Chapter 1 Exploring the House

The following task then appeared in the taskbar: [Explore the manor and find a way to escape the mansion.]

After reading it, Feng Bujue wasted no time and turned to open the main door. It was a hinged door composed of two solid wooden panels. Feng Bujue gripped the doorknobs on both sides and twisted them until they creaked, but it was clear that the door was locked and would not open so easily.

Brave Invincible snorted, "Amateurs will always be amateurs. How could this door possibly open?"

*Crack, crack...*

Wang Tanzhi also joined Feng Bujue's efforts, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and randomly stabbing at the gap between the two door panels, while pulling on the doorknob with the other. He was showing his support for Feng Bujue with his actions.

"That little brother with 'Panicked' in his title, are you trying to be funny? I already said..." Brave Invincible continued.

*Bang, bang, bang...*

The two of them intensified their efforts, each grabbing a doorknob and forcefully pulling on the two door panels.

"I'm telling you guys..." Invincible Bro was running out of words.

*Snap! Snap!* Two consecutive sounds rang out as both doorknobs were broken off. Now, even if they had a key, they couldn't open the door.

"Hey! What are you doing!" Brave Invincible exclaimed, his Scare Value inexplicably increasing once again.

*Thump, thump, thump...*

They then used their shoulders to ram against the door without the handles.

Finally, after making a ruckus for two or three minutes, Feng Bujue turned around, straightened his collar, and cleared his throat: "It seems it really can't be opened."

Brave Invincible roared in his heart: "F***!"

However, he couldn't curse like that, so he could only shout angrily, "Bullshit! Didn't I say that from the beginning?"

"You only said it," Feng Bujue replied, "But I proved it through practice."

"Why don't you try proving the feasibility of quitting the team mid-way and the subsequent system penalties?" Brave Invincible yelled.

"Hmm... So what's blocking the door is indeed some kind of supernatural power..." Feng Bujue said something nonsensical while stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"He's ignoring me now!" Invincible Bro felt a fire rising within him.

Si Yu watched from the side for a while before silently turning and walking towards the dark corridor on the first floor. Since someone had already proven that the door was impossible to open, she would no longer watch this farce. Bei Ling followed, leaving the living room with her.

Seeing the two of them gradually walk away, Long Aomin hesitated, and the angry Invincible Bro also noticed their actions, shouting, "Hey! Don't run around! If you trigger something..."

"It's fine," Feng Bujue suddenly interrupted from behind, "Judging from the content of the task, the more things we trigger, the better." As he spoke, he walked towards a glass window next to the door. The window was rectangular, over a meter high and a foot wide, with a pointed top and a wooden frame. Looking out, the other side of the window seemed to be covered in a layer of fog, preventing one from seeing the scenery outside.

Feng Bujue took out a pipe wrench and swung it, smashing it against the window glass. As a result, after the iron tool heavily struck the glass, Feng Bujue felt his arm go numb, as if he had struck some kind of metal resonating object.

"Hmm... This window glass is like the door, its surface has some kind of power forming a barrier," Feng Bujue said.

Brave Invincible shook his head and sighed, "That's why you amateurs have no common sense... How could the system create a script that can be brute-forced open from the start?" He turned and headed upstairs, "You three are together, right? Please don't follow me, I can't even clear the game with three cumbersome noobs in an indoor environment. You guys take care of the first floor, I'll handle the second floor alone."

In his heart, Brave Invincible had already decided that these three were the worst kind of teammates. Except for that [Squad Guardian] named Long Aomin, who seemed to have some strength, the other two were seriously unreliable. That [Panicked Intruder]'s title alone was bad enough, and the [Cold-Blooded Headshot Maniac]'s title was meaningless, and his attitude was annoying, and he showed all kinds of ignorant behavior.

And what bothered Brave Invincible the most was when people asked him about Fearless Brave being the first to reach level twenty. Those outsiders who didn't understand their studio particularly liked to ask this and that, asking about everything. In reality, in Order Studio, leveling up fast didn't mean anything, it was just due to different divisions of labor.

Professional gamers were already a very mature industry in 2055, with the largest number being small studios. They thought they were professionals, but their planning and execution abilities were seriously lacking. Often, the boss was also the manager, accountant, and game leader, and most bosses still harbored a pure gamer's heart, often doing things for personal gain, using collective resources to earn a false reputation in the online world. Such studios were as numerous as the hairs on an ox, forming and dissolving frequently, and their income was very unstable. These teams constituted the bottom layer of the industry.

Looking higher up, the middle layer of the industry was mostly medium and small-sized studios with a certain level of management and talent reserves. The only difference between some of these small teams and the bottom layer was that they had one or two "star players," who were expert-level players in a certain type of game. In competitive game teams, sometimes one or two such stars could support the entire studio. However, most studios that could survive at this level had abandoned the bandit-style management model and were able to use the team's resources in a more planned manner.

In short, no matter which industry, if you want to last, you need to have a long-term plan. A game team without a plan is basically no different from a group of amateur players who just have more time to play games.

And at the top of this industry were first-class studios like "Order." They had a dedicated management team to coordinate, and the game teams were divided into groups and shifts for work. In the six-person team mainly responsible for leveling up, specialization and individual positioning were very clear. Item resources and intelligence information were shared internally in real time. All equipment and skills acquired by all members had to be prioritized for the leveling team.

Players like Brave Invincible who were "sent out" to solo queue had tasks to complete. For example, for Brave Invincible, his level was not important. His main task was to increase the level of his Fighting specialization and collect information. It didn't matter whether he practiced other specializations or not, and it didn't matter if he had equipment or not. These could be improved through internal team-ups in the studio in the future. What "Order" wanted now was first-hand information, and what Invincible was responsible for was testing the actual effects of leveling up the Fighting specialization.

So whenever Brave Invincible was asked about the studio by strangers, he felt one word—"annoyed." First of all, this was a trade secret, and he had an obligation to keep it confidential; secondly, even if he could tell, he had no interest or need to explain it to others.

"Okay, but Invincible Bro, you have to be careful on your own," Feng Bujue said with a friendly smile.

Hearing this, Brave Invincible suddenly shivered. A strange sense of foreboding caused his Scare Value to rise slightly again, as if Feng Bujue's words foreshadowed something bad about to happen.

He glanced back at the three people in the living room, drove the strange thoughts out of his mind, and turned to go upstairs alone.

Watching his figure disappear around a corner on the second floor, Long Aomin said, "Brother Feng, why did you deliberately act foolish?" He looked puzzled, "You can't not know the meticulousness of the system... The door and window are obviously impossible to open, even if you want to try, you don't have to do it so exaggeratedly, right?"

"Only by putting on a good show can I make him think I don't know anything," Feng Bujue said, "Then he will react like he did just now, shaking off us 'burdens' and acting alone."

"Brother Jue, you wouldn't be thinking of stabbing him in the back, would you... You can't attack your own people in this game," Wang Tanzhi said. He had helped to dismantle the door earlier, not to cooperate with Feng Bujue's acting, but because he really thought the door could be opened...

"I don't want to harm him, I just think it's more efficient to split up in this kind of script," Feng Bujue said, "Those two girls are exactly what I wanted, they left on their own. But this guy... I'm afraid he's not the kind of person who would discuss how to act with us." He paused, "In his opinion, he has the highest level and is a professional gamer, so he should have the most say in the team. If I proposed exploring separately, he would probably object immediately. When I went to pull the door, he even tried to prevent the other two from leaving the team, which shows that he originally planned to act collectively." Feng Bujue then walked to a wall and squatted down, seemingly observing something, "This is the best way, he left on his own." He gently removed the cobwebs and dust from the wall with his palm, "Let's split up and search too. After seeing the prompt that the main quest has changed, come back here to meet up."

Xiao Tan exclaimed, "We're splitting up too?"

"Didn't I say, it's more efficient to split up," Feng Bujue replied, his gaze not leaving the wall, "Don't worry, this kind of mansion is basically a haunted setting, there's no way monsters like Aliens would appear. So this script is mainly about scaring people and solving puzzles. Most of the things that can cause physical damage are traps, just be careful."

Before he could finish speaking, the system prompt sounded again: [Side Quest Triggered]

The three of them looked at the task menu. The original main quest was still there, but there was a new task below: [Find all six sections of "Ghost Palace," current progress 1/6]