Chapter 1 The Change

Since Feng Bujue had decided to kill his way back, his mode of operation would definitely have to change.

The tactical methods used during an assault are definitely different from those used during a detour. Before this, in order to attract the enemy's attention and maintain their desire to pursue, Brother Jue hadn't gone too far...

But now, he didn't need to be polite anymore.

Although his skill bar was locked after entering this dimension, his backpack, equipment, specialization, and physical abilities were all functioning normally.

With an A-grade proficiency in machinery and a B-grade proficiency in shooting, Feng Bujue effortlessly mastered the use of the weapons and equipment dropped by the Red Falcon soldiers... He grabbed two submachine guns and charged back.

Gun skills, vision, reaction, movement speed... in terms of overall quality, Feng Bujue was definitely a true Contra (the meaning of the game title *Contra* refers to people with excellent combat ability and qualities). Basically, he could do anything the characters in the game could do...

For example... jumping several zhang high from the spot, curling his body into a ball in the air while firing at the surroundings... if necessary, Brother Jue could handle it.

In addition, Feng Bujue had another advantage, which was... unlike the characters in the game who died with a single touch, Brother Jue's defense was very high. The [i_wAnnA_Be_A_BeLt] and [1920's Mean Armor], which had been developed for a long time, were both extremely defensive equipment. Ordinary bullet damage was nothing in front of these two pieces of armor. Moreover... with Zero Time Difference Calculation and amazing physical ability, it was unlikely that he would be hit by bullets in the first place.

In summary, when Feng Bujue decided to charge straight through, the fate of the Red Falcon Army was almost sealed.

After fighting for five minutes, Brother Jue had already killed his way from one side of the camp to the other, successfully reuniting with Isaac and the other two.

Those three were not pushovers either. As elites who had fought against the Terminator units of the Bita Army for many years, fighting these Red Falcon guys... was at most a training exercise for them.

Of course, their kill count and efficiency were definitely not as good as Feng Bujue's...

To make a long story short, when the four reunited, the Red Falcon camp had been taken down. The enemy soldiers were either dead or had fled, and had no will to fight.

It was at this moment that the system prompt rang in Brother Jue's ears: [Main quest triggered]

"Huh?" Feng Bujue thought to himself upon hearing this, "A branch main quest?"

No, it wasn't a branch main quest... more precisely, it should be called a parallel main quest. Because the content of the quest did not conflict with the other main quest.

[Enter the "Underwater Eight Levels" of the Contra Area]

"Oh, it's a hint." After opening the quest bar and taking a look, Feng Bujue immediately understood the system's meaning.

In short, this quest was a "direct hint" plus "reward delivery" type of quest. It not only told the players what to do next, but also added a quest completion number and increased the final reward when the players cleared the game.

Here, I still have to say... the normal difficulty script is really too friendly.

"Hmm... but..." A few seconds later, Brother Jue changed his mind again, "The system should also be very clear that the so-called 'Underwater Eight Levels' does not exist, right? Then what does this quest mean..."

(Note: The "Underwater Eight Levels" of *Contra* can be said to be one of the most famous and longest-lasting rumors in the history of Chinese games. The content of this legend is roughly that in the sixth level of the game, at an appropriate time, jumping on a soldier whose graphics cannot be displayed normally due to a bug will allow you to enter a hidden level.)

"Mr. Feng, are you alright?" Just as Feng Bujue was pondering, Isaac had walked over with a gun.

At this time, Isaac could be described as armed from head to toe, a walking ammunition depot.

"Ah... I'm fine, of course." Feng Bujue still gave people the feeling of traveling light. Although he also had a submachine gun in each hand, he could put ammunition and other things in his backpack without taking up weight or space.

"Heh... as expected of the savior." At this time, the big bearded man, holding a small cannon, also came over and looked at the corpses behind Brother Jue that were gradually collapsing into pixel fragments. "The number of enemies you killed alone seems to be more than the three of us combined."

"That doesn't matter..." Feng Bujue said, "This camp is just an appetizer. The battle to be experienced afterwards is still long... You have to be mentally prepared."

"No problem." At this time, the lightning head also walked over with two big guns on his back. "We are always prepared to deal with this kind of situation."

"Yeah, compared to the mechanical troops of the Bita Army, these little rabbits are still very tender." The big bearded man also replied with a proud expression.

"That's good..." Feng Bujue said, and then looked at Isaac again. The legendary hero of the resistance army was still the same as before, with a resolute and calm expression, giving people a very reliable feeling. "Then... if you guys have no objections, let's continue moving forward..."

"Do you know where to go?" Isaac asked immediately.

"Heh..." Feng Bujue smiled, "Contra, just go 'forward'..."

***

Brother Jue's words were undoubtedly correct. After the four obtained the equipment, they continued to move forward in the direction they had been traveling when they left the beach.

Before long, a metal door connecting to the mountain appeared in front of them, with several soldiers guarding it on both sides.

Feng Bujue spent a few seconds making those soldiers fall in their posts forever...

Afterwards, the four of them entered the mountain tunnel behind the metal door.

The top of the tunnel was a black metal plate, and the lighting equipment was embedded in the ceiling, like a white snake extending into the distance. The walls on both sides of the tunnel were gray, and the ground was painted blue.

Since there were no forks in the road, Feng Bujue and the others walked down the only road.

Along the way, the four encountered many Red Falcon soldiers wearing green uniforms. The combat power of these soldiers was obviously higher than the ones they had encountered in the camp before, but they still couldn't pose too much of a threat to Brother Jue and the others.

In addition to the more advanced soldiers, a red "defense wall" would appear every so often in this tunnel. The walls were equipped with machine guns and turrets, and the bottom of the wall would constantly generate a rolling mine that rolled along the ground. The area within a certain distance of the defense wall was also blocked by an electric net.

Fortunately... these walls had a common weakness. As long as the "energy core" on the wall was destroyed, the entire wall would lose its function and explode.

Therefore, as long as they spent some time aiming at the energy core outside the electric net and shooting, it was not too difficult to break through these walls.

In this way... the four killed enemies and broke through walls all the way, and arrived at the depths of the tunnel.

In the center of this mountain, they found a huge earth-yellow machine. This machine seemed to be some kind of power supply and control device, as big as an apartment building. The machine was equipped with six energy cores and came with a turret function.

The difficulty of breaking through this machine was... the space it was in was quite spacious, and there were no bunkers around. If they approached rashly, they would easily become a living target.

Fortunately, this machine did not have the AI of the Bita, that is to say... its attack mode was fixed. Feng Bujue used his speed advantage to show off his positioning for a few laps, and quickly figured out the enemy's routine.

After mastering the rules, even ordinary people could avoid all attacks. Therefore, everyone spent about two minutes working together to defeat this small Boss.

To Brother Jue's surprise... after the machine exploded, it even dropped a piece of equipment...

[Name: Energy Glove]

[Type: Armor]

[Quality: Ruined]

[Defense: Weak]

[Attribute: None]

[Effect: ???]

[Whether it can be brought out of this script: No]

[Remark: I heard that a dead宅 (zhai, lit. homebody, otaku) wears this NES peripheral as equipment. I think this person must be crazy.]

Although this equipment is called a glove, it is not a pair of gloves, but "a glove" (the energy glove only has a right-hand version).

Compared with ordinary gloves, the energy glove is very thick and large. At first glance, it looks like part of an astronaut's uniform. After putting it on, it can almost cover the entire forearm. The palm of the energy glove is made of black cotton material, and the back of the hand is made of white leather with fixed textures. On the back of the hand, there is a black sensor. The sensor is connected to the controller on the arm, and the flat controller has a power light, seventeen buttons arranged in three groups, and a cross-shaped direction key.

Through the above description, you should know... yes, this is a standard power glove.

And Feng Bujue knew everything about the history of this thing...

***

In 1989, Mattel released this NES peripheral. It was the first gesture operation device to be mass-produced and sold. It can also be said that in the field of games... it was the first device to lead people into the field of artificial reality (VR is the same type of product, but it is 25 years later).

The prototype of the glove was created by Thomas Zimmerman (yes, another MIT graduate). In 1982, he applied for a patent for his invention and named it "optical_flex_sensor". After several years of transition, Zimmerman was almost bought by Atari's development department, and then experienced the great collapse of the game market. Finally... at an electronic music concert, Zimmerman met Jaron Lanier (the father of virtual reality, computer scientist, artist, philosopher). The two hit it off and jointly established VPL (the company that first proposed the concept of virtual reality).

VPL hired a large number of senior engineers and programmers to improve the graphics programming language designed by Lanier and the gloves designed by Zimmerman. They added ultrasonic tracking systems, fiber optic sensing technology, magnetic sensing systems, etc... and created a product called "data glove".

This product was initially used by NASA and some medical research institutions as a data interaction device. Until 1987, A.G.E company purchased the technical authorization of the data glove and made adjustments in terms of appearance, cost, etc. Finally, through Mattel's contact with Nintendo... the "Energy Glove" was officially released in October 1989.

Once launched, the Energy Glove immediately became the hottest product of that year's Christmas season (North America). In just six weeks, 654,000 sets were sold. Due to the shortage in some areas, its price was once炒 (chao, lit. to stir-fry, to speculate) up to $139, which was almost as expensive as the host itself (an NES sold for $199.99 at the time. According to the exchange rate comparison between the 1980s and today, it is equivalent to about $430 today). However...

The civilian "Energy Glove" is not as reliable as the military-grade hardware that VPL makes itself. Soon, players found that the glove performed poorly in various games. Children don't understand what "technology can't keep up with the concept", but there is a more popular saying - this thing is very sh*tty.

Therefore, like many products with overly advanced concepts, because the technology at the time was not enough to support such an excellent virtual reality experience as today, the product was discontinued and withdrawn from the market a year after it was launched. The impression it left in our minds was roughly: "Not easy to use", "坑爹 (keng die, lit. pit father, scam)", "Not as good as a controller", and other impressions.

In the end, as an invention of great significance in the history of virtual reality development in the game industry, the Energy Glove, like the later Virtual Boy (Nintendo's own black history host), helplessly fell into the tears of the times.

***

"Hmm... this is rare." Feng Bujue picked up the glove and muttered softly after reading the item description, "Equipment like this that 'cannot be brought out of the script' should usually be very strong..."

This was indeed Brother Jue's experience. For example, the [Blood Corpse Must Die] he got in the *Thriller Paradise* training mode, and the [One-Hit Kill Pistol] he got in the *Despicable Me* script, both belonged to this type of special equipment. However, those two things had the ability to kill the script's Big Boss in seconds... but the quality of this glove in front of him was only "Ruined", and the special effect was still unknown, which was really a bit strange.

"Eh? Isn't this an Energy Glove?" When he saw the thing in Brother Jue's hand, Lightning Head quickly recognized it.

"Oh? Do you guys have... even a replica of this?" Feng Bujue asked.

"No." Lightning Head shook his head, "The engineers all said that there is no point in restoring this thing, because the technology is too backward. If we really want to do it, with our current technology, we can completely make a device similar to Wii Remote that is compatible with FC, but that would be meaningless." He spread his hands, "In the end, in terms of the functionality of FC, it is most suitable to use a controller. Playing pseudo-3D games on an eight-bit machine with gloves or something is not as good as getting an Apple II..."

"Then how did you recognize..." Feng Bujue just wanted to ask.

"Is it even necessary to say?" Lightning Head interrupted with a matter-of-course tone: "Because this is CoooooooooL!"