Midnight, in a darkened bedroom, Li Cheng sat in front of his computer desk, his face half-illuminated by the screen.
After gaining the Summoner status, the player forum, which was originally filled with vast blanks, sprouted new content in his view, including registration options.
Due to the sensitive nature of the Summoner identity, no mobile verification was needed for registering an account; just typing in an account name and password sufficed.
Li Cheng scrolled through the forum with his mouse wheel, perusing intently.
Like many anonymous forums, the player forum did not feature signature files, avatars, personal space, or even fixed personal IDs.
Every 24 hours, the forum server assigns a new ID—usually consisting of 14 alphanumeric characters—to each new user for the day.
IDs in older posts remain fixed.
This setup protects each user.
Others cannot use old posts to pinpoint or track a specific user over time.
The forum contained numerous sections, large and small, including player strategies, hot product recommendations, miscellaneous talks, and black market exchanges.
Smaller sections included subculture, emotional life, music and book recommendations, and gaming-related topics.
Professional gamers teach you how to safely get through the newbie phase]
[Newbie help needed, European Heavy Industry, Prometheus, FBI—three guilds offered me deals at the same time, which one should I choose?]
[Killing field dangerous area coordinates overview, includes common experimental species and security guard movements]
[For sale: “Mountain Village Corpse” Chu Renmei’s bathwater, five bottles…
Drink it and you’ll see ghosts, I tried it, it’s real.
Limited quantity, order fast, free shipping, 300 Game Coins, price negotiable] This text is hosted at novel•fire.net
[Found strange stockings in my husband’s car, wanted to catch him cheating at a hotel, but found out at the hotel that he became a newbie player three months ago and chose the Magic Girl power system, now I’m so confused and tired and numb]
Li Cheng browsed through, gaining quite a bit of knowledge and insights but also scrolling past lots of insignificant filler posts.
Particularly that one about the husband turning into a Magic Girl—the plot was dramatic and blatant, reading till the end only to find out it was a damn ad!
A company selling the original flavored stockings!
Well, not ordinary stockings exactly, but equipment wearable by both genders featuring extraordinary attributes.
For instance, wearing fishnet stockings could enhance Agility, cotton socks made players cold and heat-resistant, pantyhose reduced curse attacks, and so on.
However, this kind of publicity was rather shameless, reminiscent of Zhihu’s elite select and web game advertisements style.
Li Cheng massaged his temples; despite its maturity, the player forum still couldn’t avoid such vexing content.
Indeed, the ultimate purpose for players is to hawk goods, and the endgame for forums is filler posts.
“Fortunately, browsing the forum wasn’t entirely fruitless; at the very least, I now understand how to estimate current strength through the player panel.”
He mused internally, calling up the system panel and opening the Summoner information section.
The Summoner information contained name, age, race, current level, along with Summoner number and player nickname.
The number was a long string of alphanumeric characters, assigned by the killing field, one per person, unchangeable.
Even if a player was killed by a non-player, the qualification would transfer, but the number wouldn’t pass on to someone else.
The nickname was chosen by the player himself, mainly used for adding friends, remote communication, and transferring funds to other players.
Through the forum’s informative posts, Li Cheng learned that nicknames could be duplicated with others and could be changed in the future, so there was no need to fuss over it, he casually entered[Ant].
After confirming the nickname, the attribute column beneath the player information automatically updated.
Experience Bar 0/100]
[Strength: 8](Level of a top weightlifter)
[Agility: 8](Level of a top sprinter)
[Intelligence: 6](Talented)
[Constitution: 7](Level of a professional marathon runner)
[Perception: 6](Perception level of a professional hunter)
[Equipment Column: None]
[Game Currency: None]
Lv1, indicating Li Cheng’s current level.
Players can gain Experience Points by completing tasks in the killing field; with each level up, the Experience Bar’s limit increases by 100 points, and awards one free attribute point.
For an ordinary adult, without specific training, all attributes except Charm and Intelligence would be at 5 points.
Here, attributes weren’t just simple data as in online games about how much power one could output, but reflected the overall physiological condition of the Summoner’s body.
Strength attribute correlated to muscle strength, bone density, and basal metabolic rate.
Agility attribute related to neural reflex speed, body coordination, and muscular burst power.
Constitution attribute referred to basal metabolic rate, body recovery rate, and adaptive capacity to environments.
Intelligence attribute included memory, cognitive ability, computing capability, and logic skills.
Perception attribute involved observation capability, alertness, and even mystic elements like intuition, sixth sense, or clairvoyance.
A single free attribute point, placed on any attribute, could cause significant changes to an ordinary person, no matter how seemingly futile the trait of Charm—
In the eyes of others, a player who enhanced their Charm attribute would maintain the same appearance, but their demeanor and speech would become more pleasant and charismatic.
“An ordinary person has each attribute at 5, but excluding Intelligence and Charm, my panel showing impressions would make it seem like an individual who has leveled up nine times.
Of course, this is theoretical.”
Li Cheng stroked his chin; theory was theory, and practice was practice.
Since he had some level of extraordinary power early on due to the infection from the Master of Insects,
other players could also obtain certain advantages through various means.
For example, a player might take muscle-building drugs daily, vigorously train, raising Strength from an ordinary person’s level of 5 to a professional weightlifter’s 7, then use a free attribute point to reach Olympic-level 8 strength.
The personal gain from this, compared to moving from 5 to 6 points, was significantly greater.
Or perhaps, early in the game, a player might take out large loans, approach Gen-Sys Biotech to inject them with the Captain America Potion, aiming to maximize the usage rate of newbie attribute points.
These strategies could bring substantial enhancement effects during a player’s newbie phase.
But according to summaries from some strategy posts, players who acquired extraordinary powers early on using such methods also face subtly increased task difficulty—there wouldn’t be a scenario where a Lv1 newbie suddenly becomes Godzilla and beats up cavemen.
After scanning the attribute column, Li Cheng looked at his empty equipment and backpack slots, pondered for a moment, and took out the remaining Insect Lord Blood Amber and golden arrows he had collected from that ink-colored spider.