Thriller Paradise

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The game menu floated before Feng Bujue's eyes. One arrow was pointing at the apparel slots, and the system announcement continued. "When you adjust the items in your apparel slots into a satisfactory state, you can choose the 'dress' option in the log-in lobby, and the system will instantly update your character image.

"If you unequip or hide all the items in your apparel slots, your character will revert to the default apparel.

"Reminder: Players are unable to change the items in the apparel slots when they are in-game. Such operations are available when the players are in public areas, but change will not occur to the character's appearance. Players are only able to select the 'dress' option in the log-in lobby."

After hearing the announcement, a floating window asking for his confirmation appeared. "Please confirm if the apparel you have on is carrying other items. If such a situation occurs, after the 'dress' function, the carried items will be moved to your inventory or storage. If there is not enough space, said items will be transmuted by the system and placed in your mail. The expiration timer for the mail is twenty-four hours in real life."

"This reminder is quite useful," Feng Bujue commented, but since he was previously wearing the newbie apparel, the pockets were only deep enough to store sand. He set all his apparel as shown but kept his mask hidden, and his feet were showing the Jazz Shoes. After confirming everything, he selected the confirm button. Then Feng Bujue's body was covered in white light. It looked like he was transported out of the scenario. In just a flash, the dressing was completed.

Feng Bujue was quite satisfied with his reflection in the mirror. When the apparel was showing, the backpack that was initially slung over his shoulders had been hidden. In fact, Feng Bujue did not even feel like he was carrying the bag. When the player wanted to retrieve something, they could reach toward the original location where the bag would be, and the items would be pulled out from another dimension.

Feng Bujue had 104,600 Game Coins left after his shopping spree. It was necessary to keep some money around. If he spent until he was penniless, even if he obtained some valuable equipment in the future, he would not have enough money to pay the processing fee.

Regarding the 1,080 Skill Points, Feng Bujue decided to save them for now. He was not in need of equipment but combat experience. That Echo Armor had been lying in his inventory for three scenarios already, and he still had not achieved the requirement to equip it. His hope of achieving the necessary mastery in-game to equip the item was not meant to be. From the looks of things, it was unrealistic to expect him to increase his general ability to the necessary level before he reached level fifteen, so he could only hope that he would improve his Workmanship in the following Killing Game.

It might have taken two chapters to describe Feng Bujue's shopping, but in reality, he spent twenty minutes at most in real life. However, in this short amount of time, Passing Rain had already finished the design for the guild badge. Actually, when Feng Bujue returned to the log-in lobby, the badge on the sleeve of his newbie apparel had already changed, but he had not been paying any attention. After updating his apparel, he finally noticed the change.

Then, he went to check the guild tab in his social menu. Wang Tanzhi, Laughing Soul, and Passing Rain all showed that they were in-game, but in reality, they had not started their scenario for long. On his friend list, other than these three, Long Aomin's name was still grayed out. Brother Long did not appear like he was going to go online that night, so Feng Bujue would need to talk to him about the guild invitation next time.

Feng Bujue removed the two ammo magazines from his inventory and placed them in the inside pocket of his jacket. After taking a deep breath, he turned his attention back to the touch screen. He opened the choices of modes. When the player reached level fifteen, he had completed the tutorial and beginner's levels, and he was shown the more vibrant middle stages of the game.

At level five to fourteen, there were only two game modes, but now, there were four—Solo Survival Mode (Normal), Solo Survival Mode (Nightmare), Team Survival Mode (Normal), and Killing Game. Of them, Killing Game itself could be further delineated into four modes: 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3, and Battle Royale between three to six players.

For the first three modes, one could queue up alone or queue up in an existing team. However, members of existing teams would be arranged at the same side, so only three players at most could join as a team. A team of four and above would not be able to queue for Killing Game, and a team of three could only queue for 3vs3, not 2vs2. In any case, placing a spy in the other team was not feasible.

There was another method to enter Killing Game, and that was through a 'challenge', inviting another player to join you in a fight. This was a necessary feature, but there were limitations as well.

Firstly, the invited and the invitee had to have each other in their social tab, or in other words, they had to be part of their friends, blacklist, recently played, or guild. The blacklist in Thriller Paradise was a passive option, so if you had just heard of a player's ID but never met them in-game before, the only choice was to add them as a friend first, wait for them to approve, and then sending out the challenge.

This very cleverly avoided those players at the top of the rankings being challenged by random players on a daily basis. At most, they would have to deal with the swamp of friend invites that they received when they returned to their log-in lobby. Thankfully, they could delete friend requests and mails in bulk. Such was the burden of the famous. They did not need to worry about deleting friend requests from people that they actually wanted to befriend because those could be searched through the recently played list.

The second limit to the challenge mode was unique to a team challenge in that both teams had to have equal numbers before they could start the challenge. This was similarly to avoid the existence of spy. For example, in 3vs3 mode, if three players challenged one player, and that player was actually part of their group, and they intended to use that third player to undermine the other two players who might later join his team… that would never happen because a challenge from a team of three could only be accepted by a team of three.

Of course, if a player solo-queued, there might be a chance to run into familiar people in the opposite team. Even though this was rare, if it really happened, the concept of AFK-like behavior would apply, and the punishment would be heavier than increasing the player's Terror Points.

Players who were deemed to purposely be feeding the other teams and undermining their own team would suffer a loss of Skill Points. The Skill Points that could be earned in Killing Game were few, so normally, the deduction would be from their accumulated Skill Points. Thus, if a player wished to play dirty in Killing Game, there would be much to pay. The loss of Skill Points was huge. After a player was detected doing this repeatedly, since they already had nothing else to lose, the system would mark them and ban their accounts.

The last mode, Battle Royale mode, was easily understood. It could only be solo-queued, and the last one standing would be the winner.

During the closed beta, Phantom Dawn had encountered his seniors from Regulation in this mode and killed them off without any hesitation. This kind of thing would only happen during the closed beta because there was only a small pool of players who had reached that level. It was the only reason they had run into each other. That would never happen again in the open beta.

Feng Bujue had been looking forward to the Killing Game since he reached level fifteen, but since this was his first entry, he did not plan to win. His main aim was to familiarize himself with the new mode. Therefore, he did not plan to join the team mode. He did not want to be a dead weight, and he was afraid of being killed before he understood the game mode.

Therefore, after Feng Bujue clicked the Killing Game, he chose 1vs1 and entered the queue.