https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-328-Invading-Brain-Cells-Twenty-Eight-/13547814/
https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-330-Invading-Brain-Cells-Thirty-/13547816/
Chapter 329: Invading Brain Cells (29)
Chapter 329: Invading Brain Cells (29)
A sudden, violent sensation of falling.
Alongside it came searing pain that coursed through their entire bodies.
The scene shifted in an instant.
The four players awoke from the sensation like people startled from a dream, their eyes snapping open mid-air. They were plummeting—though only from a few meters up. This height wouldn’t kill them.
They landed on a crimson-red carpet, groaning as they pushed themselves up, eyes scanning their surroundings.
The area resembled a vast ocean of books—a library. Six towering bookshelves formed a hexagon, their edges interlocked like a perimeter wall enclosing the players. The ceiling stretched nearly ten meters high, adorned with multiple chandeliers that bathed the space in light.
Directly above the players hung a large iron cage. Its bottom hatch was now open, explaining their abrupt descent.
“Is this the so-called ‘real world’?” Qiu Feng asked, rubbing his chest where a gaping wound had once been. The injury was gone.
“It seems so,” Feng Bu Jue replied, rising to his feet. “What’s your vitality value?”
“Almost undamaged,” Hong Hu said.
“Same here,” Ji Chang added.
Qiu Feng frowned. “The injuries from earlier… they’re gone too.”
Feng Bu Jue checked his own stats—96% vitality. The “real world” apparently restored their vitality to full until they fell from the iron cage.
“Makes sense,” Feng Bu Jue muttered. “All items from the mental world vanished.” He patted his pockets—lighter, notebook, wallet—all gone.
“Huh! The consumables I used in memoryspace are back,” Qiu Feng noted.
Feng Bu Jue reopened his satchel menu. The *-500 tablet and vitality supplement he’d consumed had reappeared.
Skills, however, told a different story. The 【southern dipper flying dragon fist】 he’d learned in the mental world remained in his skill list.
“We’ve reverted to our state at the scenario’s start,” Feng Bu Jue observed. “But skills learned in memoryspace stayed.” He rubbed his chin. “If I’d stored the skill as a card instead of learning it immediately, it might’ve vanished.”
“Lucky break,” Hong Hu remarked. “Actually getting a skill.”
“You didn’t try?” Feng Bu Jue countered. “You chatted with Middle-Aged Peter Pan forever. Didn’t you ask him to teach you to fly?”
“I did,” Hong Hu admitted. “He said flying requires either fairy dust or… believing you can.” He paused. “Looking back, that might’ve been a clue about truth. But I dismissed it as just a reference to the original story.”
Hong Hu added, “I even asked him about swordsmanship.” A sigh. “He said he’d been arrested two years after leaving Neverland for carrying a Controlled Blade. His dagger was permanently confiscated.”
“Adult life’s brutal,” Qiu Feng sighed.
Ji Chang shrugged. “We’re all adults. But yeah…” His tone mirrored Qiu Feng’s bitterness.
Feng Bu Jue smirked. “You all had happy childhoods, didn’t you? Now you’re stuck with that ‘didn’t appreciate my blessings’ nostalgia.”
Hong Hu narrowed his eyes. “Let me guess—your childhood was… abnormal?”
“Not really,” Feng Bu Jue replied. “I’ve been the same since seven or eight.”
“Which means extremely abnormal,” Qiu Feng quipped.
“I just thought society treated children and youths like second-class citizens,” Feng Bu Jue said. “At eleven, I wrote a paper titled On Adults’ Prejudices Against Youth.”
“So you proved even among billions of blossoming flowers, there’s always one or two… weeds,” Qiu Feng shot back, his sarcasm sharpening.
“Young me understood more than you ever will,” Feng Bu Jue retorted.
Ji Chang interjected, “Still… Feng Bu Jue, you’re a freak. At eleven, I struggled to write five hundred words.”
Feng Bu Jue scoffed. “Big deal. I wrote my first short story, Sword God, by hand at ten. A paper-length essay? I’d sit on the toilet with a laptop and finish it mid-dump.”
Their banter masked focused multitasking. Each player silently took a direction, scanning bookshelves for an exit.
“Worst case, we climb the shelves,” Ji Chang suggested after surveying the area. “Jump to the iron cage first, use the chains to climb up, then leap onto the shelf tops.”
“Why not read the books?” Feng Bu Jue’s reading compulsion flared.
Qiu Feng stared at the eight-meter-high shelves groaning under books. “Even split four ways, we’d still be reading when the system kicks us out.”
Hong Hu ignored the nonsense, focusing on the hidden worldview revealed in his task bar’s extended menu:
【Hidden Worldview: Cerebral Imprisonment.】
A book-obsessed entity had lured players into its cerebral realm. Every fictional character it knew became sentient, influencing one another.
X-23’s earlier struggle to retrieve *-233 made sense—she’d tried entering the Boss’s mind. Without this layer, the Boss couldn’t have stopped her. For derivative beings like Twenty-Three, invading scenarios from an Inner World was trivial, beyond even system interference.
“This isn’t hard to escape,” Hong Hu mused, linking the task to the worldview. “But the current objective implies the true Boss is extremely powerful…” He turned to his team. “Is leaving this safe zone wise?”
“True,” Qiu Feng agreed. “Main quests like Defeat the True Boss or Escape the Reasoning Club usually offer alternatives because one path is often suicidal. The system gives players an easier route.”
“And harder routes mean more experience, more skill points,” Feng Bu Jue said, his tone arrogantly ten points higher.
“But if we wipe, we lose everything,” Hong Hu countered. “Risk matters.”
“We won’t know the Boss’s strength until we see him,” Feng Bu Jue argued. “We’re all full-strength, satchel menus unlocked. Don’t underestimate ourselves—assess the team’s power objectively.” He paused. “Besides, this is just a common-difficulty team survival mode. How strong could a hidden Boss be?”
Ji Chang raised an eyebrow. “Feng Bu Jue… you’ve beaten nightmare-difficulty Bosses before?”
Hong Hu stroked his chin. “Feng Bu Jue’s not level 30 yet. He can’t join nightmare team survival. Maybe he solo-cleared a nightmare scenario in singleplayer.”
“Duh,” Feng Bu Jue said. “It’s been open beta for a month. Nightmare solo-clears aren’t special anymore.”
Qiu Feng sighed. “I died three times in nightmare scenarios.”
Ji Chang added, “Five tries for me. Twice, I failed near the plot’s end.”
Hong Hu adjusted his glasses. “I’m solo, no studio task pressure. Since level 15, I’ve tried twenty-six nightmare solos… cleared once.” His voice darkened. “I’ve had setbacks in life, but nightmare difficulty breaks your spirit. A few times, I got booted for maxing Terror Value.”
Qiu Feng frowned. “But Feng Bu Jue, you make clearing sound routine.”
“I’ve only cleared one nightmare,” Feng Bu Jue admitted. “And that was a puzzle-solving scenario with no Boss fight.” He shook his head. “Compared to nightmare scenarios drowning in death flags, this common-difficulty Boss is… what’s the word? Pathetic.”
“Pathetic?” A distorted voice echoed from all directions, interrupting them. The system’s own tone resonated through the air. “If you think I’m pathetic… I can become a pathetic ball.”
The four players froze, exchanging glances. In unison, they whispered:
“Boss?”
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
Report
