It was only after much deliberation that Ren Suo had finally chosen to play the game [Over My Dead Body].
He knew that the games in the Mini Worlds Gaming Console were not the same as other mainstream games. The synopsis given for each game was very brief and vague. As such, before playing any of the games, he would have no idea what the gameplay would be like.
Given that, Ren Suo had to use other statistics to allow him to judge the differences between the games.
In the game [The Hitman: The Bloody Banquet], Ren Suo had managed to achieve an “Extraordinary” appraisal with a score of 80 points, and received 15 merits; in the game [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters], he had also managed to achieve an “Extraordinary” appraisal with a score of 80 points, and received 24 merits.
Disregarding the differences between the genres of the two games, [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters] was indeed more worthwhile to complete than [The Hitman: The Bloody Banquet] as he received more merits from the former, despite both having the same difficulty rating and him receiving the same score and appraisal. At the same time, Ren Suo could easily feel that the former game was more challenging to complete than the latter.
With the same reasoning, Ren Suo had a conclusion he could not yet verify: between the games with the same difficulty rating, the greater the maximum number of merits he could earn, the higher would be the actual difficulty of the game.
As such, the game [Lurk: Chapter 1], which had a maximum reward of 100 merits, would be more challenging than the game [Over My Dead Body: Chapter 1], which had a maximum reward of 80 merits, even though both games had a difficulty rating of 2 stars.
There was little incentive for Ren Suo to choose to play the game [Massacre in the Underground City], and he gave it up directly. Between the two remaining options, he figured that the easier game [Over My Dead Body] would be the best step into the 2-star difficulty tier of games for him.
If Ren Suo chose a game that was too hard for him to complete, it would be equivalent to him wasting the free game for the month. Not only would he be unable to receive any merits without completing the game, but he might also not have sufficient merits to purchase the game in the future, even if there was a discount.
Ren Suo had 25 merits remaining after spending 1 merit to retrieve the key. He did not think that he could afford many of the available games with the small number of merits he had. After the 50% discount on the games in the store the previous month, Ren Suo was still unable to afford any of the games, except for the minigame [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters].
Furthermore, any discounts or promotions in the future may not even be 50% OFF. If they were only offering a 10% or 20% OFF, Ren Suo could only let it pass in front of his eyes, wait for the next free game of the month to be released and complete it to earn more merits.
Between the two games, he was the most confident of completing [Massacre in the Underground City], but it had the lowest incentive; [Lurk: Chapter 1] was the riskiest, but it had the best incentive.
As a true citizen of Xuan Nation, the Doctrine of the Mean was deeply ingrained in Ren Suo’s mind, and thus, he decided on [Over My Dead Body].
What, Ren Suo is a scaredy-cat and that makes him less of a main character?
Well, Ren Suo still wants to be a civil servant after receiving the Mini Worlds Gaming Console…It looks like he does not have much high ambitions.
Although Ren Suo did not come from a rich or wealthy family, they were still relatively well-off and lived without much pain or worry; throughout his childhood, he had never encountered any bullies as he always studied in a decent college, even though he was not one of the most popular students in school; none of his girlfriends had despised his background and left him—but of course, that was on the basis that he had a girlfriend before.
Nonetheless, Ren Suo did not think of himself as a timid person at all; instead, he believed he was being cautious—eh, they meant the same thing.
“I choose you, [Over My Dead Body]!”
[The player has selected a free chapter from one of the free games of the month, “Chapter 1: The Chronicle” from “Over My Dead Body”, difficulty: 2 stars.]
[This free chapter has a difficulty rating of 2 stars, and the specialized reward is the ability ‘Heart-strengthening’.]
[The closing time for this free chapter is on 31 April at 23:59:59, after which the game will be deleted automatically.]
Ren Suo entered the game and immediately felt the common feature of games which rewarded the player with a larger number of merits and which was even split into different chapters—just like in [The Hitman], there was also an opening CG in this game.
“In the final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the eunuchs began to gain influence in a despotism, and the consorts manipulated the Emperor for their own benefits. The wealthy aristocrat families started dominating different parts of the land, and the ordinary people lived in destitute…”
“In the year 184 CE, the Yellow Turban Rebellion took place, shocking and shaking the entire nation…”
“The rebellion continued for the next four years, depleting the last of the available resources of the Han Dynasty and fragmenting the people into different parts of the land by forceful means…”
“In 189 CE, the young Emperor Liu Ban took the throne, and the power struggle between the consorts and the eunuchs intensified. General-in-Chief He Jin died in the imperial palace, just after Dong Zhuo and the forces he commanded had infiltrated the capital city Luoyang and seized control of the Han imperial court as per He Jin had ordered. In the same year, Liu Ban was deposed by Dong Zhuo, who replaced him with Liu Xie, as a puppet emperor. However, Dong Zhuo’s conduct towards the court and the imperial officials was bullying and oppressive…”
“In 190 CE, the eighteen princes formed the Guandong coalition and fought against Dong Zhuo and his army in a closely matched battle at Hulao Pass. Dong Zhuo and his army relocated to Chang’an City while internal conflicts grew amongst the coalition forces resulting in their breaking of camps and subsequent failure.”
Ren Suo looked at the ink paintings on the screen depicting the intense battle between the armies and nodded in his heart. Could this be a strategy game? Like the Game of the Three Kingdoms where I select a prince to conquer the world?
In its final years, the Eastern Han Dynasty was split into three kingdoms; the flames of beacon fire reached to the sky and burned ceaselessly. Having played such games before, Ren Suo was no stranger to such games. Moreover, he had come across such war strategy comics and films countless times in the past.
However, the next moment, the style of the scenes changed dramatically from that with a rich history to one with unnerving and mysterious: “However, when Dong Zhuo led the Xi Liang army out of Chang’an, not only did he force all the people to vacate the province, set fire to the area and resulted in countless injuries and deaths of the civilians, he even robbed and destroyed almost all of the imperial tombs!”
“Emperor Guangwu of Han utilized extraordinary powers to summon the stars and meteors beyond the skies to destroy and eliminate the evil demons. After he regained control of the empire, he revamped the entire system by putting the imperial tomb at the heart of his rule, and the imperial blood as the basis of his reign. With his wide connections, his remarkable abilities, and some luck, he was able to fully eradicate the spiritual heart in the central lands, completely preventing the birth of more evil demons by targeting the source.”
“Now, however, the imperial tomb has been destroyed, and the imperial bloodline is in a mess. The Emperor’s control has been greatly suppressed and spiritual veins have reappeared in the central lands. The evil demons are rejuvenated with spiritual energy, and elites also found success with the help of this energy. From then on, the empire found themselves in darker periods, under the Yin Dynasty, as well as the Tai and Han Dynasty. The demons made use of the energy to wreak havoc around the nation, and the elites also lived their lives benefiting from the spiritual energy.”
“However, Emperor Guangwu of Han had already preempted this and taken the necessary measures.”
“At the beginning of the re-establishment of the Han Dynasty, in order to prolong the lineage of the Wang Dynasty and the royal family, Emperor Guangwu established the Cloud Platform Pavilion. He dispatched 28 warriors to gather methods to disrupt and destroy the process of Practicing. With the suppression of the spiritual energy, Practitioners turned back into ordinary people, and with time, knowledge about the Practice became sparse and was viewed as absurd. The organization of Practitioners who nurtured demons collapsed completely.”
“If the spiritual Reiki energy ever reappears, it means that the imperial tomb is damaged and the imperial bloodline is messed up. The Han Dynasty would be in havoc. As such, Emperor Guangwu of Han found the descendants of Champion Marquess Huo and sealed the way to the Cloud Platform Pavilion in their blood. He locked their blood with three shackles:
Firstly, to protect the Han Dynasty with their lives, and not acquire more political power than given;
Secondly, to risk their lives to destroy all demons, without breaking the first rule;
Thirdly, to continue their lineage, without breaking the first two rules.
Breaking any of the rules would awaken the curse of the bloodline, and strengthen the hold of the shackles!”
“Now, with the rejuvenation of Reiki energy, the descendants of the Huo family, who have been living quietly in anonymity, have awakened the innate talents deeply ingrained in their blood… as well as their mission.”
The opening CG of the game ended and very quickly an input box appeared:
[Enter your family name: Huo]
The default is set to the Huo family…Ren Suo thought for a moment and very naturally changed the surname to “Ren”.
[Enter the name of the head of the first generation: **]
Based on the martial arts novels that Ren Suo had read before, he entered the name ‘Woxing’. He had actually heard of such a name before, and it was indeed the most aggressive sounding name with the surname ‘Ren’…Ren Suo had once thought of changing his name to the name ‘Ren Woxing’ (meaning “I do what I want”) when he was in third grade of elementary school, to which his father would point the feather duster at him and say, “You want to be called Ren Woxing? In that case, your dad here would be called Ren Woda (meaning “I beat whoever I want”).”
Ren Woxing was perfectly beaten by Ren Woda, and his plans to change his name was dismissed.
The scene on the screen changed. A green lush mountain appeared, and on it were more than ten tombstones. Three young people were kneeling in front of the tombstones and burning joss paper.
The handsome and fit young man in the center was called “Ren Woxing”. He said, “Second brother, third brother, don’t cry anymore. We are the only ones left in the Ren family, so we need to take up the responsibility to fulfill our mission.”
“Mission…mission?!” said Ren Feifan, the third brother. He wiped his tears as he cried, “I know we have to complete the mission, but why must dad, mom, grandpa, grandma, and uncle die so miserably?!”
“Third brother, think back about what they told us about the inheritance,” said Ren Changsheng, the second brother. He sobbed for a while before he calmed down gradually and said, “This is the curse of the bloodline of the champions. Those with this blood running through their body possesses an extraordinary talent and perfect physique to train. In the era of Reiki rejuvenation, such people will be able to become strong and powerful practitioners of Reiki in a very short period of time.”
“However, the true perfect form is actually that of ‘Transcending Nothingness in accordance with the Dao’. We are now merely more similar to that perfect body, and it is only after we pass the age of 24 that we would achieve the perfect form. At that point, the moment we come into contact with Reiki, we will shatter into pieces by Reiki…Not a single inch of our bones would be spared, and only a pool of blood will remain.”
“The bloodline of the champions is the envy of the people, but it is also a curse.”
Upon hearing this, Ren Feifan started bawling again.
It was only after much deliberation that Ren Suo had finally chosen to play the game [Over My Dead Body].
He knew that the games in the Mini Worlds Gaming Console were not the same as other mainstream games. The synopsis given for each game was very brief and vague. As such, before playing any of the games, he would have no idea what the gameplay would be like.
Given that, Ren Suo had to use other statistics to allow him to judge the differences between the games.
In the game [The Hitman: The Bloody Banquet], Ren Suo had managed to achieve an “Extraordinary” appraisal with a score of 80 points, and received 15 merits; in the game [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters], he had also managed to achieve an “Extraordinary” appraisal with a score of 80 points, and received 24 merits.
Disregarding the differences between the genres of the two games, [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters] was indeed more worthwhile to complete than [The Hitman: The Bloody Banquet] as he received more merits from the former, despite both having the same difficulty rating and him receiving the same score and appraisal. At the same time, Ren Suo could easily feel that the former game was more challenging to complete than the latter.
With the same reasoning, Ren Suo had a conclusion he could not yet verify: between the games with the same difficulty rating, the greater the maximum number of merits he could earn, the higher would be the actual difficulty of the game.
As such, the game [Lurk: Chapter 1], which had a maximum reward of 100 merits, would be more challenging than the game [Over My Dead Body: Chapter 1], which had a maximum reward of 80 merits, even though both games had a difficulty rating of 2 stars.
There was little incentive for Ren Suo to choose to play the game [Massacre in the Underground City], and he gave it up directly. Between the two remaining options, he figured that the easier game [Over My Dead Body] would be the best step into the 2-star difficulty tier of games for him.
If Ren Suo chose a game that was too hard for him to complete, it would be equivalent to him wasting the free game for the month. Not only would he be unable to receive any merits without completing the game, but he might also not have sufficient merits to purchase the game in the future, even if there was a discount.
Ren Suo had 25 merits remaining after spending 1 merit to retrieve the key. He did not think that he could afford many of the available games with the small number of merits he had. After the 50% discount on the games in the store the previous month, Ren Suo was still unable to afford any of the games, except for the minigame [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters].
Furthermore, any discounts or promotions in the future may not even be 50% OFF. If they were only offering a 10% or 20% OFF, Ren Suo could only let it pass in front of his eyes, wait for the next free game of the month to be released and complete it to earn more merits.
Between the two games, he was the most confident of completing [Massacre in the Underground City], but it had the lowest incentive; [Lurk: Chapter 1] was the riskiest, but it had the best incentive.
As a true citizen of Xuan Nation, the Doctrine of the Mean was deeply ingrained in Ren Suo’s mind, and thus, he decided on [Over My Dead Body].
What, Ren Suo is a scaredy-cat and that makes him less of a main character?
Well, Ren Suo still wants to be a civil servant after receiving the Mini Worlds Gaming Console…It looks like he does not have much high ambitions.
Although Ren Suo did not come from a rich or wealthy family, they were still relatively well-off and lived without much pain or worry; throughout his childhood, he had never encountered any bullies as he always studied in a decent college, even though he was not one of the most popular students in school; none of his girlfriends had despised his background and left him—but of course, that was on the basis that he had a girlfriend before.
Nonetheless, Ren Suo did not think of himself as a timid person at all; instead, he believed he was being cautious—eh, they meant the same thing.
“I choose you, [Over My Dead Body]!”
[The player has selected a free chapter from one of the free games of the month, “Chapter 1: The Chronicle” from “Over My Dead Body”, difficulty: 2 stars.]
[This free chapter has a difficulty rating of 2 stars, and the specialized reward is the ability ‘Heart-strengthening’.]
[The closing time for this free chapter is on 31 April at 23:59:59, after which the game will be deleted automatically.]
Ren Suo entered the game and immediately felt the common feature of games which rewarded the player with a larger number of merits and which was even split into different chapters—just like in [The Hitman], there was also an opening CG in this game.
“In the final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the eunuchs began to gain influence in a despotism, and the consorts manipulated the Emperor for their own benefits. The wealthy aristocrat families started dominating different parts of the land, and the ordinary people lived in destitute…”
“In the year 184 CE, the Yellow Turban Rebellion took place, shocking and shaking the entire nation…”
“The rebellion continued for the next four years, depleting the last of the available resources of the Han Dynasty and fragmenting the people into different parts of the land by forceful means…”
“In 189 CE, the young Emperor Liu Ban took the throne, and the power struggle between the consorts and the eunuchs intensified. General-in-Chief He Jin died in the imperial palace, just after Dong Zhuo and the forces he commanded had infiltrated the capital city Luoyang and seized control of the Han imperial court as per He Jin had ordered. In the same year, Liu Ban was deposed by Dong Zhuo, who replaced him with Liu Xie, as a puppet emperor. However, Dong Zhuo’s conduct towards the court and the imperial officials was bullying and oppressive…”
“In 190 CE, the eighteen princes formed the Guandong coalition and fought against Dong Zhuo and his army in a closely matched battle at Hulao Pass. Dong Zhuo and his army relocated to Chang’an City while internal conflicts grew amongst the coalition forces resulting in their breaking of camps and subsequent failure.”
Ren Suo looked at the ink paintings on the screen depicting the intense battle between the armies and nodded in his heart. Could this be a strategy game? Like the Game of the Three Kingdoms where I select a prince to conquer the world?
In its final years, the Eastern Han Dynasty was split into three kingdoms; the flames of beacon fire reached to the sky and burned ceaselessly. Having played such games before, Ren Suo was no stranger to such games. Moreover, he had come across such war strategy comics and films countless times in the past.
However, the next moment, the style of the scenes changed dramatically from that with a rich history to one with unnerving and mysterious: “However, when Dong Zhuo led the Xi Liang army out of Chang’an, not only did he force all the people to vacate the province, set fire to the area and resulted in countless injuries and deaths of the civilians, he even robbed and destroyed almost all of the imperial tombs!”
“Emperor Guangwu of Han utilized extraordinary powers to summon the stars and meteors beyond the skies to destroy and eliminate the evil demons. After he regained control of the empire, he revamped the entire system by putting the imperial tomb at the heart of his rule, and the imperial blood as the basis of his reign. With his wide connections, his remarkable abilities, and some luck, he was able to fully eradicate the spiritual heart in the central lands, completely preventing the birth of more evil demons by targeting the source.”
“Now, however, the imperial tomb has been destroyed, and the imperial bloodline is in a mess. The Emperor’s control has been greatly suppressed and spiritual veins have reappeared in the central lands. The evil demons are rejuvenated with spiritual energy, and elites also found success with the help of this energy. From then on, the empire found themselves in darker periods, under the Yin Dynasty, as well as the Tai and Han Dynasty. The demons made use of the energy to wreak havoc around the nation, and the elites also lived their lives benefiting from the spiritual energy.”
“However, Emperor Guangwu of Han had already preempted this and taken the necessary measures.”
“At the beginning of the re-establishment of the Han Dynasty, in order to prolong the lineage of the Wang Dynasty and the royal family, Emperor Guangwu established the Cloud Platform Pavilion. He dispatched 28 warriors to gather methods to disrupt and destroy the process of Practicing. With the suppression of the spiritual energy, Practitioners turned back into ordinary people, and with time, knowledge about the Practice became sparse and was viewed as absurd. The organization of Practitioners who nurtured demons collapsed completely.”
“If the spiritual Reiki energy ever reappears, it means that the imperial tomb is damaged and the imperial bloodline is messed up. The Han Dynasty would be in havoc. As such, Emperor Guangwu of Han found the descendants of Champion Marquess Huo and sealed the way to the Cloud Platform Pavilion in their blood. He locked their blood with three shackles:
Firstly, to protect the Han Dynasty with their lives, and not acquire more political power than given;
Secondly, to risk their lives to destroy all demons, without breaking the first rule;
Thirdly, to continue their lineage, without breaking the first two rules.
Breaking any of the rules would awaken the curse of the bloodline, and strengthen the hold of the shackles!”
“Now, with the rejuvenation of Reiki energy, the descendants of the Huo family, who have been living quietly in anonymity, have awakened the innate talents deeply ingrained in their blood… as well as their mission.”
The opening CG of the game ended and very quickly an input box appeared:
[Enter your family name: Huo]
The default is set to the Huo family…Ren Suo thought for a moment and very naturally changed the surname to “Ren”.
[Enter the name of the head of the first generation: **]
Based on the martial arts novels that Ren Suo had read before, he entered the name ‘Woxing’. He had actually heard of such a name before, and it was indeed the most aggressive sounding name with the surname ‘Ren’…Ren Suo had once thought of changing his name to the name ‘Ren Woxing’ (meaning “I do what I want”) when he was in third grade of elementary school, to which his father would point the feather duster at him and say, “You want to be called Ren Woxing? In that case, your dad here would be called Ren Woda (meaning “I beat whoever I want”).”
Ren Woxing was perfectly beaten by Ren Woda, and his plans to change his name was dismissed.
The scene on the screen changed. A green lush mountain appeared, and on it were more than ten tombstones. Three young people were kneeling in front of the tombstones and burning joss paper.
The handsome and fit young man in the center was called “Ren Woxing”. He said, “Second brother, third brother, don’t cry anymore. We are the only ones left in the Ren family, so we need to take up the responsibility to fulfill our mission.”
“Mission…mission?!” said Ren Feifan, the third brother. He wiped his tears as he cried, “I know we have to complete the mission, but why must dad, mom, grandpa, grandma, and uncle die so miserably?!”
“Third brother, think back about what they told us about the inheritance,” said Ren Changsheng, the second brother. He sobbed for a while before he calmed down gradually and said, “This is the curse of the bloodline of the champions. Those with this blood running through their body possesses an extraordinary talent and perfect physique to train. In the era of Reiki rejuvenation, such people will be able to become strong and powerful practitioners of Reiki in a very short period of time.”
“However, the true perfect form is actually that of ‘Transcending Nothingness in accordance with the Dao’. We are now merely more similar to that perfect body, and it is only after we pass the age of 24 that we would achieve the perfect form. At that point, the moment we come into contact with Reiki, we will shatter into pieces by Reiki…Not a single inch of our bones would be spared, and only a pool of blood will remain.”
“The bloodline of the champions is the envy of the people, but it is also a curse.”
Upon hearing this, Ren Feifan started bawling again.
