Thriller Paradise

The prizes for the top fifty-one to one hundred was basically a participation prize. Other than the limited-edition T-shirt, other prizes could be bought with real money and they weren't that expensive. Ten Double EXP booster cards and 200,000 Game Coins were worth about two hundred RMB. Whales spent more than that on their monthly top-up.

Prizes for top thirty to fifty were much more valuable. Two level thirty and above excellent quality equipment would sell for about 300,000 Game Coins at the auction house (After two weeks, the jacked-up prices at the Auction House had slowed down) and the two thousand Skill Points couldn't even be purchased with money.

Then for the top eleven to thirty, the value of three thousand Skill Points was not that different from two thousand Skill Points, but the key difference was the perfect quality equipment. If excellent quality armor could be bought with money at the auction house, then perfect armor equipment was practically priceless. Because most of such high-quality equipment would be soul-bound, so the ones that could be sold at the auction house had a sky-high price. They would also increase your ability quite visibly.

Based on these, it was clear that Dream Inc knew what kind of prizes would draw players in. They knew the psychology of their player base well. Most casual players who would participate would aim for the top thirty. They knew that it was basically impossible to get into the top ten. Of course, that did not mean there weren't conceited players who thought they were the best in the world. The world was never lacking in idiots. If their aim was the top hundred, then they underestimated themselves slightly; to go for thirty but be satisfied with top fifty was the most logical goal.

But in reality, this goal was very hard to achieve due to the presence of professional gamers. Take swimming as an example. Casual players were like people who swam for a hobby. They would visit the pool thrice at most in a week while professional gamers were like professional athletes. They trained every day in preparation for a competition. If they matched up, the results would be obvious. The casuals would lose. But this did not mean that the top one hundred would necessarily all be professional players. After all, among casual players, there were some extremely talented individuals, like Feng Bujue…

Furthermore, in the preliminaries, there might be a situation where two professional gamers would meet and cause one of the best seeds to get an early elimination. Considering the possibility of the number of participants reaching over six digits, when the elimination dwindled the number down to the thousands, it would be hard to say how many professional players would remain. Combining various factors and an element of surprise, even for professional players, it was not a guarantee for them to get into the top hundred.

In conclusion, for the top hundred, casual players still had a chance, but for the top thirty, those were probably reserved for professional players with great ability.

With regards to the top ten…

"Players ranked 4 – 10 will get three random skill cards of their mastery with the highest level, and four random skill cards of their other masteries and five thousand Skill Points."

When Feng Bujue read that line, his brain automatically went into calculator mode… A player's skill tab at maximum had twelve slots. Using himself as example, since the closed beta until now, he was at level twenty-nine. There was no reward from the sandbox, so he hadn't reached thirty. Currently, he only had nine skills in his skill tab. Minus Geppo and Rankyaku that he got from R2 and useless skill of Rotten Egg Bullet, he only technically owned six skills and one of them was a title skill that did not take up a skill slot. And this reward for getting into the top ten would nab the player seven skill cards and three of them would correspond to the players' most commonly used mastery. Compared to equipment, these skills were obviously more useful in the long run. Furthermore, there were five thousand Skill Points. With some Skill Points of their own, that should be enough for the players to purchase perfect quality equipment from Thriller Box. At this point, Brother Jue found it difficult to stay calm, but the rest was even more startling.

"The second runner up of the Tournament for the Best will get one random legendary equipment corresponding to his level and 10,000 Skill Points."

"The first runner up of the Tournament for the Best will get one random legendary equipment corresponding to his level (the type of equipment can be chosen by the player) and 20,000 Skill Points."

"The winner of the Tournament for the Best will get a mysterious reward from Dream Inc."

"The player base of Thriller Paradise ranges up to the millions, and the people who are qualified to register for this competition will probably be around one hundred thousand. Even so, to be able to get top 3 among these one hundred thousand can be called monsters already… And this kind of prize is basically adding wings and claws to the already impossibly strong monster."

Feng Bujue stared at the line for two minutes before saying, "Speaking of which… what is this mysterious reward? One can't help but wonder…" He scoffed, "Humph… this gaming company sure knows how to toy with the hype. From the ranking of the top one hundred and beyond, the prize of every category basically doubles, but at the prize for the champion, it gives an explanation of something like 'a mysterious reward'…"

Feng Bujue stretched lazily on the chair. "I suppose this is the allure of the unknown. Shapeless over shaped, desireless over desire, voiceless over voiced… an unknown prize will be the most attractive, and thus it is priceless." He really wanted to stand up and clap for the marketing team of Dream Inc. "Breaking, so f*cking breaking!"

"Miao~" Arthas suddenly jumped onto the table. It scratched at the computer screen and meowed.

"Oh? Looks like you agree with your owner," Feng Bujue said mockingly. The cat regarded Feng Bujue with a condescending look. It meowed twice and then used its paw to nudge the screen twice.

"What? You think I can enter the top ten?" Feng Bujue picked up Arthas in case it ruined the screen. "Hah… then I should go and register after I level up to thirty. This is indeed a chance for me to find out… just how powerful I am at this moment."

…

At the same time, in the game world, inside the conference room of Shiva. The four strongest players of Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, and Yama were all in the same room.

"He has accepted my friend request but soon changed into sleeping mode, then he hasn't answered my messages. Until today, I haven't seen him online." Shiva was discussing Feng Bujue with his friends. "But I can confirm that on the updated combat stat ranking this morning, the hidden second place belongs to this 'Feng Bujue'."

"Hmm… After the ranking updated, if he hasn't been online, then the system will automatically hide his name on the ranking, so that makes sense." Vishnu concurred.

Brahma sighed loudly. "Why are we wasting our time over this… This couldn't be simpler. Since boss was originally number two and now that he has beaten boss, naturally, he took boss' previous spot."

Yama held his chin with one hand and tossed his blue bangs back. He said darkly, "Don't you think this is strange? On the original combat stat ranking, his name wasn't even there. Of the top twenty hidden names, we could have an educated guess of who they were, and he was not one of them. Therefore, before this scenario, he should be ranked at least beyond the top 20. If he based on one single scenario and jumped up to the top 2nd spot by luckily winning that Killing Game, I suppose that's explainable… But from boss' description, before the scenario ended, the man's fighting capability could be considered one of the best already."

Vishnu added, "And he is cunning and quick in mind. He is both good with his brains and brawn…"

"Hmm… I have a suspicion about that as well." Shiva's face was hidden behind his curtain of hair and he said, "Before I 'died', even though he gave me some ambiguous explanation, I have no idea what he was talking about. The kid mixes truth with falsehood and is very hard to predict… Instead of placing trust in him, it's better to not trust him at all and believe in oneself." He paused. "Based on my observation, the only explanation is—during the scenario, through some kind of method, or hidden quest or some very powerful skill or item and that helped him to boost his ability greatly."

"That's possible…" Yama nodded. "He captured Robin alive, provoked the God's Web, took over Mr. Freeze's equipment… All these show that the man is good at making use of the scenario's innate resources."

Shiva continued, "So he was able to kill the King of Shadows, defeat me… and naturally, Seven Kills wouldn't be his match (After Shiva died, he had no idea Seven Kills got the full Batsuit and believed Feng Bujue won the final match easily)." He sighed. "On the day before the announcement of the Tournament of the Best, suddenly an unpredictable competition appears… This sure is annoying."

Brahma laughed. "Boss, hasn't he accepted your friend request? That means we could have drawn him to join our camp. His guild… is called, what 'Underworld Frontline'? I haven't even heard of them before. It's probably a small casual guild. At most, we will have their whole guild join us, Brahman."

Vishnu immediately said snidely, "The blockhead finally knows how to use his brain."

"Who are you calling a blockhead?" Brahma replied.

Vishnu smiled and ignored him but continued, "Just like in times of war, a good general is even harder to find than thousands of gold. This man has both brain and brawn. He is a rare talent. If he is willing to join Brahman, when we go against Regulations in the future, we will have one more hidden trump card." He pointed at Brahma. "I think the blockhead's proposal of consuming their whole guild might work. Even if the other members of the guild are noobs, for this Feng Bujue, we will have to do it. He alone is worth more than that."

Shiva sighed. "I understand all that… but…" He hesitated, thinking, I suspect the man is mentally unstable.

"Never mind…" Shiva decided not to share that observation and said seriously, "After he gets online and replies my message, I'll talk to him in person."