Chapter 116

"Killed a Dance Puppet, gained 20 experience points."

"Player level differs too greatly from Dance Puppet level; experience gained doubled."

Looking at the prompt that popped up before him, Wu Chang felt a sense of unreality.

When did the Abyss Game ever consider level disparities and give him extra compensation?

Didn't the Abyss Game always treat him like this: if you didn't die at this difficulty, it means the pressure wasn't enough—immediately ramp it up?

Where did you hide my Abyss Game system?

With experience doubled, one Dance Puppet gives 40 experience points.

Keep in mind, even completing a B-rank dungeon yields only 2000 experience points as base reward.

So if you calculate it this way, clearing fifty of these minor enemies equals completing a B-rank dungeon once?

Besides, the Dance Puppets he'd killed looked like trash mobs—they must be low-level enemies.

What if he'd killed an elite mob or a dungeon boss? How much experience would that be?

No wonder there were conspiracy theories claiming the Sakura Island dungeon outbreak wasn't due to simple negligence, but deliberate inaction that led to heavy casualties.

Now it seemed plausible—perhaps the players involved had been farming points too happily and wanted the dungeon to last longer.

Xiang Jianxing quickly crippled one Dance Puppet and shifted his target to another.

Wu Chang rubbed his hands together. If that's the case, then this dirty, exhausting work would be his to handle.

After eliminating four Dance Puppets, the old man who had been dancing madly stopped, and, half-dead from exhaustion, returned home supported by his wife.

Xiang Jianxing glanced at the fallen Dance Puppets and asked casually, "All taken care of?"

Wu Chang felt a twinge of guilt and nodded.

Xiang Jianxing guessed what Wu Chang was thinking and smiled.

"Once a player's level exceeds the invaded dungeon's, kill rewards drop sharply. Don't think you're stealing my experience."

"On the contrary, you should take advantage of the low level and high rewards—kill as many as you can. Risking your life to enter an invaded dungeon? That's your due. The Bureau usually calls this the Brave's Reward."

He hadn't expected Xiang Jianxing had deliberately weakened the mobs just so he could land the final blow.

He really— I'm crying— I didn't save him in Quiet Town for nothing.

Although our side had organized against the Dance Puppets, according to reports from other Bureau members, similar convoys were appearing simultaneously in multiple locations across the invaded zone.

Of the eight teams, four had encountered Dance Puppets.

Aerial drone footage showed at least ten similar convoys had not been intercepted.

These colorful buses moved slowly in the same direction, each surrounded by hundreds of people dancing and walking alongside them under the Dance Puppets' guidance.

The situation was extremely bizarre.

Besides the colorful buses, other forms of puppets could be seen.

Some held tour guide flags; others organized people on bicycles…

Each puppet group led over a hundred ordinary people.

After arriving at a certain street in the west, they suddenly vanished, beyond further tracking.

Roughly estimated, at least ten thousand citizens of Wanghai City had been abducted by puppets.

Since so much effort went into abducting them, they wouldn't be killed immediately. Those taken recently should be safe for now—but the longer they're held, the worse it becomes.

Someone tried following a convoy to its destination; the convoy vanished, but he found no teleport point and had to return.

Another tried sneaking onto a convoy—he boarded the bus, followed it into the teleport point, and then disappeared.

The Painter's replicated dungeon perfectly recorded the dungeon he experienced during his breakthrough; its internal state remained frozen as it was when the Painter entered.

This caused the resentment that should have dissipated to remain. Wu Chang circled the colorful bus twice and spotted two traces of player resentment on it—he discerned the method to enter the teleport point, but due to his current identity, he couldn't find a suitable moment to warn anyone.

He paced frantically in place—he'd never been this anxious even when clearing a dungeon alone.

Fortunately, the Bureau acted swiftly; while they were deliberating, intelligence on Yifu City arrived.

"Dungeon Name: Wish Fulfillment."

"Dungeon Type: Solo Survival."

"Dungeon Difficulty: B."

"Dungeon Status: On the Brink of Outbreak."

"Main Quest One: Survive in Yifu City for thirty days."

"Main Quest Two: Escape Yifu City."

"Main Quest Three: Investigate Yifu City's hidden secret."

The Wish Fulfillment dungeon, located in the Western Alliance, was broken through four years ago.

!

The Wish Fulfillment dungeon's setting was Yifu City—not only did the name match, but its plot aligned perfectly with the current situation.

Yifu City, also known as the City of Miracles, contained something called the Great Miracle; as long as citizens made a pure wish and believed in the Great Miracle sufficiently, their wishes would come true.

Aside from escaping death and certain impossible wishes, the Great Miracle could fulfill any desire—rumored to cure illness, avert disaster, attract wealth, and restore youth.

The Great Miracle asked for nothing in return; citizens needed only to offer sincere faith.

Sincerity brings results.

The greatness of the Great Miracle caused everything in Yifu City to be built around it; the city's highest authority was no longer the mayor, but the Yifu City Miracle Committee—the citizens most attuned to the Great Miracle.

Every member of the Miracle Committee had received blessings from the Great Miracle far beyond ordinary people.

They understood better how to interact with the Great Miracle and how to realize their own wishes.

After taking control of Yifu City, the Miracle Committee carried out sweeping reforms to make citizens more dependent on the Great Miracle—such as eliminating 90% of hospitals and banning most entertainment.

The Dance Puppets and colorful buses Wu Chang and Xiang Jianxing had just seen were one of the Miracle Committee's arrangements.

Yet according to player-collected intelligence, the Miracle Committee members responsible for these tasks should have been living people—not puppets.

Having received the intelligence transmitted from the Management Bureau, Wu Chang could not help but sigh at how important information was.

The Management Bureau had only used twenty minutes to investigate, based on the name "Yifu City," and uncovered a great deal of relevant intelligence, basically clarifying the entire background worldview of the instance plane.

No need to think about it to know that accumulating so much intelligence must have cost many players' lives back then.

Having intelligence backing them up from behind really did save a lot of trouble when tackling the instance — if Wu Chang had to investigate it himself, wouldn't it take him half a day?

The disclosure of the instance plane's intelligence let Wu Chang heave a long sigh of relief; finally there was an angle to give them hints.

He activated the Insight Talisman right in front of Sword Heart, put on a show of patrolling the spot a few times, then said:

"I seem to have sensed a spiritual glimmer! When I was sneaking over earlier, I heard those women in suits repeatedly mention one concept — and that is blending into Yifu City."

"Entering the teleportation point requires mixing in among the citizens being taken away, so could the key to not being attacked after entering the teleportation point lie in those two words — 'blending in'?!"

Today's noon chapter is a two-in-one, so today is three updates; this week half the time is three updates, and the beast is already striving hard for three updates.

(End of this chapter)