Ren Suo turned on his computer. After waiting for over a minute, he finally saw 360 pop up with the message: "This boot took 10 seconds. Your startup speed beats 99% of computers nationwide!" Only then did he leisurely open a Word document.
Another dozen seconds passed before the 2003 version of Word finally launched.
By now, everyone should have a rough idea of Ren Suo's computer's performance: calling it a worn-out wreck would not have been inaccurate. Still, he only used it to watch videos and write papers, so it met his daily needs.
But ever since he had played the Little World Game Console and experienced its instant-response performance, he found his old machine increasingly unbearable. There was no value in being nostalgic about electronics, after all. Their performance barely changed, while their appearances only became prettier and gained more lights.
He typed into Word:
"Cross My Corpse: Chapter One"
"Infiltration: Chapter One"
"Slaughter Dungeon"
After pausing for a moment, Ren Suo hesitated, then typed:
"Cross My Corpse: Chapter One" had a maximum reward of 80 Merit Points, a difficulty rating of two stars, and an exclusive reward: "Strong Heart Technique."
"Infiltration: Chapter One" had a maximum reward of 100 Merit Points, a difficulty rating of two stars, and an exclusive reward: "Heart of Deceit."
"Slaughter Dungeon" had a maximum reward of 60 Merit Points and a difficulty rating of one star. Since it was a free game and only one star in difficulty, there was no exclusive reward.
Because he possessed a certain number of Merit Points, the system not only displayed the maximum rewards—last month's free games had not shown them—but also gave him a prompt: clearing any chapter of a free game would reduce that game's total purchase price by a certain amount.
Players could use the search function in the World Store to find out a game's total price.
For example, Ren Suo had played the "Bloodstained Banquet" chapter in Killer, so Killer would be discounted when he searched for it. As for how much cheaper it would become, he had no idea—he was not willing to spend 10 Merit Points on a search just to satisfy his curiosity.
"Cross My Corpse: Chapter One" was a management game. Its description read: "Let players experience authentic family management! Amid countless crises such as natural disasters, man-made calamities, ghosts, and monsters, players must not only preserve their family during troubled times, but also battle wits and courage against various forces in order to break the curse of fate."
"Infiltration: Chapter One," meanwhile, was a text-based adventure game. Its description read: "With a heart both boiling and cold within your chest, will you enter the endless hell of lies for your homeland's brighter tomorrow, full of hope and unrepentant even in the face of death? Or will you become a drifting soul who sways with the wind for your own honor and disgrace?"
"Slaughter Dungeon" was a card-based adventure stage-clearing game. Its description read: "The abyss hidden within the dungeon has already corrupted the world. Even if only for yourself, you must cross cities of despair, dark caves, and terrifying dungeons to fight the Heart of the Abyss to the death."
Ren Suo took his hands off the keyboard and stared at the document, lost in thought.
These three games were this month's free games, and all of them looked quite good.
Yet he could only choose one out of the three.
It was not as if there were no way to play more free games. The system had stated that raising the player level would increase both the number of free games available each month and the number of choices. But Ren Suo did not even know how to raise his player level, so he could only adapt to this game console and make a painful choice.
After all, there were currently no discounted games. If he did not play the free games, then he would have nothing to play. With so few Merit Points, even if he searched, he definitely would not be able to afford a game.
"What should I do?" Ren Suo hesitated greatly.
If he completely ignored the games' content and judged solely by the rewards, then Infiltration undoubtedly offered the best value: the short-term benefit was Merit Points, the long-term benefit was game discounts, and only its exclusive reward, Heart of Deceit, looked rather useless.
Cross My Corpse ranked second. Its value was slightly worse than Infiltration's, but its exclusive reward, Strong Heart Technique, seemed somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, Ren Suo did not know the skill's exact details.
Slaughter Dungeon had the worst value. Neither its short-term nor long-term benefits were particularly good, and it did not even have an exclusive reward. Unless there were no other choices, no one would pick it—just as he had previously only been able to choose Assassin's Bloodstained Banquet.
However, once he considered the games' content, he could not view things so simply.
Assassin's Bloodstained Banquet had a difficulty rating of one star. If You're Strong, Climb 10,000 Meters also had a difficulty rating of one star.
There was no doubt that these two were among the easiest games. But were they actually easy? The former was impossible to clear without some brains, while the latter had directly made Ren Suo stay up late for several days.
Ren Suo had not bought a game console before, but he often went to internet cafés to play games. He might not have been a god-tier player, but he was definitely no butterfingers. He played in moderation for the sake of his future, but his skill level was basically at the top among people his age. Whenever he played FPS or MOBA games, his classmates rushed to cling to his thigh.
Even someone with his gaming talent had nearly been stumped by one-star games. Just how difficult were two-star games?
After thinking it over, Ren Suo decided to put off choosing a game for now. He had spent the entire day traveling and was exhausted, so he should rest first.
CTRL+A, Delete.
Ren Suo casually deleted everything he had just typed. Then he took a shower, reheated the cold Braised Beef Brisket Noodles with Fried Sauce, carried them to his computer desk, and opened the Gilirili video website, preparing to watch videos while eating... midnight snack?
However, the moment he opened the website, he spat out the piping-hot noodles he had just put into his mouth. The keyboard and monitor were covered in warm, sticky brown noodle paste.
At the top banner of the site, where seasonal information and large promotional events were usually displayed, there were now only eight black characters against a white background:
If You're Strong, Climb 10,000 Meters!
After wiping up the stuff he had sprayed everywhere, Ren Suo took a deep breath and clicked in, only to discover that this was... holy shit!?
A massive serialized documentary!?
The entire video had 55 parts—meaning segmented video episodes. Aside from the final two parts, every other video was 120 minutes long. Added together, they ran for nearly four and a half days!
Every part had a title. For example, the first ones were "April 3rd, 00:00–02:00," "April 3rd, 02:00–04:00," and "April 3rd, 04:00–06:00," all categorized by time and continuing all the way to Part 54, "April 8, 10:00–11:43."
The final part was titled "Essential Version." It looked like an edited revision, but it was still 200 minutes long—nearly three hours!
April 3rd...?
Ren Suo thought about it. Wasn't that the first day of his intensive training?
But that had also been the second day after he uploaded the game rating!
Before you continue