The Only SS-Rank, Player Forum

It was a quiet summer night. The bedroom was silent, and beyond the window came the chirping of cicadas and birds.

For Taiwanese webnovels, visit Taiwan Novel Network, t̴̴w̴̴k̴̴̴a̴̴n̴̴.c̴̴o̴̴m̴̴ for easy reading.

The heat was unbearable, so Ke Mingqing turned on the air conditioner with the remote. Then he lay down on the bed and opened the player forum.

To guard against the possibility that the Alien Queen was somehow spying on him, he deliberately overlaid his phone screen with the forum panel, creating the illusion that he was merely scrolling through his phone late at night.

The player forum had been unlocked for less than an hour, yet users from around the world had already made several full pages of posts.

That made sense. In a situation where everyone's lives were on the line, even if their numbers were small, their sense of spiritual unity was plainly visible.

These posts could generally be divided into four types.

The first type sought emotional comfort from other players. For those who had already suffered mental breakdowns, unlocking the player forum was like rain after a long drought—a lifeline in the darkness. They desperately needed others of their kind to share their plight with.

Yet Ke Mingqing, whose circumstances were the most dangerous and dire among the hundred players, had no room to share anything with others. The only player he could trust was Hitomi Kuroki. Their lives were tied together, and betraying the other would bring backlash upon either of them.

The second type of forum post was for gathering other players in the same city, essentially local meetup posts.

As for the third type, they were rather trollish:

"Help post: My macho friend accidentally bought a B-rank skill, only to discover that it transforms him into a magical girl—Poster: Paranoid."

"Brutally rating the heroes of the Round Table Society, magical girls, and the recently emerged villains—Poster: Paranoid."

"Hehehe, do male magical girls count as a transgender group? If they do, would I be more popular if I flew to the United States?—Poster: Paranoid."

That was right. Nearly every post of this kind had been made by the same player. Even in a life-or-death crisis, their train of thought could still be this unrestrained. Ke Mingqing could not help wondering whether this player had some sort of mental problem, or simply did not take their own life seriously.

With nothing else to do, Ke Mingqing opened the second post for a look.

Rain Crow was rated as "absolutely fire," Magical Girl Ember as "top-tier," while White Jack was "utter trash." He could already imagine how these players would rate him once he began playing the role of a superhero.

Ke Mingqing gave a blank-faced "ha ha" and memorized the poster's ID.

He thought, If I get the chance, I'll definitely use the Theater Puppet to mess with him and whip his ass hard with the Magician's Wand.

Of course, none of those posts were particularly useful at the moment, and they offered no practical information. Ke Mingqing quickly filtered through them, his finger flying over the screen.

He was trying to find the fourth type of post.

These were much more meaningful, such as: "Recording the skills I've drawn from the skill shop these past few days. Others are welcome to share too—Poster: Orange Peel."

"The purpose of attribute points: I recommend allocating them according to the skills you possess—Poster: Even Chuunibyo Must Exterminate Superhumans."

After a while, Ke Mingqing's fingertip suddenly stopped.

His gaze settled on a post. Its title was "On the Attribute Growth Caps of Every Player," posted by "Anti-Dog," whose IP location was New York, United States.

Ke Mingqing opened it and was immediately met with a dizzyingly long essay.

He could not help guessing that the poster was either one of those combat-power fanatics who had spent their past life permanently lurking on Wang Feng Bar, or a meticulous scholar.

[It takes 9 attribute points to raise all three attributes from E-rank to D-rank. By the same logic, raising all attributes from E-rank to S-rank requires a total of 45 attribute points.

The system provides us with the following growth paths:

1. Weekly missions (can be completed once per week, four times per month; in addition, one "special mission" refreshes each month, making five points per month in total. Over six months, that amounts to 30 attribute points. This is the primary source.)

2. Level-up rewards (one attribute point for every 5 levels gained—at the maximum level of 50, a total of 10 attribute points can be obtained.)

3. Main quests (each player is assigned 1 to 3 unique main questlines. The deeper the stage of the main quest, the more attribute points it rewards—it is estimated that players can obtain around 12 attribute points through main quests.)

To sum up, players can theoretically obtain around 50 attribute points in total.

As long as they steadily follow the growth path designed by the system, every player has the chance to grow into an S-rank superhuman within six months, perhaps even less.

Furthermore, because of the existence of "items" and "skills," players will perform far beyond superhumans of the same rank.

—Anti-Dog.]

By the time Ke Mingqing finished reading, he yawned. Were you hired by the system or something? What kind of empty promises are you selling here?

He smacked his lips, sleepy tears in his eyes, and murmured softly, "That calculation assumes you complete every single mission without missing one. Before that happens, two-thirds of the players will probably already be dead."

"At most, maybe twenty or thirty players will reach their full potential in the end?" Ke Mingqing admitted that his thinking was pessimistic, but it was the truth. After all, only a few days had passed, and two players had already died suddenly. There were still six months to endure.

Then another thought crossed his mind. But looking at it this way, my advantage really isn't small. Other players only have one or two main questlines, but I'm different. If each family member has one main questline, that makes six; with Jiang Qingzi, that's a full seven main questlines.

By that calculation, later on I'll have more than twenty extra attribute points than them on average, along with tens of thousands more Superhuman Coins... Even my early leveling speed won't be something they can compare to.

Counting on his fingers, he thought, If other players have an S-rank superhuman as their attribute cap, then maybe I can become the only SS-rank superhuman.

Yet when he thought that far, Ke Mingqing could not help sighing.

"Of course, the price is that my situation is far more dangerous than theirs. Among the hundred players, I'm probably the one most likely to die suddenly."

He scrolled through the forum some more, then finally saw a post that caught his attention.

[The Family's Black Cat: Players whose starting location is "Dawn Capital, China," please reply below.]

"The Family's Black Cat..."

Ke Mingqing quietly stared at that ID, suddenly recalling Hitomi Kuroki's WeChat name. "Could it be that Japanese exchange student?"

He opened the post. Three players had left comments beneath it. Their forum IDs were "Paranoid," "Meng Qing," and "Orange Peel," and all three of their IP locations were indeed Dawn Capital, China. Players could turn off their IP locations at any time; they had enabled them only to prove to one another that they were truly in the same city of Dawn Capital.

Enemies really did meet on narrow roads. The player called "Paranoid," who had just made that harsh post about White Jack, also seemed to be one of the Dawn Capital players.

Ke Mingqing thought for a moment, then opened the private chat panel.

[Ke Mingqing: Is that "The Family's Black Cat" on the forum you?]

[Hitomi Kuroki: Yes. We can already confirm that there are three players in Dawn Capital. Aren't you going to make contact with them?]

[Ke Mingqing: I'll leave the task of contacting them to you. I told you, my circumstances make it inconvenient.]

[Hitomi Kuroki: Oh. Then I'll report to you if I get any information.]

[Ke Mingqing: Can you handle them?]

[Hitomi Kuroki: Mm. I won't hold you back.]

"Nothing else happened today. Time to sleep."

Ke Mingqing closed the chat panel, rested his arms beneath his head, and closed his eyes.

It was raining.

Large raindrops pattered against the window. Ke Mingqing liked falling asleep to the sound of rain. He had thought he could sleep until he woke naturally, just like every night before this one. But late that night, for some reason, the rain suddenly went quiet.

It was as if someone had blocked the falling rain from outside the window. The soft pitter-patter vanished.

Ke Mingqing felt a faint itch on his face, so he slowly opened his eyes.

At that moment, he vaguely saw an eyeball. Yes, an eyeball.

The eyeball was embedded in the surface of a metal box. The box was held aloft by a patch of black light, floating directly beneath the ceiling. The eyeball silently stared at his face.

What is this... Ke Mingqing thought dazedly. Am I dreaming?

But as he groggily opened his eyes, he suddenly caught sight of a pitch-black figure sitting outside the windowsill from the corner of his eye.