Chapter 215

Chapter 215: Chapter 212: "Sleep Well, Don’t Stay Up LateSu Ming’an did not look back, directly targeting the spatial vibrations behind him.

The air seemed to be stirred by a giant hand in an instant, and as he quickly turned around while holding onto the vanishing point, he saw a smudge of pitch black condensed in the air.

It was an indistinct black object resembling dark seaweed, still emanating twisted black lines around it even while being controlled. Under the spatial vibration that Su Ming’an unleashed with five hundred mana points, the blackness burst like a balloon and disappeared.

In the upper left corner of his field of vision, the orange bar that had dropped to 70 began to fluctuate slightly, like boiling water, undulating up and down, unsettled.

Su Ming’an felt as if his field of vision had darkened a bit, like some saturation had been sucked out of it, and the dark corners around him were expanding.

He ignored this rationality value and instead looked at the clue notification.

He at least knew that the time was night.

One in the morning.

And these monsters that had broken in...

He looked toward the door that had been pushed open, outside was pitch darkness.

It was not the kind of darkness where things are unclear, but pure blackness, as if there was nothing outside, stepping out would trigger a death judgment, it was as if someone had erased a section of it.

And as he watched that area, it seemed that silent blackness was spreading in through the edge of the door, but it stopped at the door frame, as if prevented from coming in.

He moved slightly, and the floorboards underneath him made a grating "squeak".

The sound traveled far and wide.

He seemed to understand what had attracted these creatures.

If his guess was right, this was supposed to be a temporary safe starting area for players to buffer. However, as soon as the player got off the bed and stepped on the floor, making noise, it would attract those strange-shaped entities and start the official instance.

If he had thought a little more when he saw the blood writing on the thigh, and did not touch the floor, or if he had a skill like levitation that did not make noise, the monsters would not have been attracted.

...But it didn’t matter either way.

The attracted monsters had a combat power roughly in the range of 200 to 400, so his five hundred mana points were overly sufficient, eliminating them with ease.

For a new player just entering the instance, such a mistake might be fatal. But for him, some things didn’t need to be that cautious anymore, they could be brute-forced with high combat power.

He was currently the player with the highest combat power, and if he fell to the minor monsters at the very start of the instance, the difficulty would be too great.

With this in mind, he opened the combat power leaderboard.

He had been traveling before and hadn’t checked, but now he had the time to see the changes in the rankings.

The azure system interface unfolded before his eyes, and he glanced at it, noticing several unfamiliar names.

1. Su Ming’an (Combat Power: 1700) (Number One Player) (Perfect Pass*4)/Occupation: White Examiner

2. Noel Agnini (Combat Power: 1350) (Perfect Pass*3)/Occupation: Puppet Master

3. Edward (Combat Power: 1550) (Perfect Pass*4)/Occupation: Time Stopper

4. Atlanda (Combat Power: 1450) (Perfect Pass*2)/Occupation: Prophet

5. Mizushima Kawa Sora (Combat Power: 1200) (Perfect Pass*4)/Occupation: Illusionist

6. Aiden (Combat Power: 1150) (Perfect Pass*3)/Occupation: High Rank Dark Priest

7. Alger (Combat Power: 1050) (Perfect Pass*2) / Occupation: Crazy Sword

8. Lv Shu (Combat Power: 1100) (Perfect Pass*1) / Occupation: Beast Tamer

9. Bei Wang (Combat Power: 1000) (Perfect Pass*4) / Occupation: Frost Mage

10. Lin Jiang (Combat Power: 1100) (Perfect Pass*2) / Occupation: Doll Master

The top three were as always; Edward’s combat power had also risen quickly, but right behind him, surprisingly, was an Aylan who had never been seen before.

This ninth-ranked Bei Wang was also unknown. Su Ming’an had briefly checked the top hundred players in the world before and had not seen this Bei Wang.

This was a player who had managed to Perfect Pass all instances but fell outside of the top hundred...and their combat power wasn’t particularly high, which looked very odd—could it be they completed everything with intelligence and were particularly bad at combat?

Who knows what they had been through?

As for Lv Shu, he had directly fallen to eighth... probably because he slacked off too severely in the Fifth World, staying aloof the entire time, so he hadn’t received any favorable evaluations.

He closed the player rankings interface.

His gaze would never be limited to this trivial leaderboard; he ought to notice things beyond humanity.

As he had already reached the highest rank internally, he needed to find mechanisms more important than these.

His gaze lingered in the darkness outside the door for a moment before he stepped forward.

As he passed the door, he saw a notice attached to the other side of it.

The warning was clearly written on the door.

In theory, as long as the players had some sense, they wouldn’t exit during this timeframe, given the double alert from the black hole-like outside world and the warning notice.

Su Ming’an touched the notice to ensure nothing was hidden underneath it, then lifted his gaze and took a step outside.

The floorboards creaked sharply, shockingly loud in the nearly dead silence of the darkness.

He stepped from light into darkness and saw the gradually returning sight at the center of his vision.

Outside was a long corridor.

There was not a single light; he stood at the brightest spot, looking down the dark corridor that seemed to have no end.

He walked into it.

Suddenly, the light behind him began to be squeezed out, his shadow underneath fading bit by bit. He didn’t look back, continuing non-stop toward the end of the corridor, letting the door close behind him on its own.

"Bang—!"

A loud noise erupted; the wooden door, which had been silent upon opening, now closed with a thunderous vibration. Su Ming’an felt as if something in the surrounding darkness was watching him, he blinked, noticing movement at the edge of his sight where the dark corners lay.

"Swish, swish..."

He heard a subtle sound, like peeling wall plaster or something exceedingly light approaching rapidly with footsteps.

He did not consider staying in the safety of his room and sending his clone to scout ahead.

To repair a dead clone cost five Occupation Points, and rather than waste those five points, he preferred to scout himself. His own life had almost no cost; dying meant just starting over.

Five professional points were obviously more precious than his own life.

He moved quickly, walking along the corridor.

The creaking sounds beneath his feet became more and more piercing, as if every step were trampling on someone’s body. Since he couldn’t see, his hand slid forward along the left wall, touching the dusty surface and a series of wooden doors.

Behind these doors likely were other players; their rooms should be similar to his, all located along this corridor. However, compared to him, perhaps the other players had not yet chosen to act, which is why their doors remained closed.

No one dared to make a sound.

...not to mention taking the risk of stepping out as he did.

As players gradually got familiar with the instance’s quirks, they understood that such reckless behavior, despite the warnings, would definitely bring nothing but harm to themselves.

Yet Su Ming’an did it anyway.

Because he had room for error.

He pressed on swiftly against the wall, without a glimpse of vision before him.

It was like walking with closed eyes on a street at night, completely unaware of what lay ahead, not knowing whether there would be cars, intersections, sudden lawns, or ditches... Blindly walking forward, with only one hand feeling the wall.

The live stream viewers were dumbfounded by this scene:

He walked over the creaking floorboards when suddenly he heard a series of subtle sounds.

His high amount of mentality points allowed him to quickly lock onto the direction, not caring about what was coming, he extended his hand, infusing 400 mana points, and cast Spatial Vibration directly towards that direction.

"Boom—"

The fluctuation burst forth instantly.

...Student No. 23?

Su Ming’an groped towards that direction, his foot hitting something heavy. He crouched down, reached out, and felt a human body.

The fabric felt the same as what he was wearing, which suggested the person was another player like him.

Yet the system notification indicated it was an NPC.

He suddenly touched something soft, the system notification sounded, and a translucent, lightless panel appeared before him:

Su Ming’an dragged the toy bear into his props slot and then stood up.

During this journey, he also noticed some protrusions along the way—cabinets. There were actually a few cabinets placed in the corridor, which were empty; it was unclear what they were for.

He continued along the original path, when suddenly, his field of vision brightened slightly.

...It wasn’t that something had happened, but rather there seemed to be a light source in the distance.

It flickered unsteadily below, like a distant candle that could go out at any moment.

The light source was below.

Looking down, Su Ming’an realized there seemed to be stairs beneath him; the corridor was not just a single passage, there seemed to be other places to go. He could even go up and down floors.

But as soon as he noticed that glimmer of light, he felt it was getting brighter...

No, that wasn’t right.

It wasn’t getting brighter.

The light was getting closer to him.

He stood still and quickly stabbed an eye into the ground.

The eye spun around once and then became invisible.

This was a Surveillance Eye fitted with a Prophetic Gemstone, which could assist with his future actions. In the instant the eye was planted, a blood-red cursor flashed out, bright red and dazzling, shooting down like mad, firmly pointing in the direction of the light source below.

In the warnings of the Surveillance Eye, red signified danger and green signified safety and opportunity.

The brighter the color, the more severe the indication.

And now, this almost burning red was telling him—the area below was exceedingly dangerous, especially that particular spot of light.

The assessment of danger was based on his own strength; if even his current strength was used as a measure, and the result was that the entity was extraordinarily dangerous...

He looked down.

Whatever was holding the light, something extremely dangerous, was steadily approaching in this direction, as though it had pinpointed where he was.

And just as he stepped back, producing a grating "screech" from beneath his feet, the light suddenly enlarged in front of him as if a candle flame had swiftly inflated.

—The entity was closing in fast!

It had found him.

Su Ming’an hesitated for a moment, then immediately turned around.

At the same time, a fresh green light also lit up on the Surveillance Eye, firmly indicating another direction.

That was the path to survival, or an opportunity.

He quickly ran towards the direction the green arrow pointed, seeing a cabinet at the edge of the corridor.

...A cabinet?

In the mechanics of many horror games, cabinets represent a safe place. As long as players don’t enter a cabinet directly in front of a ghost, they can hide inside and not be detected. Once the ghost leaves, players can come out of the cabinet and continue the exploration.

Perhaps here it was the same. The cabinet represented an absolute safe point.

No wonder... empty cabinets that looked a bit out of place appeared in the empty corridor.

Suddenly, Su Ming’an felt a sense of déjà vu as if he were playing a horror game.

He quickly stepped forward, pulled open the cabinet door, and was about to hide inside—

As he stepped in, he felt his foot land on something soft rather than the hard bottom of the cabinet.

"Damn it."

He heard someone curse in Chinese.

There was someone inside.

... What, do we have to queue up to hide in cabinets in the middle of the night?