[The script has been completed and rewards are being calculated.]
[Experience gained: 340000, Game Coins: 100000]
[Items and Equipment Acquired: Must-Break Defense Blade, Flashlight, Small Mirror]
[Accepted Missions Completed: 66]
[Special/Hidden Missions Completed: 0, Worldview Decryption: None]
[Fear Value Surge: 0 times, Highest Fear Value: 0%, Average Fear Value: 0%]
[Your Fear Rating is Fearless, you can get an extra reward, please select later.]
[Skill Points Gained: 1224]
[Skill Points Added Experience: 12240, Game Coins: 100000]
[Script Completion Reward: Jigsaw Puzzle Card * 2]
[Settlement is complete, please continue.]
Back in the login space, the settlement information quickly appeared on the touchscreen.
"Ah... how nice, I got through with just a hundred or so words..." Feng Bujue said something inexplicable, which we can ignore.
"Okay... let's go take a look at the rewards first." After reading the settlement screen, Feng Bujue turned and entered the storage room.
The two glass columns were already in place, waiting for him to step forward and collect his prizes.
Brother Jue first went to collect the script completion rewards, which were [Jigsaw Puzzle Card - Banana] and [Jigsaw Puzzle Card - Plunger]. He tried them out, but they couldn't form a set with the existing [Jigsaw Puzzle Card - Strawberry], so he temporarily put the two cards into the warehouse.
Then, he came to the second glass column, and the familiar interface floated in front of him: [Please select your extra reward: 1. Randomly draw a piece of equipment corresponding to your level, 2. 50000 Game Coins (limit), 3. 17200000 Experience Points]
"Seventeen million plus..." Feng Bujue muttered, looking at the menu in front of him, "In the level 30 range, this amount of experience is enough for a player to level up four or five times, right..." As he spoke, he had already chosen the equipment reward...
White light condensed, and the item gradually solidified.
[Name: Ero-manga Artist's Dress Suit]
[Type: Armor]
[Quality: Normal]
[Defense: Weak]
[Attribute: None]
[Effect: Always looks as new as when you bought it]
[Equipment Condition: General Specialization B, Bound on Pickup]
[Note: Damn it, the sales of the collected volumes are clearly good, and I even got a serialization opportunity in Weekly Young Jump, but why wasn't I invited to last year's year-end party! I even bought a dress suit! Only after buying it did I realize that ero-manga artists are not on the invitation list at all!]
"What the hell..." Feng Bujue was shocked when he looked at the item description. "Can this even be considered equipment? This item is definitely not automatically generated by the system, right? Which programmer's brain short-circuited and made this? Was it the guy who designed the 'Rotten Egg' skill? Shouldn't the leaders have a heart-to-heart talk with this kind of person when they have nothing to do?"
This piece of equipment could undoubtedly only be sold to the store, because its quality was normal, and even the pulverizer wouldn't accept it.
So, after complaining, Brother Jue took the item to the mall.
Nowadays, Feng Bujue is already a "superstar" level figure, at least in Thriller Paradise, his popularity is no less than those of the first-line star players. Therefore, after discussing with his friends, Brother Jue has already changed his usual mall number...
Before, the members of their Hell Frontline were all active in area 10 of the mall, but now they have switched to 101. This relatively backward area has far fewer people, which can effectively avoid being surrounded.
However, the number of people in the area being "small" is only relative. The basic principle of phase space is still diversion, sending players without fixed area numbers to places with fewer people. Therefore, as long as an area "exists", there will be at least a hundred people or more inside.
"Hey! Look! The one wearing the purple suit! Could it be..."
"Oh! Is that Feng Bujue?"
"Take a closer look, recently there have been people using this look everywhere, and there are even people who imitate his hairstyle."
"It's him, it's the same as I saw in the video."
"Oh? Is that so? Let me take a look... Hmm... Seeing him in person, he's nothing special."
"Don't talk nonsense, there are rumors that this guy is a professional killer in reality..."
"I heard that he's a patient in a mental hospital?"
Conversations like these rose and fell, entering Feng Bujue's ears from all directions.
Under the scorching gaze of the nearby players, amidst whispers, Brother Jue walked quickly to the system store. He took out the dress suit, flashlight, and small mirror from his knapsack, sold all these useless items to the store, and then returned the way he came in a low-key and fast manner...
"Sigh... what's going on..." Feng Bujue returned to the login space and breathed a sigh of relief, "Going to the mall now feels like being a thief..." He scratched his head and clicked on the touchscreen a few more times. "Hmm... the number of harassing emails has decreased a lot recently, it seems that the opening of the new version has shifted the public's attention..." He paused for a moment, "However, it's also possible that there are too many people on my blacklist?"
He multi-tasked, deleting junk emails while pondering what mode to queue up for next.
"Another Nightmare Mode..." Feng Bujue muttered, looking at the screen, "Or..." He quickly deleted the new emails and brought up the mode selection interface, "Speaking of which... this new mode is indeed very intriguing..."
Thinking of this, Brother Jue had basically decided where to go.
Anyway, he was in sleep mode at this time, and he hadn't played the game during the day, so there was no need to worry about his real-world game time running out; therefore, he still had plenty of time to wander in the world of Free Exploration Mode.
[Feng Bujue, Level 43]
[Please select the game mode you want to join.]
[You have selected Free Exploration Mode.]
[Each entry into this mode will consume 20000 Game Coins, please confirm the operation.]
[Confirmed...]
[You are joining this mode for the first time, randomly searching the multiverse...]
[Search completed, connecting to the multiverse...]
[Loading start, please wait.]
After this text appeared, the elevator started moving.
"Welcome to Thriller Paradise." This time, the opening line was spoken directly by the system voice.
Feng Bujue said, "Isn't this similar to entering a normal script... there's no difference..."
[Loading is complete, you are currently in Free Exploration Mode.]
[This mode has no mission system, no time limit, and no negative game judgment.]
[You can travel between the login space and the script world through the "safe house" (each entry into this mode will consume 20000 Game Coins).]
[The script has started, please leave this safe house within five minutes.]
As the voice reached this point, the elevator door opened...
Outside the door was a space resembling a cave, the four walls and the top were composed of irregular rocks. A steel door was embedded in the rock wall facing the elevator, and the door was naturally closed at the moment.
In the corner of the cave was a strange-looking device, about the size of a refrigerator, with the puttering sound typical of old-fashioned machinery coming from inside. This thing seemed to be a generator, with several cables extending from its bottom, connecting to the crude lamps in various places in the cave.
Feng Bujue walked out of the elevator and carefully scanned the area. There was nothing in this so-called "safe house". This place was just a buffer zone connecting the "login space elevator door" and the "external world door."
After formally entering the safe house, a menu full of text immediately popped up in front of him, and the subtitles began to scroll with the system voice: [Before entering the world of Free Exploration Mode for the first time, please be sure to understand the following.]
[A. When you exit the elevator, you have officially entered the script world. From this moment on, the act of returning to the elevator will be regarded as "normal departure from the script".]
[B. Your time limit for staying in the safe house is five minutes. Please leave the door or return to the login space within five minutes, otherwise you will be forcibly teleported back to the login space, which is also regarded as a "normal departure from the script".]
[C. If you leave the script outside the safe house (including but not limited to being killed, forcibly exiting, disconnection, etc.), your Game Coins, Skill Points, and Experience Points will be subject to corresponding penalties. After entering the world again, you will return to the last recorded safe house.]
[d. Within one hour, you can only pass through the door of the safe house once (whether entering or exiting); the skills or items you use in the safe house cannot affect people or things outside.]
[e. You can take "items that can be taken out of this world" into the safe house by holding them in your hand or putting them into your knapsack; if you need to bring living creatures into the safe house, please ensure that you have obtained ownership of the creature and put it into your knapsack first.]
[f. All conscious entities in the script world, including players' summoned creatures, cannot enter or leave the safe house. Please refer to item e for exceptions.]
[g. Each entry into the world of Free Exploration Mode will cost 20000 Game Coins. If you are dissatisfied with the assigned universe, or feel tired after a long period of exploration, you can reassign it for 500000 Game Coins.]
"Ah... repeatedly emphasizing that it costs 20000 Game Coins to enter... it's been mentioned three times." Feng Bujue only spent a few seconds scanning the prompt in front of him. He had already seen most of this content in the update patch, and the rest could be found in the detailed rules, so he just glanced at it roughly and closed the menu.
"But... if it weren't like this, it would probably cause a lot of trouble..." He said, walking towards the door to the outside.
His idea did make sense. For example... some players might try to walk back and forth at the elevator door, or hide in the safe house and repeatedly use skills... The result of this would naturally be teleportation. Then, they would make a fuss and complain about the loss of 20,000 Game Coins. Although... in essence, these people themselves caused the loss by not reading the game instructions, they would still stubbornly blame it on others. These days, there are still many people like this, even if they are struck by lightning while walking on the street, they will find a person or organization to file a lawsuit and try to recover some losses.
"As expected, there's no door lock..." Feng Bujue walked to the door leading to the outside and looked at the thick steel door panel.
There was only a door handle on the door, no keyhole, and it could be opened with a turn.
"That's right... anyway, things from the outside can't come in." He twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open.
Outside the door was a narrow passage, with rocks on the top, bottom, left, and right. However, there were no lighting fixtures outside, and as far as the eye could see... the end of the passage could not be seen either.
Without hesitation, Brother Jue took out the [Composite Anti-Gravity Catapult] from his knapsack, turned on the searchlight at the front end, and went forward.
He had just taken a few steps when he heard... um... clang--two consecutive sounds. Looking back... the door of the safe house had closed automatically.
A mark was drawn on the outside of the steel door, right in the center of the door. The mark was also very simple, just a circle with the Chinese character "惊" (jīng - meaning "surprise" or "shock") written inside.
"Hmm... let's try it for now..." Feng Bujue didn't even complain about the mark. He just turned around, took two steps closer, and held the doorknob again with his hand.
[Sorry, you have recently entered and exited this door, please try again in 59:34 seconds.] The system prompt and subtitles appeared at the same time, and the doorknob did not move at all.
"Okay..." Feng Bujue said casually.
After saying that, he put the Composite Anti-Gravity Catapult on the ground, then lightly shouted at the air in front of him, and at the same time, he put out both fists and delivered a blow in a pincer attack.
After releasing the first [Baseball Fist], he fell into thought: "Hmm... since this mode has no time limit and no negative judgment, why don't I just sit here and throw a punch every hour..." He silently calculated in his heart, "In this way, I can level up in fifty-nine hours. And in reality, it's only five hours and fifty-four minutes, which is about one night of game time. If I practice like this... for ten all-nighters, I'll be invincible..."
After this thought flashed through his mind, he immediately shook his head: "Tch... how is that possible..."
Indeed, for Feng Bujue, there was absolutely no such possibility. He was a person with a spirit of adventure, a person who couldn't stay idle; for him, "boredom" was more painful than any punishment. Besides... that kind of behavior wasn't a person playing the game, but the game playing the person. He wasn't a professional player, so why suffer this kind of crime.
"Sigh... such is my fate, let's go, let's go." Brother Jue said to himself, picked up the Composite Anti-Gravity Catapult from the ground, and started moving forward.
The rock passage ahead was rugged and winding, and much longer than he had imagined, but fortunately, he was now equipped with skills and equipment, so he was not afraid of anything, and he was confident that he could fight even a Predator.
"Speaking of which... this mode is really super 'free'..." Feng Bujue said as he walked, "There's not even half a sentence of plot summary... theoretically, I might have been shrunk n times and be crawling in the nest of some kind of insect..." He paused, "Or maybe I'm on some alien planet?"
Just as he was thinking wildly, suddenly...