RPGCh3 - The Times are Advancing, the Games are Evolving

Editor: Izrate

That was when Zhao Qing suddenly smiled. He had thought of a brilliant idea. Hdb7oP

“Xiaopang, give him the test.”

“Gotcha.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

The chubby man leaped up with shocking dexterity, rolling away to dig up a disk before rolling back.

“You should take the test here,” the chubby man seated Shan Ziwei on the sofa and pressed a few buttons on the disk. Light crawled across the surface of the disk to form a holographic projection of the questions. “It’s really easy. Just choose the options that suit you the most.” TYFPCJ

Shan Ziwei carefully accepted the disk, making sure to not touch the other. He glanced over the questions and was soon struck dumb.

[Question 1: You value stability accomplishing tasks and generally do not do things that you are uncertain of.

A) Strongly agree     B) Agree     C) Neither agree nor disagree     D) Disagree    E) Strongly disagree

Question 2: When met with frustrations you express your anger openly as it bothers you to keep silent about it.

A) Strongly agree     B) Agree     C) Neither agree nor disagree     D) Disagree    E) Strongly disagree

…]

Shan Ziwei looked up, silent for a moment, “… Isn’t this a personality test?”

The chubby man nodded, “That’s right, it’s a personality test.” 1XwYu0

“…” Shouldn’t it be an effective APM test or something? Why was it a personality test!? Of all things!

Perhaps it was because the “what the fuck” in his gaze was too obvious, the chubby man scratched his head and asked, “You don’t know this test? I mean, you should; this studio was created for that game. Aren’t you here because of that game?”

Shan Ziwei felt that he should probably reflect on his ignorance; he still didn’t know the title game of Dawn Night Studio.

“And that game is…?” wsioUD

“RPG.”

“What’s it called?”

“I just said, it’s called Role Playing Game.” The chubby man stared at Shan Ziwei. “Holy crap, have you never heard of RPG?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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The reason for RPG being so well-known was simple: it had been created by the Institute.

As the main headquarters of the Alliance’s scientific advancements and research, the Institute held an insurmountable position to the people of Earth. You could say that 80 percent of the technology currently on the market came from the Institute. Chairman Sid once joked: if someone bombed the Institute, then the technological level of the entire Alliance would decline by a hundred years. A top-class research centre naturally wouldn’t go out of their way to create a game purely for the entertainment of the masses. In reality, the most important function of RPG wasn’t entertainment, but to train one’s Psionics.

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Just as The Great Direction had predicted, the Digital Age was now slowly transitioning to the Psychic Age. The training and usage of Psionics was considered a matter of great importance to humans, and thus the Institute had also created RPG – those research fanatics didn’t have any appreciation for beauty and names, so they directly named the game after its categorisation. Once RPG was launched, it immediately aroused interest from people all across the world, and everyone was shocked at how much those crazy scientists put into it: they had used the 5 percent of computing power that was exclusively allocated to them all into maintaining the operation of RPG. That meant that RPG was completely run and supervised by the central computer, and the only server was also the central computer.

You could say that RPG was a completely unique game; there had never been anything like it before. QVosjn

Since Shan Ziwei had to prepare for the general knowledge exam in the welfare centre, he had only heard of RPG, but didn’t know anything about it. Upon finding out that you had to take a personality test before playing RPG, a sense of wonder sprung up.

There weren’t many questions, a total of sixty, and Shan Ziwei finished them quickly. The disk flashed and gave its results; a suit of clubs icon appeared above the disk with a line of words: melanchole-chole temperament.

“The results are out?” Zhao Qing walked over in his slippers and glanced at the disk, “Oh, Clubs type…?”

He smiled. “Xiaopang, summon a Gaia node inside to get him registered. We finally have a main tank.” BXLaHg

The chubby man was a little hesitant. He leaned in close to Zhao Qing and whispered, “Cap’n, are we really making him the main tank? He doesn’t seem to have much experience, and he isn’t a Diamond type…”

Zhao Qing interrupted the chubby man with a cuff around the head. “Even if you don’t trust my judgement, how about the boss’, huh?!”

Upon mentioning Ye Ye, the chubby man didn’t dare continue. He fled quickly, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.

A laugh bubbled in Zhao Qing’s heart as he looked at Shan Ziwei’s confused face. He knew what the chubby man was talking about; in RPG, Diamond type players were the most suited for the role of main tank. Shan Ziwei’s clubs type meant that being a tank wouldn’t suit him. However, this was exactly what Zhao Qing wanted. With a tank unsuited to their role, Li Ye couldn’t blame anyone else for losing – she was the one who had brought Shan Ziwei here after all. Things would be even better if this caused them to turn on each other. wntPrg

The chubby man soon returned with a jellyfish shaped node. Zhao Qing grabbed one of the mechanical tentacles and connected it to his own black ring, rapidly entering information through the floating holographic display that appeared.

Countless spots of light leaked from the node, forming the contract terms in front of Shan Ziwei. At the same time, the floating node extended a glowing tentacle towards Shan Ziwei.

“Check the contract. If it’s acceptable, then plug it in.”

Shan Ziwei took the contract and read over it once. Stunned, he couldn’t help but reread it. ptu5YB

“This contract…”

“What? This is already the best we can give. Your salary is even higher than mine.”

“There’s nothing wrong, it’s just, just…” Too good.

The contract could be summarised as follows: Shan Ziwei was the only main tank of the Dawn Night Studio and would participate in the RPG Update Tournament in two weeks’ time as a representative of the studio. As the main tank, Shan Ziwei had right to use whatever resources the studio could provide and didn’t need to take on any work or responsibilities outside of building up his game character in preparation for the Update Tournament. mafct8

For a gamer with no background or fame, these terms were far too good. Shan Ziwei felt an inexplicable sense of anxiety. He was rather confident about being a main tank, so where did this anxiety come from…

“Ah, you guys already going over the terms of the contract?”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

That was when Ye Ye came back, having finished her call. Shan Ziwei shoved the contact to her like she was his saviour, “You take a look.”

“Wow, so amazing. Shanzi is the main tank, huh!” Ye Ye flipped through the contract. “I think this is pretty good. Just need to change this… and this, and it’s done.” odXpSa

Thus, after Ye Ye’s edits, Shan Ziwei’s work benefits went up a notch. Ye Ye smiled a unnervingly sweet smile under Shan Ziwei’s startled and awed gaze.

“Thanks so much, Shanzi. Zhao Qing kept telling me that we had to get a main tank. That’s one of my worries resolved.” Ye Ye pulled back her smile, and thanked Shan Ziwei with grave sincerity, “Thank you for coming to help me.”

Shan Ziwei silently pulled over the node cable and plugged it into his own black ring.

It should be him saying thanks. If it wasn’t for Ye Ye, there was no way he’d be able to get such a great job. 03euH9

Shan Ziwei swore to himself that no matter what, he had to win the Update Tournament and help Ye Ye.

After connecting Shan Ziwei’s Quantum Terminal to the node, the contract turned into spots of light that trickled into the Quantum Terminals of both participants. With that, Shan Ziwei was officially registered as a member of Dawn Night Studio. Under the watchful eye of Gaia, Shan Ziwei would have to fulfil the terms of the contract in order to reap the benefits he was granted. The one who was happiest in that moment wasn’t Shan Ziwei or Ye Ye, but Zhao Qing – he could already envision the sight of their failure at the Update Tournament.

“Shanzi, congrats on officially becoming a member of Dawn Night Studio.”

Ye Ye began clapping and the other employees quickly followed with their own welcoming applause. The chubby man was the one who clapped the hardest. B37pZl

“From today onwards, you and I are comrades. You can call me Xiaopang, of course, I wouldn’t object to you calling me Lord Pang either.” Before Shan Ziwei could say anything, the chubby man started introducing him to everyone very enthusiastically. “Currently, our team’s core members consist of five people, you included: I’m the healer and cap’n CCs.” He then pointed at the girl who was asleep, “The cute girl over there is called Crazy Cat, she’s a DPS. And… and, and who else was there…?”

“Hello, I’m also a DPS in the team. Shadowless.”

Shan Ziwei almost had a heart attack, startled by the young man that had suddenly appeared. In reality, he hadn’t suddenly appeared out of thin air, it was just that no one had noticed him until he had spoken. It was difficult to describe how a person could have so little presence; Shan Ziwei had known that there were three other guys in the room, but he didn’t have any impression of that third guy whatsoever.

The chubby man clearly received a fright too, even his voice was shaking, “Th-that’s right. This unnerving guy is the last core member of our team.” oUWq3N

That was when Ye Ye looked at the time and bid them goodbye, “Shanzi, I’m going to head off. There’s something I need to deal with. I’ll come over later to drive you home.”

“Thank you.”

“I have to attend a classified meeting, so you might not be able to contact me for a while. If you have any questions, you can talk to your teammates.” Ye Ye narrowed her eyes at the others, “You guys aren’t allowed to bully Shanzi, got it?”

Zhao Qing harrumphed, Shadowless nodded silently, while the chubby man gave a very loud and clear reply: “Of course, boss! We’ll take care of him!” EVyS7J

After Ye Ye left, the chubby man rolled over to take care of Shan Ziwei as promised.

“Shanzi – I can call you that, right? Boss says that you aren’t going to be living here, so let’s swap contacts. Later on, I can send you all the details of RPG.” Before Shan Ziwei could agree, the chubby man seemed to suddenly remember something. He smacked himself on the head before continuing, “Damn, I’m so forgetful. One sec, I’ll grab you the equipment you’ll need for RPG.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

The chubby man dashed off and when he returned, he was holding a box. Shan Ziwei carefully accepted it. The lid of the box was transparent, so he could clearly see what was inside: a few cables and a… set of headphones?

It was a set of over-ear headphones with the logo for RPG printed on the earcups: a face split down the middle with one half solid and emotionless and the other half like a shadow. The expression of the shadowy half of the face seemed to fluctuate depending on the viewing angle. Shan Ziwei tilted it in his grasp and discovered a total of four different expressions: joy, anger, sadness and surprise. vW2ube

Did RPG have really high sound requirements, so much that they had to distribute specialized headphones? Wasn’t it usually a specialized mouse or keyboard?

Seeing Shan Ziwei staring at the box, the chubby man thought he didn’t know how to use it, so he enthusiastically began explaining.

“It might look different, but it’s basically the same as the old gaming helmets. All you have to do is put it on, plug it into your Quantum Terminal and tada!” The chubby man pointed at the “sleeping” girl. “Just like Crazy Cat. She’s in the game right now!”

… Wait… a moment, you mean this is a… gaming… helmet? That girl over there… is currently in-game? QGWYTt

Shan Ziwei stared at the box in shock, a rather daunting idea forming in his head.

“Can I… ask a question?”

The chubby man patted himself on the chest, “Go ahead!”

“Is RPG not… a keyboard and mouse game?” UoX3vy

The chubby man looked at him like he was looking at a ghost. “The current MMORPGs are all fully-immersive. Keyboard and mouse MMORPGs were discontinued fifty years ago!”

“… So, RPG is the kind of fully immersive game that simulates actually being in the game for all the senses?”

“Of course!” The chubby man replied proudly, “RPG was created by the Institute. Under the support of the central computer, it can perfectly simulate all experiences for all the senses, as if it were reality!”

“…” O8KYm7

Shan Ziwei, male, two-hundred and thirty-three years old, was about to begin his bleak-looking future as a main tank with hypersexuality.

The author has something to say:

The setup of this novel is: Spades (Chole), Hearts (Sanguis), Clubs (Melanchole), Diamonds (Flegma) Whichever you have the most points in is what type you are.

Clarification on the name of the game: The full name of the game is Role Playing, but its abbreviation is RPG, thus it’ll sometimes also be called Role Playing Game. The Chinese does not make this distinction, as in Chinese, people do refer to RPGs omitting the “game” from “role playing game” so in Chinese its just “role playing”, and for an abbreviation (which isn’t used in this novel) they use the English “RPG”. aLMFGm

I chose to translate it this way as the gaming category “role-playing game” is abbreviated as “RPG”, almost never abbreviated as “RP” and generally not referred to as “role playing”. Also RPG just sounds more epic haha. Thus, these terms will be used interchangeably to refer to the game, but the official, full name of the game is, in fact, “Role Playing”.

Next up, Scenario Four: Welcome to RPG

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