Chapter 1 Descent

A sensation of falling, a sudden and violent descent.

Along with it came a pain that spread throughout his entire body.

The change of scenery still only took a moment.

The four players seemed to wake up from a dream. They suddenly opened their eyes and found themselves falling. Of course, it was only a few meters of fall, not enough to kill them.

The four fell onto a crimson carpet, groaning as they got up and looked around.

They were surrounded by a sea of books, seemingly in a library. Six rows of extremely tall bookshelves were joined together to form a hexagon, like a wall surrounding them.

The ceiling was nearly ten meters high, and there were several chandeliers visible, so lighting was not an issue.

Directly above the four players hung a large square iron cage. The iron plate at the bottom of the cage was now open, which seemed to be the reason for their fall.

"This is the so-called 'real world'?" Qiu Feng asked, reaching out to touch his chest. Fortunately, the bloody hole was gone.

"I guess so," Feng Bujue said, standing up from the ground. "What are your Survival Values?"

"I have almost no damage," Honghu replied.

Ji Chang said, "Me neither."

Qiu Feng replied, "The previous damage seems to have disappeared."

Feng Bujue's own Survival Value had also returned to 96%. It seemed that in the "real world," their Survival Values were always full, until they fell from the iron cage above, which caused a slight drop.

"Well... that's right," Feng Bujue said. "All the items obtained in that mental world have also disappeared." He was referring to the lighter, notebook, wallet, and so on in his pockets.

"Ha! The consumables I used in the memory space are all here," Qiu Feng said.

Prompted by his reminder, Feng Bujue opened the menu again and checked the knapsack bar. He found that the ***-500 tablet and the Survival Value supplement he had consumed had also returned.

Looking at the Skill Bar, the [Nanto Flying Dragon Fist] he had learned in the mental world was still there.

"In terms of items, we should have returned to the state we were in when we first entered the script," Feng Bujue said. "However... the skill I learned in the memory space has been retained." He stroked his chin and speculated, "If I hadn't immediately learned this skill, but instead placed it in my knapsack in the form of a skill card, perhaps it would have disappeared..."

"You're really lucky," Honghu said. "You actually managed to pick up a skill."

"Didn't you also have a chance to learn it? You chatted with middle-aged Peter Pan for so long, didn't you take the opportunity to ask him to teach you how to fly?" Feng Bujue retorted.

"I did ask him," Honghu replied. "He told me that to fly, you need pixie dust and you need to 'believe' that you can fly." He paused. "Looking back... that seems to be a hint about the truth, but... at the time, I thought he was just stating the original setting, so I didn't take it seriously."

After saying that, Honghu added, "Oh, also, I tried to ask him about swordsmanship." He sighed. "He said that in the second year after he left Neverland, he was arrested once for possessing a controlled weapon, and his short sword was permanently confiscated by the relevant authorities."

"Alas... the world of adults is so terrible..." Qiu Feng sighed.

Ji Chang said, "Aren't we all adults? What you're saying..." He trailed off, but his tone was similar to Qiu Feng's.

Feng Bujue said, "It seems you all had wonderful childhoods, so you developed a sense of... 'I didn't know how lucky I was back then.'"

Honghu looked at Jue Ge and said, "Well... let me guess... Brother Feng, you weren't very normal when you were a kid, were you?"

"Not really, my personality at the age of seven or eight wasn't much different from what it is now," Feng Bujue replied.

"That's very abnormal then..." Qiu Feng interjected.

"Anyway, even back then, I felt that social roles like children and adolescents were a severely discriminated group," Feng Bujue said. "So, when I was eleven, I wrote a paper entitled *On the Stereotypical Prejudice of Adults Against Children and Adolescents*."

"To show that among the billions of flowers of the motherland, there are one or two freaks like you?" After this instance, Qiu Feng's talent for witty retorts had improved significantly.

"You were just a Pichu (a small, mouse-like Pokémon) back then, what did you know?" Feng Bujue naturally wouldn't be at a disadvantage in a war of words.

Ji Chang commented from the side, "But... Brother Feng, you really are an oddball. When I was eleven or twelve, I had trouble writing a five-hundred-word essay."

Feng Bujue snorted coldly. "What's that? This daddy completed his debut short novel *Sword God* by hand in a notebook when I was ten. For writings the length of a paper, I can sit on the toilet with a laptop and write it while taking a dump."

They seemed to be chatting, but in fact, they were multitasking, their hands and feet were not idle.

The four tacitly took charge of a direction each, checking the surrounding bookshelves while talking, trying to find a way out of this area.

"If all else fails, let's climb to the top of the bookshelf and take a look," Ji Chang said after observing for a while. "We can first jump onto that iron cage, and then use the iron chains above the cage to climb up. Once we reach the same height as the top of the bookshelf, it will be easy to jump onto it."

"Aren't you considering... looking at all the books around?" Feng Bujue's reading addiction kicked in, uttering a shocking statement.

Qiu Feng looked up at the bookshelves, which were about eight meters high and full of books, and chuckled dryly. "Even if the four of us read separately, we probably wouldn't even finish the table of contents before being forcibly disconnected."

Honghu didn't participate much in the three's nonsense. His attention was mainly focused on the "hidden worldview." At this moment, in the extended menu of the task bar, the world rules of this script had been written out:

[Hidden Worldview: Imprisonment in the Brain.]

[A powerful being who has read extensively has brought the players into his brain world. In this world, every virtual character he knows will become a living being with self-will and influence each other.]

The reason why X-23 was blocked when retrieving ***-233 earlier was because... she was about to enter the "boss's" brain world. If it weren't for this reason, the boss wouldn't have been able to stop her at all. For a derivative like Twenty-Three, invading a script from the inner world was nothing. Even the system couldn't interfere, let alone those data lower than the level of the Four Pillars Gods.

"It's not difficult to get out of here," Honghu said after thoroughly studying the worldview, combining it with the task. "But the current task seems to be implying to us that the real 'boss' is very strong..." He turned to look at his teammates. "Is it really good for us to leave this safe area rashly?"

"Indeed, main quests like [Defeat the Real 'Boss' or Escape the Deduction Club] usually exist because the difficulty of one of them is too high, which may lead to a total party wipe. Therefore, the system gives players another easier route to clear the game," Qiu Feng added.

"And the more difficult route to clear the game means more experience, more skill points..." Feng Bujue said in a very arrogant tone.

"But if we wipe out, we'll have nothing," Honghu interrupted. "The risk factor also needs to be considered..."

"Before we see that 'boss,' no one knows how strong he really is," Feng Bujue said. "You are all smart people. Now that everyone is basically at full health, and the knapsack bar has been unlocked, we shouldn't be in a hurry to be self-deprecating, but rather objectively assess the overall strength of the team." He paused and added, "Besides, this is just a team survival mode script of normal difficulty. No matter how strong the hidden Boss is, how strong can he be?"

"I say... Brother Feng, judging by your tone, have you ever killed a boss of nightmare difficulty?" Ji Chang asked.

Honghu stroked his chin and pondered, "Brother Feng's level has not yet reached level 30, so he should not be able to queue for the nightmare difficulty team survival mode. It seems... he has cleared a nightmare-level script in single survival mode."

"Isn't that obvious?" Feng Bujue replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's been almost a month since the open beta. Is clearing a nightmare script still a novelty?"

"I've tried three nightmare-level scripts, and I died in the middle of them all..." Qiu Feng said.

Ji Chang then said, "I've tried five times, and I haven't passed once either. Twice, I failed when I thought I was close to the end of the story..."

Honghu also said, "I am a solo player, unlike the professional players in their studios who have tasks on their shoulders, so I have tried more often. Since I reached level 15, I have tried a total of twenty-six nightmare difficulty single survival games, and I have only cleared one." He adjusted his glasses. "To be honest, I have also experienced some setbacks in my life, and my psychological quality is not bad. But playing nightmare difficulty really makes me lose confidence, and a few times I was scared out of the script due to excessive surprise values..."

Qiu Feng added, "But listening to your tone, Brother Feng, it seems like clearing it is a common occurrence?"

"No, I haven't," Feng Bujue immediately began to play dumb. "I've only cleared one nightmare-level script, and that script was a puzzle script without a Boss fight." He shook his head. "My point is, compared to the nightmare-level script with death fLAgs everywhere, what's a normal difficulty Boss?"

"Hehehe... what's a ball?" Suddenly, a peculiar voice rang out, interrupting the players' conversation. "If you think I am, then I can indeed turn into a ball." The voice came from all directions, surrounding them. And what was most incredible was that this voice was exactly the same as the system's prompt tone.

The four players' expressions all changed. After quickly exchanging glances with each other, they said in unison, "The Boss?"