MMPS Ch. 54

Chapter 54: Maximizing Gains

Zhao Ran called the young lady. The background noise on her end was chaotic, with faint sounds of Team Leader Yuan leading the city patrol unit breaking through doors.

“Li Xing’s son is in the late stages of a brain tumor. He’s been seeking medical help everywhere, but it’s hopeless. Fang Shixiu deliberately kept his son alive with medication, forcing him to choose between his son and the lives of our nine interns.”

Li Xing, the mechanical logistics team leader, was a long-time employee of Underground Metro. Although their positions were distant and they rarely met, Li Xing was known for his kindness and amiability. Zhao Ran, based on their years of working together, didn’t want it to be him.

Fang Shixiu, the pharmacist, had been serving the boss of Drift Racing for years. Who would have thought that the man with the face of a sour scholar, who had been beaten and climbed a tree screaming, had such a cunning and deceitful side? He had contributed many unscrupulous schemes to the rival company, causing significant damage to Underground Metro over time.

“Li Xing took advantage of his position to implant a visual transmission chip in Ji Nian’s skull. As soon as Ji Nian connected, all the scenes were transmitted in real-time. Drift Racing had already bribed many streamers to broadcast the internal scenes live. The audience’s fanaticism would greatly enhance the power of the J.S brothers.”

“You need to go back now and forcibly disconnect Ji Nian’s linking device to save the other students’ lives.”

“Better not.” Zhao Ran lowered his eyelids. “Li Xing doesn’t know he’s been exposed yet. Drift Racing is waiting for us to compromise on their terms. Alerting them now will only put the interns in greater danger.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“Yes. Don’t make a fuss about Li Xing’s issue for now.” Zhao Ran lifted Yu An’s chin to check his condition and hung up the phone.

“What’s your plan?” Ha Bai couldn’t help but ask.

Zhao Ran smiled. “My plan is to let Yu An figure it out.”

His strength was unfathomable. He lifted Yu An as easily as if he were a ragdoll, his nose lingering near Yu An’s neck for a dozen seconds before looking up and sharing his joy with Ha Bai. “Here, you can touch him.”

Ha Bai hesitated, feeling a pang of sadness as he watched Zhao Ran’s infatuated expression.

A slender nerve tendril extended from the cluster of eyeballs, gently touching Yu An’s cheek. The fragile, soft texture deepened Ha Bai’s concern.

“The secret of his left eye’s ability to swap cores has been exposed. Surviving from now on will be difficult.” Ha Bai shifted his gaze away from Yu An’s face. “Right now, Drift Racing just wants to capture him alive. Today, they also tested your stance. Other aberration-hunting companies won’t let him go either. If they can’t have him, they’ll destroy him. That’s the style of the bosses in the aberration hunting industry.”

“What self-defense does he have? He might not even survive the assassins sent by other aberration hunting companies, let alone deal with you during your cocoon phase when you’re unrecognizable.”

“You know very well in your heart that he can’t kill you, never could. If he’s killed by assassins hired by other aberration hunting companies, what will you do?”

Zhao Ran chuckled. “I’ll enter my cocoon phase on the spot, then emerge and fight them. Six hours of peak strength is enough for me to kill them a hundred times.”

“Huh?” Ha Bai was speechless.

It seemed like a casual joke, but Ha Bai could vividly imagine that day. Even if the person in his arms had become a maggot-ridden corpse, Zhao Ran would still cling to it like a madman. Until he too rotted away, sinking into the accumulated silt over time, with only the floating organisms knowing he had ever existed.

During their conversation, the fingers resting on Zhao Ran’s shoulder twitched weakly. Zhao Ran quickly straightened up, leaning close to Yu An’s slightly parted lips to listen carefully.

Yu An, his consciousness hazy, whispered faintly, “In an hour and a half, switch back to the Picture Within the Painting…”

The Tier 1 Silver core, Picture Within the Painting, automatically disconnected and fell out of Yu An’s eye socket, rolling onto the shell beneath his feet, its surface still stained with fine blood streaks.

Zhao Ran, holding Yu An with one hand, picked up the silver core from the ground, his brow furrowing as he wiped the blood off with his thumb.

Did he swap cores inside?

Zhao Ran suddenly thought of something and set Yu An down.

Ha Bai’s eyeballs turned toward him. “What are you doing?”

“You’re right. He doesn’t have many self-defense methods. I’ll go get the magician’s core for him.”

Ha Bai extended a nerve tendril to stop him. “Hey! Stop making enemies!”

“What you’re doing has far exceeded our instinct to find a bondmate.” Ha Bai warned gravely. “Just because you grew a human face, do you think you’ve become human? When the cocoon phase comes, you’ll still reveal your true form in front of him. Even if he’s lucky enough to succeed, do you think he’ll ever dare to lie on you so recklessly like he does now, once he associates your face with what you really are?”

Zhao Ran was silent for a few seconds, then stubbornly lifted the shell and jumped out. The black, slime-like nerve tendrils stuck to him stretched and snapped, a few unlucky eyeballs hanging from Zhao Ran’s thigh as he dragged them away.

*

Cold water droplets fell on the back of Yu An’s numb hand. His fingers curled, the sensation of gravel getting stuck under his nails uncomfortable.

He slammed his fist heavily against the ground. He thought he had already disconnected. He had seen Zhao Ran’s face, felt the familiar touch of leather gloves patting his lower back. His consciousness was almost out the door of his mind, but a sinister force dragged him back.

Just before losing consciousness, he heard a youthful voice whispering in his ear, “Don’t go. Come catch me.“

The surroundings were pitch black, with only the faint moonlight from outside allowing him to barely make out the dusty cement floor. The walls around him were rough, and the damp corners had grown a layer of moss.

After a quick inspection, Yu An confirmed he was inside a sealed building. The cold, damp air carried a faint smell of decay.

After the scene change, his clothes had been refreshed into a hooded raincoat. The pure black hood, Armor-Piercing Awl, and Core Box Expansion had all been removed.

The good news was that the Mask of the Dead Lake he had obtained in the previous level was still on the left side of his face, occasionally dripping shadowy droplets. The silver refinement badge was pinned to his raincoat, and the 30,000 gold coins were still intact.

The architecture here was similar to the second scenario in Gray Crow: Toy Room, “The Legend of the Urban Witch,” which was originally a pastel-colored pixelated two-player versus level. Now, the setting looked more like a scene from an urban horror movie.

All the heart-pounding elements indicated that this place was closest to the core of the entire game’s illusion chamber.

Yu An groped his way to the stairwell, holding onto the rusted railing as he cautiously climbed step by step.

Without the pure black hood to conceal him, his footsteps echoed clearly in the empty building. Without a weapon in hand, he felt a bit uneasy.

Suddenly, some noise mixed into the slow footsteps.

Yu An stopped and listened carefully. It sounded like the friction of ropes, the twisting and tightening of hemp knots.

The sound was close, as if right in front of him, but the stairwell ahead was pitch black, and he couldn’t see anything.

Yu An tentatively stretched out a foot to feel the way ahead, his hand gripping the stair railing for balance.

Something was wrong.

What his palm rested on wasn’t the cold, hard, rusted railing, but the hand of another person.

Yu An jerked his hand back as if electrocuted, his blood vessels instantly reversing flow. He quickly turned around to find someone standing stiffly behind him.

The faint light only illuminated his outline. A thick hemp rope was tied around his neck, the other end fastened to the railing higher up. His neck was completely broken, and he was more hanging than standing, his hand just resting on the stair railing.

The friction he had heard earlier was likely the sound of this hanged man tying the noose around his neck.

“A corpse.” Yu An’s furrowed brow relaxed coldly.

Between the two floors was a fire cabinet. Yu An smashed the glass with his elbow and found a flashlight and a red-handled fire axe inside.

Yu An raised the fire axe, cutting the rope around the corpse’s neck and taking a two-meter-long section, which he coiled and hung on his waist for later use.

The corpse slumped onto the stairs, and Yu An kicked it aside with the axe in hand.

During his time at Underground Metro, he had accumulated quite a bit of experience, such as planning escape routes in advance, clearing obstacles, and buying time for potential escape actions.

He turned on the flashlight, and his vision finally brightened.

The unfinished building had no ceiling installed, and countless ropes hung upside down from the crisscrossing steel beams, their ends tied into nooses, resembling medieval mass gallows.

The “The Legend of the Urban Witch” scenario had been altered beyond recognition. It seemed the J.S brothers’ abilities were stronger than before, capable of drastically changing even the locked game scenarios.

How did they do it? Previously, they hadn’t shown such astonishing abilities, at most creating some monsters and toxic props to scare and harm players.

Unless there was an audience.

The J.S brothers fed on fanatical emotions. The frantic cheers of the audience could infinitely enhance their power.

Yu An used the fire axe to push aside the dense gallows ropes, cautiously advancing deeper.

At the end of the flashlight’s beam, a person was tied upside down by their feet at the end of a rope, their hands and mouth bound by hemp, leaving them only able to make muffled sounds.

The light shone on the person’s face, and Yu An was surprised to recognize him.

“Ji Nian?”

Hearing the voice, Ji Nian recognized Yu An and frantically twisted his body, signaling him not to come closer.

But by then, Yu An had already moved too close. His foot stepped into a noose on the ground.

He had been too focused on the abnormalities above to notice the trap below.

The rope suddenly tightened, catching Yu An’s ankle.

However, thanks to The Legend of the Urban Witch, Yu An’s body could completely blend into the darkness, making it difficult for the trap controller to accurately judge whether his foot had stepped into the trap. Thus, the rope was pulled a moment too late.

Yu An swung the fire axe with both hands, cutting the rope just as he was being hoisted upside down. The heavy iron axe struck the cement floor with a loud crash, sending flying gravel. Yu An swung the axe again, embedding the blade into a support column and severing the rope holding Ji Nian.

Ji Nian fell from mid-air, landing at Yu An’s feet.

Yu An shone the flashlight on his face. Ji Nian’s pale face was bruised, his nose and mouth bleeding, his mouth tightly bound by the rope, unable to speak. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was barely alive.

A patch of hair near his temple had been shaved, revealing a pale scalp, with a red puncture wound resembling the mark left by a pet tracking chip.

Ji Nian squirmed away from Yu An’s feet, as if fearing Yu An more than the people who had beaten him severely.

By now, Yu An had a guess about the truth.

In the dark, damp corner, three people in hooded raincoats watched Yu An warily.

Yu An raised the flashlight, sweeping the bright light over their faces one by one.

They looked somewhat familiar. They were the fellow interns from the same batch, whom he had met during the evaluation meeting.

“Yu An.” he briefly introduced himself.

The three interns were somewhat intimidated by Yu An. After all, he had taken first place in the skill test, and rumors of his high skills and bad temper made him someone not to be trifled with.

Finally, a young man with a wheat-colored complexion spoke up. “Ji Nian has a visual transmission chip in his brain that can transmit the scenes here. Yong Zheng already told us. He conspired with his team leader to kill us.”

The intern speaking was named Wei Chiyue. He hadn’t faced Yu An during the ability test, so he didn’t feel Yu An’s dominance firsthand.

But Ai Ke, who had been personally defeated by Yu An, was both in awe and wary of him. He whispered to Yu An: “Yu-ge, is that you? Come over here. Don’t get too close to him. It’s dangerous.”

The situation was as Yu An had guessed. The game scenario had been made public, and the number of viewers had likely reached unimaginable levels. That was why the J.S brothers had the power to reshape the world here.

Yu An dragged the fire axe, step by step approaching Ji Nian.

The iron axe scraped against the ground, the scraping sound grating on everyone’s nerves.

Wei Chiyue still didn’t understand what Yu An was planning. In the eyes of these fresh graduates, beating up a traitor and hanging them was the harshest punishment they could imagine.

But Ji Nian could vaguely sense Yu An’s mindset. His way of thinking was absolutely rational and utterly cold-blooded. If killing him would make his mission smoother, Yu An wouldn’t hesitate for a second, nor would he feel any psychological burden.

The fire axe rose high and came down heavily. Ji Nian shut his eyes tightly in fear, his body stiff and unmoving.

A loud crash made the interns jump, letting out a collective scream.

Several seconds later, Ji Nian dared to open his eyes. The rope binding his mouth had been severed, the axe blade mere millimeters from his face.

Yu An’s hand rested on the axe handle as he looked down at him. “Get up.”

Behind the Mask of the Dead Lake, a Tier 3 Purple Core had replaced the Picture Within the Painting Core in Yu An’s left eye socket.

He had swapped in the Function Core – Anti-Addiction System just before the Core Box Expansion was refreshed and disappeared, betting that this level was a two-player versus scenario.

The interviewer had said that the J.S brothers enhanced their abilities by feeding on fanatical emotions, gradually increasing the level of their aberration cores.

If he could just hold out for an hour during the confrontation, the opponent would die suddenly. Wouldn’t that mean the higher the opponent’s core level, the greater his gains?