But ultimately.
Wren Lux didn’t dwell on it.
After all, she had only built a single scene; it was too early to worry about such trivialities.
Since there was no cost incurred yet, she decided to continue fleshing out the instance first.
Wren Lux gently shook her head, temporarily dispelling the messy thoughts in her mind.
After glancing around the hellish dining table before her, she hesitated for a moment.
This time, she didn’t close her eyes.
Instead, she simply raised her snow-white arm and pointed it forward.
Sure enough, even with her eyes open, memories flooded out like a broken dam.
Following her imagination, the entire space seemed to shift.
A muffled rumbling echoed from outside.
The left wall suddenly shifted outward by a dozen centimeters.
Then.
A doorframe appeared.
The corridor behind the door materialized.
The structures of the room and the corridor began to connect.
Wren Lux lowered her hand, bypassed the dining table and the motionless NPCs, and approached the door.
She cautiously poked her head out for a glance before stepping through.
Outside was a familiar corridor, the floorboards creaking underfoot.
The doors to the rooms on both sides were tightly shut.
However, both ends of the corridor were pitch black.
This was because she hadn’t constructed the scenes there yet, leaving nothing but a void.
But just the existing hellish dining table and corridor were enough to evoke memories of her past life.
She remembered being absolutely terrified when she played Resident Evil 7.
Although House Beneviento in Resident Evil 8 was equally nerve-wracking, the seventh installment had left a far deeper impression on her.
She couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of experience would it be if players from her past life physically role-played as the protagonist, Ethan Winters, and entered the Baker estate to survive?
It would definitely be far more despair-inducing than just staring at a screen.
After all, Ethan wasn’t Leon or Chris.
By the eighth game, he was a hand-washing god of war, but in the seventh…
at least in the early stages, he was just a completely ordinary man.
Because of a single video, he traveled thousands of miles to find his wife, only to plunge headfirst into a monster’s lair.
He struggled, fled, and solved puzzles within that den of horrors.
When he finally managed to find his wife…
he was met with an even more terrifying scenario.
As she thought about it.
Wren Lux recalled her own feelings while playing the game, unable to stop herself from empathizing with her past self standing in this very corridor.
‘I was really scared back then.’ ‘I’d probably still be scared if I played it now.’ ‘…Scared of running into some monstrosity around the corner, scared of what might be lurking in the dark, scared of the environment itself.’ With these thoughts in mind, Wren Lux followed the increasingly clear visual imagery…
She walked forward, stepping into the shoes of the protagonist, Ethan, and began to materialize the demonic lair that was the Baker estate.
As she strode forward.
The details in the corridor began to flesh out.
Nodes connecting different areas started to appear.
The Main Hall, the second floor, the Old House, the Yard…
It was a highly enclosed yet intricately designed sandbox.
The areas were connected via keys, mechanisms, specific components, or ladders, creating a strong sense of vertical exploration.
As the game progressed, players would need to backtrack through previously explored areas.
This structure forced players to maneuver around enemies within a confined map.
Wren Lux remembered it clearly…
Memories continued to surge forth.
Those familiar game scenes began to emerge one by one as she walked.
She walked forward slowly.
The ground extended beneath her feet, while the claustrophobic, oppressive, and terrifying Baker estate slowly took shape behind her…
Walls spliced together, corridors stretched out, stairs materialized.
Cramped rooms, deep hallways, dilapidated furniture, and decaying decorations all fell into place.
The stench of rot intertwined with the damp air.
Since real people would be entering the instance instead of playing through a screen, the smell was naturally crucial.
However, this part relied entirely on her imagination.
Wren Lux continued to walk forward.
The young woman had a beautiful and captivating face with distinct features.
Her pretty eyes were lively and expressive, and her figure was tall and full.
Dressed in a fitted white T-shirt under a dark denim jacket, paired with light-colored skinny jeans, she looked simple and clean.
She exuded a strong aura of youth, forming a stark contrast with the surrounding decay.
Her skin was snow-white, still glowing with a delicate luster even in the dim environment.
Even in such a filthy setting, not a single speck of dirt clung to her.
She was like a deity who didn’t belong to this world…
strolling along, creating a new world from scratch.
And clearly.
This deity was very skilled.
…
“Phew…” Three hours later.
Wren Lux subconsciously pressed a hand against her full, soft chest.
She straightened her back, took a deep breath, and glanced back at the scene she had just constructed before pushing the door open and stepping out.
Outside was the pure white Construction Space.
The moment she opened the door, soft white light spilled over her.
She instinctively raised a hand to shield her eyes, then let out a sigh of relief.
Although she felt a bit nostalgic, to be honest, staying inside the Baker estate for too long was quite oppressive.
After all, that place was the stage for a horror game; it really wasn’t a pleasant environment.
It was much better out here.
Though she was a bit unaccustomed to it now.
Because it was too clean outside.
Wren Lux thought for a moment and raised her hand again.
As memories of her past life surfaced in her mind, the scenery outside the main house began to appear.
Under the setting sun, mosquitoes swarmed.
A deep, hidden pathway, rusted iron fences and gates, an overgrown yard, an abandoned trailer, and the iron chains that prevented players from exploring the main house right away…
The scene took shape.
Wren Lux reached up to rub her forehead, feeling a bit dizzy.
She wondered if the Visual Imagery Construction Method was extremely draining on her mental energy.
Not long ago, she had suddenly felt dizzy while walking, and as she constructed more and more scenes, she even started to feel nauseous…
Now that she had built the exterior of the house…
That urge to vomit grew even stronger.
“Does this actually consume mental energy?
It looks like finishing this in one day is impossible,” she muttered.
Because she was genuinely uncomfortable.
Wren Lux couldn’t care less about her image anymore.
She plopped down right on the steps connecting the main house to the yard.
As she sat, her jeans clung tightly to her shapely legs.
The mid-rise design and tight tailoring made her curves even more pronounced.
Her hair hung loose, with some strands sticking to her cheeks from sweat, giving her a sporty, athletic vibe that still felt completely out of place in this environment.
But Wren Lux couldn’t care less about herself right now.
Sitting on the steps, she temporarily exited the visual imagery construction mode.
While resting, she began to review the scenes she had just built.
At the same time, she estimated the time needed to complete the instance.
The conclusion was very optimistic.
If nothing unexpected happened later, the instance should take shape quite quickly.
Thinking of this.
Wren Lux breathed a sigh of relief.
But immediately after, the thoughts she had temporarily suppressed earlier bubbled up again.
That is…
could an instance of this caliber earn Constructor rewards?
Also, would this completed instance really grant skills or items to the players who cleared it?
Although, from her perspective, she truly felt that the impact of Resident Evil 7 was incredibly strong, especially after the scenes were materialized.
But she was still a little worried…
Wait.
That’s not right.
Wren Lux furrowed her delicate brows.
She seemed to have fallen into the Wallenda Effect.
But perhaps because her body was different, coupled with the influence of the original owner’s memories, she had unknowingly become more anxious and emotional.
She knew what she was doing, but the worry was also very real.
After all, two completely opposite sets of memories were entangling and influencing each other in her mind…
Many habits weren’t even hers.
For example, when she saw the rule stabilization fee earlier, she had immediately squatted down in despair.
Even though she felt frustrated, doing that was purely a subconscious reaction.
It was like she was possessed…
“I’m a grown man—wait, no, I’m a grown adult, what the hell am I worried about!” Wren Lux quickly raised her hands and forcefully slapped her soft cheeks, forcing herself not to think with the original owner’s mindset.
At the same time, she couldn’t help but grumble, “Damn it, why am I so troublesome…” At this moment.
Wren Lux had a million things on her mind…
identity crisis, earning Survival Points, constructing the instance, self-preservation, and she had even thought about what to eat for a late-night snack.
But she had overlooked the single most important thing.
And that was—she had never cleared even a single instance.
If the number of instances she had cleared could be displayed above her head right now, she would see it when she looked in the mirror— System Instances Cleared: 0 Civilian Instances Cleared: 0 Yes.
The original owner had never been to a single official instance, and the only civilian instance she had ever entered left her with nothing but memories of being scammed.
Therefore, Wren Lux had absolutely no information about the instances in this world.
Or, more accurately, she had never personally experienced an instance in this world.
This resulted in Wren Lux having absolutely no concept of what the instances in this gamified world were actually like.
She was merely relying on her imagination to guess the state of System Instances and other civilian instances.
And the competitors she imagined were roughly equivalent to the games released around the same time as Resident Evil 7 in 2017.
And the games released that year included The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, NieR: Automata, Wolfenstein II, Nioh…
So, her feeling worried really couldn’t be entirely blamed on that other set of memories…
It could only be said that…
A civilian instance created by someone completely clueless about the current state of instances…
…would either be completely unsuited to the environment, a laughable display of incompetence, and a total joke.
…Or, it would descend upon the world like an absolute monster.
Dragging a cannon onto the battlefield while everyone else was still whittling wooden swords.