery of the passengers in Death Train.

Besides the four major sections, Qin Shang found a mini-program called Official Dungeon Archive on the forum.

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

At this point, he more or less understood the distribution of Path of the Gods players.

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

That meant the dungeons of the public enemy of all, the Con artists, were included as well, and could be traded independently in the Dungeon Guide section.

It was probably like a marketplace for a huge community.

Within the forum, all personal information of the players was kept confidential.

Logging in only required verification of an ID and password. The official side had no idea of their real-world identities!

However, viewing guides for other professions' dungeons, or even guides for one's own profession's dungeons, required points to redeem.

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

One point equaled one million RMB, and conversely, one million RMB could be exchanged for one point.

Qin Shang had gained a rough understanding of the factions.

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

One group consisted of Path of the Gods players affiliated with the official side, while the other consisted of independent players who had not submitted to the official side.

Since the former had submitted to the official side, they would naturally use their supernatural abilities to work for it.

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

He could only look through the posts in the Casual Discussion section.

The information about Death Train just now had also come from the Casual Discussion section!

"Players affiliated with the official side seem to receive especially good treatment..."

"Someone posted that official players only need to pay a few points to browse all paid posts for an entire month."

"In other words, the true customers for those posts in the Dungeon Guide section are non-official Path of the Gods players."

"Since independent players had already left the dungeon, they didn't care whether their trading partners were the public enemy of all. So doing business with Con artists was perfectly reasonable..."

While browsing the posts, Qin Shang had already finished an entire packet of instant noodles, which was enough to fill his stomach.

He stared at his phone and flipped through the posts rapidly.

He continued searching for information related to Death Train in the Casual Discussion section.

"It seems that all the other players who entered this dungeon returned after the first round."

"According to feedback from many players, those who entered Death Train basically didn't encounter any danger to their lives during the first round."

"In other words, the real danger lies in entering the dungeon for the second time?"

The second round involved exploring Carriage Three. In other words, there had to be something dangerous in Carriage Three.

That was why even Path of the Gods players backed by the official side had failed to return.

At this thought, Qin Shang's brows drew tightly together;

"A contaminated dungeon?"