Chapter 198 Exposed, Strange Realm
"I have reached the silver rank. This nearly a year of training the Eight Desolates Coiling Dragon Supreme Art has greatly increased my strength."
Zhou Chen's current martial arts cultivation had already reached the Master realm, and he was no longer the newbie from before. His Eight Desolates True Energy was very dense now, and could easily reach a thousand meters. After laying the foundation, he had already begun to study the transformation properties of the Eight Desolates True Energy.
Zhou Chen took out the new high bronze agility scroll and used it. His agility had increased by 0.3, reaching 4.9.
In the beginning of the Survival mission, his agility attribute was the lowest among the three attributes. However, in the latter period of the Survival mission, when he went to search for supplies, he had encountered a monster with an Agility Enhancement passive skill. After killing it, he obtained a large increase in agility.
As for new passive skills, he did not obtain any. Instead, he got some upgraded versions of his passive skills, and also abandoned some low-level passive skills that were no longer of any use to him.
While Zhou Chen was thinking about his gains from this Survival mission, he suddenly heard a notification from the system. He checked the interface and saw that someone had sent him a friend request.
"Li Guofu?"
Zhou Chen immediately realized that it was a friend request from Li Guofu. He had long exchanged nicknames with Li Guofu during the Survival mission.
Zhou Chen opened his friend list and saw that the nickname of the new friend was 'Crooked Mouth Dragon King', so he immediately chose to agree.
This was indeed the nickname Li Guofu had told him. God knew why he had given himself such a strange nickname.
[Crooked Mouth Dragon King: Xing, did you get a high silver rank reward? I obtained a high silver rank high-tech weapon. I made a killing this time.]
After the request was accepted, Li Guofu sent a message.
[Star: Yes, I obtained a high silver-ranked vehicle.]
Li Guofu replied immediately.
[Crooked Mouth Dragon King: Are you interested in lending it to the country to study for a few days? I promise to return it to you before your next Survival mission. You will receive a high reward.]
[Star:…]
Zhou Chen was speechless. He felt that Li Guofu always thought of handing over good things to the country to research. He immediately refused and told Li Guofu to ask the researchers to finish studying the electric propulsion engine first.
After the topic was closed, Li Guofu began to talk about Zhou Chen's identity.
[Crooked Mouth Dragon King: Xing, you're too despicable. I told you my real name, but you gave me a fake name. How sad.]
Zhou Chen was amused. As a lone wolf, he had to be careful during Survival missions. However, since Li Guofu asked this, there was a high chance that he had already figured out his identity.
[Star: I was just being careful. You have to keep my identity a secret.]
[Crooked Mouth Dragon King: Don't worry, only a few higher-ups of the Administration know your true identity. Are you interested in coming to the Administration?]
When Zhou Chen saw Li Guofu's reply, he immediately thought that he had indeed been exposed. There was nothing he could do. He had worked with Li Guofu for almost a year in the previous Survival mission and the latter should have already probed all of his details.
[Star: Let's talk about this in the future. I have to do a Survival mission in a few days. I want to rest and relax.]
Zhou Chen tactfully refused him.
[Crooked Mouth Dragon King: Alright, but you have to be prepared. We might contact you if we encounter a major emergency. After all, it's a troubled time now. Sometimes, we will need your help, a top-level Survivor.]
"I've become a top-level Survivor just like that?"
Zhou Chen felt a little helpless. He had only completed eight Survival missions and had already become a top figure. They might not believe it even if he told them.
[Star: Alright, you can look for me if necessary.]
It was not easy for Zhou Chen to refuse such a request. He directly agreed. Anyway, he had already been exposed to the officials.
After this exchange, Li Guofu bid farewell. Zhou Chen looked at his other friends listlessly.
He only had three friends in his list at the moment. Apart from the newly added Li Guofu, there were the young man with the nickname Mike and the rich girl who was nicknamed Breeze of Dawn.
"I remember I only talked with this Mike once."
Zhou Chen was a little curious about this friend named Mike. He had added him the earliest, but they had not even chatted much.
"Did this person block me?"
Zhou Chen clicked on this person's profile and sent him a greeting.
The next moment, he received the system's feedback in the chat:
[The target you contacted is dead. Do you want to delete him from your list?]
"This… he died?! No wonder he never sent a message."
Zhou Chen was surprised. Although he was used to seeing Survivors die in Survival missions, this was the first time someone in his friend list had died.
He vaguely remembered that Mike had some martial arts skills. His potential seemed to be good, so he did not expect him to die like this. He did not even know when he had died.
"Don't tell me the rich girl died too…"
Hearing of Mike's death, Zhou Chen chose not to delete him from his friend list, so that it would serve as a warning to himself. Then, he sent a greeting to the rich girl.
This time, Zhou Chen received a reply from the rich girl after two seconds. Clearly, she was still alive.
[Breeze of Dawn: Boss! Is there anything good you want to sell today?]
Zhou Chen was amused when he saw her reply. This person had already treated him as a seller after buying some of his things.
[Star: No, I just wanted to ask how your sister's condition is. Was the cure disease potion effective?]
Zhou Chen's reply was not perfunctory. It had been more than a week since he sold the cure disease potion to her, and he had yet to ask for any feedback.
[Breeze of Dawn: The effect of the cure disease potion is very good. My sister's illness is almost completely healed, but her body is a little weak. She is still recuperating in the hospital.]
[Star: As long as it's effective. I wish her a speedy recovery!]
After a few words, he ended the conversation and walked out of the living room to the small garden of the villa.
In the garden, the crabapple flower that had been transformed from a magic card still looked the same. Although a year had passed since Zhou Chen saw it, this flower had only spent a few moments on Planet Blue.
"The system's power is really magical. It feels like my previous experience is like a clear dream, but the power in my body tells me that everything was real."
After almost a year of hard training, Zhou Chen's current strength was much stronger than before. When he was doing the Survival missions before, he was somewhat afraid of being discovered by the officials. However, he did not care much now since he could fight a tank with his bare hands and block missiles. The support of a large number of passive skills and the Eight Desolates Coiling Dragon Supreme Art had already strengthened him to this level, and he still had a lot of potential to grow.
He looked at the flowers in the small garden and jumped into the swimming pool to relax for a while. Then, he changed clothes and drove his Porsche outside.
Although the villa was good, he could not stay in it all the time. He had trained for a long time in the previous world and his technique had reached a bottleneck. He was no longer in a hurry to train. Instead, he chose to drive around to relax his mind.
After living a leisurely life for two days, Zhou Chen welcomed his ninth Survival mission on the living room sofa.
[Survival mission is about to begin. Please be prepared.]
[Teleportation begins…]
[Strange1 Realm
Difficulty: Low Silver
Mission: Survive for seven days.
Prompt:
1: Monsters might drop items.
2: You are given the basic language knowledge of the natives. You can communicate with them.]
Zhou Chen observed his current location as he read the system details.
He was now standing in a dilapidated modern style concrete room. In front of him was a rectangular mirror. On the left was a shabby sofa, and on the right was a mahogany desk. On the wooden desk were some plates filled with food, but unfortunately, these dishes were spoilt and emitted an unpleasant smell.
"Strange Realm? What a weird name… But apart from looking a little dirty and old, this place doesn't seem to be strange. The sunlight is still shining in from the window over there."
Zhou Chen said inwardly as he observed the Survival mission world.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone nearby. Could it be a solo Survival mission this time? Let's leave this place first. The smell is too unpleasant."
The rotten smell in the room was a little heavy. He walked to the door, opened it, and walked out.
Outside the door was a staircase. The lighting in the stairs was a little dim, but Zhou Chen saw some sunlight coming in from the bottom of the stairs. He should be able to exit from there.
In fact, if he wanted to be fast, he could directly break out of this building. However, he had just arrived here and felt that it was better to keep a low profile.
Zhou Chen walked down the dimly lit stairs.
Half a minute later, he realized something amiss. He had already gone down five to six floors of stairs, but for some reason, he still had not reached the bottom. There always seemed to be two more floors below the stairs.
"What's going on? The stairs didn't look so long."
Zhou Chen immediately felt strange. This staircase looked to be only four to five floors high, but the distance he had walked had already exceeded this.
"Looks like this Strange Realm is really strange. I guess I need to use some force."
Since he could not leave properly, Zhou Chen did not want to waste time. He was going to forcibly break out of the current predicament. With his current strength, it would be easy to tear down a building.
"Hello."
At this moment, a young man's voice came from the top of the stairs, making Zhou Chen stunned. Then, he looked up.
It was a young boy in a short-sleeved shirt and pants. He was rather handsome and had narrow eyes. His eyes seemed to be smiling, giving others a good impression of him.
"Hello… do you know what's with these stairs? I have been walking down for a while but have yet to reach the bottom."
Zhou Chen looked up at the young man who had suddenly appeared and said to him with a smile.
"What? Let me try."
A slightly surprised expression appeared on the young man's face when he heard Zhou Chen's words. Then, he walked down the stairs to Zhou Chen and began to lead the way.
Zhou Chen looked at him in silence and did not follow him.
The young man walked to the next staircase. When he realized that Zhou Chen was not following him, he looked up and said,
"I feel that there's no problem with the stairs. Why aren't you coming down?"
"Hehe."
A faint smile appeared on Zhou Chen's face as he looked at the person below.
"I don't know if there's a problem with this staircase, but there is definitely a problem with you. Can you tell me where you came from?"
"Look at what you are saying."
A displeased expression immediately appeared on the young man's face.
"Where else can I come from? I'm the same as you, a Survivor from Planet Blue."
"Really?"
Zhou Chen still did not move.
"Then take out something from your inventory."
He clearly did not believe this young man.
"That's simple."
The young man immediately reached out to the side. A round thing appeared in his hand.
But this thing was a human head!
This head looked very similar to this young man's. However, its eyes were closed, and its face was very pale.
"Do you believe me now?"
The young man held the pale head that looked very similar to his in one hand and said to Zhou Chen.
"Like hell I believe you!"
Zhou Chen immediately felt that he could not restrain himself anymore. The thing below was not even bothering to disguise itself, so he directly punched at him from afar with Eight Desolates True Energy; the true energy destroyed everything in its path and pierced through the side of the building.
After this punch, Zhou Chen's vision suddenly cleared up. The young man had disappeared, as if he had been smashed into dust. Sunlight shone through the gap in the building and dispersed the darkness in the stairs.
"Where is he? Did he die just like that?"
Zhou Chen first sensed his surroundings and did not discover the location of that thing. He jumped out of the gap in the building he had blasted and stood on the outside ground.
It looked like a small residential area outside. The flat cement road was surrounded by flower beds which were filled with weeds and looked very messy.
Zhou Chen walked on the road and headed in the direction of the sun.
After walking for a while and passing an ordinary flower bed, he suddenly heard a slightly venomous male voice,
"How did you know?"
Zhou Chen looked in the direction of the sound and saw an old woman's head among the weeds, staring at him with resentment.
Bang!
Zhou Chen could not be bothered with this thing and punched him again, causing the flower bed to explode and leave a deep pit a few meters in radius.
He now understood the types of enemies this time. They should be ghosts and spirits who liked to fool around, but their offensive power still needed to be observed.
"This thing's hiding ability is really good. I can't sense it at all if it's a little further from me. Bloodthirst is useless too, since there's no blood flowing in its body."
Zhou Chen was feeling troubled by the first monster he encountered in this world. It was elusive and seemed to be able to create illusions and move into different bodies.
