Chapter 15 Mid-Game

The game menu automatically appeared before Feng Bujue's eyes, an arrow pointing at the clothing column, and the system's voice prompt echoed, [When you have adjusted the items in the clothing column to your satisfaction, you can select the "Change Outfit" option in the login space, and the system will instantly update your character image.]

[If you remove all clothing or set it to hidden and then change outfits, your character will revert to their default clothing.]

[Reminder: Players cannot move clothing in or out of the clothing column in any scenario. Moving items in is possible when in other public spaces, but the character's appearance will not change. Only in the login space can you perform outfit changes.]

After listening to the prompt, a floating window popped up in front of Feng Bujue, requiring confirmation: [Please confirm that your original equipped clothing does not have other items loaded onto it. If this is the case, when the outfit change is completed, the loaded items will be moved to your knapsack or storage room. If there is not enough space, these items will be converted into system mail and sent to your mailbox. Mail is saved for twenty-four hours in real-time.]

"This reminder is quite thoughtful," Feng Bujue muttered. However, he was originally wearing the default newbie clothes, and the design of those pockets probably only allowed for filling them with sand.

He set all clothing to be displayed, kept the mask on his face hidden, continued to display the [Jazz Dance] on his feet, and clicked confirm again. Then, Feng Bujue turned into a white light, looking like he was teleporting in a scenario. It only flashed once, and the outfit change was complete.

Feng Bujue was quite satisfied with his new image in the mirror. With the clothing displayed, the knapsack that was originally slung across his chest was hidden, and even the tactile sensation of it on his back was gone. When players wanted to take an item, they simply reached into the place where the knapsack used to be, and the item would emerge from a dimensional rift.

Buying supplies had cost Feng Bujue over 30,000 game coins, and now he had 104,600 points left. It was necessary to keep some money on hand; it would be awkward if he spent every last coin and then couldn't even afford the auction fee for equipment that could be sold for a good price.

As for the 1080 skill points, Feng Bujue decided to keep them for the time being. What he lacked now wasn't equipment, but combat experience. The [Echo Armor] had been lying in his knapsack for three scenarios already, and he still hadn't equipped it. Every time, he hoped to raise his specialization in the scenario to meet the equipment requirements, but every time he failed. It seemed unrealistic to raise his General Ability specialization to C-rank at level fifteen. He could only hope that his Machinery specialization could be improved in the next Killing Game.

With books, time passes slowly; without books, it passes quickly. In reality, Feng Bujue had only spent about twenty minutes of virtual time on shopping and preparation. But in that short time, Si Yu's guild emblem design had been completed.

Actually, when Feng Bujue returned to the login space, the sleeve badge on the left sleeve of his newbie uniform had already changed, but he didn't notice it at the time. It was only after the outfit change, when he looked in the mirror, that he noticed the change.

He then looked at the guild section in the social options. Wang Tanzhi, Bei Ling Xiaogu, and Si Yu Ruo Li were all displayed as [In Game], but they hadn't been queuing for long. In the friends list, apart from these three repeated names, Long Aomin's name was still grayed out as offline. It seemed that Brother Long wouldn't be online tonight either, and the guild joining matter would have to wait until next time.

Feng Bujue took out the two magazines from his knapsack and placed them in the inside pockets of his suit jacket, took a deep breath, and returned his attention to the touch screen, opening the scenario menu. At level fifteen, players had completely ended the newbie phase and the initial advanced phase, entering the richer mid-game content.

From levels five to fourteen, there were only two game modes, but now there were four: Solo Survival Mode (Normal), Solo Survival Mode (Nightmare), Team Survival Mode (Normal), and Killing Game.

Among them, there were four types of Killing Games: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and a random 3-6 player free-for-all.

For the first three types, players could usually choose to queue up and be randomly matched with opponents. They could also choose to enter as a team, but teammates had to be in the same faction. Therefore, a maximum of three players could queue up together. A four-person team couldn't play the Killing Game, and a three-person team could only play 3v3, not 2v2. In short, the idea of placing a mole on the other side was impossible.

There was also another way to enter, which was "challenge." Inviting other players to fight you on the opposing side. This feature was allowed, and it had to be allowed, but it also had to have some conditions set.

First, the challenger and the challenged had to exist in each other's social lists. That is, one of the [Friends], [Blacklist], [Recently Played With], and [Guild] lists. The blacklist was a passively added option in Thriller Paradise, so… if you had only heard of a player's ID but had never met them in the game, the only way was to first add them as a friend. Only after the other party agreed could you issue a challenge.

This well avoided the situation where players on the leaderboard received a large number of blind challenges every day. At most, they would have to reject a batch of friend requests and delete a batch of emails every time they returned to the login space… Becoming famous naturally meant having to bear this pressure. They also didn't have to worry about accidentally rejecting someone who actually wanted to be friends during batch operations because they could find them back in the [Recently Played With] list.

The second condition of "challenge" was that, except for 1v1 duels, challenge matches with other numbers of players required both sides to be in a team state to start the battle. This was also to prevent the "mole" phenomenon. For example, in 3v3 mode, three people challenge one person, and that person is actually in league with them, ready to betray the two teammates who queued up… This kind of thing wouldn't happen. Because a challenge issued by a three-person team had to be accepted by a three-person team on the other side.

Of course, in random queuing, there might indeed be people who knew each other on both sides… Although this situation was rare, if it did happen, the system's concept of "passive gaming" also applied to the Killing Game, and its effect was more than just increasing the base for the betrayer's scare value.

Players who were judged to be helping the opposing team or deliberately screwing over teammates in Killing Mode would have their skill points deducted… After deducting the skill points earned in the current scenario, it would start deducting the ones they already had. If they didn't have many to begin with, it could even be deducted into negative values… Therefore, if a player maliciously made trouble in the Killing Game, their losses would be huge. In addition to the scare value being maxed out after a certain period and forcibly disconnecting them, the loss of skill points during that time was also amazing. Players who were repeatedly detected engaging in this type of behavior and had a tendency to throw in the towel would have their accounts banned.

As for the last type of gameplay, the random 3-6 player free-for-all was easy to understand. Only solo queue was allowed, and players would fight until only one person remained. The last one alive was the winner.

During the closed beta, Tun Tian Gui Xiao encountered three teammates from the Order studio in this mode and mercilessly killed them all. This kind of thing only happened in the closed beta, because at that time there were very few high-level players who could play this mode, so the four of them happened to meet. Now, in this public beta period, it was probably impossible to even run into them if he wanted to.

Feng Bujue had already decided to try the Killing Game when he reached level fifteen, but since this was his first time entering, he didn't have high expectations for winning. His main goal was to familiarize himself with the new mode, so he didn't plan to participate in those battles with a large number of people. First, he was afraid of dragging others down, and second, he was afraid of being killed before he even understood how to play.

So, Feng Bujue selected Killing Game, clicked on 1v1 battle, and entered the random queue…