Invisible light and shadow extended outward from Xu Xiaoyou, the white radiance quickly outlining the contours of the dark, narrow alley before fading away. Only white lines remained suspended in the air, making it feel as if she were standing beneath a massive, staggered spiderweb.
The damp moisture mixed with the scent of mold was right at the tip of Xu Xiaoyou's nose. She found herself back in the Abandoned Alley, though it was different from the last time...
Xu Xiaoyou walked over to the trash can and looked at the puddle on the stainless steel lid to see her reflection. She was no longer missing limbs or looking like a floating cyber-ghost as she had before; she was a complete human.
Xu Xiaoyou hopped slightly. Her body didn't feel as light as it did in reality, and a strange sense of sluggishness came from all over.
Smelling the moldy stench of the trash pile right at her nostrils felt as if she had suddenly returned to her physical state from months ago. Who would have thought that the illustrious Dark Gold Rose once had such an unspeakable past....
[Please login......]
Xu Xiaoyou chose to log in.
"Loading...... Your physiological trait code has been read. Entering identity information, generating character profile, and binding your Oasis Pass. Please wait."
"Would you like to become a life player or a combat player?"
"Note: Life players will lose their character panel, experiencing the most pure form of real life. They will receive free construction rights for the 'Home' system but will have restricted access to certain regions. They will have unlimited playtime......"
Xu Xiaoyou tapped on the word "or," but there was no response.
...
"Are these the only two choices? Truly not user-friendly enough."
"Combat player selected. Matching tutorial dungeon for you. We will analyze and judge your performance in the tutorial dungeon to construct a personality model, providing a one-on-one customized Oasis journey."
"I am an expert veteran player; I apply to skip the tutorial dungeon," Xu Xiaoyou said.
".... Tutorial dungeon 'Sisyphus Train' matched. Constructing dungeon modeling, compiling shaders, and generating NPC data."
"Before the game officially begins, you may adjust your physical data and view your personal profile."
Xu Xiaoyou chose to skip the face-sculpting system directly. Dark Gold Rose had no need to hide her identity, and besides, adjusting a face as perfect and flawless as hers would be a precious loss for all of human civilization.
Apparently rendered speechless by the golden-haired girl's narcissism, the Oasis intelligent system did not pop up any more prompt boxes.
She opened her personal profile.
【Player Profile】
Personal ID: 0E3604
Name: Xu Xiaoyou Race:
Health: 100%
Spirit Points: 3000MAX
Level: Grade 0 Mimicry: None.
Divine Endowment: None Honor: None.
Title: None.
Comprehensive Evaluation: ■ Poor.
Seeing the small black square representing the thought beacon contamination, Xu Xiaoyou's mouth twitched slightly. She chose to hide all her personal information, setting it to private.
She wasn't worried about her secrets being exposed or her trump cards being leaked to the families of Oasis. Character information for Oasis players was kept strictly confidential under the signed Information Confidentiality Agreement. As long as the Sovereign Key for the Omniscient Mode had not fallen into the hands of the Into the Night Dreams company, most player information remained non-transparent to the Oasis officials.
This was the absolute supremacy of the "core technology" of this world.
Unknown, distorted, beyond scrutiny, and beyond desecration.
This was also the true reason why rebel forces repeatedly rose and fell, while the giant enterprises and companies remained like mountains pressing down on people's heads—a height the lower-class could never look up to or cross in their entire lives.
As long as the "core technology" remained, even if a company rotted into a limping giant, it could still maintain its vitality to a great extent.
She chose to open the character attribute panel.
【Attribute Panel】
strength: 5 (Related to strike, thrust, and slash damage type calculations)
agility: 5 (Related to attack speed and neural coordination)
constitution: 5 (Related to negative status resistance and strike resistance)
intelligence: 130 (Related to skill power calculations and thinking patterns. Note: This attribute is initially locked and cannot be assigned free attribute points.)
Charisma: 3000MAX (Related to the NPC favorability system. Note: This attribute can influence the direction of key plotlines!)
Luck: Lucky! (Related to fortuitous encounters and probability calculations)
"Tutorial dungeon 'Sisyphus Train' generated."
When Xu Xiaoyou opened her eyes again, she had left the Abandoned Alley and was on a fast-moving train. Outside the window was a pitch-black sea, with a blood-colored moon hanging high in the sky, reflecting eerie blood-light off the rippling surface.
"Doctor, they're coming! Protect yourself!" a man shouted, handing a weapon to Xu Xiaoyou, the fear etched onto his face looking remarkably real.
Xu Xiaoyou took the weapon and found it was an object assembled from water pipes, tape, and metal parts, shaped like a gun. Before she could figure out what it was, the roars of unknown creatures echoed from the corridor ahead.
"Hi, hello, are you a new player too?"
A pink-haired girl with a cute bun hairstyle curiously looked at everything on the train. Noticing Xu Xiaoyou, she waved and greeted her with a bright smile.
Several terrifying figures slammed into the corridor door behind her. Through the glass, their rotten, blurred faces and sharp nails were clearly visible.
"Uhm." Noticing the zombies had already pushed open the door, Xu Xiaoyou spoke up to warn her, "Hey, behind you?"
"It's really like what they said, so realistic, it's just like the real thing," the girl with the hair buns muttered to herself excitedly, a strange flush appearing on her face. "Can we be friends? My name is Fei Yueyue, but you can just call me Yueyue."
Just as a zombie lunged toward the girl and Xu Xiaoyou thought she was beyond saving, the pink-haired girl grinned. She snatched up a metal baseball bat from the side, spun around, and directly floored the lunging zombie with a single swing!
"It really is so realistic. Such a beautiful red, just like the real thing."
The pink-haired girl knocked the zombie to the ground. Looking down from above, she raised the baseball bat high and smashed it down with force, again and again. Under the horrified gazes of the other new players, the girl smashed the zombie's skull until it cracked, splattering red and white everywhere.
"I've never seen such a beautiful red at home...."
Xu Xiaoyou began to worry about the living environment this girl named Yueyue came from; her mental state seemed rather unstable.
"Quick, fall back! Return to Carriage No. D13 to reorganize the line! Keep those things out!"
A heroic shout came from the darkness. A woman who looked like the leader of the group held up a lit signal flare, dispersing the surrounding darkness and allowing everyone to see her face.
Dozens of zombies squeezed through the narrow corridor, chasing the woman like a foul-smelling tide. One player didn't react in time and was tackled to the ground. His stomach was ripped open, and gory, pixelated things were torn out by sharp claws.
Most people who could afford Oasis equipment were wealthy young masters from various parts of the world. They had never seen such a scene. The thick stench of blood combined with the horrific imagery made them vomit instantly. They knelt on the ground, their body parts being torn to pieces by the arriving zombies like rag dolls.
Their first journey to Oasis had likely left them with an indelible psychological trauma.
Hearing the wails, screams, and the screeching calls of the zombies, some NPCs in the squad sighed and shook their heads while holding their foreheads.
"The quality of this batch of recruits is too poor; we can't rely on them at all!"
"Cover! Cover!"
"Open fire and cover them!" one squad member shouted with wide eyes, holding a rifle and spraying bullets into the approaching mass of rotten corpses.
"Conserve your ammo!"
"Where is the Doctor? Protect the Doctor! Argh!" Another squad member was tackled by zombies. Under the blood moon, he was devoured by five of them.
Xu Xiaoyou marveled at how intense the plot was right from the start. Several zombies lunged past her as the people around her screamed in panic. The girl, however, remained calm as if nothing were happening, casually examining the object someone had handed her earlier in the chaos.
The moment the progress bar in the center of her vision reached 100%, a prompt indicating the completion of the analysis popped up, followed by the item's basic panel.
"Item: homemade air gun."
"Quality: dim (White)"
"Power: 7—13"
"Damage Type: Thrust Damage"
"Usage Requirements: Gunpowder Entry-level, Manufacturing Entry-level"
"Item Description: Assembled from a pile of simple materials in a crude fashion. Without understanding its principles, you cannot even use it."
"Doctor, what are you doing, Doctor!"
Finally, a zombie noticed Xu Xiaoyou and lunged at her. Under the terrified gazes of countless people, Xu Xiaoyou used her knee to brace against the zombie's chest and shoved the homemade air gun into its throat.
Bang! Blood blossomed across the girl's calm face!
"HP -47! You have dealt thrust damage (fatal) to a 'mutant.' Critical hit triggered!"
"Doctor......?" The squad members' eyes trembled. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. The Doctor, who was usually physically frail and needed help even to walk, had suddenly erupted with such combat capability.
Xu Xiaoyou began her performance. First, she raised her arm, using the protective armor plates to block a zombie's bite. Then, she pressed the air gun against its abdomen and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Muzzle flashes flickered, cutting through the blood-colored darkness.
The white gas bursting from the vent was like the breath of the reaper, whispering in the dark as it ruthlessly harvested the lives of the zombies!
Xu Xiaoyou's strength wasn't enough to resist a cluster of three to five zombies, so she grabbed one by the neck, maneuvering while firing. She popped the zombies' heads one by one, and the prompt for fatal thrust damage jumped out continuously!
As several zombies lunged together, Xu Xiaoyou exerted force with her core, leaping into the air. Her feet planted against the ceiling of the train carriage as she sprinted forward, evading the pounce while simultaneously snapping the neck of the zombie beneath her, firing repeatedly in mid-air!
She landed safely on her feet, surrounded by zombie corpses. Xu Xiaoyou's eyes remained calm and undisturbed, looking like an athlete who had just completed a high-difficulty gymnastics routine—except she was dancing amidst death.
The blood moon hung in the sky, her white research coat fluttered, and her flowing golden hair drifted into the hearts of every new player.
"Mom, I think I'm in love."
"My god, she's so cool...."
"How can the gap between people be so big?"
Xu Xiaoyou emptied the remaining bullets and casually handed the gun to a player who was still in a state of shock.
The player's name was "Azure Sky," and his eyes reflected the incredibly sharp golden-haired girl and her brilliant ID.
Dark Gold Rose.
After speeding up her pace to leave the other players' sight, Xu Xiaoyou's legs went soft, and she nearly collapsed. This body was still too frail compared to her real self; completing that set of high-difficulty moves had nearly drained all her stamina.
At that moment, a girl appeared just in time to catch the exhausted Xu Xiaoyou. Sky-blue hair brushed past her vision as she met Xu Xiaoyou's steady gaze. The latter was slightly dazed until the girl began her self-introduction:
"Hello, my name is Tang Qing. Doctor, I am the assistant you designated not long ago. You can just call me Xiao Qing."
"Take me to the back," Xu Xiaoyou said with a nod. Several bottles of black reagents had appeared in her coat; they were game items, likely related to the plot of the tutorial dungeon.
Focusing back on the front line.
The previous interlude ended, and a new wave of corpses emerged from the front carriage. Twisted faces crowded the ceiling, the corridors, and every seat. The squad members and players quickly snapped out of their daze, grabbing whatever weapons were available to fight back.
"Caitlin!"
A burly man whose old military uniform was stained with black blood shouted loudly. The surrounding players and the NPCs in the squad looked at him in silence as he held an ice-blue solvent bottle high in his hand!
"The Doctor has left safely. We're retreating!"
"Retreat!" Caitlin nodded at the sight and shouted as well.
The players pushed and shoved to get to the front of the retreat, terrified of a zombie scratching them from behind. For a moment, the scene was somewhat comical. The squad members dressed as soldiers used their firepower to cover them, with an occasional person being tackled by a zombie and letting out a blood-curdling scream.
Hearing the screams from behind, the faces of the squad members darkened. Those people were comrades who had gone through life and death with them; seeing their old companions become foul-smelling skeletons in the blink of an eye caused a heavy atmosphere to gradually spread through the team.
"What is our purpose in doing this?" someone's voice trembled.
"Will there really be hope tomorrow?" another's face was grim.
"They're all dead...." someone wept into their hands.
The players were like children who had done something wrong, carrying their weapons and cautiously retreating to the back of the group. No matter how heartless they had been before, they now hunched their shoulders, not daring to speak.
"This game is too realistic......" someone whispered.
"It's just like the real thing. These NPCs make me feel like they're people of flesh and blood....."
The burly man from before raised the ice-blue solvent high and slammed it toward the back of the carriage. Bone-chilling gas suddenly spread, and gas hundreds of degrees below zero instantly filled the entire carriage behind them, permeating every seat and the ceiling.
The limbs and joints of the zombies that were still running froze like pieces of cold, hard iron. Their movements visibly slowed before they finally shattered on the ground like ice sculptures. Occasionally, a few lunged at the emergency-sealed corridor door, their rotten, twisted faces frozen under the spreading frost.
Returning to the resistance base in the rear, walking through the narrow corridors, Xu Xiaoyou saw many dirty faces in the carriages. There were elderly people who lowered their heads to avoid eye contact, middle-aged women clutching wailing babies, a small boy whose skin was black from head to toe with dirt under his nails, and a bald youth with narrow, squinting eyes.
These people were the low-level refugees of this train. Everyone cast looks of intense hatred at her, while the stationed soldiers stood by her side in full readiness, closely watching every figure that might start a riot.
"What's the situation here?" Xu Xiaoyou asked Tang Qing.
"You lost your memory not long ago." Tang Qing's gaze was complex, as if she had thought of something, and she let out a long sigh. "The refugees here hate you, and the resistance soldiers are protecting your safety."
"Because, Doctor, you are the very culprit who caused this disaster."
Rate on N.U.
