Leaving the instance and returning to her personal independent space, Bai Ci felt a wave of relief.
“I'm back,” she called out.
Naturally, there was no reply.
Bai Ci stretched, walked straight over to the lounge chair in the center of the room, and lay down, sprawling her limbs to relax completely.
This instance was the smoothest she had experienced so far. Unlike previous times, she didn't feel the immediate urge to sleep and recover the moment she returned to her personal space.
Traveling really was an excellent way to relax the mind. As a result, Bai Ci was in such high spirits that she had no desire to rest at all.
With a thought, for once, she opened the instance evaluation page immediately upon returning to her personal space.
[Instance Name: Yuanxin Matchmaking Agency]
[Basic Information]
Player: Bai Ci
Time Spent in Instance: 12 days, 2 hours, 22 minutes
Overall Evaluation: S
Helped the Bureau of Investigation preemptively disrupt an unformed evil god ritual, successfully averting a cataclysmic crisis.
While breaking the shackles of the Bai family's destiny, accidentally provided assistance to other players, delivering value far exceeding the instance's original design.
Individual combat adaptability and independent problem-solving skills still need improvement. Continued efforts to refine overall capabilities are required.
[Basic Rewards]
Experience: 100
Points: 300
[Special Rewards]
Gift: Red Thread Connection
A thousand knots of mortal karma, a single thread decides fate's rise and fall. Old debts are settled as new bonds begin, delivering others and oneself to break free from shackles.
(Effect: When an opposite-sex NPC bound to Rain's Message dies, this item can be actively consumed to select a new opposite-sex NPC and apply the Rain's Message binding status.)
Bai Ci had felt that she did well in this instance, but seeing the S-rank evaluation still made her heart leap with excitement.
Once the initial excitement passed, she quickly calmed down, especially after reading the system's brutally honest and objective review.
She had to agree with this evaluation.
She knew her own limits; without the “What is Love” curse, her completion rate in this instance would never have been this high.
Without the series of accidental deaths, the Bureau of Investigation wouldn't have turned its attention to the matchmaking agency so early.
Without Jia Woyi's timely death, the desperate struggle of the cultists led by Lin Jie would have caused untold casualties.
To put it bluntly, her high-score clearance this time was mostly due to luck.
This kind of S-rank evaluation, built entirely on coincidences, was impossible to replicate.
In the next instance, her true colors would likely show, and she would go back to hovering around the A and B-rank evaluations.
However, there was one detail that left her completely baffled.
It was the line: “accidentally provided assistance to other players.”
To be safe, Bai Ci pulled up the instance details to check. She hadn't misremembered; Yuanxin Matchmaking Agency was indeed a single-player instance.
So here was the question: since no other players had participated, how could she have assisted other players?
Talk about an accidental accident.
She went over her experiences in the instance multiple times in her head, but she still didn't have the slightest clue where this accidental assistance had occurred.
She decided to stop overthinking it and keep reading.
Suppressing her confusion, Bai Ci moved on.
If the system's evaluation was the first splash of cold water to sober her up, the item reward was the second.
She took the item out to inspect it. The so-called Red Thread Connection was just a seemingly ordinary red thread, as thin as a strand of hair.
It felt as though it would snap with the slightest tug.
After examining its appearance, Bai Ci quickly put it away.
This item was highly practical, perfectly making up for some of the shortcomings of the Rain's Message binding.
For example, once she had extracted all possible information from a bound target, she could “discard” them and swap them out for a brand-new target who still had useful information.
This was the first application that came to Bai Ci's mind.
As great as the item was, it had a severe drawback.
It was a single-use consumable. Once used, it would disappear, with no chance of a second use.
This meant she had to be extremely cautious, saving it for a truly critical moment.
After finishing with the evaluation panel, Bai Ci opened her personal status panel in sequence.
Player Information
Name: Bai Ci / Lora
Identity: Bai Ci / Lora / ???... (Item Effect)
Level: 4
Current EXP: 90/100
Held Points: 313
Core Attributes: Physicality 10 (HP 100/100), Spirit 11 (Mental Value 10/10), Agility 11
Stat Points to Distribute: 1 (Obtained after leveling up)
Current Status: Cursed (“What is Love” 1%)
Current Class: Ghost Bride (Expand to view details)
Next Instance Global Opening Time: 121 hours, 4 minutes
Instance History: Folded (Expand to view details)
As her gaze fell upon the curse progress in the status bar, a flash of surprise crossed Bai Ci's eyes.
The consumption progress of “What is Love” was far faster than she had anticipated.
Although she had bound six targets in the instance and all six had died—more than she could count on one hand—
Bai Ci's best hope had only been to consume around 20% of it.
After all, compared to the divine status of an evil god, ordinary humans were such minuscule existences. At most, their deaths would slightly wear down the curse rather than make a significant dent, right?
Yet, looking at it now that she was out of the instance, this was far more than a mere dent—the curse had been worn down to a sliver of health.
Was this curse like one of those discount-slashing apps?
For a split second, a ridiculous thought crossed Bai Ci's mind.
But considering the consistently fair and lenient style of the Anomalous Infection, there shouldn't be such an underhanded trick at play.
In any case, it was still cause for celebration.
Calculating based on this rate, she would only need to go through one more instance for this evil-god-level curse plaguing her to be completely dispelled.
To be honest, at this moment, Bai Ci actually felt a slight twinge of regret.
Having experienced its practical application in this instance, she knew all too well how incredibly overpowered this curse was.
Without her having to lift a finger or waste any mental effort, her Rain's Message targets would trigger all sorts of accidental deaths on their own.
If a target happened to be a boss or an enemy, even if they didn't die immediately, the weakening effect alone would be extremely useful.
This method of silently clearing out threats was practically an invincible cheat.
However, her regret lasted only a fraction of a second before Bai Ci suppressed it entirely.
The targets she encountered in this instance were all scum who got what they deserved, so their deaths left her with absolutely no psychological burden.
But nothing was absolute. Instances were unpredictable and constantly changing; no one could guarantee that her next bound target wouldn't be an innocent or good person.
If this curse accidentally got a good person killed, even if she knew they were just NPCs in an instance—nothing but lines of data—the conscience she had been raised with would still keep her awake at night.
Rate on N.U.
