Editor: Izrate
Shan Ziwei backed away on reflex, but the other was faster. Unable to dodge, Shan Ziwei could only do what most people would do when being kissed for the first time; he subconsciously closed his eyes.
The expected contact didn’t arrive. Instead, it brought a refreshing breeze. Then, as if the surroundings had suddenly switched to an outdoor environment, bright light enveloped his eyelids, turning the darkness into a warm orange. Shan Ziwei could hear cheerful singing in the distance, and a sweet, aromatic scent of cake frosting permeated the air around him.
Shan Ziwei slowly opened his eyes and found that the entire world had changed – it was as if he suddenly found himself in a massive, rainbow coloured present box. The ceiling was covered in bright, spotted wallpaper, the floor was made up of rainbow coloured puzzle pieces and the walls were made of dream-like crystal, that reflected Shan Ziwei’s fractured image. Currently, he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with a headful of white hair: it was his game-character’s appearance.
Shan Ziwei was stunned, not just because of the shocking fusion that had just happened, but also because of the two flat boxes floating in his vision – two transparent boxes, one on the left and one on the right. The box on the upper left had five lines, one long and four short, while the right was a rectangular textbox. When Shan Ziwei focused his attention on them, the two boxes solidified, becoming much clearer.
What was this?
Shan Ziwei reached out for them without thinking but didn’t feel anything. The two boxes were fixed to the sides of his visual field, as if imprinted directly on his eyes.
… The game HUD?
Shan Ziwei gazed at the five lines in the upper left corner. They really looked quite like the traditional health and mana bars. The first line was blue, labelled “MP”. The other four below were all red, half the length of the first blue one, and were labelled “Spades”, “Hearts”, “Clubs” and “Diamonds” respectively.
Shan Ziwei had no idea what this was, but it seemed pretty cool. He directed his attention towards the box on the right side of his visual field. It was a rectangular textbox, divided into an upper section and a lower section. The upper section with labelled “System Scenarios”, while the lower section was labelled “Personal Scenarios”.
Just as Shan Ziwei finished looking over all the boxes, the system finally arrived with a rather belated introduction.
[You have now entered an in-game world of RPG – a “chessboard”. On the chessboard, you shall role play your character according to the given scenarios. When you die, beat the stage or disconnect, you shall leave the chessboard and your points shall be calculated and paid out.]
“Role play my… character… according to given scenarios?”
The system gave a swift reply to Shan Ziwei’s confusion and a small hand icon appeared, guiding Shan Ziwei to direct his attention at the rectangular boxes on the right of his visual field.
[This is your “Scenario” interface, which is divided into “System Scenarios” and “Personal Scenarios”. Your actions on the chessboard will be based on your given System Scenarios for the most part. While on the chessboard, the system shall assign you a Scenario every now and then.]
As the system spoke, a line of words appeared in the “System Scenarios” column.
[Scenario 1: You’re afraid of black puzzle pieces. (00:01:00)]
The entire line was a murky grey colour, and the timer in the parentheses counted down constantly. The hand icon drifted over to the shown timer as the system explained: [This is the activation countdown. Once the timer reaches zero, the corresponding Scenario shall be activated. Please role play in accordance to it. If you go against it and act out of character, death is the likely result.]
“The likely result? How do you die?”
The hand icon went across Shan Ziwei’s visual field and stopped at the top left box, pointing to the first blue gauge: [MP (Mentality Points): 100/100. When you engage in vigorous exercise, use skills, self-harm, etc., this gauge shall decrease. If it hits zero, you will die. It may be recovered through resting, potions and skills.]
Shan Ziwei and his brain stopped in shock.
Holy shit, this bar was the fusion of the traditional health points, mana points and stamina, all in one! Though this was a game based on Psionics, what the hell was with this brutal and direct three-in-one combination! Who would even dare sprint in this game!? Using skills would be like trading life; to hit a mob for forty, first spend sixty, then if you get hit again, it’s directly off to the respawn point for you – wait, this game didn’t even have respawn points!
Shan Ziwei suddenly realized something was wrong. He reread the explanation given again thrice over and finally noticed why it seemed strange.
“You don’t lose MP when you get hit?” Shan Ziwei asked, confused, “Vigorous exercise, skill usage and self-harm… all the ways you can lose MP are actions you conduct yourself. Anyone with a normal functioning brain would make sure to not use up all their MP and definitely won’t self-harm, and thus wouldn’t they never die?”
Shan Ziwei was correct. Someone with “a normal, functioning brain” wouldn’t spend all their MP, but someone with “an abnormally functioning brain” was a different matter.
The system’s hand icon then moved downwards to point at the four red gauges labelled after the four card suits: [SP (Spirit Points): 100%. When you violate Scenarios or experience extreme emotions, the SP of the corresponding suit will decrease. Spades is “anger”, Hearts is “joy”, Clubs is “sorrow”, and Diamonds is “fear”. When any one of the SP gauges hits zero, you shall enter “spiritual breakdown”.]
“What is… Spiritual breakdown?”
[You shall enter an uncontrollable, berserk state, and your MP shall deplete until you die.]
… It sounded tragic. Shan Ziwei held his head in his hand. Why did it feel kind of like martyrdom? You even got a chance to go berserk and take people down with you before you died. Seemed pretty cool.
The current Shan Ziwei was still too green. Only once he truly saw what spiritual breakdown was like, would he realize how terrible it was.
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.
That was when the timer silently reached “00:00:00” on Scenario 1 of the System Scenario. Instantly, Scenario 1 lit up.
[Scenario 1 has been activated. Please role play in accordance to Scenario 1. If you violate Scenario 1, the corresponding SP shall decrease.]
“!?!”
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Role play… role play… Did that mean he had to consider the world from the viewpoint given by those Scenarios?
Shan Ziwei scrutinized the Scenario in the textbox: You’re afraid of black puzzle pieces.
Black… puzzle pieces?
Shan Ziwei’s gaze shot downwards. The entire floor was made up of differently coloured puzzle pieces and he just so happened to be standing on a black one.
––If I were afraid of black puzzle pieces, I wouldn’t dare touch them.
Shan Ziwei took a few steps back, away from that black puzzle piece. In the moment he left it, his Diamond SP finally stopped draining.
“So that’s how it is.”
Shan Ziwei breathed a breath of relief. He had a vague idea of how to play this game. The system said he was “afraid of black puzzle pieces” – so no matter if he was really scared of them or not, he had to act as if he was “afraid”, for example, staying away from the black puzzle pieces. As soon as he violated the scenario of being “afraid of black puzzle pieces”, his Diamond SP, corresponding to the emotion of “fear”, would decrease.
“So, in summary, the System Scenarios are restrictions given to players and we must act within the boundaries of those Scenarios,” Shan Ziwei concluded, “If we violate them, the player’s SP will decrease. Once it hits zero, we will go into Spiritual Breakdown and go crazy, wasting our MP until we kill ourselves.”
This was really… so fun!
Shan Ziwei was starting to feel his excitement bubbling up inside him. He loved gaming. In the past, when he shut himself in his own house, a certain hypersexual wrote code and played games to survive. Coding was purely for survival purposes, while gaming was his personal hobby.
As if realizing that Shan Ziwei had understood the rules, the tutorial ended and the boxes in front of Shan Ziwei’s eyes turned back into their translucent hue. He blinked, noting that a new Scenario had appeared under Scenario 1 in the System Scenario column.
[Scenario 2: You have entered the City of Toys. (03:00:00)]
Compared to Scenario 1, which seemed more like a character trait, Scenario 2 had a clear goal. It most likely meant for him to reach the City of Toys within three hours. Shan Ziwei scanned the area. Though he had plenty of time, he also didn’t even know where the City of Toys was.
A hint of something brown flashed across his vision and Shan Ziwei noticed a sign not far off. He walked over, careful to avoid stepping on the black puzzle pieces – currently they were like mines to Shan Ziwei.
Shan Ziwei stood in front of the sign. On it was a simple sentence: [← City of Toys ahead]
… How generous. As expected of the tutorial stage.
There was also a treasure chest at the base of the sign. Shan Ziwei opened it. The large chest only had a stack of playing cards sitting at the bottom.
That’s right, playing cards. No matter how you look at it, the rectangular cards looked exactly like poker cards, ready for a game of Go-Fish. Shan Ziwei picked up the top card. On the back sat RPG’s dual mask logo while on the front…
[You have obtained a Scenario Card.]
The boxes in his visual field once again solidified and the hand icon appeared, pointing at the “Personal Scenarios” below the “System Scenarios”. There was a total of ten slots there.
[In a chessboard, apart from the Scenarios set by the system, you are allowed to add Scenarios through the use of Scenario Cards.]
Shan Ziwei directed his attention back to the poker card – no, the Scenario Card – in his hand.
[Three of Clubs – Investigate
Category: Investigation Skill
Effect: See the basic information of one target with distance three or less.
Description: I know your height; I know your weight;
I know the colour of your underwear… ah, I didn’t say anything.]
… Do your programmers know about this weird ass description?
Shan Ziwei had a “= =” expression as he read the skill description. He bent down to get all the Scenario Cards.
[Three of Clubs – Mirror Image
Category: Summoning Skill
Effect: Summon one mirror image with half the basic stats of the original, lasts five minutes.
Description: If only I could create another me to do my homework for me, then I could go and watch TV, I thought to myself as I watched the me watching TV.]
[Two of Spades – Heavy Blow
Category: Melee Skill
Effect: Give a critical blow to a target with a distance of one or less.
Description: Duang~Duang~Duang~]
[Two of Spades – Longsword
Category: Singlehanded Weapon
Effect: Melee Attack + 2
Description: A normal sword, mass produced.]
[Two of Diamonds – Shirt (Red)
Category: Upper-body Equipment
Effect: Defence + 1
Description: A normal piece of clothing, mass produced.]
The hand Shan Ziwei held the Scenario Cards in began to tremble. Were the card descriptions written by two different people? The guy who wrote the skill descriptions should share some of their creativity with the guy who wrote for the equipment. When you thought carefully about it, the “Mirror Image” description was terrifying.
There were a total of seven Scenario Cards, so the ten slots he had were more than enough for it. Shan Ziwei used all the Scenario Cards. The seven cards turned into orbs of blue light, flying into Shan Ziwei’s Scenario interface. Soon enough, the “Personal Scenarios” column had several lines of text.
[Scenario One: You can check the information of others through closing one eye.]
[Scenario Two: You can use a mirror to create a mirror image.]
[Scenario Three: You can swing your weapon to send a heavy blow at a target.]
[Scenario Four: You can use a longsword to perform normal attacks.]
[Scenario Five: You are wearing a red shirt.]
[Scenario Six: You are wearing a black waistcoat.]
[Scenario Seven: You are wearing a pair of black jeans.]
Shan Ziwei tugged at the red shirt that had appeared on his body out of nowhere. It seemed that these Scenario Cards were the game’s skill and equipment system. After combining health, mana and stamina into a single gauge called Mentality Points, they had also combined skills and equipment into one Scenario Card system. How stingy were these game designers? Ten slots meant that if a player wanted more skills, they’d have to reduce their equipment use and if they wanted more equipment, they’d have to sacrifice variety in their skills.
Shan Ziwei could already imagine his future struggle with using and sacrificing Scenario Cards. He grabbed his sword and struck, imagining the evil game development group as his target.
“Crash!”
The sign in front of him fell to pieces on the ground. Shan Ziwei stared at the longsword he had. When he used it, his hands moved seemingly of their own volition, allowing him to strike smoothly. He hadn’t needed to think about it when he acted. It seemed that in this game, if players had a blade, they’d know how to slash, and with a bow, they’d know how to shoot. After all, it was generally normal people who were playing, not professional swordsmen or marksmen.
“Feels pretty good.”
After trying out the normal attack, Shan Ziwei began to test out his skills. In RPG, all skills had an action that would trigger them. For example, when Shan Ziwei used Investigate, he would automatically close one eye to look at his object of interest until the skill ended. To Shan Ziwei, it felt like these actions were basically like the act of skill casting and were equivalent to cast time in traditional MMORPGs. If the action wasn’t fully completed, the skill wouldn’t be unleashed.
Shan Ziwei immediately understood the implications: perhaps one could interrupt an opponent’s skill through interrupting their trigger action.
Shan Ziwei tested out “Investigate” first. It was a continuous skill, so if Shan Ziwei constantly used it, it would remain activated and his MP would decrease with every second of usage. Note, Investigate would only obtain the information of a Scenario Card – for example, “Two of Diamonds – Waistcoat (Black)” – after the card’s physical form was generated.
[Black Waistcoat
Type: Two of Diamonds
Category: Upper-body Equipment
Effect: Each pocket can hold 1 item of up to x5 units.
Description: Don’t think I don’t recognize you with that waistcoat on.]
As for “Heavy Blow”, it was similar to a normal attack. You also swung your weapon to activate it, but it had an additional cool flashing effect. Watching his MP decrease, Shan Ziwei was reminded of the “Duang~Duang~Duang~” description – so, all his MP was spent on the special effects, huh…
Shan Ziwei thought to himself, a bit speechless, before he turned to the last skill – Mirror Image.
Compared to the previous two skills, “Mirror Image” was special. Not only did it have a trigger action, it seemed to also have an “activation requirement” as a limitation.
[Scenario Two: You can use a mirror to create a mirror image.]
Use a mirror? Shan Ziwei looked around and found three small mirrors at the bottom of the chest that originally contained the Scenario Cards. He picked up one and used Mirror Image.
Shan Ziwei’s hand moved on its own to draw an unknown but rather awesome and mysterious-looking symbol on the mirror before throwing the mirror onto the ground.
“Crash!”
The shattered shards of the mirror froze as they bounced off the ground, coming together tightly to form a white-haired young man wearing a black waistcoat and red shirt. He stood in front of Shan Ziwei, still like a reflection. A Summons interface appeared in the bottom left corner of Shan Ziwei’s visual field. It displayed the MP and SP of the mirror image as well as a timer for how long the summons could exist for.
“It really is exactly the same.” Shan Ziwei carefully looked over his mirror image. “What about the stats…”
The MP and SP of the mirror image was half the original. It had no skills and would obey almost any command Shan Ziwei gave. If he told it to run, it would run. If he told it to jump, it would jump. It was really obedient.
Shan Ziwei stared at the face that was no different from his own and took a deep breath.
“It’s time; this is where it all counts.” He ordered the mirror image, “Stretch out your hand.”
The white-haired mirror image stretched out one hand like a big, obedient puppy.
“This game is meant to be for all ages. They wouldn’t be so shameless as to recreate ‘that’… would they?”
RPG was a fully immersive online game that relied on reflecting the nervous system activity of the player onto the game. So, players were basically injecting their Psionic power to create a character in the environment given by the system. If there wasn’t a foundation for a certain action or physiological phenomenon in the system, for example excretion, then while the in-game characters might be able to feel the need to pee (meaning that their body in real life needed to pee), they definitely wouldn’t be able to actually pee in-game.
“Gotta believe in the game developers’ character…”
Shan Ziwei reassured himself over and over, preparing himself for what he was about to do, and placed his hand on the mirror image’s hand.
“Grab onto me tightly.”
Next up, Scenario Six: City of Toys (2)
Thank you for the chapter!!😍☺️
You should know to never trust game developers. Prepare yourself for disappointment
It can turn out real kinky reallly soon ah..
Thanks for the chapter <3
Thanks for the chapter~ ( ^ ♡ ^ )/
Those game developers sound pretty stingy xD
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)
omg🤣🤣 poor guy
The game developers are excentric People, haha.
Thanks for the chapter!
This chapter reflects my gaming life to a t lol 😭