Chapter 96: Player Rules

Translator: DragonBoatTrans

“Maybe, although it is only a maybe, there is one possibility. Our previous assumption was wrong.

“First impressions are the most lasting. Thus, I had never tried to think of it from another perspective, of whether Miao Yan was a Player.

“Now that I think back on it… there were indeed several points of suspicion.

“When I first met her, I came to the opinion that this woman should be a very intelligent one. However, when we were in Epang Palace, she did not know about the famed historical figure, Bai Qi. It appeared as though she knew nothing at all about the history of the Qin Dynasty, just like someone with no knowledge of anything – she does not even know about Epang Palace! She also did not know about the 12 bronze men statues! That knowledge of history is something that even high school students would have!

“That was in complete contrast with her previous display of collectedness and intelligence.”

“Maybe it is because she is a British citizen. That is why she never studied about these historical matters,” Qiao Qiao pointed at the information within her hand.

“There is such a possibility. However, the most important factor is that she does not recognize me!

“Trust me, I have this feeling that she is not just pretending to not know me. Instead… she actually does not recognize me!

“I have experienced this once before. In my first 72 Demons instance dungeon, the Players with whom I have had contact with while inside the game was restored to their identities as passengers of the airplane after the instance dungeon ended. All of them could no longer recognize me!”

Chen Xiaolian sighed. “There is only one thing that does not make sense.”

“What is it?’

“The Mausoluem of Qin Shi Huang’s instance dungeon has rules. Awakened ones were supposed to enter before Players. It was only after I had encountered Miao Yan within the instance dungeon that the system prompt came, informing me that Players had arrived. Thus… from a timing perspective, this is not right.”

Chen Xiaolian suddenly got up. “Let us go! Go back!”

“Go back?”

“To find Lun Tai and Bei Tai. I have some questions to ask of them!”

…

Inside the room, Lun Tai, Bei Tai, Roddy and Xia Xiaolei were preparing to move out. Unexpectedly, they saw Chen Xiaolian opening the doors, leading Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo inside.

“Why did you come back?” Roddy whistled. “We were deliberately dawdling around to give you time to be alone.”

Chen Xiaolian’s face was solemn. “Now is not the time to joke around. Roddy, I have something important to discuss with you all.” He turned to Lun Tai and Bei Tai. “Lun Tai, Bei Tai, please be seated. I have some questions that I need to ask of you two veterans.”

Lun Tai and Bei Tai turned to look at each other before nodding.

Everyone was then seated on the sofa within the living room.

“Before this, I have been overlooking this one question. It became the blind spot of my thought process. However, I encountered an incident today which reminded me of it,” Chen Xiaolian took a deep breath. He then gazed back and forth between Lun Tai and Bei Tai. Finally, his gaze rested upon Lun Tai. “My question pertains to the Players.”

Lun Tai nodded his head. “En, what is it that you do not understand?”

“Their identity,” Chen Xiaolian frowned. “Perhaps what I know is too one-sided, too little. What I know is that Players enter our world through a method known as ‘arrival’. A comparison to it would be a ‘walk-in’ [1].

“The several billions of ordinary people within this world becomes something akin to ‘reserved accounts’. Once a Player enters this world, that Player will arrive and walk-in. The Player takes over that ordinary person. This action is also the equivalent of activating an account.

“I need to know, is my understanding of the situation wrong?”

Lun Tai thought about it. “Theoretically speaking, there is nothing wrong.”

“Then, comes the question,” Chen Xiaolian smiled. “Using walk-in arrival, a Player enters our world. Then, every time that Player arrives and walk-in, will it be on the same ordinary person? Or would it be a different person?

“Take Da Vinci as an example. Every time he arrives in this world, would he be using the same body?

“If it is not the same body, and each arrival would result in a different body, how do they guarantee their outer appearance? Even more so, their gender.

“Could it be that Da Vinci would arrive as a fat man once, then as a skinny person the next? From a man into a woman?

“I am a little confused.”

Lun Tai laughed and kneaded his temples. He let out a bitter smile. “It seems I too have been careless. I thought that even though you are a rookie, you should know about these common matters. Unexpectedly, your rookie-ness is of that level… Guild Leader, I am not being sarcastic towards you. It is just that I am quite surprised.”

Chen Xiaolian raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I really do not know. Moreover, I had neglected this question earlier. Thus, I wanted to clear it up through you.”

“All right,” Lun Tai replied in a serious manner. “Awakened ones have constantly been confronting Players. Thus, we have always been on the lookout for news and information regarding the Players, which we will then analyse.

“Overall, there are three types of Players.”

Chen Xiaolian’s face became tense!

Lun Tai continued:

“The first type of Players could probably be considered as temporary Players. These are the ‘temporary accounts’ resembling ‘first experience players’. They have the lowest level amongst the Players.

“Every time these Players enter a game, they will arrive and walk-in to a random ordinary person. Then, they will participate in an instance dungeon.

“Simply put, before an instance dungeon opens, the system will automatically direct its attention onto the ordinary people near the instance dungeon’s vicinity. Then, when the instance dungeon begins… Bang! Players arrive and walk-in occurs.

“After the instance dungeon ends, the Players leave the bodies. These bodies will then be refreshed and sent back to go on with their ordinary lives.

“The result of this is that the same Player could possibly end up using a different human shell each time the Player enters an instance dungeon.

“Perhaps when they enter an instance dungeon in Japan, they will use an ordinary Japanese person as a human shell.

“When they go to the United States, they will temporarily use a Caucasian person as a human shell.

“If you recognize these low level Players, you will discover that every time they enter an instance dungeon, their appearance would be different. Perhaps the last time you saw him, he was a Chinese person, next time, he becomes a black person or a Caucasian person. At any rate, they are all random.

“However, these types of Players are considered low-end Players in the Player circle. Regardless of their battle prowess or their level, they are all of the lower levels.

“The second type of Players is known as Mid Class Players.

“These Players are of a higher grade compared to the Low Class Players. Additionally, they have more privileges as well.

“Like Low Class Players, they too will be assigned a temporary human shell by the system whenever the instance dungeon is opened. But, after their arrival, these type of Players can modify the appearance of their own human shell – they have their own unique looks and special settings for their external body appearance.

“After they arrive, it no longer mattered if their human shell was originally tall or short, fat or thin. Once they arrive, that human shell will automatically assume the pre-set appearance determined by the Players.

“For example, a Player may set his external appearance to look like Daniel Wu. Thus, the appearance of the human shell that he uses after arrival does not matter. The human shell’s external looks will automatically be modified to look like Daniel Wu after the Player arrives – even if the human shell’s original appearance is that of Eric Tsang. [2]”

Hearing that, Roddy smacked his mouth. “Interesting. This feature is quite good. Who does not want their external appearance to look wise and valiant?”

“Naturally,” Lun Tai laughed. “Even when we are playing games, when we are setting the image for our character, we would hope to make it look good. But…

“According to our conjectures, to acquire this privilege to set their image, the Player must pay a corresponding amount of price. Perhaps it is the money of their world, perhaps it is points… at any rate, I do not know what it is.

“As such, this type of Players is more powerful than Low Class Players. These Players are at a higher level.

“However, once the instance dungeon ends or if the Player is killed, then the human shell that the Player was using would be refreshed back to his or her original appearance once they return to this world. Then, the human shell would continue on with their ordinary lives.”

Chen Xiaolian nodded. “And the third?”

“The third type of Players is known as High Class Players,” Lun Tai’s face turned grim.

He took a deep breath and slowly continued. “This third type of Players is the most critical enemies of us, Awakened ones! They are also the one enemy that pose the biggest threat to us all!

“These Players have super strength, abundance of resources and all of them generally have very high levels. They are exceptionally hard to deal with.

“These Players all have a personal ‘Exclusive Account’ within our world.

“That is to say, there will be one ordinary person within our world who becomes that Player’s exclusive human shell! This human shell is one whose appearance follows the Player’s personal preference and is reserved for that Player alone. Other Players cannot arrive and walk-in to that exclusive human shell.

“High Class Players will arrive into their own exclusive human shell before entering the game to start their adventure.

“This exclusive human shell is similar to that obtained from customized settings. It is something the system made in order to satisfy the demands of certain High Class Players. They are made specifically to meet the requests of the Players. Their external appearance, identity, body size and many other aspects of the ‘Exclusive Account’ will all be customized accordingly.”

Chen Xiaolian’s face changed.

Naturally, he was reminded of Miao Yan!

Lun Tai continued with even more shocking news.

“The first and second types of Players, Low Class Players and Mid Class Players have a restriction on them. They are only able to arrive in our world when an instance dungeon opens and they will move to complete the game quests. They will not be able to enter our world at normal times.

“However, things are different for High Class Players!

“The reason for that difference is because High Class Players have their own Exclusive Account.

“You can consider it as them having a permanent and exclusive identity within our world.

“There has been an increasing amount of information, which allowed us to speculate and validate that these High Class Players can enter our world even though it is not the time for them to enter an instance dungeon game!

“In other words, they may walk-in and arrive at any given moment!

“Usually, their Exclusive Account will be similar to an NPC, no different from the rest. However, once the Player wishes to, as long as they are ready, then they would be able to enter our world at any time. And that is done by arriving into their own Exclusive Account.”

“Why? What benefits are there in doing so?” Roddy was puzzled.

“It is not necessarily about what benefits it could bring,” Chen Xiaolian shook his head. “By doing so, the Players will be able to acquire a higher sense of experience and assimilation. When you play a game, surely you do not want it to only be about killings. If you can experience more about this virtual world in detail when entering it, you will feel a higher level of replayability.”

“That is right,” Lun Tai smiled bitterly. “These High Class Players can enter our world at any given time and experience life and all the finer aspects within our world.

“This type of Players is very dangerous as they have an even higher understanding of our world. When fighting against us native residents within the game, they will be smarter and more cunning. They will understand more about our human weaknesses.

“Naturally, there are exceptions, although only a small handful.

“There are a small number of these High Class Players who delved too deep to experience our world and developed certain feelings for this world.

“I had once heard about a High Class Player who fell in love with a female Awakened. This is likely to be a case of him spending too much time in this world. In the end, he invested too much of his own emotions into our world.”

A High Class Player who fell in love with a female Awakened…

Is he talking about Newton? [3]

Chen Xiaolian frowned.

However… listening to Lun Tai’s description of these High Class Players who have Exclusive Accounts…

It is sounding more and more like Miao Yan eh.

However, there is still one question I cannot put my thumb on.

Even if Miao Yan is a Player, the system prompt had stated that Players had yet to enter the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. So then, how did Miao Yan enter earlier than the designated time?

This does not make sense.

“The third type of Player is extremely rare. If we are to make a comparison, then they are the big spenders in a game. They are high-end levelled existences equivalent to Great Gods.

“However, there is a certain notion amongst Awakened ones and also a faction dedicated to that notion. They are more extreme and radical than the rest.

“These Awakened ones believe that to make it easier to deal with these High Class Players, they can utilize this loophole.

“That is to say, if they were to encounter a High Class Player they cannot beat in the game, they could wait until the instance dungeon concludes and return to this world. Then, find the Player’s ‘Exclusive Account’ in this world and kill it!

“Exterminate the opponent’s ‘Exclusive Account’ and bar them from arriving.”

“Is that approach possible?” Chen Xiaolian frowned. “Too naïve. How could it be possible to get rid of a high-end Player so easily?”

“People who are extreme and radical will always have their own strange ideas. It is not something that common people can understand,” Lun Tai shrugged. “Personally, I have nothing to say about these types of people. So far, the organization that believes in this notion could not seem to come up with any results. It seems that the system will protect these ‘Exclusive Accounts’. Even if you do manage to kill an Exclusive Account, the system could simply refresh out a new Exclusive Account who looks exactly the same.

“Yet for some unknown reason, those extreme radical madmen could go on tirelessly, searching and attempting to kill the Exclusive Accounts within this world. Perhaps… they are doing it out of spite.

“I have had no contact with this radical organization. So, I do not understand this type of Awakened ones.”

Chen Xiaolian was silent for a moment. After pondering for a while, he asked the most important question.

“It is said that once an Awakened dies, he will be refreshed back as an ordinary person with his memories as an Awakened erased. Then, that person will continue with his life as an ordinary NPC. Then…

“Consider Da Vinci who died in the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang’s instance dungeon. What happens to him after that? Will his account become dead? Will he no longer appear? Or… will he create a new human shell to enter the instance dungeon again?”

Lun Tai suddenly turned silent!

His face turned exceptionally odd.

Then, he slowly uttered one sentence…