On his second day at Qingkong, Fang Tian finally made it back to his own dorm. He'd meant to unpack and have a warm, friendly chat with the roommate he'd be living with for the next four years, only to find said roommate sleeping like a dead pig, the still-glowing computer screen apparently showing the main city of some online game — looking very much like a man who'd spent his first day away from home grinding to his heart's content.
The morning light was especially bright. The dorm building backed onto a famous historic landmark of Qingkong City and faced the sea; standing on the balcony and gazing into the distance, what met the eye was a dreamlike stretch of golden beach.
Sea breeze on his face.
This, Fang Tian thought, was how a youthful romantic comedy ought to begin.
The dorms were two to a room, the décor closer to a hotel-style apartment, with air conditioning and every other amenity. What surprised him more was that the room even came with a sofa and a television.
Truly a big city where the wealthy gathered.
Fang Tian gave a brief sigh of admiration, then sorted his luggage, put his change of clothes in the wardrobe, hooked up his laptop and set it on the desk, and went to the bathroom to splash water on his face.
A fine dorm it was — but right now an important mission still awaited him.
Fang Tian lifted his head and saw himself in the mirror, wearing the eyes of a man marching off to battle.
The mission was so perilous that whether he'd make it back to the dorm alive was an open question. It went by a truly terrifying name.
The 3,000-meter run.
The 1,000-meter test back in the day had nearly cost him his little life; all he could do now was pin his hopes on that single point of Stamina he'd just added.
Washed up, Fang Tian changed into a loose set of clothes.
He headed downstairs, studying along the way the new quests the system had issued. There were only two he could pick up in the daytime: one was to finish a 3,000-meter run three days running, the other to play at least an hour and a half of horror games each day. Both were easy enough to grasp — the former was to fix his weakling stamina, the latter aimed at his Sanity of only 5.
Last night's ordeal had made Fang Tian realize that Stamina and Sanity were two extremely important stats.
He figured that if you treated nighttime Qingkong as a game, then Sanity was the equivalent of HP, while Stamina determined how far he could run when he met a malicious monster.
Thinking as he ran scattered his attention quite a bit — at least he was spared the agony of being left in everyone's dust the way he had been on the 1,000-meter.
Besides the daily quests, the other known way to earn attribute points was unlocking monster Compendium entries.
Unlocking entries seemed to come down to two channels for now. One was the slow route of grinding Favorability, like with Senior Hao — but the Hundred Eyes he'd run into yesterday clearly didn't fall within the bounds of friendly socializing. Turning it over and over, Fang Tian figured it was probably because, after he'd been knocked out cold, the Hundred Eyes had been finished off by Senior Hao or Brother Jie, and he'd essentially been handed a free kill.
If his guess held, that meant killing a monster could also unlock the corresponding entry.
This was basically the game strong-arming him into becoming an exorcist.
『Ding——! Congratulations, you have completed a daily quest (progress 1/3). Obtained Medicine x3.』
Fang Tian didn't know how long he'd run; he only knew that when the system's chime sounded, he pitched face-first onto the Qingkong sports field in a textbook Orz pose of defeat. Mercifully, it being so early in the term, he was the only one on the plastic track, and hardly anyone saw the rather embarrassing posture.
It proved that 1 point of Stamina made a real difference: after running 3,000 meters, his head was, against all odds, still clear.
The system had thoughtfully prepared a stamina-restoring potion for him, handing over three at once — drink one and he'd still have two left.
Fang Tian focused, and before long a plastic bottle the size of a small mineral-water bottle appeared in his hand. The clear plastic was filled with a pale-red liquid; there was no manufacturer, no advertising, no ingredient list on the bottle — only two large characters: Medicine.
It looked exactly like some shady little workshop's home-brewed beverage of unknown composition.
Fang Tian had to rely on the system to identify what the Medicine did, and the system quickly served up the prize's makeup:
『Medicine (Strawberry Flavor): can be used to restore a monster's stamina. Per recent market research, the flavor has been adjusted to strawberry, much beloved by monsters.』
The trademark was suspect, but sure enough, just as he'd expected, it was a stamina-restoring drink — and he happened to like strawberry, too.
Not bad. After a 3,000-meter run, a bottle of this really hits the spot.
『Flag Beginner skill activated successfully. Skill proficiency 5/15.』
『Tip: support-type items have no effect on the Appreciator.』
As if it had seen straight through Fang Tian's thoughts, the system fired off two new messages at once.
The all-too-familiar phrasing, paired with the system's tip, made an ominous premonition surface in Fang Tian's heart.
"Say, can you let me take a look at the item list?"
Fang Tian ground his teeth, helpless to do anything about it, feeling that one day his back would be bristling with flags.
『Appreciator level detected as Beginner. Now calling up the F-rank item list. Please wait......』
Two or three seconds later, a table crammed with dense rows of text popped up before Fang Tian. He couldn't wait to read from the very first line, but the further down he read, the worse his face got.
Medicine, Painkiller Candy, Calming Tea Leaves, Fragrant Wind Chime......
The F-rank items alone numbered no fewer than a dozen-odd kinds. It wasn't hard to see the system had been quite thorough — functionality, novelty, and flavor had all been taken into account. Yet all dozen-odd of these items shared one common trait: no effect on the Appreciator.
Among all those densely listed items, Fang Tian couldn't find a single thing that would help him become a One-Punch Man or an exorcism expert. Without exception, every item was for buffing monsters.
The names and effects of the items left his head spinning. So he'd run 3,000 meters with his life on the line just to trade for support items to raise monsters with?
......
"Forget him. I'll grind the dailies and keep you fed."
For some reason, Fang Tian suddenly conjured up the following scene — Senior Hao, clad head to toe in divine gear, striding gracefully out in front through a bleak, cold wind, while he trailed behind in nothing but a sorry pair of straw sandals.
Late-August Qingkong still carried the leftover heat of summer, yet Fang Tian, freshly drenched in sweat from his 3,000-meter run, felt cold from hands to feet.
The sweat was of course cold sweat. He trembled all over. What kind of world was this — was there no hope at all for an Appreciator?
In Fang Tian's imagination, once he'd dumped Stamina up to 3,000, he'd become a superman who downed a monster with one punch and lorded it over the Qingkong night. At worst, he'd be like Geralt — versed in the lore of monster-slaying, a knight-errant with a silver sword on his back who drew his blade at any injustice along the road.
The system, however, was shoving him down a path he'd never seen coming.
No matter how he looked at them, these items were all for playing support. A single glance was enough for Fang Tian to instantly picture several dirty little tactics.
He just never imagined that, in this game of life, Position 5 would turn out to be him.
As someone who only ever played carry or mid in DOTA and only ever grabbed the AWP in CS, in this moment Fang Tian felt a genuine, deep-seated reluctance.
It was as if the system were using concrete action to teach him a timeless truth.
Come out to play in this world, and sooner or later you'll have to pay it back.
The system didn't leave him much time for grief. After his run, another daily quest was pushed his way.
『New quest available: "Type 'Scared' in the Chat" (Beginner). Building friendships with monsters takes a firm will. Temper your nerve, starting with horror games.』
『Quest objective: over three consecutive days, play no less than an hour and a half of horror games each day.』