Thriller Paradise

The objects inside the second room were even more eccentric than that of the first room. Countless portraits had covered the entire place, from the four walls to the ceiling. The room was almost empty, but the drawings were everywhere. Only a lone safe stood in the middle of the room.

"Seems this puzzle is quite clear now." Feng Bujue walked towards the safe then squatted down to take a closer look.

"This is just the training mode, and they have considered the case when ‘players can’t think thoroughly because of being too frightened’." He spoke as if this difficulty level was too low for him.

Wang Tanzhi followed him. At this moment, he felt that those faces on the walls were as peppy as real ones. There were no identical faces there. This gave him the feeling of being scanned over and over by hundreds of pairs of eyes. Just that alone was enough to give him goosebumps.

"Jue-Ge, can’t we just bring the safe outside and check it?" Wang Tanzhi asked.

"Just a couple minutes and I’m done with it." Feng Bujue stood up, put those sketches in front of him, then started to study the portraits on the walls.

"When I came close to the safe, the system reminded me that it needed a password of six digits to open the safe." His eyes stopped at some place. "Oh, there!"

He walked to the wall and cocked his head to the left. "This room has a lot of faces drawn on the wall just to mess with the players’ vision."

He then pointed to the wall. "You see, there are six faces aligned in a diagonal line. They look exactly like those sketches we have."

He started to compare those drawings, which were too scary to look at directly, from left to right and from top to bottom. He was muttering the numbers written on the bottom corner of the sheets while eyeing them, "4, 1, 6, 3, 5, 2."

Feng Bujue came to the safe and entered the password. "If you just searched through the first room by opening the door and threw a quick glance, you couldn’t have found the clues from the drawings. Then, of course, you wouldn’t have been able to find the password to open the safe in the second room as well."

He turned around to look at those six faces on the wall. "In fact, the answer has been revealed where the light shone most clearly when we had opened the door. But, even if we didn’t have the sketches, even though we both knew that the password would be in this room, we still wouldn't be able to find it."

At that time, the safe was opened. There were two items inside, including a key and a card.

"Wrong moves," Feng Bujue said after he had checked out the two items’ properties.

"What?" Perhaps Wang Tanzhi was affected by Feng Bujue’s deliberateness, so he had calmed down. His Fear Value was now 3%.

"Soon, we have to use the Key. And this…" Feng Bujue handed the card to Wang Tanzhi.

[Name: Exploding God Fist]

[Skill Card’s Attributes: Active skill, disappear after being used twice]

[Type: Fighting.]

[Effects: Explode after hitting the target, giving Fire Attribute damage]

[Consumption: 50 points of Physical Value]

[Usage Condition: Fighting Specialty level F]

[Remarks: BOOM!]

"I thought that the rewards would be some equipment. Turns out it is only a Skill," Feng Bujue said.

"First, not to mention the equipment or skills, how did you know there would be hidden rewards?" Wang Tanzhi asked.

"Isn’t it obvious? Although this game mode doesn’t offer players anything besides EXP, to ensure fair-play, the scenario allows players to complete the round in two ways," Feng Bujue explained, "now we are following the way in which we are going to solve the puzzle and not to use the power to kill someone."

Holding the key in his hand, he led Wang Tanzhi out of the second room.

"If players don’t want to solve the puzzle, they have to overcome their fear to encounter the enemy. If their fighting capabilities are effective, they can improve their Specialties. When their level and Fighting Specialty are improved, they can receive Skill Value during the round.

"Meanwhile, we are focusing on the general progress of the game, not just only on improving our Fighting Specialty. If we can solve the puzzle, we can decrease the level of difficulty, reduce the unnecessary fights, and we can make the plot better. Players who follow this way will be left behind with their low Specialties. Thus, the system would do something to make it up for them. The Skill Value awarded would be more than regular."

At this point, Wang Tanzhi had understood; he then continued Feng Bujue’s flow, "Training Mode wouldn’t offer Skill Value… thus, if players chose to solve the puzzle, they will be rewarded with items."

"Exactly." Feng Bujue tried to pull the third door. It was just like what he had assumed—the door was locked. He immediately used the key to open the door, and once it was opened, the key disappeared.

The third room was clean. There was a table placed against the wall, and a notebook laid on top of it.

"Hey, how many slots of the Specialties have you unlocked?" Feng Bujue asked while picking up the notebook.

"My Fighting and Common Specialties are both ranked F. How about yours?"

"I have just unlocked the ‘Common’." Feng Bujue started to open the notebook. "Your Fighting Specialty has been unlocked in which circumstances?"

"In the New Player Tutorial, something that looked like a monkey had attacked me. After I had killed it, the system notified that I had unlocked the Fighting Specialty ranked level F, " Wang Tanzhi recalled, "But the Common Specialty has appeared after the scenario has ended."

"Oh, that’s it. We just need to find the chances to unlock all six slots of the Specialties then," Feng Bujue said while musing.

He turned to ask Wang Tanzhi, "Your Skill bar is unlocked now after you got the skill, right? You are qualified, just take that Skill Card. Maybe we have to use it soon."

That was the first time Feng Bujue picked up a Skill Card. When he was reading the properties, the system reminded him that his Skill Bar had been unlocked.

The Skill Bar in Thriller Paradise only had twelve slots. Players could adjust them before they entered the scenario. This meant no matter how many skills their character has, once they enter the scenario, they could only equip themselves with twelve skills max. Moreover, the Skill Cards they have installed in their Skill Bar—even if they have never been used before—are locked with their character, unable to be exchanged. If players found a Skill Card and they wanted to sell it, they could only put it into the bag, not the Skill Bar. Once the card has been installed, the card would disappear while the skill would be recorded as the players’ data and displayed on their menu.

There was another rule which said that when the Skill Card was yet to be used, it could only be brought out of the scenario, not the opposite way. This was to prevent players to have themselves equipped with a full set of twelve skills, but still carrying many Skill Cards in their bags as they enter the scenario.

There was an exception. If players picked up a new Skill Card in the scenario, they could learn it on the spot. In case their Skill Bar was full, they could replace one of their old skills with that new skill. This required them to return to the login space to do the replacement.

"It has appeared but why can we only use it twice?" Wang Tanzhi didn’t understand that.

The one who raised this issue obviously hadn’t read the game’s introduction.

Feng Bujue answered him while passionately reading the notebook in his hand, "The attributes of the skill are the most important features. Skills are divided into active and passive skills. Active skills consist of three types, including ‘Permanent Possession’, ‘Time-limit Possession’ and ‘Consumed with times of usage’. Passive skills have just two types, which are ‘Permanent Possession’ and ‘Time-limit Possession’."

After contemplating for a few seconds, he added, "Your card is a ‘Consumed with times of usage’ one. After using it twice, it will disappear."

"I got a feeling that they are just teasing us." Although he had that comment, he still installed the Skill as Feng Bujue’s request.

"No, it’s reasonable," Feng Bujue said, "with your current Physical Value, when it’s full, you can only punch twice. In such circumstances, the plot of this scenario would not require the third punch. Even no punch is needed."

He hesitated for a while then continued, "If it were a ‘permanent’ or a ‘time-limit’ one, the conditions and the consumption wouldn’t be that low. Perhaps it would require higher Fighting Specialty and cost you much Physical Value. If not, this skill would be ‘discounted’. For example, if there were a level 50 player with Shooting Specialty that equipped himself with a permanent Wrestling Skill; if that skill just required Grade F to activate and only consume fifty points of Physical Value, then this meant he could use the skill for one hundred times continuously, isn’t it?"

Wang Tanzhi thought it was quite reasonable. "Yeah, it is. And, if they give me a skill that requires Fighting Skill Grade F, but the Physical Value consumption would be one hundred and one points, the problem here comes from the game design team."

"Hey, I need to remind you that the success rate is just twenty percent for this type of active skill at Grade F. Thus, if a low-level player picks up a skill, the chances of successfully using it, it all depends on Karma," Feng Bujue added.

"Isn’t that fraudulent?"

"That’s why I wanted to search for equipment. I’ve checked the home page. They’ve just released the Closed Beta Version this morning, and there are instructions in the afternoon. Some guys who reached level 10 said on the forum that when the character is ranked at low levels, equipment is the best. Equipment ranked ‘Excellent’ and above are ‘extremely rare’."

Feng Bujue was doing two tasks at the same time. After a little bit of chatting, he had almost finished the notebook. "Perhaps it’s easy to get to level 10. If players have good equipment, they can survive the situation without solving the puzzles. Just use violence to finish the scenario, then the game will not reward good equipment for lower levels."

He closed the notebook. "After passing level 10, low-level Excellent Equipment will become bland food, but it’s a waste if we dump them. Currently, they haven’t opened Shops yet; putting them in our bags just wastes our limited room."

Feng Bujue was startled while talking, "Oops, wrong calculation!"

"What?" Wang Tanzhi felt tense in an instant. He raised the fruit knife and turned back to look at the corridor outside the door. He didn’t see anything else except those bloody footprints on the wall.

"And, later on, if we need to open the chests, you should do it. I will tell you the password or how to open it," said Feng Bujue.

"Beep, I thought you wanted to tell something else," Wang Tanzhi continued, "that Karma thing is nonsense, just about probabilities. Wouldn’t it be rubbish if you opened it?"

"I really want to go outside, pick up a stone and smash it on your head."

"Alright, my bad."

Feng Bujue put the notebook into his bag then said, "Move. I will tell you the plot while we are walking…"