Chapter 86: Transformation into Human

"The human world has become filthy again." The long-haired man, clad in a luxurious black robe inlaid with brilliant gems, tilted his head upward at a forty-five-degree angle toward the sky.

"Boss Haircut, you're a total jerk—remember what I said, I'll be cursing you out right here on Shenyang Street waiting for you." The tattooed youth in a black shirt and sunglasses gestured wildly toward the camera.

"Why so serious?" The clown, painted in black and white makeup, reached out a finger to tug at the corner of his mouth in the mirror.

In the living room of his new rental apartment, rows of clothing racks displayed a dazzling array of cosplay outfits.

Li Cheng changed outfits, embodying one role after another. Each time he donned a new costume, his entire demeanor shifted dramatically—sometimes cold and brutal, sometimes compassionate and gentle, sometimes manic and extreme, sometimes calm and detached.

After several hours of exploration, he had nearly uncovered all the hidden mechanics of the skill 【Experience Role-Playing】.

One: embodying a role does not grant any personal attribute bonuses, nor does it magically bestow memories or abilities not originally his own.

Two: embodying a role slightly and temporarily alters one's way of thinking. For instance, when portraying Sherlock Holmes, scores in reaction tests, memory tests, and logical reasoning tests were slightly higher than when portraying other roles.

Three: embodying a role slightly and temporarily adjusts one's moral standards, but never crosses the bottom line or induces excessive benevolence. The core moral framework remains unchanged.

Four: the role being portrayed must have a clearly defined image; self-created roles are invalid. The more extreme the character's design and the deeper one's understanding of it, the more authentic the portrayal becomes—and the more sanity points are restored each moment.

"The Killing Ground encompasses everything. Each player's power system is wildly different, but all have three core stats: Physical Energy, Spiritual Energy, and Sanity."

Li Cheng thought silently, "Physical Energy is the quantified representation of a player's stamina. Spiritual Energy is the foundation of supernatural power. Sanity, however, is unique—it's more like a real-time indicator of the player's current mental state."

Sanity is determined by the strength of an individual's will, influenced by Intelligence and Perception attributes. A normal person's baseline Sanity is 100 points. After strong stimuli or mental corruption, if it drops below 70, dizziness and discomfort set in.

At 50 points, memory becomes chaotic and consciousness grows foggy. At 30 points, mental collapse occurs, leading to unconsciousness.

If it drops to 0, there is no salvation—it is equivalent to brain death.

Physical Energy and Spiritual Energy can usually be restored faster through drugs, internal energy cultivation, or buffs. But Sanity recovery is far fewer in methods and far more troublesome.

Li Cheng's current Sanity was just over two hundred points. After spending several hours daily activating 【Multi-Threaded Brain Domain Method】 to study, he had to stop and wait for it to slowly replenish over time.

Now, with 【Experience Role-Playing】, it was as if he had gained a constant passive buff that restored Sanity—with almost no side effects.

If there was a cost, it was probably the vague reputation and the image others held of him.

"What even is image? Can you eat it?" Li Cheng muttered, placing all the clothing racks into the Bone Corridor, then walking to his desk, opening the player forum, and checking auction listings.

【Rare Quality Consumable—Excess Steroids. Appears as a syringe. After use, permanently increases physical attributes, at the cost of -1 Intelligence. The head will also become uncontrollably pointed.】

【Common Quality Skill Scroll—Bait and Switch. Effect: greatly increases fishing success rate. If there are no fish in the pond, you might still catch turtles, eels, toads, bicycles, or corpses.】

【Rare Quality Equipment—Rib Launcher. Appears as a wasteland-style rifle. When fired, it automatically launches one of the user's ribs, triggering a massive explosion.】

【Premium Quality Consumable—Ten Out of Nine Suspicious Potion. Appears as a pink heart-shaped vial. After use, all sensory sensitivity increases to 3000%, and endurance is temporarily enhanced, eliminating fatigue.】

"What the hell is this nonsense? Classic 'nine is bigger than ten' logic, right?"

Li Cheng's face darkened. He scrolled the mouse wheel, browsing and complaining, searching for potential purchases for his 4090 game coins.

Equipment and skill scrolls obtained from player loot boxes sometimes didn't match needs. If the player's guild had no interest and refused to bid, they'd list the items on the forum auction house, waiting for a lucky buyer—or a fool.

The auction house was enchanted with an effect similar to the Bureau of Special Affairs' 【Oath of Compliance】 scroll—all listed item information was absolutely true and reliable. The quality, however, was highly questionable.

That was normal. The truly good items had long been bought up by guilds. Anything appearing on the forum auction house was either bizarre in use or extraordinarily rare, and the owner hoped to make a big profit.

The highest-selling item on today's auction house was a Perfect Quality Consumable: 【Transformation into Human Potion】. Its effect: transforms a living being or an inanimate object into a human with standard intelligence and self-awareness, partially inheriting its original attributes.

Living beings were easy to understand: pets like cats, dogs, hamsters, birds, racehorses.

Inanimate objects included, but were not limited to: figurines, pillows, computers, phones, firearms, tanks, warships.

At first glance, this seemed meant to fulfill otaku fantasies—turning a figurine wife/husband into reality. But upon deeper thought, it was actually quite powerful.

Sprayed onto a supercomputer, it would instantly become a human-level artificial intelligence, capable of writing an entire program in seconds.

Sprayed onto a warship, it would instantly become a humanoid shipgirl with a speed of 30 knots and over 100,000 horsepower, capable of smashing reinforced concrete bunkers with a single punch.

"The average price of a Perfect Quality item is 12,000. For consumables, prices typically rise 20%–40%. Yet this 【Transformation into Human Potion】, barely ten minutes after auction opened, was bought outright by a mysterious buyer for 36,000. Clearly, they recognized its strategic value."

Beneath this auction notice, many players, like Li Cheng, posted comments expressing awe.

【36,000 game coins? Who the hell is this billionaire, not even blinking before snapping it up?】

【I say the buyer got a steal. Think about it—besides tanks and warships, corpses and human skeletons are also inanimate objects.】

【You mean?】

【Resurrect the dead. Bring back someone you cherish—or do something wild, like extracting and storing your own bones and flesh in batches before death. After you die, have someone pour the potion onto your remains to resurrect you—achieving something like a lich's phylactery or Voldemort's horcrux.】

【Ha, you're being too idealistic. Inside the Killing Ground, nothing—not even the legendary Hidden Dead River—can perfectly resurrect a dead person. A 'person' revived by this potion is merely a hollow imitation.】

【I disagree with the above. What is real? What is false? If appearance, voice, thoughts, memories, thinking patterns, and moral values are all identical to before, how can you say it's not the original person?】

This debate stretched across hundreds of posts. Li Cheng clasped his head, leaned back, and his gaze slowly lost focus.

"Resurrecting the dead…"

(End of Chapter)