Chapter 15: Chapter 15: New Game Acquired!

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation  Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

After a moment of excitement, Ren Suo calmed himself down and got a grip on his emotions..

Mo Zhaolong’s incident served as a warning to him.

The hypnotic ability that Mo Zhaolong possessed must have been acquired using unconventional ways. Ren Suo previously thought that Mo Zhaolong had learned some high-level skills, but he now had a different idea since he had already retrieved the [1-star Sleepy Key] from him.

At this juncture, Ren Suo figured that he should be perceiving the situation differently from typical reality and let go of his stereotypical views of the world that a model student would have. That was, with the delusional mindset of a chuunibyou—in other words, have immature and unrealistic fantasies about the world.

Our world, our mother Earth, was no longer an innocent lady dressed in her blue-and-white-striped cloak.

Instead, with the Mini Worlds Gaming Console and Mo Zhaolong’s otherworldly ability, inexplicable and absurd events were happening all over the world.

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Furthermore, the highly-skilled man in the black vest, who Ren Suo felt a mystifying and unfathomable attraction towards, was likely to be a person with a ‘special talent’.

At this moment, Ren Suo took out his mobile phone to see if there were any special news reports recently.

All the reports were regarding superstars having affairs and committing adultery, the President being displeased with the idea of feminism, a nuptial tradition of pranking the bridesmaid in a village wedding…There were no atypical news articles or anything out of the ordinary.

Ren Suo then headed to the forum site which he frequently contributed to, only to discover that there were no news articles or reports that were beyond his imagination.

“Could Mo Zhaolong’s incident have really been an exceptionally rare event?” Ren Suo could not help but think that he must be suffering from the “eighth-grader syndrome”. At this very moment, he noticed that the forum page had refreshed itself and a new thread appeared:

[Does the *Heavenly Hitman* really exist?]

“Oh?” Ren Suo clicked in out of curiosity. However, at the next second, a system message appeared: “The thread you were looking for does not exist.”

Ren Suo paused for a moment and realized that all information on the internet was subjected to regulations.

Terms and keywords such as “Heavenly Hitman” and “Lamperouge” had been banned from discussion.

With the appearance of the controversial video [The Hitman – the Bloody Ball], the entire world now knew that there was an organization named the “Heavenly Realm” in the East. They believed any hitman in this organization to be an extraordinary gunman who could fight one to a hundred other opponents.

Although the country was not able to stop the spread of the video, they were able to ban people from discussing the incident on mass media, in hopes of calming the waves arising from the incident.

Without mass media platforms like Weibo, news sites, and forums, the talks about the incident would not have been able to proliferate, and the entire incident would have been forgotten quickly. Other hot topics in the news would have caught the attention of the masses.

Ren Suo tried performing searches on international search engines using Romanized keywords like ‘xiangongshashou’. However, just as he expected, no such articles could be found.

All sites from large nations had begun censoring articles related to the Hitman; it was not just Xuan Nation alone. Since they had the ability to regulate information related to the ‘Hitman from the Heavens’, they naturally had the power to control and regulate the dissemination of other ‘special information’ revolving the incident.

‘Talents’ like Mo Zhaolong must still be a ‘rarity’, and there should be few of such people in the world, for there had yet to be any surges in the discussions about him. This also proved that peculiar events were happening around the world, which had urged countries around the globe to come together to control the release of information related to the incident.

Previously, Ren Suo had resigned to fate and felt that he would just be a mere chess piece in the game of life, an insignificant soul going along with the flow of nature.

However, he now knew that he had to take a shot at breaking out of this fate.

There was no grand nor honorable reason why Ren Suo felt inclined to do so. He just hoped that in the future, he and his family would have a safe environment to live in despite all the tumultuous seas and calamities which had happened around the world. To achieve this, he needed to be unique, to be ‘irreplaceable’. He had been a typical, lazy, nothing out-of-the-ordinary human, and he stood absolutely no chance at being a leader. Moreover, he was even afraid of death.

Now, with his Mini Worlds Gaming Console, he would be able to earn the title of being ‘irreplaceable’ to the country, to the society, and to the people. Consequently, he would receive the blessing and protection of everyone, regardless of what was to come in the future!

Ren Suo navigated to the World Shop and found that the [Free Game-of-the-Month] column was greyed out. When he tried to enter, a message appeared: [You have finished the Free Game-of-the-Month. Please wait patiently for next month’s Free Game-of-the-Month.]

10 merits were still required to conduct a single [Search] for a key. Ren Suo had 14 merits left after using one merit to retrieve the 1-star Sleeping Key.

Although Ren Suo did not know how valuable merits were, he did not want to risk spending all his merits searching for keys. After all, he had not found out where or how he could credit more merits in the game. The [Search] page no longer showed the prompt “You fool, you are too poor to perform a search”. Instead, the prompt read “Enter the special rewards that you wish to obtain.” Ren Suo was bewildered.

Perhaps due to the fact that Ren Suo now had merits, there was also a new column in the World Shop which read: [April Fools’ Discounted Items!]

April Fools’? Ren Suo was stunned for a moment. He realized it would be April 1 in two days.

[April Fools’ discounted items: Between 28 March ~ 31 March, and between 2 April ~ 3 April, the following games can be bought at a 50% discounted price.]

Why is there no offer on April Fools’ Day itself…?

As Ren Suo had expected, all the games on the list had to be bought with merits.

Although Ren Suo was not wealthy, he now had an unquenchable and insatiable desire to buy more merits with his money, for he realized that he could not even afford any of the discounted games.

[The Lurking] 50% OFF, 40 merits; [Soul Ferry] 50% OFF, 45 merits; [The Fiery Supernatural] 50% OFF, 150 merits…

“But I only have 14 merits!” Ren Suo was perplexed. He did not see “The Hitman” in the list, but he knew he would not have been able to afford it either. “Isn’t there something similar to a beginner’s welcome gift?”

Even if he had money and could top-up his merits, he would not have been able to buy some of the games anyway. For example, [The Fiery Supernatural] was only available to level 4 players and was greyed out and inaccessible to Ren Suo.

Ren Suo realized that these games either required players to be level 1 or level 4; levels 2 and 3 seemed to be merely a transitioning phase, whereas level 4 was the peak.

Ren Suo still had no idea if there were any games that required players to have an even higher level than level 4. Even so, he realized that there were hundreds of discounted games as he scrolled quickly through the list. He also found out that there was absolutely no information about any of the games online. Thus there was no way Ren Suo could search online for gameplay strategies and walkthroughs.

Ren Suo then discovered an available option at the top of the list: [Show only games I can afford]. He immediately selected that option.

The long list instantly disappeared, leaving only one option.

[A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters], 50% OFF, 8 merits.

…The name sounded tacky and inelegant, even more so than [The Hitman].

However, this was the only game that Ren Suo could afford. If he did not buy this, he could only wait for the free game that would be released next week. Only after clearing those games, could he then earn more merits to buy other games.

When Ren Suo read the game description however, he found a major highlight:

[This game increases one’s intellectual ability. The player’s avatar will be transformed into a seeker striving to climb the highest mountains, encountering countless extreme weather conditions in the process. Your body is the only one you can rely on! The highest reward for clearing this game is 40 merits. You will receive a special reward “Enhanced Physique”. In-game purchases are available. There is only 1 chapter and no expansion packs. Game difficulty: 1 star.]

A whooping 40 merits!

Ren Suo’s eyes gleamed in fascination and shock. Spending 8 merits to gain 40 merits, that would be a 400% profit!

He did not even bother considering if he would be at a loss.

It is just a 1-star difficulty game, how hard would it be for me to get a perfect score?! How could I not clear this intellectual game?!

“I’m a hardcore gamer!”