The space before him was smaller than the storage room, and it was only twice the size of the elevator. The ceiling was white, and a soft white light shone down from above. The floor under his feet was a checkered pattern of alternating black and white. It looked like a chess board. The strangest thing was, other than the elevator door, all the walls around him were made from various twisted mirrors.
The many reflections of Feng Bujue in the mirrors looked grotesque. Not only were their bodies twisted, even the expression on their faces and presence were altered by these mirrors. Inside these mirrors, one could see happiness, anger, sadness, joy, greed, anger, delusion … It was as if the distorted reflection in each mirror represented a different emotion or desire.
"And here I thought it would be a large public space like a shopping mall." Feng Bujue mumbled to himself. His eyes were attracted by the only thing in the room.
On the floor in the middle of the room was a large box. It was about one meter square, and it was a colorful gift box.
"So … if I open it, a clown whose lower body is attached to a spring will jump out to shock me …" Feng Bujue shrugged with a smile and walked closer.
Right then, the system announcement said, "Before the Thriller Box, you can open a specific menu to browse the items inside."
"Tsk … So, it's just for show." Feng Bujue opened the system menu with disappointment.
The number of items was surprisingly high. There were more than four thousand items, and they were all excellent quality and above.
The two days of closed beta were fifty hours in real life. The sleeping mode server provided five hundred hours of game time, and the non-sleeping mode provided one hundred hours of game time. The total virtual time for the two routes was twenty-five days.
During this period, each randomly generated scenario would have one or two items that the players could not bring out. Other than that, there were also countless items that were above excellent quality that were hidden inside the scenario but had not been discovered by the players.
These items, after some modification, could be found inside the Thriller Box.
The open beta started at 8 am. From then on, all the items inside the Thriller Box would be destroyed. It had been six hours, and all the items that were created during the closed beta were showing, "Remaining Time: 6 Days, 17 Hours, 38 Minutes". Quite a number of items that were created after the open beta had been added, and the countdown started in real life when the scenario ended.
Out of curiosity, Feng Bujue searched for [Bloodcorpses Must Die], which he had used once before. Sure enough, he found this equipment, but the equipment condition had obviously changed.
[Name: Bloodcorpse Must Die]
Type: Weapon
[Quality: Excellent]
[Attack: Strong]
[Attribute: None]
[Special Effect: Melts Blood Corpses when attacking]
[Equip Requirement: Fighting D, Level 18]
[Note: This sword is the early work of the legendary Dwarven craftsman, Orr All Must Die. A crafty Goblin merchant used a few bottles of "Erguotou" to purchase this sword from Orr. Half a month later, Orr created "Goblins Must Die".]
As a weapon with a strong counter effect and high attack power, this kind of equipment condition was quite reasonable. A level eighteen player with Fighting D mastery, no matter what kind of equipment he had, should have no problem taking on a Blood Corpse alone, but it would not be easy either. Equipped with this sword, it would be much easier; he would be able to kill the Blood Corpse without taking any damage.
The price of this weapon matched Feng Bujue's expectations for this kind of low-level equipment, which was three hundred Skill Points. Therefore, this narcissistic man could not help but be intoxicated for a few seconds.
However, Feng Bujue did not plan to buy this weapon. After all, this was a weapon with a specific counter, and the chance of players running into Blood Corpses in the various scenarios was one in ten. If it was put up for auction, there was an eighty percent chance that it would go bad.
He adjusted the menu according to the chronological order and started to browse from the first page. Then … his reading addiction got the better of him. The value of the equipment here was higher than at the Auction House, and he was afraid that he would miss out on something good.
The more he scrolled down, the more excited and surprised Feng Bujue became. Although [Legendary] equipment was hard to find for the time being, there were a few [Perfect] equipment. Of course, the price of a few thousand Skill Points was only enough for him to look at. In the scenario, these items would only appear in cinematics or even in the hands of the boss. At most, they would be like Blood Corpse Must Die, which was given to the players to clear the scenario after they used it. But in the end, they would come to the 'Recycle Bin', the Thriller Box, to await the fate of being destroyed.
Therefore, in the Thriller Box, it was possible for items like the Xuan Yuan Sword or the Blade of Azzinoth to appear. As long as the player had enough Skill Points, they could buy these items, but whether they could equip them or not … that was another story. After all, Skill Points were not something that could be bought with money. The only way to obtain them was to use one's own fighting skills or intellect to earn them in the scenario. A player who could obtain so many Skill Points would not be that weak.
Feng Bujue stood there and looked for a whole hour before he completely abandoned the idea of selling the items. He thought to himself, Is the Thriller Box crazy to have this function of exchanging Skill Points for money? The exchange ratio given by the system is 1: 10, and it's a one-way exchange. What kind of scam is this? One thousand Skill Points can only be exchanged for 10000 Game Coins. That's only five RMB, but can five RMB buy one thousand Skill Points? Even if it was a Level 50 player with perfect equipment and skills and a lot of Skill Points that they had nowhere to use, they wouldn't exchange for this money. They could use their extra Skill Points to buy equipment and put them up for auction. Who would use their precious Skill Points to exchange for Game Coins?
Not only Feng Bujue, there were many people complaining about this on the forum that morning. Of course, this was not a big deal. The system did not force the players to do this. If they thought it was not worth it, they could just not do it.
The Dream Company did not give any response and ignored the complaints. On the second Monday of May, after more than a month, the exchange rate had changed multiple times. The mainstream players had gotten familiar with the market, and the price at the Auction House had stabilized. It was then that the Dream Company changed the exchange ratio of Skill Points.
At the time, the players in Thriller Paradise were split into three groups. They were the top players, the middle players, and the bottom players, who were mostly new players and casual players.
The upper echelons of the players were all around level 30, and their specializations were very clear. Their equipment and skill combinations were also at an advanced level. They had their own strategy for the game, and they had titles that corresponded to their strength. With their experience and ability, they could be the leader of any team. With such a player in the team, even if he didn't express his opinion, he could still be of great use as long as he did his job.
On the other hand, the middle-level players were the mainstream group of players. They ranged from blue-collar professional players to casual players. Some of them had the potential to reach the upper echelons, but their understanding of the game was lacking compared to the upper echelons. Therefore, their character power and clearing rate of the scenario were affected. This group of people were the 'players' in the normal sense. Sometimes, they could amaze the world with a single hit, but sometimes, they would make mistakes. They would blame their teammates and be blamed by their teammates. Most of them thought of themselves as experts, but they could not understand the gap between them and the top players. After a long time, a normal player would have the thought that the best players in the game were richer than them or had more time to play the game.
There was some truth to this thought, but it was only part of the reason.
Feng Bujue had once analyzed the conditions needed to be a top player in a technical game. In the end, he came up with a list of seven.
Knowledge, strategy, luck, fighting spirit, determination, courage, and talent.
Even though there were innate conditions and uncontrollable factors, this was reality. Gaming and sports were the same in many ways. Only a hardworking genius could become a legend.
Finally, the bottom players could be summarized in three sentences. One, new players who had just joined the game; two, casual players who had an unstable online experience; and three, players who only had five combat experience.
This was the lowest level, and their strength was self-evident. The first two types of people might leave this level after a period of time, but the third type was more helpless … Everyone had their own areas of expertise and weakness, and this principle naturally applied to the game as well.
One month later, this was the general structure of Thriller Paradise. The reason this was mentioned earlier was because there were two things that needed to be announced.
First of all, there would be a competition in the game at the end of May. Due to the large number of players, the qualification to participate in the preliminaries had to be met with certain conditions. The last batch of players probably wouldn't have a chance at all …
Secondly, after hearing all this, I believe everyone will naturally assume that Feng Bujue is one of the players at the very top. But … that was not right.
He was the fourth type of player. The number of this type of player was not enough to be called a group. In the game with millions of registered players, there were only about ten of them. Their level might not be the highest, but they were regulars on the combat ranking.
In the competition that followed … the Dream Company directly disqualified this group of people from the preliminaries and sent them directly to the finals. Furthermore, they were given a bye in the first few rounds. Even though this was called unfair competition by many people, from a certain perspective, the Dream Company was actually protecting the majority of players. If they had to face them in the preliminaries or the finals, that would be unfair competition.
…
Back to the story, Feng Bujue looked at the equipment for more than an hour before he was done.
In the menu of the Thriller Box, one page would show one hundred items. Each item only had three options: name, type, and price. Clicking on them would reveal the details.
Naturally, Feng Bujue could not click on all of them. He only looked at the items that he was interested in and skimmed through the rest. For some pages, he skipped through them in less than ten seconds. Even so, he spent so much time looking at them. There were quite a number of interesting items.
After looking through them all, he sighed deeply. He closed his eyes and arranged his thoughts. Then, using the search function, he found a piece of equipment that he had memorized.
— — — Name: Casey Jones' Mask
Item Type: Armor
[Quality: Excellent]
Defense Points: Medium
Element: None
Special Effect: When equipped, the player's fighting mastery will be seen as one level higher than their actual level, but it will not exceed Level C.
Equip Requirement: Male Player, Level 15, Bound after equip.
[Remark: The owner of the mask spent his days with 4 mutated turtles who loved pizza and lived in the sewers. Even though he was a young man without any superpowers, he was still passionate about fighting against street criminals. The mask slowly became his symbol.]
The selling price of this mask was five hundred Skill Points. Its value was reflected in its low equipment requirement and its powerful effect that was suitable for all players.
Before level twenty, it was impossible for a player's mastery to reach Level C, but the effect of this mask might be able to help the player break through that bottleneck. From the perspective of transitional equipment, the benefits of using this mask between level fifteen and twenty would be huge. Even after level twenty, before the player's fighting mastery reached Level C, the effect of this equipment would still be useful.
Feng Bujue's current mastery level was: General Ability E, Workmanship E, Sleuthing E, Fighting E, Marksmanship D, Medic F. Other than that, after the start of the open beta, the mastery tab in the menu had changed. The original font had shrunk, and there was a new shaded area. This meant that there were two new masteries that had not been unlocked yet.
In any case, this mask with such a high price-to-performance ratio had great benefits, so he bought it without much hesitation. Even though he was currently level thirteen, leveling up to level fifteen was not that difficult for him. Theoretically speaking, he would only need to clear four scenarios.
After buying the mask, Feng Bujue brought it back to the storage room to store it. Then he went to the market and listed Key's Hooded Top for 110,000 Game Coins. The price was set at 140,000 Game Coins. When he listed the item, he paid 4,000 Game Coins as a service fee. This' service fee 'was set by the system and varied depending on the item. The price was based on the item's non-obvious attribute, so the price basically hinted at the system's evaluation of the item's value.
If there was no bid within twenty-four hours in real life, the item would be removed from the market and returned to the player in the form of data. If the item was sold, the system would send the money over.
After Feng Bujue did all that, when he returned to the log-in lobby, it was already 3 pm in real life. There was still half a day left and an all-nighter. He gave himself a super short term goal — before tomorrow morning, he had to reach level fifteen and raise his workmanship mastery to Level D. That way, he could successfully equip [Casey Jones's Mask] and [Echo Armor], and then experience the "Killing Game" …
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