Chapter 73-1: Hidden Quest? (1) |
The Evil Eye’s tentacle pierced into his temple, and Zou Feng’s consciousness gradually became blurred.
During this process, Black Tide energy continuously seeped into his brain, attempting to occupy his sea of consciousness and search for memory information.
But the Evil Eye’s actions unintentionally triggered a taboo of the Challenger System.
The purification system, crafted by Nine Yin, activated at this moment and rapidly cleared the Black Tide energy that had invaded Zou Feng’s mind.
The purification system was one of the four core subsystems of the Challenger System, its importance no less than the data system created by Guide, the summoning system built by Yan Ming, or the extraction system developed by Transdimensional.
The core function of the purification system was to eliminate all negative statuses.
For example, when players die after being afflicted by curse-type abilities, this portion of curse power would be extracted by Transdimensional’s extraction power and, along with the decomposed flesh and blood materials of the player, sent back underground beneath Emperor’s Mound Village for reconstruction.
Without the protection of the purification system, negative statuses would still persist after the player’s resurrection.
The purification system’s role was to filter out negative energy, ensuring that players were reborn in perfect condition after their flesh was reconstituted.
Frequent occurrences of death, despair, fear, and similar emotions could lead to abnormalities in players’ mental states, and excessive psychological stimuli might even cause mental illnesses.
For example, the hatred emotion brought on by the Taunt ability would still linger in memory even after escaping its control.
The purification system could perfectly heal players’ mental trauma, ensuring that every resurrection restored them to an optimal mental state.
The Evil Eye’s attempt to invade the player’s sea of consciousness had already triggered the taboo of the purification system. Once activated, it began to clear out the Black Tide energy that had seeped into Zou Feng’s mind on a large scale. Within a short period, the Black Tide energy was expelled and a purification shield formed within his sea of consciousness, preventing any further intrusion of the corrosive force.
Time trickled by. After several more failed attempts, the Evil Eye suddenly withdrew its power as it realized something was wrong. The Black Tide energy still attempting to infiltrate Zou Feng’s sea of consciousness receded like a tide.
“No, I can’t read his memories. His sea of consciousness is protected by some unknown power and cannot be breached.”
The Evil Eye’s thoughts echoed in the mind of the Dinian Evil Spirit.
The Dinian Evil Spirit, who had been waiting for an answer, frowned slightly upon hearing this. With a wave of his hand, he pulled Zou Feng in front of him, grabbed his neck, and decided to interrogate him personally.
His scorched, menacing eyes stared directly at Zou Feng, and a hoarse voice squeezed out of his throat.
“Next, I will ask you a few questions. Answer truthfully, and I can let you die painlessly.”
Though his consciousness had recovered, Zou Feng’s expression still seemed somewhat dazed upon hearing this.
Under the Dinian Evil Spirit’s coercion, instead of feeling the slightest fear, his mind was preoccupied with why the hidden quest hadn’t been triggered yet. Was it because he hadn’t activated it the right way?
Or perhaps, did it require a conversation to unlock the hidden quest?
With this thought, Zou Feng immediately had an idea. He looked at the Dinian Evil Spirit with dissatisfaction and said.
“Fine, ask your questions, but put me down first. Ask with a better attitude. I’m here to play a game, not to get bullied.”
The Dinian Evil Spirit: “…”
In Zou Feng’s eyes, there was no trace of fear, only a strong sense of dissatisfaction.
The Dinian Evil Spirit loosened his grip on Zou Feng’s neck, and Zou Feng landed firmly on the ground.
After shaking his limbs and stretching his waist, Zou Feng looked up at the Dinian Evil Spirit with a dissatisfied expression.
“Go ahead, hurry up… I really wish I could skip this cutscene and just get the quest. I hate games where you can’t skip the dialogue.”
“What cutscene?” The Dinian Evil Spirit asked in a deep voice, puzzled by Zou Feng’s mumbling.
“None of your business, just ask your questions.”
Suppressing the urge to slap the creature in front of him to death, the Dinian Evil Spirit asked in a deep voice.
“Tell me your origins.”
Faced with the question, Zou Feng fell into deep thought.
How to answer this question would clearly affect the progression of the hidden quest. Directly admitting that he was a player was not an option and might even cause the quest to fail.
He had already seen proof of this before.
On the forum, he had read a post by a player who had obtained the Celestial Rune Combat Technique. It mentioned that there was a taboo preventing the direct disclosure of their player identity.
The post described how, during a conversation with the God of Wealth, the player discovered that certain words he tried to say were filtered, leaving large gaps in what the God of Wealth actually heard.
Many players had discussed this issue on the forum.
The general consensus was that it was a taboo rule set within Dark Land to help players better integrate into their game roles, preventing them from exposing the existence of another world and influencing the judgments of intelligent NPCs within the game.
Therefore, how to answer this question clearly needed to be based on his in-game identity.
With that in mind, Zou Feng answered very sincerely.
“We are warriors who follow the Emperor’s Sign. Our goal is to overthrow the Black Tide’s destruction of this world and defeat the Black Tide to restore light to this world.”
Zou Feng’s chuunibyou-style response left the Dinian Evil Spirit and the Evil Eye floating above momentarily speechless.
Looking at Zou Feng’s sincere face, the Dinian Evil Spirit couldn’t help but ask.
“Do you even know what the Black Tide is?”
“Of course I do. They are the invaders destroying this world.”
“Then do you know how powerful the Black Tide is?”
“I’m not sure, maybe very powerful, but it’s not a big problem. Sooner or later, we’ll defeat them.”
Zou Feng’s answer left the Dinian Evil Spirit completely speechless.
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