Lucky billion players, you've never seen one before / I can accumulate my own luck

Hmm... this should be considered normal.

While gathering information, she asked, "Should we wait until Melissa finishes her verification before taking action, or should we act immediately after gathering all the information?"

"Let's just get started. The things Melissa wants to verify are not the same as what I want to verify, so they won't be of any help to me... or rather, to me in the simulated world."

Fan Xiao said, "Originally, I was planning to trick those two cannibal players into testing the city lord after they came out, but now... with your ability, there's no need for that. You should have told me sooner."

"..." Sakura said speechlessly, "This is my secret."

“I’m your boss now, or you can call me boss,” Fan Xiao said with a smile. “The more I understand your abilities, the easier it is to arrange things. There’s really nothing to hide from me.”

"Hmph. That sounds nice! Why don't you tell me your secret first?" Sakura sneered.

“You didn’t ask,” Fan Xiao shrugged. “Do I have to tell everyone that I have three kinds of spiritual energy and two A-grade items? I’m not that much of a show-off.”

"..."

Sakura deliberately ignored Fan Xiao's boastful performance and looked surprised, saying, "Three kinds of psionic energy? This... are you serious?"

While two A-grade items are also frightening, their impact is clearly not as great as a player possessing three psionic powers.

Is psionic energy such a common thing?

Since they're so common, why not get her one?

"You call yourself a player from Division 001? How can you be so ignorant?"

Fan Xiao said, "Some players can naturally awaken their psionic abilities. In addition, talents can also be upgraded into psionic abilities."

"There are also dungeons where you can get an S-rank rating, which also reward you with psionic energy."

"The game provides enough channels for high-end players to acquire psionic energy. As long as you are smart and capable enough, those lucky ones will eventually be no match for you."

cherry:"……"

She knew Fan Xiao was a pervert, but she never expected him to be this outrageous!

He possesses three types of psionic powers, and their levels seem to be quite high, with one even being A... At the same level, talents can outperform items, while psionic powers are more comprehensive than talents.

No wonder he's so strong!

In the entire G08 node, you probably can't find a player with three different psionic powers... at least she's never seen one.

Apart from this company... apart from my own boss.

Two hours passed quickly during our casual conversation.

The night grew even deeper.

The empty square had a somewhat eerie atmosphere.

Sakura wiped the sweat from her temples and reminded Fan Xiao, "It's all collected. This place... is extremely dangerous!"

"Yes, I can tell from your physical reaction and the time it took."

Fan Xiao nodded: "Hopefully we can finish collecting them tonight. I reckon there's no way to obtain the Ring of Love in this instance using any other means."

"For example, the kind of tactics I told you about before, the tricks of school bullies. Of course, this needs to be verified, so let's verify it in your 'simulated world'."

"why not?"

Ying recalled what Fan Xiao had said before and murmured, "The fact that petty thugs can have a lot of girlfriends... from your analysis, I think it's quite reasonable."

"Don't treat this instance world as the normal world," Fan Xiao said. "Remember Professor Chen's theory; in this instance, only extreme phenomena are likely to occur."

"Ok."

Sakura drank a bottle of mental recovery potion, adjusted her condition, and then said, "Let's go."

……

City of True Love, a cemetery on the outskirts of the western district.

Under Fan Xiao's gaze, a beautiful young woman with excellent looks and temperament jumped out from behind a tombstone, crawled quickly towards him on all fours... She was naturally not a female ghost, but a flesh-and-blood creature that he had released earlier to gather intelligence.

After the beautiful woman approached Fan Xiao, she leaped up, her figure shrinking continuously until she merged into the "blood armor" on Fan Xiao's shoulder.

Sakura's eye twitched when she saw this: "Could you... please not create human-shaped creatures, especially beautiful girls, that move in this way?"

It looks so abstract!

so weird!

Does her boss perhaps have some peculiar hobby?

"Don't look at me like that."

Fan Xiao explained, "The reason for transforming her appearance into that of a beautiful young girl was to test the inhabitants of this instance."

"The residents here don't particularly like the flesh and blood creatures I created in the shape of beautiful young girls. They look at the flesh and blood creatures as if they were looking at ordinary-looking passersby."

"It seems that any humanoid creature cannot escape the interference of the dungeon rules. I estimate that the appearance of the flesh and blood creatures is also at level 3, just like us."

"Didn't you change the cognition of flesh-and-blood creatures to make their thought patterns lean towards Professor Chen's theories?"

Sakura asked... or rather suggested.

"It's been modified, but it didn't work," Fan Xiao guessed. "The rules of this instance probably only recognize the cognition of beings with spiritual beings. It's a bit of a pity."

“Many players possess shapeshifting creature-type items,” Sakura said. “It’s probably to prevent players from cheating using this method.”

"maybe."

Fan Xiao was a little disappointed.

Without this restriction, I feel like I could use a lot of fancy tricks to get through the game.

For example... they are all just the master's tasks.

Even without resorting to any underhanded tactics, one could easily make a fortune simply by selling dolls... Well, he definitely wouldn't do something like that!

Although he was capable of doing this business, and confident that he could do it better than anyone else, that's not how he used his psychic powers!

This would cause him great unease.

At this moment, Sakura walked forward and began to examine the nearby tombstones.

After looking at more than a dozen pieces, she said, "The time of death really is at least 50 years ago! What exactly is the state of this city?"

At this moment, a night had passed since she and Fan Xiao left the central area of ​​the City of True Love.

It's nine in the morning now—her talent's advanced ability is indeed powerful, allowing her to predict the future, but in a small world like a dungeon, where everything is governed by different rules, the time required to gather information about the world is incomparable to that of the outside world.

Although she can accelerate this process by consuming mental energy, insufficient mental energy in the later stages will undoubtedly shorten the time for predicting the future, making it a losing proposition.

Therefore, she did not choose to do that.

After a night of exploration, she and Fan Xiao had covered every area of ​​the City of True Love and had roughly estimated the population size—almost unchanged compared to data from 50 years ago.

The error is at most around one thousand people.

The residents of this city have indeed lived for at least 50 years, but they don't have such long lifespan memories...

"Do the people here suffer from intermittent amnesia?" Sakura murmured. "And then everything starts from scratch? How is history recorded then?"

“History should originate from beings who don’t lose their memory, like the city lord or Professor Chen,” Fan Xiao said. “Whether they have lost their memory or not is still hard to say. It might be a reboot of a game, like what’s happening here is a series of endlessly repeating cycles.”

"Is that so... Never mind, let's investigate this later." Sakura said, "I've gathered all the information, may we begin?"

"Wait a moment," Fan Xiao said. "I didn't expect it to take so long, it's already the next day... Oh, I don't mean to blame you for being slow. Anyway, I need to verify something first."

He took out a few game tokens and asked, "What's this?"

"A few scraps of paper," Sakura asked, puzzled. "What's wrong?"

“It really is just a few scraps of paper,” Fan Xiao murmured, “but why would I put a few scraps of paper in my chest pocket? I even deliberately left one end of the scraps sticking out…”

"Fan Xiao is so stupid. This is just a small amount of money."

suddenly!

Fan Qiqi's voice rang in Fan Xiao's ears.

Fan Xiao's pupils contracted, and he turned his head to look at the little angel who had appeared out of nowhere, asking, "Little Qianqian... you said this is game currency?"

"Who are you talking to?"

Sakura looked puzzled and subconsciously glanced around.

Damn it... She felt a chill run down her spine and instinctively wanted to activate her talent to predict the future five seconds from now.

"Sakura, don't speak yet."

After giving a casual reply, Fan Xiao continued looking at the little angel and asked, "Is this game currency?"

“Yes, duck,” the little angel replied, “Fan Xiao has been infected, you weakling.”

"..."

Fan Xiao's expression darkened slightly.

Cognitive intervention!

So that's where they were saving their ultimate move!

After one night, his perception was changed in one way... No, was it really only one way?

"This godforsaken place... such a crisis, and it arrived so silently! Luckily I was careful yesterday and put some game coins in my pocket, otherwise..."

Fan Xiao felt a long-lost sense of urgency.

This dungeon looks peaceful, but it's actually incredibly dangerous!

If they spend a few more nights here... they will most likely be assimilated into this place.

The city's population has increased by about a thousand people compared to fifty years ago... These thousand people are likely players who have come to run dungeons, ranging from E-rank to B-rank.

"I have pages from the Book of Curses stuck to my body, but they haven't reacted at all... Isn't that a fatal wound?"

"Or is it that attacks I wasn't aware of won't be imprinted on the pages?"

Fan Xiao began to ponder.

The Book of Curses is an active A-rank item.

When transferring the injury onto the pages of the book, he needs to consciously take the lead in completing the process.

If you can't detect it, you can't defend against it... I never expected such a flaw to exist.

"Go back first."

Fan Xiao gave an instruction to the little angel, then looked at Ying.

Seeing this, Sakura asked, "What were you talking to just now...?"

“It’s a secret,” Fan Xiao said. “Our understanding has been altered. As for how many things have been altered, it’s not clear yet. For example, these pieces of paper in my hand are actually game tokens.”

"What……!?"

Sakura's brows furrowed immediately.

Fan Xiao wouldn't joke with her at this critical juncture.

Their perceptions were changed without them even realizing it...

"assimilation!"

Sakura's face darkened as she said, "We're being assimilated! If this continues, it's very dangerous!"

"let's start."

Fan Xiao said, "We can't stay in this instance for too long. After the simulation is completed, we'll try to clear the instance today."

As he spoke, he took out a mirror and looked at his forehead—the number on it was 4.

His appearance has improved... Hmm, he remembers yesterday's number was 3.

"It really has changed..."

"Appearance score?" Sakura asked.

Yes, it increased by 1.

Fan Xiao said, "This proves that our understanding is moving closer to Professor Chen's theory, and our appearance is returning to its original level."

“This…” Ying frowned and said, “We need to increase our appearance stat to complete the dungeon mission. But increasing appearance will lead to accelerated assimilation… This seems like a dead end?”

After a pause, she guessed, "Could the Ring of Love be the key to breaking this deadlock?"