Within the infinite loop, S-rank instances were universally recognized as the highest level of difficulty.
Almost every trainee who held an S or A rank had survived at least one S-rank instance. They stood at the very top of the brutal food chain created by the infinite loop’s survival-of-the-fittest system.
Because the mortality rate remained horrifyingly high, S-rank instances only appeared once a year. No single team could clear one alone. At minimum, three top-tier teams had to cooperate in order to challenge it.
Even so, surviving an S-rank instance was still unbelievably difficult. Entire elite teams being wiped out together was far from uncommon.
But there was no doubt about one thing.
Anyone who survived an S-rank instance would undergo a complete transformation.
Those who lived through it stood at the absolute peak.
Different levels of instances naturally produced corresponding special props. S-rank props were unique existences that could only appear in S-rank instances.
However, not every S-rank instance produced a conventional prop.
Sometimes, the reward manifested in another form entirely.
For example, the greatest reward in Dark Abyss had been the transformation from human to half-vampire. In Walk Through Hell, it had been the opening of the Yin-Yang Eye.
But regardless of form, these rewards were ultimately considered equivalent to S-rank props.
And not every contender who survived an S-rank instance would receive such a miraculous opportunity.
More often than not, these heaven-defying gifts appeared only once every several years—and that was assuming the entire team wasn’t annihilated first.
After overcoming hurdle after hurdle, only nine Thriller Trainees currently possessed S-rank props.
And more than half of those nine were themselves S-rank contenders.
Their strength needed no further explanation.
Outside the instance, the bullet chat exploded.
The trainees selected for Thriller Trainee were all famous figures with the ability to back up their reputations. Most of the viewers who remained were newcomers who had never seen the world beyond low-rank instances.
Now that they had suddenly witnessed an S-rank clue appear, their reaction was even more exaggerated than the trainees’ own.
[FUCK FUCK FUCK WHAT DID I JUST SEE?!]
[HOLY SHIT!!! AN S-RANK PROP!!!!]
[First time seeing an S-rank prop in my entire life. Grandpa, grandma, ancestors, this livestream was worth it!!!]
[I’m crying. Screenshotting this right now to preserve the memory forever.]
[Thank you, system, for fulfilling my dream before I inevitably die in an instance T__T]
But amid the excitement, some viewers quickly realized something was wrong.
[Wait a second… that doesn’t make sense.]
[Yeah. Isn’t this supposed to be a beginner one-man-show instance? Why would there be an S-rank prop here?!]
[HOLY CRAP. If there’s an S-rank prop, doesn’t that mean this instance itself might be— /horrified face]
[No matter how I look at it, this doesn’t feel like an S-rank instance at all. Compared to those hell-level scenarios with zombie sieges and extinction events every five minutes, this mental asylum barely feels dangerous.]
[Exactly. Only one person has died so far. The neighboring newbie venues are already half wiped out. You’re telling me this place is S-rank difficulty? I don’t buy it.]
The bullet chat descended into heated discussion.
Among the countless beginner instances currently running, the Mental Asylum had suddenly become the center of attention.
Not only did this instance contain the unprecedented “mole” chance task, it now also involved an S-rank prop.
On top of that, there were actually two powerful S-rankers present in a single rookie instance.
Compared to the other beginner venues that didn’t even contain an A-rank, this place was absurdly eye-catching.
Thinking about it that way, perhaps the presence of two top-ranked contenders in one instance was itself proof that this place was nowhere near as simple as it looked.
Outside the livestreams, viewers immediately began calling friends over.
Soon, the livestream rooms of every trainee inside the Mental Asylum were packed with spectators carrying virtual melon seeds, ready to watch the chaos unfold.
Inside the operating theater, the trainees’ eyes had already turned red with greed.
Every gaze was fixed upon the broken iron box sitting atop the operating table.
An S-rank prop.
A genuine S-rank prop.
If they could obtain it, not only would they gain a terrifyingly powerful life-saving trump card, but their overall system evaluation would skyrocket.
And everyone knew exactly what that meant.
The system had stated it clearly from the very beginning:
High-ranked trainees enjoyed countless privileges and special treatment. They could even obtain information about future rounds ahead of time.
Who wouldn’t want that?
Someone moved first.
One of the trainees from the command group stepped forward immediately. Another, unwilling to fall behind, lunged for the box as well.
Those farther back realized they had no chance if they hesitated, so they simply rushed forward too.
Special props recognized their owners.
Whoever obtained it first would become its master.
But in the next second, a wooden staff abruptly blocked the top of the iron box with flawless precision.
“Enough.”
Messiah’s calm voice instantly cut through the tension.
The golden-haired Holy Son stood there with Aaron’s rod in hand, his expression gentle yet impossible to defy.
The chaotic scene froze almost immediately.
Even the trainees who had nearly started fighting over the box gradually calmed down beneath his gaze.
No one wanted to openly clash with Messiah over a clue that might not even be real.
Interest flickered through Zong Jiu’s eyes, but he made no move to intervene.
“Everyone, calm down for a moment.”
After stopping the crowd, Messiah sighed helplessly.
“Look carefully. The halo is white.”
The trainees blinked in confusion before hurriedly looking again.
Sure enough, the halo surrounding the tiny letter S was not gold, but a pale crystal-white.
The lighting above the operating table had distorted the color, causing everyone to mistake it earlier.
The atmosphere instantly became awkward.
One by one, people quietly stepped back.
Props within instances always came with hints from the system.
If a glow was golden, the prop itself was present.
If the glow was white, it merely indicated a clue.
The higher the rank of the prop, the more clues existed—and the more difficult those clues were to uncover.
Messiah lowered his staff.
“Since it’s only a clue, there’s no need for conflict.”
“As per the rules, everyone has the right to examine it.”
The rusty lid was pushed open with a loud clang.
Everyone unconsciously held their breath.
The box was completely empty.
Nothing at all.
Just as everyone leaned closer to inspect this clue connected to an S-rank prop, hurried footsteps suddenly echoed outside the iron door.
Five burly nurses entered, dragging in a man dressed in a hospital gown.
Without hesitation, they strapped him tightly onto the wooden operating table.
The man’s face was deathly pale.
A towel had been stuffed into his mouth, reducing his desperate pleas to muffled whimpers. He could only beg with his eyes.
“Isn’t that the guy who got confined last night?”
The trainees whispered among themselves.
But no one dared act recklessly while the nurses were still present.
As the group exchanged uncertain glances, another figure entered through the iron door.
He wore a white coat and gold-rimmed glasses.
The moment he appeared, his gaze swept lazily across the operating theater.
This had to be the “Dr. Chu” mentioned earlier by the head nurse.
For some reason, despite his ordinary appearance, he gave off an indescribable sense of danger and attraction.
It was like watching someone walk a tightrope over an abyss.
Sharp.
Contradictory.
Dangerous.
Zong Jiu frowned slightly.
He could clearly feel the doctor’s gaze lingering on him for far too long.
Even Zhuge An—who had been leaning casually against the doorway the entire time—straightened slightly, his expression becoming more serious.
“Ah. Looks like all the patients are here.”
An unsettling smile curved at the corners of Dr. Chu’s lips as his gaze swept leisurely across the room before settling on the operating table.
The moment the bound newcomer sensed the doctor looking at him, he began struggling frantically.
“Doctor, should we sedate him?” one of the silent nurses finally asked.
“No need.”
Dr. Chu smiled.
“Sedation strips away the vibrancy of life.”
“Only pain can truly awaken a person. And only an awakened patient can properly receive treatment for mental illness. Don’t you agree?”
The nurses nodded obediently.
Satisfied, Dr. Chu turned away and slowly pulled on the white gloves resting beside the operating table.
Then he walked toward the specimen cabinet.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He knocked three times on the dirty brown glass.
The shriveled head moved.
The dead-white eyes slowly rolled sideways with horrifying slowness, exactly like the exaggerated slow-motion shots in horror films.
A faint hiss echoed through the room.
A thin black snake slithered out through the head’s open mouth.
Its scarlet forked tongue flicked through the air as it obediently climbed onto Dr. Chu’s hand, affectionately rubbing against him.
The cold reptile coiling around those pale blue veins created an eerie kind of beauty.
So that strange movement earlier…
had been caused by the snake hidden inside the eye socket.
Everyone’s scalp instantly went numb.
Dr. Chu gently stroked the snake’s triangular head before resting one hand against the operating lamp.
“I dislike interruptions during surgery.”
“If anyone disturbs me…”
He smiled faintly.
“You know what to do.”
As though it truly understood human speech, the black snake climbed upward and wrapped itself around the operating lamp, hanging upside down in a threatening posture.
“Good boy.”
Dr. Chu praised it casually before accepting a wooden box from a nearby nurse.
“Our asylum has a long and prestigious history in the treatment of mental illness.”
“We possess rich clinical experience.”
“The upcoming operation is simple, efficient, and capable of removing the demons from your minds completely, restoring you to normal…”
Halfway through his explanation, however, Dr. Chu abruptly lost interest.
“Never mind.”
“You’re all patients anyway. I doubt you’d understand.”
He shrugged lazily.
“But that’s fine. You don’t need to understand.”
“You only need to remember this scene.”
The trainee strapped to the operating table began trembling violently.
Seeing this, one of the nurses calmly tightened the thick leather restraints, locking his body firmly in place.
Messiah subtly shook his head at the others, signaling them not to interfere.
The nurses remained standing nearby.
And above them, the black snake watched the trainees with chilling stillness.
No one doubted that if they attempted to intervene, it would strike immediately.
Dr. Chu paid no attention to the struggling patient.
To him, the man seemed little more than a disobedient child.
“Soon,” he said gently, “the demons inside you will be removed.”
The moment the words fell, he lifted the patient’s eyelid—
and drove the long, narrow ice pick directly into the upper eye socket.
A cold metallic sound echoed softly.
The ice pick was so frigid that it nearly stopped the bleeding entirely. Only a faint trickle of blood emerged from the wound.
The bound trainee convulsed violently.
Unable to move.
Unable to scream.
He could only bite down on the blood-soaked towel stuffed into his mouth.
No anesthesia had been administered.
The sweat pouring down his face and the tears spilling uncontrollably from his eyes were enough to show the agony he was enduring.
Dr. Chu’s hand remained terrifyingly steady.
Slowly.
Carefully.
The ice pick sank deeper.
Past the eye socket.
Past the orbital bone.
Past the skull.
Until finally—
it reached the gray-and-white matter of the frontal lobe.
When the pick had penetrated halfway, Dr. Chu calmly measured the depth with a ruler before nodding in satisfaction.
“Perfect.”
He admired the scene like an artist appreciating his masterpiece.
The trainee on the operating table had already fainted from pain.
The ice pick remained embedded in his skull even after Dr. Chu released it, protruding grotesquely upward like a flower placed in a vase.
Silence consumed the operating theater.
Every trainee stood frozen.
“Please don’t look so disturbed.”
Dr. Chu smiled pleasantly.
“This is a genius invention that once won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, my friends.”
“After treatment, your illness will be cured completely. No possibility of relapse.”
He grasped the ice pick again and slowly rotated it.
The sound made everyone’s teeth ache.
Knowing that the pick had already pierced the brain itself, the trainees watched in horror as the doctor calmly stirred it inside the man’s skull.
The unconscious trainee’s body twitched instinctively from the unbearable pain.
At the side, Zong Jiu’s eyelid twitched almost imperceptibly.
Ice-pick frontal lobotomy.
The procedure that had won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine—
and one of the darkest stains in Nobel history.
The surgery itself was horrifyingly simple.
An ice pick.
A hammer.
The tool was driven through the upper eye socket into the prefrontal lobe of the brain, then stirred by hand until the gray-and-white matter was destroyed.
At first, the patients subjected to the operation did indeed become calmer.
Some even appeared “improved.”
But the aftermath was horrifying.
Those who underwent the surgery became dull and lifeless, like walking corpses.
Obedient.
Docile.
As though the body remained, but the soul itself had vanished.
The prefrontal lobe was directly tied to human intelligence and personality.
Destroy it, and little remained except instinct.
Or worse.
And yet, in the eyes of ordinary people at the time, this atrocity had been considered a cure.
That was why it had received the Nobel Prize.
Why tens of thousands of people across the world underwent the operation during the early and mid-twentieth century.
And why it wasn’t fully condemned and abolished until 1970.
The operation itself lasted only ten minutes.
Yet to those watching, it felt like an entire century.
When Dr. Chu finally withdrew the metallic ice pick, blood and yellow-white fragments of brain matter clung to its surface.
Several trainees instantly vomited.
“The operation is complete.”
Dr. Chu casually tossed the ice pick aside.
“This is the ultimate treatment offered by our asylum.”
“Of course…”
“This procedure is rather exhausting for me. Unless a patient’s condition is especially severe or they repeatedly violate the rules, we generally prefer electrotherapy. It’s simpler and far more convenient.”
He glanced at the clock.
“There’s still time.”
“Let’s conduct a brief examination.”
Then his gaze landed unerringly on a certain figure.
A straight-backed young man with long silver hair.
“Number 12.”
Dr. Chu smiled.
“You first.”
Zong Jiu stopped mid-step as he was about to leave the operating theater.