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Lu Xiu closed that email, and disabled the email notification sound while she was at it.

Although the latest email had not been cursing at her—if anything, it had been thanking her... she had also seen several more emails from the Coordination Bureau, along with countless friend requests.

But Lu Xiu had only become a Builder so she could survive... She could not accept anyone's gratitude.

As for the Coordination Bureau...

She did not particularly want to deal with them for the time being. Those grand narratives were still far too distant from her.

After confirming that the notification sound had been completely disabled, Lu Xiu did not close the system menu right away. After giving it some thought, she swiped through the window and opened her attribute panel.

Before this, she had hardly ever seriously examined her attributes. There had been nothing worth looking at, nor had there been any need to.

But things were different now.

What direction she should take next and what attack methods she should learn would all depend on this.

[Name: Lu Xiu]

[Current Sequence: Tier 1]

[Health: 100%]

[Strength: 2.5]

[Agility: 2.7]

[Constitution: 1]

[Perception: 1]

[Mental Power: 12]

[Skills: Reverse Visual Imagery, Atypical Courage.]

[Chosen Talent: None]

[Game Identity: Player, Level 3 Builder]

[Current Location: Game Main World]

Honestly, it was rather painful to look at.

Lu Xiu had specifically looked it up last night. In the early stages of gamification, the average Strength and Agility of an ordinary adult man had been around 1, with women slightly lower, though the difference had not been significant.

The other attributes had generally fallen within the same range as well.

Of course, that did not include the "Chosen Players" who had received Chosen Talents when the world was first digitized.

And after four years of development, the average attributes of players at every level had already risen dramatically. Rumor had it that most top players had broken through 20 in those two core attributes, while some had even reached 30.

Even bottom-tier players, relying on the tiny attribute rewards from low-difficulty instances, had average core attributes of around 6.

But Lu Xiu's Strength had only been 0.5, and her Agility only 0.7. Her other attributes had not changed at all... because she had never entered an instance before.

The reason her Strength and Agility had now broken past 2 was entirely due to the rewards for clearing the [Resident Evil] instance.

The only attribute of hers that could be called impressive was Mental Power.

But according to the original owner's memories, the use of this attribute seemed rather vague...

Strength and Agility needed no explanation. They meant exactly what their names implied.

Constitution referred to maximum Health, stamina, and resistance.

Perception referred to the range of the five senses, corresponding to sensory sharpness and intuition. It included eyesight, hearing, and the ability to perceive approaching danger or other people's emotions.

Mental Power alone was rather difficult to grasp... The system's explanation was that this attribute represented the strength of one's mind. The higher the value, the easier it was to enter a state of deep thought and resist mental attacks.

That was rather metaphysical.

Strength could make her stronger, Agility could make her faster, Constitution could make her sturdier, and Perception could make her sharper—but when it came to Mental Power, the whole thing suddenly pivoted into granting her a more powerful mind.

It was not bad, of course, but compared to the other attributes, it felt somewhat less practical...

There were no quantifiable benchmarks, either, nor any intuitive feedback.

So most people did not care much about this value.

Of course, for Lu Xiu, having high Mental Power was far from useless.

After all, [Reverse Visual Imagery] received a Mental Power bonus, while [Atypical Courage] could convert her Mental Power attribute into Strength and Agility at an equal rate.

That meant that after activating [Atypical Courage], both her Strength and Agility could soar past 10.

...She would just be a little squishy.

So the question was—

What should she learn as an attack method?

Melee?

Ranged?

Standing before the mirror, Lu Xiu fell into thought. For ranged combat, [Resident Evil] had rewarded her with an MPM Pistol.

But she still felt that using [Atypical Courage] purely at range was a bit of a waste.

As for close combat...

That would let her fully capitalize on the skill's advantages.

But the problem was... Lu Xiu raised her head to look into the mirror, then lowered her gaze slightly, letting it rest on her chest.

The next second.

...Why the hell did they feel so heavy?

What the hell was she thinking about?

Lu Xiu lowered her hand and lightly spat at herself.

In theory, this should not affect combat. Her experience in the Resident Evil instance had already proven that many so-called limitations were really just psychological suggestions.

Their impact was nowhere near as great as imagined.

But in Resident Evil, she had been wearing Ethan's bodysuit. In reality, she had no bodysuit to wear.

That made her feel strangely embarrassed and inexplicably uncomfortable.

This counted as a mental imprint, didn't it?

...Forget it.

It was for self-defense anyway. She did not necessarily have to fight. She would try close combat first.

It would also be a good chance to break that mental imprint.

If it truly did not work, she could change later.

After thinking it over carefully, Lu Xiu made up her mind.

However.

Lu Xiu did not hurry to construct her next instance. Instead, she turned and went back to her room to change clothes.

There was nothing left in the refrigerator.

She planned to go buy some.

Although she could buy things from the system store, she could not stay cooped up at home forever.

With the pressure of survival gone, Lu Xiu wanted to learn a little about this world. After all, she would be living here for a very, very long time...

Soon.

Lu Xiu emerged from her room wearing a clean white cotton T-shirt and light-blue straight-leg jeans that wrapped around her long, slender legs. The hems just covered her ankles, and she wore a pair of white canvas shoes.

She pulled a black baseball cap over her head, keeping the brim low enough to hide most of her face, leaving only her fair, delicate chin and pale pink lips exposed.

She went out.

Lu Xiu walked out of the stairwell of the shabby old apartment building and turned onto the street she often visited for shopping in her memories.

When the world had first become gamified four years ago, everyone had thought it would be turned upside down.

Four years later, there had indeed been changes, but not as many as expected.

At least the street Lu Xiu often visited still looked the same after four years. Many shops had closed down, and countless holographic advertisements had appeared.

Most of them had been placed by the game system.

Lu Xiu lowered her brim and walked beneath the glowing screens.

Since it was daytime, a workday, and this area was relatively remote, there were not many people on the street. A glance was enough to show that most of them were elderly.

Gray-haired people, people with hunched backs, people slowly pushing little carts along.

The occasional middle-aged person hurried past as well.

There were not many young people.

Do not think that people no longer needed to work after the world became datafied. Young people still had jobs after datafication. Capital would always find an angle to make people work themselves to the bone.

For example, Lu Xiu had discovered last night that major guilds and companies recruited young people in batches, gave them guides, rented powerful items to them, and sent them to clear low-level system instances.

Those low-level instances did not produce many resources, but because of the guides and items, their clear rates were extremely high. Overall, they were still profitable.

Well, the ones making money were the companies and guilds... The items belonged to the company, and the guides belonged to the company too, so every employee who cleared an instance had to hand over a portion of the instance rewards.

It was basically cyber sweatshop labor.

Of course, every company and guild differed in scale and in the types of instances they were familiar with, so their models differed as well.

For example, the Longsword Guild Zhao Heng belonged to was a large guild. It had members like Zhao Heng who could reliably clear S-rank instances—though not reliably anymore. The requirements to join were higher, but members received a fixed salary in Survival Points.

There was also the service industry.

It still existed.

It was just that most payments that used to be cash had become Survival Points.

In short, the world had changed, yet it had not changed.

Many people truly could survive on instances alone, but there were also plenty who could not.

All she could say was...

Every world had its own hardships.

Lu Xiu continued forward. As she passed the entrance to a residential complex, she saw several elderly people sitting by a flower bed, basking in the sun and chatting.

A few children ran around nearby, probably their grandchildren. An elderly woman with graying hair was bent over, picking up a little boy's shoe that had fallen off. She muttered something under her breath.

The little boy refused to cooperate, twisting his body as he tried to run away. The old woman grabbed him, then squatted down to put his shoe back on, her movements somewhat labored.

Lu Xiu glanced over, then withdrew her gaze and kept walking.

But after only a few steps, a somewhat familiar voice suddenly called out from behind her—

"...A-Xiu? Is that Xiu Xiu?"