Chapter 389

At the end of the invitation was a countdown, matching the time displayed on the clock tower in the Public Zone square.

When Wu Chang received the invitation, exactly ten days remained.

He looked at the section of the invitation regarding priority exploration rights, which stated that due to his outstanding performance in his qualification dungeon, he had been granted priority exploration rights.

To qualify for the World Dungeon, a player must complete the qualification dungeon and rank within the top ten thousand in exploration depth among all participants.

From the invitation's content, it was clear that this ranking did more than select who could enter the World Dungeon—it also granted players advantages based on their position.

For instance, if he ranked first, he could enter the World Dungeon thirty-six hours early to familiarize himself with the dungeon world.

He possessed the True Walker title, so he didn't need to spend time himself—he could instantly grasp the dungeon's lore at maximum speed.

But for ordinary players, entering early meant gaining a decisive advantage.

One step ahead, and every step ahead.

Benefits inside the dungeon were first-come, first-served; success or failure often hinged solely on that one word: speed.

More importantly, during the priority exploration phase, players who did not initiate attacks would be protected by the rules, entering a near-invincible state.

This allowed players to survive the most dangerous first day of the dungeon, avoiding all kinds of "first-encounter deaths," and explore the world safely.

Unfortunately, the priority exploration phase existed only in World Dungeons—if ordinary dungeons had this mechanism, dungeons like Moonlight Sanatorium would see drastically reduced death rates.

From gaining World Dungeon eligibility, to priority exploration rights and blessing status, it was clear that World Dungeons differed from ordinary ones—the rules were no longer fair, but tilted in favor of players with potential.

It felt as if the Real Realm was desperately trying to save itself, beginning to select players who could truly be of use.

Wu Chang flipped through the invitation two more times, confirmed there was no other valuable information, and tossed it into his personal space.

With the qualification dungeon ended, the vast mist-covered square vanished once more, and the Wasteland Realm's Crimson Courtyard returned to its previous state.

Wu Chang entered the Public Zone; the once-bustling area was noticeably quieter.

The Public Zone bar, always packed, now had many empty tables.

For most players who had only experienced projection dungeons, the difficulty of real dungeons was simply too extreme.

A lack of understanding about real dungeon difficulty, combined with overestimating their own strength, caused many players to die inside the dungeons.

This outcome was tied to the Abyss Game's matching system.

The Abyss Game calculated a combat value for each player based on their stat panel, and during dungeon matching, combined it with their level to assign them the dungeon closest to their combat value.

Wu Chang was an exception—his transcendence talent instantly maxed out his combat value, and combined with the game administrator's targeting, his matching results differed drastically from others'.

But for most players, the Abyss Game's difficulty gradient was smooth.

Especially for players with above-average talent and certain unique skills, before reaching level cap, they could remain comfortably within their zone as long as they didn't chase high exploration depth.

They never got matched into Real Dungeons due to combat value far exceeding their level, yet their unique skills let them glide effortlessly through projection dungeons.

In game terms, they were players benefiting from the game's ELO system—though they didn't realize it.

When they entered the qualification dungeon, stripped of game system protection and forced to fight with real weapons, the tide receded, revealing them swimming naked.

Although the four major organizations concealed the existence of World Dungeons largely to monopolize them, objectively speaking, it was also a form of protection for ordinary players.

Wu Chang revealed the existence of World Dungeons and the method to enter the qualification dungeon, allowing many promising ordinary players to enter World Dungeons—and causing more Wasteland Realm players to die in qualification dungeons.

The bad news was that due to the massive number of deaths in Real Dungeons, pollution values in many Real Dungeons surged; within a single day, the Wasteland Realm gained at least a dozen dungeons on the verge of losing control.

For the next one or two months, all major organizations in the Wasteland Realm would have to clean up the mess from today's qualification dungeon.

The good news was that with so many players dead, if Wu Chang cleared these dungeons, it would become much easier.

Inside the Public Zone bar at this moment, the qualification dungeon and World Dungeon were the only topics of conversation.

Several regulars who had survived the qualification dungeon were boasting about how brutal Real Dungeons were, claiming projection dungeons couldn't even serve as their shoe polish.

Some players were showing off their World Dungeon invitations, trying to find other unaffiliated players who had also qualified, hoping to form groups for mutual support upon entry.

The difficulty of the qualification dungeon had delivered a heavy blow to these unaffiliated players; even though they had survived and earned World Dungeon eligibility, they remained shaken.

Merely the qualification dungeon had nearly killed them—imagine the difficulty of the World Dungeon.

To increase their survival rate in the World Dungeon, they could only seek to band together and find allies.

Wu Chang sat in the bar for a while and saw over a dozen players display their invitations.

Most of their final rankings were below three thousand.

Among those ranked in the thousands, some openly showed their invitations to other players—none mentioned priority exploration rights or blessing status.

Among players seeking unaffiliated groups, two had invitation numbers within the top one thousand; neither displayed their invitation's content, and both deliberately avoided the topic.

It seemed that rank one thousand was a dividing line—players within the top one thousand received some degree of rule-based advantages, while those below it received no special treatment.

Beyond the World Dungeon topic, many were also discussing the shifts among Wasteland Realm factions after the qualification dungeon.

The most striking development was Leng Shan overtaking the former number one to rise to the top of the combat rank.

Wu Chang opened the combat rank and found that besides Leng Shan, several others had also increased their rankings noticeably, indicating they had gained substantial benefits from the Steam Phantom dungeon.

With Phantom's death and his own growth, the God's Tongue rose to eighth place, becoming the only player in the top ten combat rank from a minor faction.

Killing Wave's rank also reached twenty-two, just shy of entering the ranked player list.

But in terms of growth magnitude, Sword Star's rise was the greatest—jumping directly from forty-ninth to thirty-fifth.

In the Steam Phantom dungeon, Sword Star had always been at a disadvantage, even pushed to the brink by the Executioner; overcoming adversity and near-death granted him massive growth.

Sword cultivators known as "Battlefield Gods of the Brink" grow precisely this way—so long as they survive the brink, growth follows, regardless of how they survived it.

Before leaving the Public Zone bar, Wu Chang overheard a piece of intelligence worth his attention.

More than one player claimed they had encountered players in the qualification dungeon whose names they'd never heard, yet who were terrifyingly strong.

They were likely players secretly trained by major organizations—either possessing exceptional attributes and classes, or unimaginable talents.

When this topic arose, many players who had survived the qualification dungeon nodded in agreement.

A man dressed as a Spartan, bare-chested, wearing black tight shorts and a red cloak, felt this most deeply.

Wu Chang remembered this Spartan—not because of his outfit, but because he had just displayed his World Dungeon invitation with ID number 8753.

The Spartan took a large gulp of beer and began speaking:

"I dare bet that the weirdos you encountered aren't as bizarre as the one I met; anyone who can find someone stranger than him gets all their drinks paid for by me from today until the World Instance."

Hearing this opening, the curiosity of everyone in the bar was immediately piqued, urging him to continue.

Spartas paused for a moment, then began to speak:

"I met that teammate; he called himself Little Yuan. At first, when we acted together, he was like a green recruit, flustered and clumsy at everything; in terms of combat power, he was completely on a different level from the rest of us."

"If the instance we were matched into hadn't been a multiplayer cooperation type, we would have abandoned him long ago."

"We initially thought he was useless, but after surviving the initial encounter phase and entering the city for the infiltration stage, his special abilities began to take effect."

"That guy seemed to possess some kind of magic over the female inhabitants of the instance plane; with just brief communication, he could make them utterly devoted, to the point where there was no need to even undo a belt buckle, let alone the buttons on a shirt." "Our group of eight was wanted by the forces within the instance, yet even so, he could easily find women willing to help us."

"After entering the city, our food, clothing, daily necessities, and even the shelters for hiding our tracks were all borrowed by him from female natives."

Hearing this, the others showed expressions of surprise and curiosity, while only Wu Chang's expression turned strange.

Could the Little Yuan Spartas spoke of be Fang Hui?

Spartas continued speaking:

"In the main mission we completed, we needed to assassinate a female boss; that boss was not only powerful but also frequently surrounded by numerous guards, rarely appearing alone."

"We spent a week scouting back and forth without finding a breakthrough; just then, Little Yuan made his move."

"He merely exchanged a few pick-up lines with the female boss at a banquet, and she was so deeply attracted to him that she dismissed all her guards to be alone with Little Yuan. Seizing this opportunity, we overwhelmed her with numbers and barely managed to eliminate that boss."

The Little Yuan Spartas spoke of did indeed have strange abilities, but the Wasteland Realm had no shortage of eccentrics among its players.

Someone immediately ordered two bottles of good wine, then climbed onto a table, shouting that today Spartas would have to bleed heavily.

Spartas waved his hand, signaling the person to sit down.

"What's the rush? I haven't finished yet. If it were only to this extent, he would at most count as having a congenital host body for a gigolo, not enough to surprise me this much."

"After we took down the female boss, following the instance's mission guidance and with the help of the plane's natives, we tracked down the hidden boss."

"That guy's strength absolutely exceeded the upper limit of a C-rank instance; fighting one against eight, he knocked us all down in less than a minute; three of us were killed on the spot, without even time to flee."

"That guy was a man, outside the scope of Little Yuan's abilities; just when we had given up and were waiting to die, a flash of pink light appeared before our eyes, and immediately after, we saw Little Yuan transform into a woman."

Question marks simultaneously floated on the faces of the bar crowd; wait, bro, this works too?

Using a beauty trap directly against a female boss, and against a male boss, changing sex first to use a beauty trap, is that it?

Seeing that everyone had gone astray in their thoughts, Spartas explained:

"After his transformation, he didn't use a beauty trap; instead, he used a technique we couldn't understand to solo-kill the hidden boss directly."

"That must have been his trump-card skill; without exaggeration, his combat power after transforming increased at least tenfold; let alone the C-rank instance we were in, I fear even a B-rank instance boss couldn't withstand it."

Hearing this, Wu Chang could confirm that the Little Yuan Spartas spoke of was indeed Fang Hui.

His final ability to become a woman should be the Magical Girl transformation; no, it is the Mother Goddess of Desire transformation.

Back then, when Fang Hui was targeted by the Bliss Cult, they wanted to use him as a vessel for the descent of the Mother Goddess of Desire.

When the Mother Goddess of Desire descended upon Fang Hui, she transformed his flesh into a female form while simultaneously developing the Source Power hidden within him.

Although Wu Chang later repelled the Mother Goddess of Desire, causing Fang Hui to revert to his original form, he had suspected at the time that Fang Hui's Source Power was bound to the Mother Goddess of Desire's abilities, and wondered if there would be any side effects when he used this power again in the future.

Now it seems there are indeed side effects.

However, while the side effects are obvious, the effect is equally astonishing.

If what Spartas said is true, then after Fang Hui transforms, what he uses is likely not just Source Power, but also a portion of the Mother Goddess of Desire's divine power.

Mere Source Power alone would not cause his combat power to skyrocket so drastically.

Wu Chang frowned slightly; Fang Hui appearing in the Qualification Instance indicated that after Meng Yawen took him away that day, she hadn't simply fled with him to the ends of the earth, but had also made him a player of the Abyss Game.

After the Mother Goddess of Desire incident, Meng Yawen took an extended leave from the Wanghai Branch Bureau and disappeared with Fang Hui, whereabouts unknown.

He had once tried to investigate Meng Yawen's background but discovered his clearance was insufficient to view her files; through conversations with Director Gao and Lei Huo, hearing their vague mentions, he learned that someone in Meng Yawen's family was in the Li Realm.

Combined with her previous attempt to bring the Helmeted Man to destroy the Pillar of the Present World, the force behind her was either the Evolution Faction or the Society of Light.

Wu Chang rubbed his brow; barring the unexpected, both Meng Yawen and Fang Hui would enter the World Instance, so he would see if he could find the two of them within the instance to ask about the situation clearly.

Setting aside the issues regarding Meng Yawen for now, learning news of Fang Hui, especially knowing he was doing quite well, was truly a good thing.

As for the 426 quartet, needless to say about himself, Gao Xuezhong was conducting research with Shi Ning, with a research direction related to the supernatural; He Wei, having watched a horror movie that actually contained ghosts and even counter-killed a female ghost in his dream, was noticed by the Bureau and selected as a member of the Online Hazard Screening Division.

Now that the last of them, Fang Hui, had also become a player of the Abyss Game, by calculation, all four of them had entered the supernatural world; calling 426 a supernatural dormitory would not be an exaggeration.

Wu Chang stayed in the bar for a while longer; confirming there was temporarily no more noteworthy intelligence, he left the Crimson Courtyard and returned to reality.

Upon returning to reality, he first went to the Bureau.

Compared to the bar in the Public Zone, the atmosphere at the Wanghai Branch Bureau was much more relaxed.

The four major organizations had issued warnings about the difficulty of reality instances and even organized a Sprint Training Camp; these two countermeasures greatly increased the survival probability of players.

Including Wu Chang and Xiang Jianxing, a total of eight people from the Wanghai Branch Bureau entered the Qualification Instance, with only one death.

Director Gao, Lei Huo, and Zhao Yan all obtained quotas for the World Instance; although the other two failed to secure quotas, thanks to the special training before entering the instance, they managed to leave the instance alive.

Entering Abyss Game instances, especially real instances, inevitably involves casualties.

With eight people entering the instance and only one death, this death toll is so low it can be counted as no deaths at all; if Meng Yawen were included, the survival rate of the Wanghai Branch Bureau would be even higher.

The contrast between the Wanghai Branch Bureau and the bar in the Public Zone reflected the difference between the four major organizations and lone wolves, between being prepared with intelligence and lacking intelligence.

After a brief meeting where everyone reported their safety, Xiang Jianxing, Director Gao, and the others packed their things and hurriedly departed for Yanjing.

Members who had obtained World Instance quotas would participate in the second phase of the Training Camp over the next ten days.

This time, Wu Chang still did not participate.

On one hand, he did not need the Training Camp; on the other, participating required presenting a World Instance invitation.

He could indeed use the Tree of Miracles to temporarily alter the number on the invitation, but the Training Camps of the four major organizations were interconnected; if he accidentally generated a duplicate number, the consequences would be huge.

As the players who had qualified for the World Instance departed, he once again became the temporary administrator of the Wanghai City Branch Bureau.

With only ten days remaining until the World Instance, he naturally had no time to devote to the Bureau; he pushed all management duties onto Xia Jia and left the Bureau under the pretext of self-training.

This was Wanghai City, Eileen's Divine Kingdom; chaos could not occur before, and it certainly would not occur afterward.

Midnight. Zero hour.

Wu Chang and Eileen arrived at the Wanghai No. 1 High School auditorium — the core of the surface divine kingdom, and the place where the Tree of Miracles had taken root in reality.

Compared with the private planes that routinely pierced the sky, their canopies shrouding the world, the Tree of Miracles in reality looked far smaller — suppressed by the rules of the real world, it stood only forty or fifty metres tall.

Today, Wu Chang would break that restraint.

He stepped before the Tree of Miracles and activated his highest-level temporary administrator authority. Accompanied by a sound like shattering glass, it was as if an outer shell around the Tree of Miracles had been cracked open.

The Tree of Miracles swayed slightly a few times, then, bathed in pale golden light, its trunk shot straight into the sky. Its enormous canopy spread open like an umbrella, covering the heavens and shrouding the entire city of Wanghai beneath its leaves.

The fully grown Tree of Miracles resonated with the other divine kingdom pillars in Eileen's great divine kingdom, linking together as one.

Previously, Eileen's divine kingdom in reality had only been connected to the Abyss Game — like the Administration Bureau's elevator down to the underground, it could directly bring people from the real plane into the Abyss Game.

Now Eileen's divine kingdom had achieved two-way passage.

Just as He Yun could use the connections between planes within the divine kingdom to enter the Sanctum Corporation's plane, so long as Wu Chang wished, he could fully allow people or objects from the instance plane to break through the blockade and appear in the real world.

(End of chapter)