Great Understanding Technique Activated!

The lights in the elevator flickered twice, then came back on.

The screen in front of them was still rapidly spitting out text. It seemed the tutorial had begun.

[The world has now been divided into countless small regions. Each region contains fixed dungeons. Players may click the "Map" button to view dungeon distribution details.]

The fat man's thick legs trembled so hard it looked like he was about to shake several pounds of flesh right off. "Doctor... what the hell is this...?"

Gu Mian reached out and pressed the [Map] button on the panel. "Let's take a look first."

After all, he had experienced plenty of strange events growing up, so he was not particularly stirred by this.

[Your location has been detected as Lianhua People's Hospital. A map of the surrounding area will now be displayed.]

Not long after that line appeared, a map really did emerge beneath it.

It was a small-scale map centered around Lianhua Hospital, covering a radius of roughly three thousand meters.

The buildings on the map were arranged exactly as they were in reality, but their names had changed.

"Lianhua People's Hospital became Zombie Hospital..."

"Sun Amusement Park became Human Head Balloon Paradise..."

"Reincarnation Inn became Ogre Inn..."

"I get it." Gu Mian studied the map and rubbed his chin.

The fat man scrambled over and grabbed him. "Why don't I get it? And why do all these names sound so damn creepy?"

"Look." Gu Mian patiently pointed at the map on the panel. "It means this hospital, this amusement park, and this inn have all become dungeons. If you go inside, you might die."

The entire world had probably been occupied by these dungeons by now.

The fat man stared at the map and swallowed. "Who'd be bored enough to go in there? I sure as hell won't!"

Just looking at those names was enough to make one's skin crawl.

Gu Mian looked at him. But you were already inside one, brother.

Earth seemed to have anticipated players like the fat man, because the screen before them changed again:

[The dungeons that can be found on the map are all fixed dungeons. However, this Evolution Game also contains a large number of non-fixed dungeons, namely Mobile Dungeons.]

A Mobile Dungeon was, as its name implied, a dungeon that moved.

So even if players deliberately avoided entering fixed dungeons, Mobile Dungeons would come looking for them on their own. Earth, you really were rotten to the core!

[Players who are not within fixed dungeons may encounter Mobile Dungeons at any time. Please note that the initial difficulty of Mobile Dungeons is far higher than that of fixed dungeons.]

The fat man trembled like a sieve as he spoke. "I recognize every single word when they're separate. How come I can't understand them once they're put together...?"

"Come on, I'll explain it in simple terms," Gu Mian said.

"It means don't be ungrateful and refuse to enter fixed dungeons. Otherwise, you'll be matched directly into a high-difficulty Mobile Dungeon. By then, you won't have strengthened anything, and you'll die the moment you go in." That was more or less what it meant.

[Once a dungeon begins, the area will be sealed off. Players cannot enter or leave unless the mission is completed or all players are wiped out. Only then will the area reopen.]

This probably meant that each dungeon could only admit one group of players at a time.

[Completing a dungeon mission within the designated time will grant rewards. Failure carries no penalty, but death within a dungeon is real death.]

[The search function in the upper-right corner may be used to search dungeon information. By searching for a dungeon, players can learn whether it is currently active and which players are participating.]

[Players may improve their Attributes by completing hidden missions or clearing dungeons. Attributes may be viewed on this panel.]

[Special Items may exist within dungeons. Once obtained, players may bring them out of the dungeon.]

Gu Mian pressed the [Attributes] button at the bottom of the panel.

A long string of Attributes appeared before him, though they looked a little abnormal.

[Name: Gu Mian]

[Gender: ???]

[Age: ???]

[Game ID: 1]

[Special Items: None]

[Game Currency: 0]

Seeing the question marks after gender, Gu Mian fell into deep thought.

There were four more values below: [Stamina], [Speed], [Strength], and [Spirit Value]. Without exception, every one of them was followed by "???"

Gu Mian turned his head and glanced at the fat man's panel. He found that not only was the man's gender clearly stated, all his other values were perfectly clear too. There was not a single question mark anywhere.

However, the fat man's Game ID was extremely long, with a full seven or eight digits.

He looked back at his own panel and discovered one more Attribute beneath it.

[Alignment: Chaos]

Gu Mian: "..."

Had Earth teamed up with the developers of some dungeon game? Why had it even copied the dungeon game's alignment system?

And what was with this Chaos of his?

Pah! I'm obviously a kind doctor!

At that moment, new text began appearing on the screen again.

[Leaderboard function not yet unlocked (unlocks when global players have cleared ten million dungeons)]

[Friends function not yet unlocked (unlocks when global player deaths exceed one billion)]

[Mall System not yet unlocked (unlocks when global players have obtained one million Game Currency)]

There were progress bars behind each of those lines, but none of them had moved yet.

There were several more lines below.

[Class System not yet unlocked (unlock conditions unknown)]

[Players may summon this panel at any time (if you are still alive)]

[The tutorial is about to end. All players currently in dungeons, please prepare yourselves. Once dungeon missions have been issued, the game will officially begin!]

The game really knew how to make an entrance. It had even added an exclamation mark at the end.

The fat man beside him was still completely confused. After several seconds, he stiffly spoke for the first time. "Doctor, that map we just saw... we're currently in..."

"That's right." Gu Mian smiled brightly. "We're in the Zombie Hospital dungeon. Judging by the name, I'd say there are probably quite a few zombies here."

The fat man nearly burst into tears. "What Evolution Game? This is clearly the goddamn apocalypse!"

The elevator still had not opened. It looked like it would only open once the game began.

The fat man sprawled on the ground and repeatedly slammed his head against the floor. "I might as well jump straight down from the 18th Floor and go find my parents!"

Gu Mian tucked his hands into his white coat. "Give mine my regards while you're at it."

The fat man, who had been banging his head against the floor, raised his head in surprise. "Your parents are dead too?"

"After all, I came from Qidian Orphanage."

"Qidian—" The fat man seemed to recall something, then suddenly understood. "The Qidian where the parents who died together could hold hands and circle the Earth once?"

Gu Mian's parents were among that global circuit.

"Both our parents are dead, so why are you so calm?" the fat man asked, utterly baffled.

Gu Mian suddenly bent down to look at him. "Do you know—"

"What?" the fat man asked doubtfully.

Gu Mian stared at him as he spoke:

"For over twenty years, I've experienced train derailments, twenty-eight-car pileups, gas leaks, gas explosions, eighteen flowerpots falling one after another directly onto my head, and a landlord who tried everything he could to kill me... yet I'm still alive."

"Life has done everything in its power to kill me, but I still survived tenaciously."

"In the end, I came to one conclusion: life doesn't like the look of me, but I seem unable to die."

So it was only an Evolution Game. There was nothing worth making a fuss over.

Furthermore, Gu Mian discovered that he was still abnormal even in this game. The Attribute panel full of "???" made that clear enough.

The fat man was still frozen, unable to pull himself out of Gu Mian's tragic life story, when a sudden ding sounded beside them.

Several lines of text appeared on the panel. The contents of the first dungeon had appeared—