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Chapter 021 Suggestion for Cosplay

Ling Mo was still pondering the dungeon matter: “Does this game require you to play in the Battle Zone? Can you… endure that kind of pain?”

Girls should be afraid of pain, right?

Xia Xinyan shook her head nonchalantly: “As long as you’re with me, I’m not afraid.”

Ling Mo paused.

He couldn’t seem to be immune to such direct statements.

So he simply accepted her words: “Alright… then I’ll play with you.”

His mood was quite complicated.

Although what Xia Xinyan said sounded somewhat absurd to him, after hearing her words, it was hard not to think more. Even though he knew as a college student, he had nothing to worry about, this feeling was still a bit strange.

…What if Xia Xinyan approached him for some reason? Could it be… just like she said, there’s at least a slight possibility that she likes him?

After all, just moments ago, he had experienced the feeling of falling in love for the first time, and now that fantasy was brutally shattered. For a teenager, that was still quite painful.

And also… and also… even though it was embarrassing to say, Xia Xinyan was really the kind of girlfriend he dreamed of.

In every way.

“Alright,” Xia Xinyan let go of him, stepped back, and chuckled, “We’ve completed our first dungeon, so now we can check our dungeon rewards.”

Ling Mo nodded and opened the game menu to check, trying to distract himself a bit.

Xia Xinyan then sat down where she was, summoning the system panel.

She wanted to dilute her dungeon memories.

The game offered this feature, allowing players to choose the degree of memory dilution. If set to the maximum effect, it would make players feel as if they had just had a dream, with minimal psychological impact.

As for why she wanted to do this… because she was afraid of pain, even the memories of it.

In her past life, she had indeed suffered numerous injuries and had died many times; it didn’t matter if it was in the game or later in reality, she had experienced it all.

But that didn’t mean she had become accustomed to pain.

— She believed no one in this world could truly get used to pain. Even if they’ve experienced death countless times, the agony of dying wouldn’t lessen at all; it would hurt just as much. Perhaps even the most extreme masochists wouldn’t enjoy that feeling.

And she was simply someone who was afraid of pain, whether before or now — if there was any progress worth mentioning, it was that her patience had certainly improved significantly.

But that was all there was to it.

So after the game prompted her that the dungeon was cleared, she left the game really quickly.

Unfortunately, she no longer had the extraordinary abilities from her previous life, so she estimated that the number of injuries she would have in this life would be far more than in her last.

She felt inexplicably annoyed.

Of course, it was just a fleeting thought, since Ling Mo at this moment hadn’t done anything wrong; if one really wanted to blame someone… it was all that Tianji’s fault.

【Not Tianji, but Tianji’s fault】

‘Good Tianji, check out your points shop.’

【……】

Tianji silently opened the system points shop in Xia Xinyan’s mind.

This shop was almost identical to the game shop, but the items sold there were completely different. After taking a quick look, the only two words that came to mind for Xia Xinyan were—cheat items.

Absolutely cheat items.

“Realm of Divine Presence” would activate players’ abilities, but it didn’t provide any pathways for enhancement. Players could only explore on their own, whereas in Tianji’s points shop, the upgrade options for both her and Ling Mo’s abilities were listed directly! It even provided specific usage methods for their abilities.

As expected of a system.

Tsk… If this system had been unlocked in her previous life, she wouldn’t have died so regretfully.

【Host, why must you keep dwelling on this? It’s just a system bug.】

Xia Xinyan ignored it.

In this dungeon, Ling Mo achieved 16 kills, and with the 2000 points from clearing the dungeon, he ended up with a total of 4600 points. Plus, the dungeon evaluation reached S level and granted them an extra lottery chance.

Additionally, they gained quite a bit from the game system. Besides the base earnings, both of them performed well in this dungeon, so in the end, Ling Mo got 14000 game points, while she got 9000 game points.

Including a few rifles they were able to bring out.

“Wow… can these game points actually be exchanged for money?” Ling Mo seemed to have discovered some game rules, surprised. “10:1 exchange rate? That’s pretty high?”

Xia Xinyan paused and said immediately, “Don’t exchange! It’s better to use these to enhance your physical attributes.”

“Huh?” Ling Mo wasn’t rash. “Oh… I get it.”

After Xia Xinyan told him those things before, he had already stopped viewing this game as just any ordinary game—plus, when he thought about it, it was indeed quite suspicious: a free operating model, an economy that pays players, and a technical capacity far exceeding the current era were all points of doubt about this game.

However, the temptation was really huge… 14000 game points, that’s 1400 in cash… if he played a match every day, he could easily earn over ten thousand a month.

“All game points should be used to enhance physical attributes?” After looking at the attribute enhancement panel for a while, he asked.

Xia Xinyan nodded: “Yeah, use them all up. Try to balance your attributes, don’t leave any weaknesses.”

The physical attributes in the game included many aspects such as endurance, strength, stamina, immunity, and etc. Each enhancement required game points, and the more advanced you got, the more points were needed. It could be said to be a bottomless pit, but once enhanced to a certain level, even without using their abilities, they would probably still compare to a superhero.

Of course, the required game points were enormous, and players couldn’t simply invest all their points into this, so until the disaster broke out in her previous life, very few players reached that level.

But at least in the early stages, investing all the game points in physical attributes was absolutely correct.

Hearing this, Ling Mo felt a bit disappointed that 1400 had to be used up like this, but he obediently spent all on physical attributes.

Then, Xia Xinyan stood up from the ground and said, “Let’s log off and take a break. This game is pretty exhausting; one Battle Zone dungeon a day is enough.”

After saying that, she left Ling Mo’s Private Space and returned to her own.

Her private space looked like a light-colored forest, akin to a painting of a fantasy wonderland. In the middle of the forest was a clearing with a wooden house standing there, which was her home.

Sitting at the wooden table in front of the house, she opened the game system again.

There was one more important matter she didn’t want to check in front of Ling Mo.

Abilities.

The abilities unlocked for clearing the dungeon for the first time were powers that would accompany players until death. The strength of this ability directly influenced the player’s innate power.

To help players familiarize themselves with their abilities, the game system directly provided a summary of their abilities.

So when she opened her character panel, the very first thing she saw was the ability section—

【Beast Transformation · Black Cat】

“……”

【It is suggested that the host utilize this ability to cosplay as a catgirl. Based on simulations, this can increase the host’s original persona’s favorability by a maximum of 300%.】

【Oh, wait, I misspoke; the host is already a catgirl.】

“？”

 

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