New Instance [Folklore Taboo: Skin-Peeling Maze City]

"It feels like this talent system is actually more like a collection of achievement titles; you meet the conditions, and you get a title with an effect," Zhang Anzai thought, shaking his head helplessly.

Looking at the requirements, many talents aren't just about having the right time and place; at the very least, you need the right environment and the right people.

Take, for example, the relatively common [Robust Physique] (D-rank) among new players—a talent symbolizing a healthy body—which also requires long-term training.

Yet, within the dungeons, finding a safe zone where you can actually train properly is incredibly difficult.

What if the time required was shorter?

"[People of the Dog Rong] (D-rank): Causes at least 10 different types of animals to shift their attitude toward you in a positive direction, such as from wary to gentle, or gentle to trusting. Thereafter, all non-intelligent beasts will maintain a gentle attitude toward you, barring special circumstances."

But what if you can't even match into a dungeon that contains animals?

After staring at the list for a long time, he realized he could only browse and try to memorize as much as possible for now; if he really wanted to train something, he would have to wait until he was inside a dungeon.

Ultimately, it was because his current strength was average. Those players with complete legacies could rely on their own abilities to master these low-level talents with almost perfect accuracy.

Of course, as the dungeons they match into increase in difficulty, they rely more on powerful skills and legacy abilities, making these talents little more than icing on the cake.

Besides, while high-level players are strong, high-level talents are also much harder to learn.

Zhang Anzai had previously wanted information on B-rank talents, but after Cheng Ye sent him a case study, he gave up on the idea.

"[Mind Eye Insight] (B-rank): Avoid incoming attacks one hundred times without using your eyes to observe them, or dodge sudden attacks from outside your field of vision. Once possessed, intuition and sixth sense increase significantly, and you can directly perceive the environment within a hundred-meter radius through telepathy."

Is it strong? Yes.

Can it be trained? Not in the slightest.

C-rank and D-rank are already pushing the limits of what an ordinary person can achieve; anything higher is practically superhuman.

"Take things one step at a time, eat one bite at a time... no need to overreach," Zhang Anzai mused while flipping through the countless talents.

"This week, the performance of our two employees, Zhang Anzai and Jiang Pan, remains outstanding. I believe that in a week or two at most, I will see you both in the formal team. Of course, besides them, other colleagues in the rookie group have also performed well; several have performance metrics close behind, and there is hope for them to become formal employees soon..."

It was another Monday, and Xu Xinhai was delivering his speech on stage as usual. Zhang Anzai listened from below without a ripple of emotion.

After all, this week was just empty praise without any tangible rewards, so what was the point? Emotional value couldn't be eaten, and a leader's praise was particularly worthless.

"You weren't like this last week," Lin Zhao said, looking at the stern-faced Zhang Anzai and shaking her head helplessly.

Zhang Anzai stated righteously, "That's because I've seen the true faces of our leaders and have returned to our loyal camp of working stiffs."

Lin Zhao ignored his daily bout of madness; she just wanted to finish the meeting and go back to sleep.

Among the employees Xu Xinhai mentioned as having good performance, she was one of them.

Lin Zhao's performance had previously been better than Zhang Anzai's. Even though she had been overtaken, she had already completed half of her probation requirements, needing only five more mid-tier evaluation dungeons. She was considered a high performer among the rookies, and she had put in plenty of effort behind the scenes.

Of course, she still couldn't catch up to Zhang Anzai.

He hadn't brought out any new high-evaluation dungeons in the last two days; after all, good players were hard to come by, while bad dungeons were a dime a dozen.

But even if they were all mid-to-low or low evaluations, there was still some gain.

His working days had officially passed 20. His employee points hadn't increased much, sitting at 890, mainly because carrying players was such a money pit. To keep a dead weight from causing a total party wipe, he had dumped a few hundred points into it.

That's how carrying dungeons went: the worse the player, the more expensive they were to carry.

Yet these players couldn't achieve high ratings, leading to a vicious cycle of losing money every time. If not for that, he wouldn't have been stuck with only 100 points left before finishing his performance requirements.

Of course, now that his personal ability had improved, he didn't have to dump as much money into players as he used to.

The main reason his balance hadn't grown much was that he occasionally went to the training room, which cost 50 points per hour, plus he had bought some professional paid training programs.

Still, it was no big deal; compared to half a month ago, it was a meteoric improvement.

Precisely because of these gains, unlike the sleepy Lin Zhao, he had spent most of the day slacking off and was now full of energy.

His goal was clear: he planned to dive into a dungeon again tonight.

The bold starve to death, the timid die of hunger. There were always ruthless people among the average players who dived into dungeons with high intensity; since he could act as an administrator to cover his own back, he should work even harder.

Even though entering a dungeon was always a life-or-death gamble.

"Click."

Zhang Anzai returned to his dormitory and closed the door.

After the meeting, he grabbed a bite to eat and checked his phone; it was already 10:26 PM, leaving him eight and a half hours before he had to be at work tomorrow. As long as he matched into a solo dungeon, he could handle it.

The effect of [Dexterous] was powerful; he could now maintain dungeon activities while keeping an eye on his main body's movements. However, because his ability was too unique, he still tried his best to complete dungeons overnight.

If nothing else, there was the issue of his appearance. His player body looked exactly like his real body; even if he changed clothes, hairstyles, or wore a mask, there was still a chance he could be recognized.

"Doesn't matter. I'm still young, my body is in good shape, I'll just pull an all-nighter," Zhang Anzai silently opened his internal chat software.

He had been checking this periodically over the past few days, mainly to see if Chen Xing would send another message.

He was certain the message he saw that day wasn't a hallucination, which meant Chen Xing had successfully broken free from the restrictions of the dungeon Endless Night Road and left that place.

This was an extremely rare case; very few monsters within instances possessed intelligence as high as this one, and even fewer had managed to successfully escape the instance of their birth.

However, so many days had passed without him receiving any further news, so he had no way to continue following up on the matter.

After confirming that everything in his chat software was normal, Zhang Anzai switched to the interface of Ancient Shadow Records.

"Boundary Walker, you have once again chosen to enter the next Reflected World ahead of schedule. Your previous early exploration led to a harrowing experience, and facts have proven that you seem to quite enjoy this feeling.

Regardless, you are about to step into the reflection once again."

Zhang Anzai slowly typed out a: "?"

"I seem to have been pegged as a masochist; I don't even dabble in that scene, man." Zhang Anzai shook his head helplessly, and then, once again, felt his consciousness connect to another body.

The already somewhat familiar River of the Past, and yet another new reflection.

This time it was no longer a long strip, but an irregular space; its appearance remained obscured, submerged beneath the water, undulating with the slight ripples of the surface.

"You have stepped into the Old Shadow: [Folklore Taboo: Skin-Peeling Maze City] (Common)."