“Brother Jue… that’s too disgusting.” Wang Tanzhi said.

“What’s disgusting about it?” Feng Bujue retorted as he walked toward the corpse.

“It’s disgusting both in thought and action!” Wang Tanzhi exclaimed. “You can’t just mess around because you feel the reward isn’t enough…”

“Mess around?” Feng Bujue said. “If there was poop or an alien inside, then I’d be messing around.” He had already crouched down in front of the second corpse. “If there’s nothing inside, it just proves my reasoning was wrong, which isn’t messing around. But if there is something…” As he spoke, he reached into the gruesome wound in the corpse’s abdomen, nonchalantly feeling around inside the swollen belly.

“Brother Wang… tell me quietly, what does Brother Feng do for a living…” Long Aomin was so frightened by his teammate that his fear value fluctuated.

“Novelist…” Wang Tanzhi replied blankly.

“Novelists are that terrifying?” Lonely Girl, who was listening nearby, couldn’t help but interject.

“Obviously… he’s not a mainstream one.” Wang Tanzhi added.

“Ha!” Feng Bujue’s laugh startled the other four.

“Look!” Feng Bujue said triumphantly, holding up an item. He had actually found equipment from the bloody, excrement-filled corpse, and it was even of Fine quality…

【Name: Eye of Hatred】

【Type: Armor】

【Quality: Fine】

【Defense: None】

【Attribute: None】

【Effect: Instantly reveals the target of a monster’s hatred】

【Equipment Requirement: Character Level ≤ 20, cannot be traded after pickup】

【Can be brought out of this scenario: Yes】

【Remarks: Since you found this item, it clearly belongs to you. These goggles were made by a necromancer who had many enemies and wanted to use them to discern the killing intent of others in a crowd. Unfortunately, this thing can only observe one target at a time… When he was alive, he inscribed a line of small characters on the top of the goggles—When you look at me, I am also looking at you.】

The equipment looked like the goggles that pilots often wore during World War II. The only problem was that it came out of a dead body’s stomach, which was really disgusting…

“I knew it, the clues in this police station were all too obvious. There’s not a soul in the whole city, but there are corpses here. The other two corpses had items that were absolutely necessary. This corpse seems dispensable, but if all we could find on him was a police baton, then the system wouldn’t have placed such a memorable corpse here. It would have just hidden the baton in some corner.”

“Alright, alright… you’re ruthless…” Wang Tanzhi said. “Time is short, can we set off? We’ve recovered and searched enough, and your teammates are all freaked out.”

… … … …

After leaving the police station, the five continued to walk down the street. Investigating the police station allowed them to complete one of the tasks that might have been required later, and they also obtained a lot of useful items. Originally, the morale of the group should have been improved… but Feng Bujue’s strangeness had gradually been noticed. The fear he brought to his companions was probably deeper than the game could bring.

Even if the scary tricks in the game were terrifying, even to the point of scaring people offline, everyone knew it was just fake. But if Feng Bujue’s behavior were to develop and escalate further… it was unimaginable. He was a real player in reality, and people would be terrified just thinking about it…

“Look ahead!” After walking for another ten minutes or so, Long Aomin stopped and pointed ahead.

The others looked forward and saw a plaza, a very open plaza covered with gravel. In the very center was a huge door, over ten meters high and about four meters wide. One side of the door was shrouded in a black, misty aura, while the other side was open.

As the five approached the door, the system’s prompt sounded again: 【Current Task Completed, Main Task Updated】

Opening the menu, the previous task 【Search the city, find the Demon Gate.】 had a checkmark next to it, and two new tasks had been added below: 【Find the Fire Key in the Police Station on East Ninth Street】 and 【Find the Wood Key in the Shopping Mall on South Fifteenth Street】. The first task had a checkmark to its right the moment it appeared.

After Feng Bujue looked at the taskbar, he quickly walked to the door, looked up at it for a few seconds, and said, “So that’s it… It seems it’s not too坑爹 after all. Three of the five magic arrays are lit, which means we don’t need to find the Metal, Water, and Earth keys. They’re always been on the door, maintaining the seal.”

Wang Tanzhi and the others also came over and looked in the direction Feng Bujue was looking. The open door was filled with dense darkness, making it seem impossible to penetrate even with a strong light. Near the top of the doorframe were five magic arrays of different colors, arranged in the five-pointed positions of a pentagram. All five arrays were painted with obscure divine runes, but three of them were currently lit.

Feng Bujue took out the Fire Key, placed it on his palm, raised his arm, and moved it close to the door, but waited for a while and there was no reaction. He put the key away again and said, “Hmm… I guess we have to wait until we collect both keys and the next task is updated before it tells us how to restore the seal.” He paused. “Time is of the essence. The time interval between the first and second Dark Descent was about thirty minutes. It’s already been eighteen minutes since the second Dark Descent. If the interval is the same each time, then we’d better get to that shopping mall within twelve minutes, and kill the monsters there, otherwise…”

Hearing this, Long Aomin took the lead and rushed out. “Quick! Follow me!” Although he didn’t have far-reaching plans, he could still deduce a thing or two about the immediate situation. If they encountered enhanced monsters again, he would undoubtedly be the one to fight them to the death. He had already been scared by the blood corpse, and he didn’t want to receive a lunchbox at this stage.

Led by Brother Long, the five jogged all the way south. The plaza where the Demon Gate was located had a city map, and each direction had street signs and street names, so Feng Bujue didn’t need to point out the way. Long Aomin quickly found the location of South Fifteenth Street.

They ran one kilometer in five minutes. This was a distance that wasn’t too long or too short. Basically, anyone with normal physical fitness in real life could complete this task, but they would have to pant for at least two minutes to recover after running.

“There’s actually electricity…” Long Aomin was obviously the type who could run a marathon in real life, one kilometer was like a walk in the park for him.

Here, we need to introduce a new concept—"Non-Manifest Attributes."

This is an attribute that is ubiquitous and cannot be completely quantified even in the virtual world. Using Long Aomin as an example, as a player with relatively strong physical fitness in real life, there is a difference in the consumption after he and other players complete the same task. Comparing him with Lonely, the female player with the worst physical strength here, Long Aomin consumed less physical energy after running this distance. Although it was only a difference of about ten points, this subtle difference existed throughout the later stages of the game.

In other words, if the upper limit of physical energy is the same, and they continue to run at the same speed until exhaustion, then Long Aomin can run farther than Lonely. This is the so-called non-manifest attribute difference.

Another example, comparing someone who knows how to use a gun in real life with someone who has never touched a gun in real life, both of them practice the Shooting Specialization to A-level (Specialization Level A: Proficient, has a chance to comprehend skills of this type on their own. When this level is reached, the success rate of activating skills of this type is 100%). When they activate the same skill and shoot at the same target, the damage and accuracy of the person who knows how to use a gun in real life may be slightly higher. Of course, this slight difference is difficult for players to notice on their own, only the system knows exactly how much it differs.

As the game progresses and players’ comprehensive abilities become stronger, after level thirty, they will be close to the level of running on walls and punching like the wind in The Matrix. At that time, the differences in non-manifest attributes will become increasingly difficult to detect. If we have to define this setting, it is to turn "talent" into a resource, giving players certain benefits.

“Just like the previous police station, it seems that places related to the main quest have things that other places don’t have, such as lights and corpses,” Feng Bujue said.

“What do we do next? Wait for the monsters to rush out and attack us?” Wang Tanzhi asked.

“How could the system be so boring? Using the same performance method every time.” Feng Bujue replied, “Let’s go in, don’t expect another blood corpse to break through the wall here. There must be other monsters inside…”

He took the lead and walked towards the door. It was a large sliding glass door that was continuously open. Feng Bujue strode in without any hesitation.

The shopping mall covered a huge area. It was difficult to estimate how many acres it occupied just by looking at it. The lights inside were very bright. Elevators, escalators, and even vending machines and other equipment that needed electricity were all operating normally. However, many shelves had been damaged to some extent.

The main building alone had five floors, with two four-sided transparent cylindrical elevators for vertical transportation. Each floor had escalators, and the fire exits didn’t seem to be blocked. There should be ordinary stairs inside.

After entering through the main entrance, there was a large supermarket that stretched as far as the eye could see. There were as many as thirty scanning cash registers, lined up like a neat formation, forming a wall. Each floor above had a large number of other shops, including clothing stores, restaurants, KTVs, billiard rooms, etc… If there was enough time, it would be a shame for the players not to search this place thoroughly.

Without saying a word, Feng Bujue first stood in front of the sign at the entrance and quickly scanned what each floor mainly sold. But because it was a shopping mall, it had everything, which was actually misleading.

“Where could the Wood Key be… the furniture store? The toy store?” Lonely was also anxiously offering suggestions.

If there were five Feng Bujues in this team, they would probably each take a floor and start a thorough search. But the problem was, there was only one Feng Bujue in this team, and there was only one Feng Bujue in this world. There was no point in splitting up. Not only would it not maximize their gains, but it could also be dangerous.

Just as Feng Bujue was thinking about a plan, suddenly, everyone felt the ground beneath their feet shake. Another change occurred.

Boom—Boom—Boom—

Impact sounds came from underground. A piece of ground dozens of meters away from them gradually rose, forming a volcano-like shape. The tiles on the ground shattered and flew, and the surrounding shelves were scattered. After this continued for seven or eight impacts, finally, a monster broke out of the ground and appeared before everyone’s eyes.

“I bet five mao that killing it will get us the key.” Feng Bujue said, looking at "that big tree."

Half of the monster’s “body” was buried in the ground. What was visible was a charred tree trunk more than two meters in diameter. The top was a tangle of withered branches like skeletal claws, without a single leaf. There were things that resembled facial features on the tree trunk, but they were also made of wood.

Long Aomin wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He said, “I think this guy can’t move. Even if the branches on top can be used as hands, the range of control isn’t large. As long as we stick close to it, avoid its mouth, and go around to the back, that’ll be its blind spot.”

While listening to him, Feng Bujue calmly took out the 【Eye of Hatred】 from his knapsack and put it on. Items become clean after being put in and taken out of the knapsack. Even weapons covered in blood and minced meat can be restored to normal after going in and out of the knapsack, a super-dimensional pocket. So the goggles Feng Bujue was wearing now had no odor or foreign objects on them, but others would immediately think of…

“Hmm… let me see… who’s its current target…” Feng Bujue’s expression changed before he finished speaking. He slowly raised his head, turned around, and looked towards the edge of a railing on the fifth floor of the mall.

That was exactly a blind spot of light. A humanoid shadow was crouching on the edge of the railing. When Feng Bujue and the others raised their heads and turned around, it seemed to know that it had been discovered. It opened a pair of bat wings and swooped down along the wall at high speed towards the ground.

“What’s going on? Batman?” Wang Tanzhi said.

“I personally prefer something like a demon… Get down!” Feng Bujue suddenly shouted loudly, and he was the first to cover his head and lie on the ground.

At that moment, Feng Bujue had realized that the monster’s target of hatred was not any of them, but the black tree monster that had emerged from the ground.

Sure enough, the demon changed direction at the height it was about to hit the ground, turning in an arc and continuing to accelerate, flying straight towards the tree monster. The tree monster opened its mouth and let out a deep, sonorous roar like a horn.

The sound wave was almost tangible, creating a gust of wind. The five people lying on the ground instinctively covered their ears. But to the demon flying towards it, the sound didn’t seem to matter. The demon also opened its mouth with its fangs bared, and roared as it continued to fly forward.

It was a mournful roar, sharp and extremely piercing, like fingernails scratching across glass, making people’s internal organs numb. The two monsters, one baritone and one soprano, echoed each other, but did not bring a pleasant experience. Instead, they brought pain and torment.