Chapter 445: The Enigma of Experience
Chapter 445: The Enigma of Experience
With the conclusion of the Butterfly Arena, five full days remained before the final showdown.
In Terrifying Paradise, five days could bring about countless changes...
Take Feng Bu Jue, for example. If he pushed himself to the limit, those five days alone would’ve been enough to catapult him to the top of the level leaderboard.
Yet his current focus lay elsewhere—specifically, on titles...
Though the new title “Hate Furnace” reeked of the system’s dark sense of humor, its accompanying ability was undeniably formidable.
To put it simply, the “Hate Furnace” let players expend fewer resources to unleash more skills. Around this core principle, one could devise countless devastating combinations.
This title wasn’t limited to martial arts attackers—it could empower ranged builds, defense specialists, summoners, even medics. Anyone who creatively integrated the “Hate Furnace” could concoct terrifying skill combinations.
With this title, even a player who mindlessly stacked active skills with cooldowns ranging from five to fifteen minutes on their skill bar could become absurdly strong...
For a tactician like Feng Bu Jue, obtaining this title was like giving a tiger wings.
Compared to the tactical nature of titles like “Demon God Descent,” which forced players to either eliminate enemies or perish themselves, Feng Bu Jue naturally preferred his current advantage. Considering the final’s chaotic “free-for-all” format, this title held a clear edge.
Feng Bu Jue’s sole concern, however, was the risk of his title changing again before the finals... If that happened, no matter how clever his skill combos, they’d become obsolete.
This wasn’t an unfounded worry. The rules governing title changes in Terrifying Paradise were hidden, even to Dream Corporation insiders, leaving no official data available.
Such transformations were entirely system-controlled. Every word spoken and action taken by a player in each scenario could influence this parameter. The complexity of these calculations meant even optical brains couldn’t record or visualize the process for humans.
In fact, most optical brains couldn’t handle such computations at all—only the “Monster” designed by Wooly could.
Of course, while Feng Bu Jue had his concerns, he refused to dwell on them. If his title changed the day before the finals, there’d be nothing he could do... He couldn’t possibly stop playing scenarios just to preserve it.
Feng Bu Jue carried a secret mission. Wooly’s casual-sounding instruction—“Stop her”—concealed unimaginable dangers. Thus, every minute of game time over these five days was crucial for him to grow stronger.
Since advancing to the final stage of the Peak Conquest Tournament, Feng Bu Jue had shifted his mindset. To him, his true opponents weren’t the other forty-nine players... but rather some bizarre, undefined entities. Exactly what those were, he couldn’t say.
Time flew when one was busy.
Before he knew it, the day of reckoning had arrived...
After those five days, Feng Bu Jue had climbed to level 43, securing fifth place on the level leaderboard.
This development sent shockwaves through the game. Under normal circumstances, such rapid progression was impossible...
Beyond level 40, the experience cap soared to eight digits, with each level requiring a minimum of three days to complete. Take Goddess Xu Huai Shang, for example—she’d reached level 40 three days before the Butterfly Arena and remained there during her match against Feng Bu Jue.
Yet after five days, Xu Huai Shang had only advanced to level 42, while Feng Bu Jue had surged to 43.
By this stage, the leaderboards—especially the level leaderboard—had stabilized. Most top twenty players were locked at level 43, with rankings shifting subtly based on daily experience gains.
Yet no one expected an outsider to disrupt the hierarchy. Almost daily, players watched as [Mad Bu Jue] leaped past competitors above him.
The situation grew increasingly bizarre, inevitably drawing attention...
Soon, analysts from multiple studios began investigating. Based on their estimates, Mad Bu Jue earned an average of over twenty million experience points daily...
What did that number even mean?
Typically, after level 40, completing a common team scenario (lasting around four hours of game time) might yield a maximum of two million experience. To earn more, one either relied on long-term scenarios or opted for Nightmare difficulty—luck dictated the former, while the latter carried significant risks.
To consistently earn over twenty million experience points daily, a player would need to clear every scenario they entered without exception. These scenarios couldn’t include kill game modes or common difficulty solo survival modes.
Such a feat existed only in theory. Even [Tian Tian Gui Xiao] couldn’t achieve this consistency—stronger players faced increasingly difficult scenarios, as difficulty was dynamically adjusted.
Then there were the bonus rewards for scenario completion. Most players aimed for the “Courageous” rating, yielding a modest 10% experience boost or 50,000 game currency. Feng Bu Jue, however, consistently earned the “Fearless” rating—a distinction far superior.
This wasn’t accidental. Achieving “Fearless” was notoriously difficult. While it didn’t require maintaining zero Terror Value throughout a scenario, it imposed strict limits on Terror Value fluctuations, peak values, and total terror triggers.
Since the game’s launch, countless players had completed countless scenarios, yet barely a handful had ever earned “Fearless.” Only one player had achieved it multiple times. Most, including Class players, hovered between “Courageous” and “Panicked.” Even the infamous “Shidao” faction relied on drugs to consistently reach “Couraged”—a method that hardly counted.
Fear was a human instinct. Even rigorous system training couldn’t fully suppress it. Studio players, though classified as Class players, weren’t Class killers. No one trained them specifically for this. Thus, their reactions to fear weren’t vastly different from ordinary players’.
For anyone besides Feng Bu Jue, Terror Value was a fluctuating metric. Simply entering a dark, oppressive environment triggered spikes. Maintaining zero Terror Value across an entire scenario was utterly impossible. Even in kill game modes—where horror elements were reduced—combat between players still affected Terror Value. Whether facing a direct sword strike or enduring a sniper duel, fear responses were inevitable... The difference lay in whether one panicked constantly or remained cautiously alert.
All things considered, Mad Bu Jue’s meteoric rise was... barely plausible. Or, at the very least, theoretically sound.
Yet amid these circumstances, rumors of cheating spread like wildfire...
(End of Chapter)
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