Dungeon Exploration Work Report

Zhang Anzai spent half his points in one go, but it was a necessary step.

After all, he would have to enter dungeons often in the future. If he did not bind himself, there was no guarantee that the administrator he matched with next time would still be him.

After the binding succeeded, a new section appeared on his work page. In this respect, an administrator's duties were somewhat like those of an agent.

He could view all sorts of player information here and provide various forms of assistance—for example, purchasing items from the employee purchase page in advance and placing them with the player, then watching them slowly grow.

For the moment, though, Zhang Anzai had no need to do that. They had only just completed their first dungeon, and the character was still basically a blank slate, with no clear direction for improvement yet.

Besides, he had other things to do. As an administrator, he dealt with players every day, but he was ultimately different from them. There were many player-exclusive functions he still needed time to get used to.

"The forum's pretty much the same." Zhang Anzai looked at the administrator-side forum on his computer, silently comparing it to the player version.

He had previously seen players post that the Ancient Shadow Records app could not be seen on ordinary phones in the real world. Zhang Anzai guessed that his coworkers likewise would not notice anything unusual on their work phones.

But if they could not see the app, would not swiping around the phone's home screen look even more suspicious? Especially with that Dog-Head Team Leader, who had nothing better to do than pop up and shout every now and then. He did not dare take unnecessary risks.

So he decided that from now on, he would not use the player client for extended periods outside the dormitory. At most, he would use it as he had just done, to accept a binding invitation.

Other than that, all his player-client operations had been done right after he got up in the morning, such as giving himself the nickname [Fate Controller].

This rare feature did not cost money—at least not the first time. It was probably because players badly needed to protect their identities.

Of course, besides changing his name, he had also checked out the player-side forum. Honestly, it was about the same, much like Tieba: users made posts and others replied below them, only with different permissions.

Players could freely make posts and comments, and they had plenty of in-app purchase options, such as pinning their own posts or posting anonymously.

The administrator side was more like a work account, so they could only reply occasionally. Posting and the like had restrictions, but official business posts never required any in-app purchases. Once posted, they became huge banner announcements.

Of course, when something like that really happened, it was usually handled by important figures—team leaders and senior staff. As for Zhang Anzai and the others, their work generally consisted of...

[E Lai]: "No, seriously, was the [Martial Chaos: Troops on the Battlefield] dungeon designed by people? Not letting people fight properly is bad enough with all those damn military regulations, but why add all this scheming and backstabbing? Is that even the style of the Martial Chaos category?

"The Planning Department should pack up and move into Cainiao Station with the dungeon boss. Perfect—there are oversized packages and small packages there."

As Zhang Anzai marveled at having learned something new again—so this was how people could insult others—he silently muted the man.

That was right. Administrators were also administrators on Tieba. Besides answering questions for very new newcomers, what they did most often was mute users or even ban their accounts.

Watching the Planning Department get cursed at in such elaborate ways, Zhang Anzai could not help sighing. "Sure enough, no matter what kind of game company it is, planners can never escape getting cursed at."

Lin Zhao beside him had only barely met her performance quota last week and had no spare energy to manage the forum. She had already opened another dungeon.

But not every dungeon was urgent at every moment. As the players explored slowly, she had time to turn around and chat for a bit.

"You still love browsing the forum that much. You barely scraped past the deadline yesterday. Don't tell me you spent all your money and skipped breakfast this morning? Want me to lend you some? I still haven't used up the money from that dungeon I failed to finish before getting off work yesterday."

Zhang Anzai neither confirmed nor denied it as he operated the forum's internal functions.

"Not that bad. It's just Monday, and I worked too late last night, so I'm a little tired. I'll do something else first and take it easy. Keep your money for yourself. Every time we get some, there's barely any left by the next dungeon."

That was how it was for new employees. Player quality was too poor; even when they could more or less clear a dungeon, they still had to throw in a pile of items to give them a push.

Still, that was not so bad. For people like Zhang Anzai, or the many others who had already been laid off, the hopeless idiots they encountered were often beyond saving.

Lin Zhao had been poked where it hurt. She did not continue the topic, instead glancing at the comments Zhang Anzai was handling.

"The Planning Department... Hey, Anzai, weren't you a planner before you came here?"

Zhang Anzai nodded as he typed. "Yeah, but we made single-player indie games, and I worked on narrative writing. I wasn't involved with balancing or game mechanics, so people usually didn't curse at us."

The Reflected World did not seem to be something the company could fully control. Still, they did indeed possess certain permissions over it.

It was strange enough that administrators assisted players.

The company even had a Logistics Department that operated on-site in dungeons, a Planning Department related to dungeon design, and a Finance Department that could influence settlement rewards.

Who knew how those departments worked.

"Job assignments here really are pretty random. I was a programmer before I came in. I met someone from Management Group Four in the cafeteria before—she was a teacher before coming here and had nothing to do with the internet industry."

Lin Zhao had long, straight black hair and a tall, lean, well-proportioned figure. She was indeed a rare female programmer, and personality-wise, she did not really resemble an ordinary girl either.

Still, among the employees who had entered with them, the gender ratio had been about even. Yet more than half the female employees were now gone. Maybe the company environment was simply too brutal; the mentality developed from studying programming, fixing bugs, and surfing the internet every day was actually an advantage here.

Within the company, there were ten groups of operations administrators. The first five were made up of veteran employees, each with more than a hundred people. The latter five were randomly assigned groups for newcomers, each also with around a hundred members.

These newcomers had previously lived in a reality without supernatural phenomena. Now that they were here, there were certainly frightening elements, but claiming they were not curious about this place would be a lie.

It was only because of the deadly deadline imposed by working hours that most people kept their heads down and worked hard, forcibly suppressing their curiosity. At most, they casually chatted a little like this.

Zhang Anzai had once been the serious-work type too. Staying alive was exhausting enough—where would he have found the time to learn about the company?

Now things were different. It was not just that he no longer worried much about failing to survive; learning more information within the company would also help him explore dungeons better.

Of course, he could not make it too obvious and had to choose the right time. Without deliberately digging into things, he had learned that among the company's eight departments, besides Management, Logistics, Planning, Archives, Finance, Security, and Human Resources, there was also an Inspection Department.

Even if he did not create any particularly obvious irregularities and thus avoid drawing the Inspection Department's attention, there was still a team leader right beside him.

"They're watching again... Better get to work." Lin Zhao noticed something and spoke helplessly, returning her gaze to the screen.

Zhang Anzai had never left work mode. Browsing the forum did not require much attention in the first place. Noticing that the especially creepy Dog-Head Team Leader might be looking this way, Zhang Anzai simply switched to another work page.

Of course, he still did not match for a dungeon. Instead, he began the task every office worker had no choice but to face.

Writing a report.