'Individual Value has increased by 1?'
Tang Hong placed his hands into his pockets and wiped his phone's screen with his clothes in a daze. A thoughtful expression emerged on his face.
'Experience for the first time…'
This was a keyword.
It showed that the activity could not be repeated anymore. Experiencing something multiple times would most likely reduce the reward, or worse, a reward might not even exist at all.
'Train journey alone for the first time.'
Tang Hong regarded it as a complete and simple specific event.
And now he obtained one "Individual Value" from it.
What was the meaning of this so-called Individual Value and what was its purpose?
Strength in percentages…
Willpower in percentages…
He looked out the window into the surging crowd, his heart jolted ever so slightly.
Power of One and Individual Value…
According to the name—was this System planning to let him live alone for the rest of his life?!
He really wanted to ask the intelligence mechanism that ran away if it could come back for a moment and give him a different system.
'And also!'
'Individual Value, what a weird term… This is way too casually named!'
'If a person's specific behavior while alone, or any specific event he has done while alone can increase one's Individual Value. Then, shouldn't this be called 'Loneliness Value' instead?"
There was no logic to it at all.
Then again, Tang Hong thought of how the sudden appearance of this support system was the most illogical thing in itself.
…
Following the flow of the crowd and heading for the exit of Yunhai Station, Tang Hong boarded the somewhat old Yunhai Metro Line 2.
The system's intelligence mechanism escaped.
Tang Hong felt sadness.
'But it's okay.' Tang Hong thought. 'Now, I can only rely on my own profound knowledge and wisdom that I've gathered throughout my life to discover the benefits that this support system has for me.'
'And also…'
'The true meaning of these terms.'
While thinking about all of these, Tang Hong was looking at the various data depicted in the system interface in front of him. His mind churned rapidly.
Mortal: Extremely small and weak creature.
Willpower: 33%
Strength: 27%
Realm: 0.00
Individual Value: 2
Tang Hong thought about these values seriously.
Then, the number in the Individual Value column flickered.
It suddenly went from two to one.
At the same time, the percentage value in the Strength column began to flicker. It increased from 27% to 28%.
Similar to how one breathed, it happened naturally.
"Oh…"
"Am I stronger now?"
Tang Hong stared at the plastic handrail he was holding. He could see an advertisement wrapped around the plastic handrail. It was about a hospital dedicated to men.
Of course, Tang Hong could care less about the advertisement.
He was trying very, very hard to squeeze the plastic handrail.
"Why isn't it breaking?"
"This shouldn't be the case…"
Tang Hong continued to exert force.
He lowered his head, lest others discovered what he was doing.
He added more strength.
Tang Hong's mind moved and the Strength percentage value increased by one percent once more. "I'm stronger again…"
This increase in strength felt vivid and real, he truly became stronger than before.
But he still couldn't crush this plastic handrail.
"All right."
"It's also reasonable." Tang Hong breathed out softly.
One had to eat a meal bite by bite.
It was unscientific for him to become incredibly strong all of a sudden when the percentage value of his Strength only increased by 2%. Therefore, Tang Hong loosened his left palm that held the plastic handrail.
Tang Hong obediently sat still for seven stops before he changed course to the Yunhai Metro Line 9. This Metro Line went straight to the Yunhai University of Finance and Economics where he was currently studying at.
Today was May 3rd.
There weren't a lot of passengers on the train, but their numbers weren't so few either. With no empty spaces on both the left and right sides of the train carriage, Tang Hong was forced to stand close to the train coupler.
The crunching sound coming from the train itself didn't manage to interrupt his contemplation.
'Let's assume.'
"The percentage of Strength represents the limit of an interval."
Perhaps the 29% of his current value in the Strength column meant that his strength was equivalent to 29% of the human body's limit in percentages.
It wasn't that difficult for Tang Hong to reach such a conclusion for he was a modern man who had been immersed in novels and movies for so many years, the explosion of information on the Internet broadened his imagination.
Therefore, Tang Hong managed to appear very calm despite everything that happened thus far.
He checked the system interface over and over, and he confirmed that he wasn't hallucinating.
Everything wasn't an illusion either.
Soon enough, he managed to come up with a simple way to verify his strength.
He had arrived at his stop…
Eyes wandering around, he found a self-service beverage vending machine.
Tang Hong took out his phone, opened WeChat, and bought a bottle of an unknown drink with a glass iron lid. He grabbed the bottle lid without shaking it, twisted it twice, and it was successfully unscrewed!
He truly became stronger.
He was finally convinced.
"But."
Tang Hong stared at the system interface.
What did the illusory Willpower column represented and what was the meaning of "Realm" that remained without a value from the beginning till at this moment?
Following the sparse flow of people, he came out of the subway station.
There was a bit of a drizzle outside.
Yunhai City in early May had a subtropical monsoon climate, it was already relatively hot and the air felt stuffy.
This light rain made everyone feel a slight sense of coolness as if the streets had become clear and clean.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
A crowd of people stood at the Exit C of the subway station.
Most of them were women and students.
"When will the rain stop?"
"I didn't bring an umbrella either…"
A few girls in cool clothes huddled on the side of the ascending elevator.
They were muttering to each other, discussing where to eat later.
Tang Hong finally raised his head with a pensive look on his face.
He observed the rainfall before walking out.
In less than 20 minutes, the side entrance of Yunhai University of Finance and Economics came into view.
This was a key research university directly under the Ministry of Education of Hua Country.
It focused mainly on economic management, with economics, management, law, liberal arts, science, philosophy, and other disciplines for coordinated development.
It was a key construction university of Hua Country's '211 Project'.
Looking at the school's side entrance, Tang Hong fell into a daze.
'This isn't right…'
'According to the general setting of those movies and novels. The protagonists in them were either from a third-rate university or were top students whose IQs were super high…'
Tang Hong muttered secretly to himself, his mind was slightly in a mess.
He glanced around.
There were many electric cars parked close to the side entrance, most of them were here to deliver food.
They remained close to the side entrance, but they couldn't go inside for food delivery vehicles were prohibited from entering the campus of the University of Finance and Economics.
Tang Hong's concerns were soon buried in the deep recesses of his mind. He slowly returned to his dormitory room with a gray school bag on his shoulders. The room was a bunk room for four people, and it had a relatively large floor area.
It had its own washroom, although it had no shower.
Click…
Opening the door with the key, Tang Hong went in and threw his school bag on the empty desk.
He looked around.
"Those three aren't back yet? The classes will start tomorrow…"
The quilts on the beds looked undisturbed.
There was no garbage in the trash can either.
Obviously, apart from him, no one had returned to the dormitory room yet.
Tang Hong opened WeChat.
He flipped through the chats and sent a husky question mark to his roommate Han Zhibin.
"What time are you coming back? Shall we eat rice noodles at night?"
The message became akin to that of a stone dropped into the sea, no replies came back after he sent this message. Tang Hong could only shake his head as he pulled out a stool and sat down.
Since he had nothing to do, he summoned the system interface.
Mortal: Extremely small and weak creature.
Willpower: 33%
Strength: 29%
Realm: 0.00
Individual Value: 0
Tang Hong held his chin and enjoyed the empty four-person dormitory alone.
There were occasional bird sounds outside the window.
He felt lonely and cold.
But for some reason, after sitting alone for more than two hours, his Individual Value remained unchanged.
So…
Would an objective fact cause the increase of his Individual Value?
Or was the change in emotions—the primary trigger for its increase?
If it was the former, then there must be some hidden requirement within the behavior or maybe even the event itself.
It could be time compliance, or maybe in the difficulty of undertaking the event itself.
If it was the latter, then there would be loopholes he could make use of to grind and increase his Individual Value.
"If idealism is the primary trigger for its increase, then there is no standard to think about anymore. The Individual Value will increase according to the changes in one's mood. If that's the case, then I can just force myself to suffer from depression and autism…"
"The more ill I am, the stronger I would be."
"I could also just find a reputable hospital and let them inject me with hormones that will make me feel lonely.
"A more conservative choice would be self-hypnosis. I can spend some money and find myself a psychiatrist and it would be enough to do the job."
Tang Hong recalled that he received his first Individual Value increase when that train arrived at the station and he looked at the backs of that couple.
"Huh?"
"No, no, no…"
"I remember that when the system interface initially appeared, I already had one Individual Value." Tang Hong was a little confused. Perhaps that initial Individual Value was a gift?
The intelligence mechanism had run away.
No one could help ease Tang Hong's confusion.
Dong Dong~
A crisp WeChat message prompt broke the silence of the dorm.
Tang Hong sharply exhaled.
He almost thought it was a system prompt.
Ding dong and dong dong…
These two sounds were a bit similar to each other.
The only difference between the two was that Tang Hong could feel the sounds of the former both physically and in his mind, while the latter only resounded in his ears.
Tang Hong glanced at his WeChat and saw that it was a message from his roommate Han Zhibin. An animation of an obedient cat flipping over and acting cute was on the screen with the following message…
"Hehehe, the three of us haven't returned to Yunhai yet. We decided to go and experience a full body massage for tonight, and we will return to Yunhai by tomorrow or the day after. It's Boss Zeng's treat, so we're here to gain some experience…"
"…"
Tang Hong was rendered speechless.
Dong Dong.
Han Zhibin was obviously excited for he sent three messages in one go.
"I asked you to come with us previously, but you chose to go home instead!"
"Why don't you go and book a ticket, so you can come over here right now? We are in Hang City and in a five-star hotel suite!"
"It's the 4th tomorrow and it's a Wednesday. Anyway, you know that there aren't any professional classes on Wednesday. What are you so afraid of? Come here quick, if you truly are my brother, then let's… hehehe… together!"
Han Zhibin reclined on the sofa and tried his best to entice Tang Hong into agreeing.
Tang Hong hesitated and said, "But I'm not familiar with Zeng Li."
"Zeng is very generous. He said that it's just small money." Han Zhibin tried to persuade him even more. "We don't need to lick him like Wu Jie, it's enough for you to just say a few good words to him, and then we can all have fun together."
Tang Hong usually didn't play together with Zeng Li.
He hesitated for a while.
But in the end, he refused in a righteous way. "There's nothing interesting about it, I shall go to the library to study instead…"
"What you guys are doing is illegal!"
"Hahaha."
"We are kindly contributing to the economic construction of our nation…" Han Zhibin put away his mobile phone with some regrets. He didn't try to persuade Tang Hong anymore.
He didn't want to study, so he subconsciously didn't want Tang Hong to study too.
Unfortunately, Han Zhibin himself didn't notice this subtle thought.
…
It was already 10 PM in the middle of the night.
At the entrance of the library, the cool breeze made Tang Hong shiver.
Should I go back to the dormitory room?
As soon as he thought that there was no one in the dormitory and he was going to spend the long night alone, a piece of information emerged.
As this thought emerged, it was soon followed by the thought that there was no one else in his dormitory room and that he was going to spend this long night alone. At that moment, a series of information emerged right in front of him.
'Ding dong!'
'You have tasted the joy of studying alone and felt slightly lonely about it. Individual Value has increased by 1.'
Tang Hong was surprised and happy at the same time upon seeing this series of information.
The words depicted in the system prompt this time were somewhat different from the previous system prompt informing him of the increase of his Individual Value. This time, there were clearly more emotional factors involved.
"'Studying alone' is simpler and easier to do than 'taking a train journey alone.' Even so, I wasn't able to meet the hidden requirements until I left the library. I knew I was a little bit away from the mark, but my mood managed to make up for that gap?"
Tang Hong was startled.
Then, he exclaimed in pleasant surprise. "That's it!"
Objective facts and emotional factors were largely involved in the increase of Individual Value.
But as for which of these two was the largest contributor?
Tang Hong still needed to experiment in order to find the answer to this question.
He lowered his head and started to think.
The train journey earlier at noon took more than two hours. The time between arriving from home to the subway station, and from the subway station to the dormitory room. When all of these were combined altogether, the hours taken must be at least five hours.
However, the time Tang Hong consumed studying alone was no more than two hours.
As for which was more difficult, it obviously varied from person to person.
Tang Hong loved to study.
For him, studying was easier than boarding a train.
He went back to his dormitory room, washed up, climbed onto the bed, and covered himself with a quilt.
The desk lamp placed in the corner of the desk exuded a feeble yellowish light.
The dimmed dormitory room…
The empty beds…
And the ever so faint tick-tick sound that the green alarm clock on the desk of his roommate Han Zhibin…
Tang Hong suddenly sat up.
Feeling lost, he sighed. "I'm studying here in a foreign place. I miss my home, I feel so lonely."
Silence.
There was no system prompt.
Tang Hong laid down.
Then, he sat up once more and tried to wipe the non-existent tears at the corners of his eyes. "It's scary to sleep alone. Sob, sob, sob… It's too scary."
Even the sound of a pin dropping could be heard amidst the suffocating silence within the room.
'What's wrong?'
'Is the System broken again?'
'But there isn't any way of restarting it anymore.'
After subconsciously tossing to and fro for about an hour, Tang Hong eventually fell asleep.
…
The darkened skies slowly lit up as a fiery light slowly floated from the east. It was cold in the early hours of the morning. One could sometimes hear the footsteps of students just outside one's dormitory room. They mostly came from students who were up early for their morning run.
Some were those that were already used to waking up so early in the morning for the sake of their oral practice.
Until 9 AM in the morning, when the sunlight shining on the floor of the dormitory was glowing, Tang Hong flipped his body to another side.
It was only when 9 AM came and when the sunlight shining on the floor of the room burned fiercely than ever did Tang Hong flipped his body to the other side of the bed.
Then, he woke up.
He opened his eyes.
In an instant, a stream of information flashed right in front of him.
It throbbed—and what emerged afterwards were the words…
'Experiencing living alone. Individual Value has increased by 1.'
"This…"
The very first sentence that he saw upon waking up was an increase in his Individual Value by one?
Tang Hong immediately became sober. He sat up and tried to figure out the reason behind that initial Individual Value.
"Adding everything up…"
"It's been more than two minutes." Tang Hong hugged the quilt. He stared at the system interface and muttered to himself. "Let's be rational. Increasing my Individual Value by 60 points is enough for now."
No response.
Tang Hong coughed twice. "10 points are fine too!"
Still no response.
He sighed, his heart feeling relieved at the same time.
If the system really had an intelligence mechanism to assist him, Tang Hong would surely feel uncomfortable.
Modern people paid a lot of attention to their privacy after all.
They didn't want to be pried upon.
Tang Hong was the same, he didn't want to have an intelligence mechanism constantly monitoring his life.
There was no intelligence mechanism to guide him as to how the system worked.
But it meant that he couldn't just sit still and wait for the results to come.
He couldn't just continue to lie on his bed and wait for the first sentence of 'Individual Value has increased by 1' every day upon waking up, right?
If that was the case, then this system was really easy to exploit.
It would be a waste if this system had such a loophole.
As a standard modern person, the curiosity and thirst for knowledge stirred Tang Hong's thoughts.
If Strength had no limits, then could he possibly grow strong to the point of becoming Superman?
Would he be able to destroy the university buildings with one punch?
Crush a tree with one foot?
But what if there was also no limit to Willpower?
Tang Hong still didn't understand what Willpower meant.
"Does it mean self-control?"
"When being tempted by a beautiful woman and money, will I be able to remain unmoved?"
Tang Hong let his thoughts run amok as he picked up his phone next to the pillow and looked up the word, "Willpower", as well as some methods on how he could train it.
There, he discovered that Willpower was a psychology concept that referred to someone's ability to consciously establish goals and mobilizing one's own actions to overcome the difficulties of succeeding in those goals.
"To put it bluntly, it's just the ability to concentrate on something."
Tang Hong flipped through the web page. All of a sudden, he was reminded of his actions just now of trying to find the meaning behind the terms in the support system's interface whose inner workings couldn't even be explained scientifically.
In short—he was akin to that of a frog in a well—thinking that the well was the entire world.
His thoughts were too opinionated.
After all, Willpower might have a deeper meaning for the system.
For example, Willpower might include one's ability to think logically, intelligence, emotional quotient, and maybe even perceptual talent. Or it could also include telekinesis that existed in those movies and novels as well as even the aptitude for cultivating immortality.
These possibilities couldn't possibly be ruled out.
"Individual Value…"
As the saying goes, wealth shouldn't be revealed, but hidden deeply. Since ancient times, there were already a few sayings depicting how treasures tempted people to commit evil.
Tang Hong thought for a long time.
The increase in his Strength was intuitive and easy enough to understand.
In terms of external changes, Strength was more conspicuous than Willpower.
Therefore…
Individual Value should be used to increase Willpower instead of Strength.
"Yesterday, I wasted two Individual Values to increase my strength. For now, I will prioritize increasing Willpower."
"Let's take it easy…"
"I mustn't rush things."
Thinking of these, Tang Hong sat quietly for a while.
Then, he picked up his phone and searched for activities that could be experienced alone.
He looked through the search results patiently before he slowly became more and more disappointed. These days, there sure were a lot of spam results on the Internet.
However, when he turned to the second page of the search engine—his eyes lit up.
He found a few relevant keywords: Levels of Loneliness.
"There's actually such a thing?"
Tang Hong hurriedly searched for it and he quickly found the loneliness rating scale.