Chapter 714: Chapter 239: Destiny Weaving Machine
New Mechanic City, Old Town District, a former human settlement, Kowloon Walled City.
The selection of any Mechanical City site requires a large amount of ’artificial data.’
And these previous settlement ’artificial data’ are natural Old Town Districts.
Old Town District, Old District, Walled City, Underground Area, each has its own name, but in essence, there’s no difference.
Nighttime
Baozi went online alone, picked up a pre-prepared surgical case, slipped from the New District to the Walled City, and then wandered into an alley, twisting and turning, entering an underground marketplace.
They sell everything here: weapons, live people, unregistered network devices, prosthetic bodies damaged by the virus.
In short, there’s everything.
This is also the place where it’s easiest to get negative buffs, according to players’ conclusions, visit the underground world once, and you’ll at least get +3 debuffs.
So even players rarely come here.
Of course, another big reason is that without the reputation of certain special underground forces, you can’t buy the really good stuff.
This place is a huge scam.
"Building 11."
Baozi stepped into an old building about to be dismantled, entered the shaky elevator, and like a mischievous kid, pressed a series of floor numbers.
’4, 5, 7, 2, 1, 8, 9, that’s about right.’
The elevator started to shakily descend.
Baozi let go of the button, then decisively turned on all the functions of the ’Human Brain Firewall.’
The elevator creaked to a stop, but the doors didn’t open.
Baozi gritted his teeth, placing his hand on his waist, where he had spent a fortune on an electromagnetic pistol, not only easy to carry but with a damage of up to 9000.
But it charges slowly, three shots at a time, yet takes 10 hours to charge.
"Who’s there?" A mechanical electronic voice sounded.
"A friend of the Raven and the Owl."
"You can only choose one."
"I choose the one with wings."
The elevator creaked open to a small, unlit room.
"Was the one speaking just now an artificial intelligence?"
"No, it’s a tamed electronic virus. If you say the wrong thing, it will invade you."
As the voice of ’Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella’ sounded, Baozi finally breathed a sigh of relief, complaining:
"Brother Umbrella, can we not do this trickery? Someone who didn’t know might think I came ghost hunting at night."
"Sorry, my current state is a bit special. I can only come here in the form of taking a task, and this is a hitman spot of the Assassination Alliance. Other than here, I can’t go anywhere else."
In the darkness, a figure sits at the table, the voice a bit hoarse.
"Hell, Brother Umbrella, don’t tell me you’ve also got ’Player Soul Loss Syndrome’. Did the Assassin Organization install it on you? Delete it immediately!"
Baozi was startled; if Brother Umbrella got brainwashed, an ordinary person really couldn’t handle it.
After all, this guy is in the first echelon, already close to level 40. If he loses it, who can control it?
"Pretty much, maybe a bit more complicated."
Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella said.
"What do you mean, Brother Umbrella, you seem quite normal."
"Turn on the light and see, and remember to turn it off again."
"Huh?"
With the light from outside the window, Baozi found the light switch, clicked it, and the light illuminated the entire small shabby room.
"Nothing wrong, huh? Brother Umbrella, where are you?"
Baozi looked around, the small room was empty, not a single person.
"You’re not playing hide and seek with me, right? Big brother, I know your assassin hidden skills are powerful. Come on out, you’re not a bat."
Baozi looked around, even checked under the bed, but couldn’t find him.
He suddenly remembered, Brother Umbrella seemed to say, ’turn it off again.’
Baozi blinked, choosing to turn off the light.
In the dark environment, the voice and silhouette of Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella appeared again.
In the darkness, sat a figure.
"Hell, a ghost!!"
"Now do you understand?"
"Brother Umbrella, your state," Baozi wiped his sweat, "How did you manage it?"
Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella didn’t hide, briefly explaining the current situation.
It was still the previous task of collecting the ’Nine Assassination Swords.’
This is a task chain.
After completing the task chain, he triggered an alliance hidden task and received an advanced alliance task called ’Inheritance of the King of Assassins.’
Completing this task would grant a hidden profession ’King of Assassins.’
After much effort, Brother Umbrella finally completed it.
Then he went to the headquarters of the Assassination Alliance to accept the modification of destiny by the ’Destiny Weaving Machine.’
According to the task hints, the ’Destiny Weaving Machine’ will delete a name, and from then on, you will fade away in the radiance, and be born in the dark night.
"Simply put, it’s negative buffs during the day, positive buffs at night."
Baozi summarized.
"That’s right."
But as more assassin tasks were completed, the gifts from the ’Destiny Weaving Machine’ increased.
Gradually, the situation became sketchy.
At first, outside of tasks, it was impossible to communicate with people.
Later, it was impossible to log in during the day, only at night.
Then, even at night, only assassin tasks could be completed, other tasks weren’t possible.
In the end, besides taking assassination tasks, he could only operate in a few fixed assassin spots.
Thus, it became the current state.
"Wait, Brother Umbrella, how long has this status of yours been going on?" Baozi interrupted, sensing something was off.
"Almost three months now."
"..."
You’ve got some nerve, playing single-player games like this!
"Why didn’t you say something sooner!"
"Because the experience points are high, I’m about to hit my fourth transformation."
Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella said honestly, he was just craving those experience points.
"..."
Is this how high-end players think? It’s really perplexing.
"What negative states are there on your system panel?"
"Two states, one is ’Destiny Weaving,’ and the other is ’Destruction Aura Infection.’
"What are the specific attributes?"
"I can’t tell."
Baozi scratched his head, Brother Umbrella’s current state sounded quite mysterious, he felt that as an amateur he probably couldn’t handle it.
"You can’t turn on the lights, right? Fine, I’ll give you a full body check-up in the dark. Come, take off your clothes first."
"..." Rainy Night with an Umbrella and No Knife.
"What are you afraid of? Didn’t you bring an umbrella?"
The two of them were muttering, completely unaware that outside the window, a figure was quietly watching them.
The next day
"This is odd, the detection instruments didn’t find any problems. Could it be that my level isn’t high enough, or did I dream it all last night?"
After completing Brother Umbrella’s checkup, Baozi rushed back to his prosthetic body shop in the early dawn, pulled out the second-hand detection equipment he had bought at a high price, and started various inspections.
Hair, blood, even a small piece of skin, and a section of a transformable prosthetic ’assassin’s nail.’
Nothing was detected.
Whether it was an electronic virus infection, prosthetic rejection syndrome, or even the foul disease, nothing came up.
"Interesting, really interesting."
Baozi muttered to himself.
What really intrigued him wasn’t just Brother Umbrella’s current state.
According to what he had learned, the upcoming planet plot would be a grand integration of virtual and reality.
All sorts of strange things would appear.
Brother Umbrella’s current state, though ’neither human nor ghost,’ was relatively normal compared to those brainwashed players.
What intrigued him more was a breaking of ’common sense.’
That is, according to past common sense, no matter what kind of ’physical symptoms’,’ dying once would solve the problem.
Certain lending organizations went bankrupt because players exploited this.
But last night, Brother Umbrella told him something shocking.
He had deliberately killed himself once to escape the state.
However, it was useless.
In other words, this state is a ’permanent status.’
"This game is getting more pitiful, being unable to resolve it even after dying a level, too abnormal!"
Baozi rubbed his head, preparing to contact some old acquaintances to see if they had any solutions.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Boss, it’s a guest from the Research Association."
Baozi’s eyes lit up, "Please, by all means, invite them in."
A middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie entered, smiling, "Hello, I’m a representative of the Research Association. I’m here because of the significant contributions you’ve made to the association. We’ve decided to grant you access to a higher level of purchase privileges, and there’s also a new task we’d like to assign to you."
’Hidden mission!’
Baozi’s eyes glistened.
...
An hour later—
"Chairman, it’s all taken care of," the middle-aged man said respectfully.
"Mm, you may go," Gao Gong said without turning his head from the floor-to-ceiling window.
"I never expected to encounter such a thing!"
In fact, he had noticed ’Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella’ as soon as he entered New Mechanical City.
The sensing between Destruction Forms is very keen.
Though the other party couldn’t really be considered a Destruction Form, at most an ’infected with Destruction Aura.’
This is why Gao Gong could sense the other, but the other couldn’t sense him.
More intriguingly, the infected person was a player.
Moreover, through the conversation between ’I Love Eating Buns’ and ’Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella,’ Gao Gong realized that the infection of Destruction Forms could ignore players’ Calamity Attributes to some extent.
"Such a scenario was never encountered in the past life."
Of course, he had never obtained a ’Cosmic Relic’ in that life either.
"So, is the mastermind behind the Assassination Alliance also a Destruction Form?"
Out of thirteen Destruction Forms, Gao Gong had dealings with all but three.
Number One, Number Four, and Number Six.
Number One was already confirmed to be associated with Mother City Deep Net.
"So is the ’Destiny Weaving Machine’ Number Four or Number Six?"
The sensing between Destruction Forms is mutual.
Gao Gong doesn’t intend to rush into the headquarters of the Assassination Alliance from the start.
Therefore, it’s quite necessary to let the players test the waters first.
"This game is getting more and more interesting."
If Destruction Aura can infect players, does it mean that at the level of Cosmic Relics, one can find a way to completely deal with players?
