With a momentary sense of dizziness, Lu Yuan felt as if he had just jumped off a building. However, when he regained his senses, he found that he had arrived in a pure white space.
Right in front of him, a large panel resembling an "operation interface" was floating in mid-air.
"Please enter your name—" that electronic voice suddenly sounded.
Lu Yuan couldn't help but be stunned: "Name? Is this a new account?"
It was no wonder Lu Yuan was puzzled, because during the day and night of web browsing he had done previously, he knew very clearly that Ark game accounts were precisely matched to every individual. In other words, a person could only have one account in their lifetime, and there could only be one character in that account. If you were not satisfied with your previous character, you could only delete it and start over.
And this person called "Lu Yuan" undoubtedly had an account before.
"So this game doesn't identify data like fingerprints or pupils, but can directly identify different minds?"
Lu Yuan muttered, then stared at the name field in front of him. Without any hesitation, he entered 【Lu Yuan】.
This name was one he had just obtained, and it held extraordinary significance to him; naturally, he would not change it casually.
As for the following 【character projection】 settings, Lu Yuan didn't say a word either, clicking confirm without making any changes.
Just like that, a virtual image almost identical to himself appeared on the light screen. At the same time, that electronic voice sounded again.
【Character creation complete】
【Loading Tutorial Stage】
【3】
【2】
【1】
Whoosh! The light screen in front of him vanished instantly. At the same time, the surrounding white space disappeared, replaced by an environment resembling a hotel corridor.
Lu Yuan collected his thoughts. He looked at the scene around him extending straight to the end of his line of sight. On both sides were closed room doors, underfoot was a soft carpet, and there was a hint of heat and the smell of dust in the air.
The previous "Lu Yuan" was indeed an NPC in a game. He had spent who knows how many years in the virtual world of Ark, but at this moment, he still subconsciously marveled at how everything in this game world was so real.
Subsequently, he turned his head, and his line of sight fell upon a room door beside him. The door plate on it read 【227】.
This string of numbers, mapped into Lu Yuan's mind, directly presented the information: "Following normal logic, this should be the 2nd floor."
However, just as Lu Yuan was preparing to observe other things, a "Boom!" sounded. The ceiling behind him suddenly collapsed. From that huge hole, a thick piece of wood, burning with raging flames, viciously smashed onto the floor. It was not hard to imagine that if Lu Yuan had been standing slightly to the side, he would certainly have been smashed to pieces.
With this sudden opening, if it were any other player, they would surely have let out a scream in terror.
But Lu Yuan would not. He was someone who had experienced death by headshots, burning, being cut in half, disembowelment, being torn apart alive, and throat-slitting tens of thousands of times. This little scene didn't even make him blink. Everything before him simply made him realize where the heat in the air was coming from.
"Oh, so it's a fire scene!" he muttered calmly.
Before his voice had even faded,
"Click~ click~ click~"
A series of faint sounds came from above Lu Yuan's head. Lu Yuan shifted his line of sight upward, only to see a series of cracks appearing on the ceiling. Judging by the situation, it probably wouldn't hold for much longer.
"So, this is a reminder for me to run quickly, right." Lu Yuan nodded with determination, then turned around and strolled slowly to the guest room door marked 【227】.
Uh, that's right, Lu Yuan knew this was the system reminding him to run, but he didn't run.
Although he now possessed a human body, his thinking remained in a mode where rationality was supreme. Therefore, between "running away" and "trying to find other choices based on the current situation," he naturally leaned toward the latter.
In Lu Yuan's mind, he felt that this was, after all, just a Tutorial Stage. Presumably, there shouldn't be a situation where "if you react slowly, you die," because for a player who had just entered the game, that would be a terrible experience.
Of course, this deduction was not absolute; what if this training stage was full of malicious humor? But even if that were the case, Lu Yuan was not afraid. Because he currently had zero money, zero experience points, no equipment, and no skills, even if he were smashed to death because of a slow reaction, he would have no losses. This state of "the barefooted are not afraid of those with shoes" could probably only be experienced in the very early stages of the game. Therefore, he had no reason not to take this opportunity to properly experience the various settings of the game, rummage around to see if there were any hidden items, and even experience what it felt like to die while being a "Player."
Based on the above, this led to Lu Yuan's slow and un-nervous behavior.
He first came to the guest room door beside him and knocked.
"Hi, is anyone there? You're about to be crushed to death!" he asked politely.
No one responded to him, so he pushed it directly, though of course, it didn't open.
These were all within Lu Yuan's expectations. He immediately retreated to the other side of the corridor, then leaned forward, braced his shoulders, and charged toward the door with all his might.
"Thud! Ugh!"
With a muffled sound, Lu Yuan landed on his butt, and the door didn't budge.
"Hmm, at the current stage, it seems that doors set to be inaccessible cannot be opened with brute force." He rubbed his shoulders and butt, said with satisfaction, and then stood up and strolled to the room next door, 【228】.
"Is anyone there? You're about to be crushed to death!"
"Thud!"
"Ah!"
Just like that, in this fire scene, Lu Yuan acted as if nothing was wrong, unhurriedly bumping into four or five doors in a row, and judging by his demeanor, he would continue to do so.
During this process, the large section of the ceiling above his head that was about to collapse was in a very awkward position.
According to the game's settings, after the initial collapse, the player should have been scared into running forward, and the ceiling would follow the player's running speed, constantly crashing down behind them to create an incredibly nervous atmosphere.
But this player didn't seem prepared to follow the expected routine.
Helpless, the ceiling could only hold back, waiting for the guy below to realize he should be running for his life.
But it waited and waited, and the player had no self-awareness that he was about to be crushed. It felt like a passerby with a bowel movement blocking their steel gate standing outside a public restroom, clenching their sphincter and fighting the urge to defecate with all their might, while the person squatting inside was not in a hurry at all, instead humming a song while playing on their mobile phone.
Finally, the poor ceiling couldn't hold it anymore.
So with a "Boom!" of a loud noise, the ceiling shattered, and steel bars, cement, and burning wooden stakes poured down all at once, instantly submerging Lu Yuan in flames.
Lu Yuan — died.
About two seconds later.
Lu Yuan's body appeared in the middle of the corridor with a flash of white light. He looked around and found that everything had returned to the state before the collapse, except for the heat in the air.
"So, in the Tutorial Stage, after dying, you return to the starting point and start over, is that it." Lu Yuan muttered thoughtfully, his brow slightly furrowed.
However, he wasn't frowning because of this setting, but because at the very moment he was crushed to death just now, he clearly felt the pain of his body being surrounded by flames and his bones being crushed.
This surprised him greatly, because according to the Ark information he had read, the pain sensation of characters in the game should have been adjusted to about 20% by default. Yet, given the current situation, his pain sensation had not been reduced in the slightest.
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan casually brought up the game menu, preparing to click into the "pain adjustment" section to take a look. He was then surprised to find that he didn't have this option at all.
"???" A row of question marks appeared in his mind: "So, am I bugged?"
At this moment, Boom!
Just like the opening, the loud noise arrived on schedule, and the ceiling behind him collapsed again.
Lu Yuan turned his head and looked at the raging flames. This time, he still didn't run. Instead, he leaned in, squatted down, and used his fingers to poke at the charred wood.
"Hiss~"
An incredibly real burning sensation; this pain definitely hadn't been reduced. Lu Yuan looked at his fingers, which were clearly burned by the high temperature, and fell into deep thought.
Regarding this phenomenon, he tentatively provided two explanations for himself.
First, it was the bug he mentioned earlier. However, while this explanation was simple, it was very unreliable. After all, the game Ark had been running for nearly a hundred years, and the probability of such a low-level bug appearing in the initial "pain reduction" setting after so many years of maintenance was extremely small. Although it wasn't impossible, the fact that he happened to run into this bug made this explanation unacceptable to Lu Yuan.
In comparison, the second one was much more reliable.
That was that Lu Yuan himself was the bug.
When he first entered the game, he determined that this game did not identify users based on fingerprints or any other physical structure, but based on "mind." Otherwise, this person 【Lu Yuan】 would not have been identified as a new account.
Then, what exactly was he now? Was he still that 【Mad Doctor】 who didn't even have a name?
Of course not, but it seemed he wasn't a player in the true sense either. The most likely possibility was that he was now something between a player and game data.
"Click-clack~ click-clack~"
As if to highlight the reality of this thought, the ceiling above his head once again made the same unbearable sound as before, and the scorching flames uncontrollably spread through the cracks.
Lu Yuan raised his head. He was still standing in place, his mind still pondering: besides making it impossible to adjust the pain sensation, what other effects would this bug of his have?
The next second.
"Boom!"
A loud noise.
Lu Yuan died X2.
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