Chapter 1 Midnight

At midnight, Feng Bujue logged into the game in sleep mode.

The first thing he did upon entering the login space was to open his social tab and find the nickname [Xu Huai Shang].

"Excellent..." Seeing that the other party's status was "In Game," he was very pleased, as this saved him the trouble of communicating.

Then, Brother Jue used the quick option in the friend list to enter the mailbox interface and sent Xu Huai Shang an email with very neat sentences, greeting her on behalf of Ruo Yu.

After doing all this, he took the opportunity to browse his own mailbox.

Coincidentally, the reminder email from the Puzzle Card Exchange had arrived. Feng Bujue knew just by looking at the title… that the [Puzzle Card – Sword] had already been exchanged.

Five minutes later, he had already made a trip to the exchange and returned to the storage room.

"Hehehe… finally…" Feng Bujue said excitedly, holding the [Puzzle Card – Loli] in his hand, "The moment of witnessing a miracle has arrived…"

His expression, wording, combined with the items in his hand, really made people want to ridicule him…

"A twelve-card combination…" Brother Jue said, taking out the cards from the box, "The probability of getting a legendary equipment is also very high, right…"

Viewers familiar with the plot of this book should understand that such self-established fLAGs are mostly going to end tragically, but Brother Jue just likes it this way…

He first put the other card he exchanged for, [Puzzle Card – Tears], into the storage box, and then took out the eleven cards he had accumulated for a long time.

When all twelve puzzle cards were in his hands, he summoned the menu and selected "Combine."

[A possible combination sequence has been detected]

A system voice that made Feng Bujue excited entered his ears, and the synthesis list immediately appeared in front of him—

Deck Name: [Zodiac], consumes [Puzzle Card – Sheep*2], [Puzzle Card – Ox], [Puzzle Card – Gemini], [Puzzle Card – Crab], [Puzzle Card – Leo], [Puzzle Card – Loli], [Puzzle Card – Libra], [Puzzle Card – Scorpio], [Puzzle Card – Sagittarius], [Puzzle Card – Aquarius], [Puzzle Card – Pisces], can form a combination.

[You have chosen to generate the deck combination: Zodiac, please confirm this operation.] After two seconds, another prompt sounded.

Feng Bujue, of course, chose to confirm, and so, the twelve cards instantly turned into white light and were reorganized into one card in his hand.

The pattern on this deck was very delicate, with the universe and stars as the background, and the starlight and sun as the outline, arranging the images of the twelve constellations in a ring.

[Deck has been generated, do you want to exchange it for equipment?]

Although the system voice came again quickly, this time, Brother Jue did not immediately select "Yes." After all, it was something he had accumulated for a long time to obtain, and emotionally speaking, it was very different from the decks that were casually combined. Therefore, he looked at the deck with a smug look for a minute before reluctantly choosing to exchange it.

As the deck dissipated into light, a white light suddenly appeared on the other side of the storage room, and then it turned into a glass pillar.

Feng Bujue turned around and walked over, waited a few seconds, and took out the equipment from the pillar.

[Name: Staff of Asclepius]

[Type: Weapon]

[Quality: Legendary]

[Attack Power: Medium]

[Attribute: None]

[Effect 1: Power of Evolution (Doubles a player's basic physical skills and physical energy limit, and makes their physical energy recovery speed 1000 seconds, duration three minutes, cooldown time thirty minutes)]

[Effect 2: Power of Summoning (Doubles a player's summoning creature ability and spiritual energy limit, and makes their spiritual energy recovery speed 100 seconds, duration three minutes, cooldown time thirty minutes)]

[Effect 3: Power of Immortality (Grants a player the ability to revive once in a script, limited to one use per script)]

[Equipment Requirements: Medical Specialization A, bound after equipping]

[Remarks: A divine staff with the power of evolution, spirituality, and immortality, symbolizing the noble will of the god of medicine.]

"It really is legendary…" Feng Bujue's expression immediately turned cold, "But…" he exclaimed, "I can't use it!" He waved the golden staff entwined with golden snake sculptures, as if he wanted to break the thing, "This is like waiting for months only for shit! Was it easy for me to save up the cards for months!"

It was unknown who he was angry with, but… a few minutes later, he calmed down.

"Sigh… forget it…" Brother Jue muttered, "I'll throw it into the guild warehouse. An Daixiao's medical specialization is probably not far from A-rank either. As long as she takes this thing… she can directly join the ranks of first-tier players, right…"

He was telling the truth. Anyone… as long as they could equip this staff, their ranking on the player's comprehensive strength list would definitely skyrocket.

Not to mention anything else, just the third effect of this staff… in the entire *Thriller Paradise*, all the guilds, regardless of whether they have a studio background, would be rushing to be friends with you…

Seeing this, some people will definitely say… since this is an item that is bound after being equipped, why doesn't Brother Jue sell this thing?

Indeed, this is a good idea.

Objectively speaking, if Feng Bujue really wanted to sell equipment like the [Staff of Asclepius], then he wouldn't have to sell it in the game's auction house… he could directly go to the virtual item trading website and list it for one hundred thousand or eighty thousand (RMB), and he would definitely be able to sell it.

Brother Jue had naturally thought of this idea… but he didn't do it.

The current Feng Bujue is no longer the casual player from four months ago who was thinking of "playing games to treat his illness and earn some extra money."

Regardless of the knowledge he has mastered or his own abilities, he has already broken away from the category of "ordinary people"... his motivation for participating in the game has also changed.

Right now, compared to money in reality, he feels that improving the team's strength in the game is more important.

…………

After putting the [Staff of Asclepius] into the guild's public warehouse and sending an email to Hua Jian, Feng Bujue simply stayed in the login space and started browsing the forum.

Because Xiao Tan, Xiao Ling, and Hua Jian were all not online yet, he decided to wait for them for a while. He could also use this time to make up for the lack of gaming he had experienced in the past half month.

"Internet addict dies tragically on the street, driver of the car released without charge." As soon as Brother Jue opened the forum, he saw such a post being pinned to the top of the homepage; next to it was marked with the word "Hot."

After reading the title, he clicked on the post…

"Recently, the Supreme Court of XX City made a final judgment on the 'Bentley car crushing an Internet addict to death' case, which has been hotly debated online, and declared the car owner not guilty and released. The defense lawyer proposed that 'Li Moumou, a young man with the online name [Zhong Er Chui], was addicted to the Internet for many years, which led to mental confusion. Therefore, he should be judged as a person without full capacity for civil conduct. Allowing such a person to walk on the street is the dereliction of duty of the guardian.' Regarding the arguments raised by the prosecuting lawyer, such as 'the Bentley car owner bribed the police officers, destroyed evidence at the scene, and forged alcohol test certificates,' the court rejected them all for insufficient evidence…"

After reading the post, Feng Bujue sighed: "Ah… is it this kind of disturbing social news again… No wonder it became a hot post."

Brother Jue had long been accustomed to similar reports. These days, the media is also happy to hype up some negative energy. The more news that can stimulate the class struggle emotions of netizens, the more it can grab attention.

Anyway… in the end, it is still time that can calm everything down. At most, in ten days and a half a month, those passionate responders now will still do whatever they should be doing…

"Oh? Has someone reached max level already?" Brother Jue continued to browse, and soon saw another post titled—[Another fastest level-up record! Order – proves once again that they are the real kings].

Regardless of whether Order is the so-called "king," the water army they hired is really intellectually challenged. This kind of title is simply shouting to the world: "I just got fifty cents for posting!"

Feng Bujue clicked on this post and roughly understood the situation. It turned out that during the half month he was Afk, [Tun Tian Gui Xiao] had already reached level 50. At the moment he reached max level, all the players in *Thriller Paradise* received a system notification.

This kid… ever since he was beaten by Lute in the Pinnacle Tournament, he can be said to have learned from his pain, restrained his previous casual attitude, and played seriously for more than a month.

Today, even [Shiva], the arrogant one from "Gods," has to admit… in terms of combat power, Gui Xiao is the number one in *Thriller Paradise*. Moreover, this situation is likely to remain unchanged for a long time to come.

Of course, there are people who accept it, and there are people who don't… The people from Shi Dao obviously didn't accept it.

Perhaps no one will believe it… in the field of "leveling up," Order's biggest competitor is not Gods, nor the Blade, Jiang Hu and other powerful guilds, but Shi Dao…

The reason is simple. The people from Shi Dao are all using drugs…

It was mentioned earlier that the drugs they use can suppress the fear value to a certain extent. Although it is impossible to have no fear at all like Brother Jue, it is much stronger than players who have not used the drugs…

The management of Shi Dao also knows very well that in terms of the strength of top players, they are definitely not the opponents of other studios. After [Shi Dao Wei Wang] left, this gap became even larger.

Therefore, the strategy they came up with was… relying on their advantages in fear value assessment, they let all the first-tier players constantly grind single-player normal instances, in order to hit the "first to max level in the entire server" record.

But unexpectedly… in the end, they still failed to catch up with Gui Xiao's pace and failed.

How could they not be angry and ashamed with such an ending?

Therefore, on the day Gui Xiao reached max level, a war outside the game had already quietly begun…