"This game is just too damn hardcore..."
As the first ray of dawn fell onto Ren Suo's despondent face from the balcony, he realized that he had been up all night.
After buying "If You Are Strong, Climb Ten Thousand Meters" yesterday, aside from eating and sleeping, he had been playing this game the whole time.
Despite the name similar to a mini-game, once he entered this game, he found that its realism was nearly on par with "Assassin," and he could even create a character.
Furthermore, he could create a female character.
In an instant, Ren Suo was mesmerized by the default female character in the game—a face so pure and radiant it inspired longing, with elegant blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, draped in a set of black clothing that covered her entire body, but still couldn't hide her devilish figure...
Dammit! Why can't I take off all the clothing to adjust her body shape!
Naturally, Ren Suo directly chose this female character; after all, given a choice, who the hell would want to stare at some dude moving around on the screen...
Do you think playing a female character in an online game means all the foot-scratching Great Hans behind the screen are malevolent creeps? No, they just hope that when they play the game, their character is a bit more pleasing to the eye.
And in this game, male and female characters each have their advantages.
'Male: Faster recovery of physical strength.'
'Female: Quick reaction when faced with crises.'
With all these reasons, Ren Suo comfortably chose the female character without any interest in fine-tuning that perfect face with his clumsy, lazy hands.
He definitely didn't want to drool over her; he just wanted to look at her every day... Well, actually, he did want to drool over her.
However, the game skipped the name selection process, and the game character's name was automatically set as 'Truth Seeker'.
Yet, when the game started, it was different from Ren Suo's imagination of watching a cute girl perform impressive, thrilling, and dazzling actions.
The real game screen turned into sprites, the ground turned brown, the sky turned blue—yes, this game used colors to distinguish between heaven and earth!
Most importantly, the cute girl turned into a stick figure.
It was quite subtle how the graphics style went from "Assassin" level to Tetris level; if this were on Earth, suing for defrauding consumers would surely be rightful.
On the screen, the stick figure Truth Seeker stood at the bottom, and there were many platforms above. When Ren Suo controlled Truth Seeker to jump, she would land on the platform above.
The game was very simple, with an altitude bar in the lower-left corner, showing the current altitude as 0 meters, and a green marker at the top of the altitude bar showing 10000 meters—that's the finish line.
In the upper-left corner was a green bar that would decrease when Truth Seeker jumped, but it quickly recovered, equivalent to a stamina bar.
Besides these, there was nothing else, just that simple; it was all about Ren Suo controlling Truth Seeker to keep jumping upwards.
At first, it could be said to be very simple, you couldn't even describe it as 'jumping'—the whole screen was like stair steps, and Truth Seeker was almost walking up them.
However, after playing for an hour, Ren Suo sensed something was wrong because the altitude bar was rising too slowly.
On average, for every minute Ren Suo jumped, the altitude bar only rose by 2 meters. Although it was easy, it was far too slow...
The first hour, he reached 102 meters.
The second hour, he reached 240 meters.
By the third hour, when Ren Suo was finally getting impatient, the game suddenly popped up a message: 'Are you willing to spend 5 Merit Points to immediately jump to the first checkpoint?'
In the altitude bar, aside from the green marker at the very top, there were many white markers in the middle, which were the checkpoints. After failure, one could restart directly from a checkpoint.
The first checkpoint was at the 2048 meters mark, which meant that at this pace, he would have to play for at least 20 more hours before reaching the first checkpoint...
No wonder this game had a 50% discount and still only cost 8 Merit Points—it was damn hard to play.
Just by spending 5 Merit Points, one could avoid 20 hours of torment; where else could you find such a deal?
Ren Suo certainly chose—not to do it!
He had 14 Merit Points, and after buying the game, only 6 were left. If he spent another 5, he would have only 1 point left!
Ren Suo really didn't want to let go, mainly because he now suspected that the Mini-World Game Console could be something beyond his imagination, whether it's a toy of a deity, an offering from aliens, or a gift from people from the future... In any case, it wouldn't be wrong to be cautious.
What if the Merit Points hit zero, would the game console disappear?
What if the Merit Points dipped into the negative, would there be some kind of erasure?
Compared with these potential threats, a mere 20 hours wasn't worth mentioning. The least valuable thing for young people was time...
Ren Suo then checked the in-game purchases:
"Reach the 5896 meters checkpoint, 10 Merit Points"; "Reach the 6853 meters checkpoint, 12 Merit Points"; "Oxygen Cylinder, 1 Merit Point"; "Survival Rope, 1 Merit Point"...
The highest checkpoint you could reach was either 5896 meters or 6853 meters; anything higher than that you had to walk on your own. But it was the items section that baffled Ren Suo—Truth Seekers wouldn't need those things.
Anyway, Ren Suo wouldn't spend a single penny!
So, under the dawn of the next day, Ren Suo finally managed to stubbornly reach the first checkpoint and could no longer bear it, going off to sleep—the game wasn't unpausable, but once you started, it sucked you in because the force of each jump of the Truth Seeker was controlled by Ren Suo.
A longer distance required a harder press; a shorter distance, a lighter touch. There were also many forks to choose from, with each path leading to new routes, making it a game that needed a lot of focus. Unless under the pressure of a full bladder, Ren Suo simply couldn't stop.
Ignoring the crappy setup, this game was actually quite good.
This sleep lasted for 8 hours. By the time Ren Suo woke up, it was almost 2 p.m. He had completely skipped the whole morning and noon, and then an unprecedented sense of hunger rapidly assaulted his hypothalamus...
"Two large bowls of beef brisket noodle soup with fried sauce! Super hungry!"
"Alrighty!"
There weren't many people eating noodles at this time, so Ren Suo easily found a seat. As he anxiously awaited the arrival of his meal, his gaze was suddenly captured by a girl on the opposite side of the street.
Decked in a red puffy skirt, with twin ponytails, and wearing white stockings, her delicate face and milky white skin stood out as she carried several bags, looking like she'd just finished shopping, with a sweet expression on her face. Even for Ren Suo, a veteran of online racing for many years, he had to admit that this girl ranked within the top five amongst all the girls he had ever seen in person.
Even Ren Suo, who was known as the Master Brother of From the Heart Club in college, felt the impulse to go ask for her WeChat or something.
However, the reason Ren Suo suddenly paid attention to her was not for her beauty but because looking at her made his heart flutter!
That palpitation was like the saliva secretly secreted by the tongue upon seeing delicious food, similar to his reaction upon seeing Black Body Armor Li Dan or Mo Zhaolong!
"Your noodles."
Ren Suo turned his head and looked at the steaming hot and aromatic noodles in front of him, his appetite firing up.
For some reason, as he ate his noodles, he found himself thinking of Li Dan, Mo Zhaolong, and the girl who had flashed by just moments ago...