Sure enough, just ten minutes later,
Zuo Cheng'an, who was still lingering in the instance, discovered that,
although its number and name remained the same, the objective had changed from completing tasks assigned by the host to surviving on the farm for ten days.
It had gone straight from a mission instance to a survival instance!
During those ten days, players would have to hide on the farm, tending the animals while fending off wave after wave of attacks from the Wailing Tomatoes outside.
If the tomatoes invaded the farmhouse, or any animals were injured or killed, the mission would fail.
Seeing this, Zuo Cheng'an looked toward the fields outside the farm.
The tomatoes that had been quietly rooted in the soil, whether they had borne fruit or not, were all struggling to pull out their roots and gather around the farm.
Well, the next batch of players would be starting straight in "zombie apocalypse" mode.
Zuo Cheng'an, the instigator of it all, felt a brief pang of guilt before decisively making his escape.
Just as his body was about to be teleported away, a hearty "Woof!" rang out beside him.
At some point, Mo Dou had jumped out of the Sheep Pen again and followed his scent over.
He did not remember much of what had happened before he became an instance NPC, but his hatred for Red-Eyes still drove him.
Since an ordinary instance NPC could not fight a Game Boss, he would escape the instance and find himself someone powerful to cling to!
After considering his options, Zuo Cheng'an, who was outstandingly strong and had helped him reclaim the farm, fit his requirements perfectly.
Still four or five meters from Zuo Cheng'an, Mo Dou took a running leap and was teleported out of the instance with him.
[Congratulations, player! You have acquired the follower "Mo Dou."] [Mo Dou] [Category: Player follower] [Abilities: Herding, guarding the home, doing laundry, cooking four dishes and a soup... consumes only a handful of fodder per hundred kilometers.] [Description: Whether they are cattle and horses on the grasslands or corporate workhorses in office buildings, he can herd them all!]
After a familiar sensation of weightlessness, two options appeared before Zuo Cheng'an.
One was to teleport directly to the house he had just rented, and the other was to return to the Ladder Tower.
Zuo Cheng'an chose to return to the Ladder Tower.
He had spent the entire day busy in the instance, and apart from forcing down two tomatoes despite his nausea, he had eaten nothing to fill his stomach.
Before returning to his rental, he had to find food for himself and Mo Dou.
The instant he made his choice, Zuo Cheng'an appeared at the entrance to the Ladder Tower.
Players were still coming and going around him, but just as when he had first emerged from the beginner instance, he could not hear them talking.
The other players could not see Zuo Cheng'an, who had suddenly appeared, either.
The settlement panel popped up:
[Congratulations, player, on passing the First Heavenly Ladder instance assessment! Stats unlocked! Calculating rewards...] [Overall rating: S+] [Free Attribute Points obtained: 16 (first-tier Ladder instances cap at 8; rewards doubled for an S rating)] [Points obtained: 200 (first-tier Ladder instances cap at 100; rewards doubled for an S rating)] [Congratulations on clearing an unreleased instance and earning the "Pioneer" Achievement! Free Attribute Points +3]
With 16 points from the instance rewards, 3 from the Achievement, and the 2 previously left on his panel,
Zuo Cheng'an now had 21 Free Attribute Points.
With limited resources, a balanced approach would only produce mediocrity.
After two games, Zuo Cheng'an understood how important Strength was to players. Without enough strength, they could not even break through monsters' defenses.
Next came Constitution, which would let him hold on a little longer when critically injured, and Speed came last.
The areas in low-level instances were not very large, so no amount of speed would help if there was nowhere to run.
Perhaps a high Speed stat would only shine if he specifically chose instances with vast areas, such as major cities or public squares.
As long as he did not recklessly choose large-map instances before raising his Speed, wouldn't that do?
As Zuo Cheng'an thought this, his hands moved swiftly.
He put 10 points into Strength, 8 into Constitution, and 3 into Speed.
After allocating his points, Zuo Cheng'an's panel became:
[Player: Zuo Cheng'an] [Level: First Heavenly Ladder] [Sanity: 58/100] [Constitution: 18] [Strength: 20] [Speed: 13] [Items: Tetanus Potion ×1 (31%), Scumbag Glasses, dried mutton (2 strips), Swift Rat Dagger, Sheepdog Bell] [Skill: Eye of Truth]
A Strength stat of 20 was not the cap. The "+" after the number had not turned gray.
That meant Zuo Cheng'an could keep adding to it as long as he had Free Attribute Points.
Would he only hit the First Heavenly Ladder's bottleneck at 30, or even 40?
That would be a major undertaking. Even if he earned an S rating every time he entered an instance, quickly maxing everything out would not be easy.
Hopefully, higher-level instances would have higher caps on free points too.
Aside from the changes to his stats, his level on the panel had changed from "Not Yet on the Ladder" to "First Heavenly Ladder," and his Sanity had fallen into the dangerous range at 58.
According to what the twin sisters had told him, combined with the information he had gleaned from the live comments,
entering instances consecutively would lower Sanity, and once it fell below 60, the body was highly likely to undergo Aberration inside an instance.
Although it was reversible, the accompanying effects-clouded consciousness, increased violent impulses, and loss of bodily control-were all very real.
Reading further, Zuo Cheng'an noticed the newly added Swift Rat Dagger and Sheepdog Bell in his inventory.
The bell was useless to him. It had belonged to Mo Dou in the first place, so he might as well return it.
As for the Swift Rat Dagger... he would keep it for now. He was not short on points, and once he accumulated enough items he did not need, he would set up a street stall to sell them too.
What Zuo Cheng'an did not know was that after he, the last player in the instance, left,
the slightly updated instance, Uncle Muchou's Farm, automatically entered the Instance Hall,
accompanied by the game announcement, [Congratulations to players Fu Yu, Fu You, Zuo Cheng'an, and Wang Guangfei on clearing Ladder Tower instance "1-4779"!]
The first players to clear any instance received the honor of a hall-wide announcement, repeated as many times as the tier of the instance they had cleared.
Thus, most players in the hall would marvel at how impressive it was: another four players had advanced to the First Heavenly Ladder.
After that brief inward reaction, they went back to their own business.
The First Heavenly Ladder was certainly powerful by ordinary people's standards,
but it was worth remembering that Safe Zone 7 had a full fifty thousand First Heavenly Ladder players.
Even in the Instance Hall, nearly half the players were at the First Heavenly Ladder level.
Similar announcements about clearing Ladder Tower instances could sound more than a dozen times a day, so they were naturally nothing particularly rare.
The people who paid closer attention were those responsible for collecting instance intelligence for the major guilds.
Instances transferred over from the Ladder Tower were among their favorites.
They did not need to send their own people in to work out a strategy. They only needed to find the players who had cleared them and buy a guide, saving considerable trouble.
Thus, the moment the announcement appeared,
people added the players who had cleared instance 1-4779 by their names, hoping to purchase an exclusive, firsthand guide, with a full buyout of the rights.
As for Wang Guangfei and the others discovering that the instance objectives had changed and their experience was completely useless, that was another sad story.
After he put the bell back on Mo Dou, the protective barrier surrounding the man and dog gradually faded.
Zuo Cheng'an became visible to everyone.
Many players who wanted to enter an instance but did not dare act on it looked over with envy.
Anyone appearing outside the Ladder Tower had just passed the First Heavenly Ladder trial. The veterans all teleported directly home or inside the Ladder Tower.
Even the lowest First Heavenly Ladder level came with a weekly allowance of 1 point. From then on, they could at least live like human beings in Safe Zone 7, and with luck and a useful skill, they could even join a decent guild.
Guild members waiting nearby to scout promising players gradually gathered around as well, hoping to invite Zuo Cheng'an to join.
Zuo Cheng'an had no intention of joining a guild and did not want to get too entangled with these people.
He had planned to find a chance to ask other players what the Great Purge was, but the players gathering around him were far too enthusiastic.
They practically rivaled those who had previously offered their services as guides, if not surpassed them!
At least the people offering to be guides had followed an unspoken rule and approached one at a time.
Now a whole crowd surged around him! They packed in tighter than cloves in a bulb of garlic!
At this point, Zuo Cheng'an was already feeling a little regretful. Perhaps he should have spared another Free Attribute Point for Speed earlier. It would have made shaking them off easier.
Before you continue