This time, the introductory plot and task briefing were different and somewhat lengthy. Perhaps it was because, having been promoted to a full-time employee, he no longer required the newbie tutorial, so the system crammed almost all the story information into Bai Xinjian’s mind at once.
“That is how it is. Remember your persona: fawn over your childhood friend and earn his complete trust. Later on, you will set your sights on someone stronger, the leader of a top-three guild in this game world. At that point, you will betray your childhood friend for his sake. To please the guild leader, you will choose to push your childhood friend off a cliff during a dungeon run. Afterward, your childhood friend will be infected by monsters at the bottom of the cliff and become a monster. You will then stimulate him, forcing him to devour the entire world, and that will be that.”
Accompanied by 0048’s explanation, Bai Xinjian briefly flipped through the plot of the novel.
“In the original story, even though my childhood friend was infected by monsters in the abyss, he crawled back out and recovered due to his immense willpower. In the end, he discovered that I was the one who pushed him off the cliff and personally eliminated me?”
[Yes, this is an infinite flow cool novel. The childhood friend’s true partner in this story is naturally not you; they end up happily ever after. But you do not need to look at the subsequent plot. You only need to make the monster devour the world. Jianjian, I believe you can do it, right?]
“What if the mission fails?” Bai Xinjian asked deliberately.
[If the mission is not completed, you cannot claim the rewards, and you will continue to be sent to the next world.]
“Fine, then it is better to complete it to avoid wasting all that effort.” Bai Xinjian flipped through the book again.
[This story is rated Level III. Before being stimulated, the monster is Level IV. Just follow the mission,] 0048 reminded him. [The current plan is to make the childhood friend fall for you again. After all, before traveling into this infinite game world, you had just rejected him once.]
0048 stopped speaking, and Bai Xinjian’s temporarily suppressed perception of the outside world gradually returned. He heard a voice beside him say, “This Bai Luo, how long does he plan to lie there and sleep?”
Another voice replied, “Forget about him. He and the boss came from the same world. It is said the boss used to have a crush on him and even confessed his feelings.”
“What is the use of that? He is so weak and not very bright. Aside from looking good, he is useless. In my opinion, he is just a burden to the boss.”
“Shh, keep it down, do not let him hear,” the first speaker said. “Although I agree, in this situation, who is not risking their lives in the dungeons? If it were not for the boss, he would have been dead long ago. But let us just say these things amongst ourselves; do not say them in front of the boss. He does not like hearing them.”
Bai Xinjian thought, Make the childhood friend fall for me again? That sounded easy; it was a total giveaway question.
The two were still whispering, “If worst comes to worst, let us wait until the boss is not looking and leave him somewhere dangerous. If asked, we will just say he ran off and got himself killed, and we know nothing.”
“Good idea. Anything can happen in a dungeon anyway.”
Bai Xinjian suddenly sat up. The two were startled; seeing him awake, they hurriedly fell silent.
“You are awake? Uh,” one of them accidentally made eye contact with Bai Xinjian and had to bite the bullet. “That, you said you were not feeling well earlier and fell asleep. Are you thirsty now? Do you want some water?”
As soon as the person finished asking, their companion nudged them in the arm.
“It is fine,” the first speaker whispered, “I am not foolish enough to give him our own supplies.” They took a small bowl made from a plastic bottle from behind them. “There is mountain spring water over there; it seems to be dripping from the top of the cave. We checked it, and it is clean. If you are thirsty, go get some water.”
Bai Xinjian took the makeshift plastic bottle and stood up. “Thank you.”
He happened to be a bit thirsty, so he walked toward the corner where the dripping sound originated, holding the plastic bottle base. It was a rocky cave; Bai Xinjian had already observed that aside from a weak light filtering through gaps where the water dripped, everything else was pitch black. In the cave, aside from Bai Xinjian, there were only the two people who had spoken to him. Perhaps to save resources, they had lit a campfire, but the light was extremely dim. Once Bai Xinjian walked far enough away, the firelight could not reach him at all.
Following the sound of water, Bai Xinjian raised his hand and held up the plastic bottle base.
“Drip, drip.”
The water droplets hit the bottom of the bottle one by one at a very slow pace. In truth, Bai Xinjian could have overcome this thirst, but he had nothing else to do for now.
“Hey, the place where the water is dripping, did you just take a leak there?” the two others whispered again.
“What does it matter? It does not affect his water; the water drips from above, not from below.”
Bai Xinjian, “…”
He began to review the details of the story. His childhood friend was named Zhu Jin. This was the second dungeon they had experienced together since traveling here. The mission of this dungeon was to defeat the Abyss Colossus. It was quite interesting.
Just as Bai Xinjian was thinking, he suddenly heard a rustling sound from another corner of the cave. By the dim light filtering from above, Bai Xinjian looked toward the direction of the sound. In a corner of the cave, a long tentacle, covered in dark blue, glowing patterns and thick, circular suckers, was slowly emerging from out of nowhere.
Bai Xinjian, “…”
He did not know if it was his imagination, but he seemed to hear the tentacle let out an excited, monstrous cry: “Xinxin! Found you!”
The tentacle reached out, its tip standing upright, and lunged toward Bai Xinjian. Bai Xinjian, “…” It is not tactile imagination. Fine, it is indeed that overly energetic tentacle.
The soft, damp tentacle rubbed against Bai Xinjian’s cheek. It seemed like it wanted to act spoiled, but it suddenly seemed to sense something amiss, paused, and then erupted in a sharp, explosive screech: “So stinky! So stinky! So stinky, so stinky, so stinky! It is the smell of human urine!”
“Dirty! Dirty! Xinxin does not like me anymore! Waa!”
With a whoosh, it suddenly vanished on the spot.
Bai Xinjian, “…” That has some personality.
Bai Xinjian finished his water, returned to his seat, and began to contemplate the dungeon mission again. Generally speaking, this was a dungeon that required teamwork. Defeating the Abyss Colossus did not rely on brute force, but on items. The items were scattered throughout the dungeon, and the players had to find them themselves. During the time Bai Xinjian had been asleep, his childhood friend, Zhu Jin, had taken several people from his guild out to find the key mission items.
After waiting so long that Bai Xinjian was about to fall asleep a second time, Zhu Jin finally returned with his group.
“Boss.” The two players who had stayed behind with Bai Xinjian stood up as Zhu Jin returned. “How did it go? Did you find anything?”
Zhu Jin glanced at them and shook his head. Zhu Jin had the classic looks of a protagonist in a cool novel, very handsome. He wore military boots, a sleeveless vest over a jacket, and dark camouflage pants. Most others in the group were dressed similarly, but he was particularly prominent and eye-catching. Bai Xinjian looked at his physique and the firm arms revealed beneath his short sleeves. Hmm, not bad.
“Jianjian, do not worry,” 0048 seemed to guess what Bai Xinjian was thinking. “The mission targets we arrange for you are definitely all handsome!”
“Thank you, it is quite a feast for the eyes,” Bai Xinjian praised without emotion.
After exchanging greetings, Zhu Jin led everyone to sit in the center of the cave. They had brought torches and flashlights with them, but to save resources, the flashlights were turned off, leaving only the flickering light of the torches and the campfire. For this purpose, the light was sufficient.
“We planned to search for clues about the key items in advance, as the item tasks only refresh tomorrow,” Zhu Jin said, tossing a piece of wood he had found somewhere into the fire and poking the base of the fire with a long stick until the flames flared up. “However, we ran into people from the Xiangyun guild on the way and got into a bit of a conflict. It was not serious, but we retreated early to conserve our strength.”
“Why did the people from Xiangyun clash with us?” someone sitting beside Zhu Jin asked indignantly. “We are such a small guild; what did we ever do to them?”
“There is no helping it,” another said. “Our guild was just established, and we have already squeezed into the top 100 on the server. When you move that fast, it is hard not to become a target.”
“So, what is the plan for tomorrow?” Everyone looked at Zhu Jin again.
Zhu Jin seemed to be assigning tasks and making decisions, but once the question was asked, his gaze slowly shifted to Bai Xinjian. “Luo, tomorrow we will split up and head to the various spawn points for the items to grab them. What will you do? Stay here, or come with me?”
As soon as Zhu Jin spoke, it drew dissatisfied looks from the others present. Bai Xinjian also knew that he was a burden in this group; whether he did nothing and stayed behind waiting to clear the level, or joined Zhu Jin’s team to complete the mission, he would provoke dissatisfaction. In the eyes of the others, it would be best if he stayed far away from them and fended for himself. However, Bai Xinjian had already made his own plan while left alone in the cave earlier. He intended to act alone tomorrow.
Thinking of this, he looked directly at Zhu Jin and spoke: “No, Brother. I intend to go out and look for the mission items like you all tomorrow, but not with you. I plan to act alone. My meaning is, if no one else is willing to team up with me, except for you.”