Thriller Paradise

After the end of the Battle of the Butterfly, there were five days to the final. And in Thriller Paradise, many things could happen in five days…

For example, if Feng Bujue tried his best, he could use these five days to rush to the first place on the player level ranking. But his current focus was on his new title…

Even though the title, Hatred Collector, had the usual Thriller Paradise charm to it, honestly, the effect was not that bad. The function of Pot of Hatred, to put it simply, was to enable the player to use more skills with less exhaustion. With this core value at its center, it could help a player in many ways. It could be used more than in fights. Long-distance skills, defensive skills, summoning skills, even medical skills could be turned and combined into devastating combos with the effect from the Pot of Hatred…

For players like Feng Bujue who was a strategist, the title was a huge boon. Compared to Descent of the War Demon who was more like a Hail Mary, Brother Jue naturally preferred this new title. And for the 'battle royale' mode that was going to be the format of the final, this new title was more productive. The only thing that Feng Bujue worried about now was that his title would change again before the final… Then all the combos that he came up with would be a waste of time.

He could not guarantee that would not happen… because the change of one's title was completely random. Even the technical worker from Dream Inc. couldn't give you the data. This status change was completely in the hands of the system. After a player finished a scenario, every word that he said, everything that he did, could influence this change. Such complicated calculations could only be done by the photon computer and the calculation was too complicated to have it be transmuted to be understood by mere humans. In reality, though, even a normal photon computer could not handle this kind of calculation. Only the 'monster' created by Woody would be capable of doing that…

Of course, as worried as Feng Bujue was, he did not stop his life because of it. If his title really changed before the final, he couldn't do anything about it… He couldn't give up his training just to ensure his title did not change, right? Brother Jue was given a secret responsibility. Woody's 'stop her' sounded airy and casual, but the danger that could be behind it… was unpredictable. Therefore, in these five days, Feng Bujue utilized every gaming minute that he had to its maximum to make himself stronger.

From the moment he knew he got into the finals Feng Bujue had a paradigm shift in his perspective. He believed his opponent wasn't really the other 49 players… but something else altogether… But what that was, he had no clue… yet.

…

Time flies when you are busy.

In the blink of an eye, the day of the final came…

After five days, Feng Bujue had reached level 43 and was now fifth place on the level ranking. This indubitably caused quite a stir in-game because that should not be possible…

After level 40, a player's level upper limit came to 8 digits and it would be hard to even level up one level much less 5. It would normally take 3 days to up 1 level… Take Xu Huai Shang as an example. Three days before the Battle of the Butterfly, she was already level 40 and when she fought Brother Jue, she was still level 40… Now five days later, she rose to level 42 but Brother Jue was already 43.

The game had stabilized to the stage where most rankings would not be shaken that easily anymore and the level ranking was probably the most fixed of them all. On the top 20 level ranking, most players were at level 43… and the players could see who had gotten more exp that day based on the shifting on the ranking that day… But no one expected a player just appeared out of nowhere to break up the ranking… The public could see the ID Feng Bujue slowly climbing over players on the level ranking day by day…

That was so strange that it was impossible not to catch people's attention…

Therefore, some of the professionals from the gaming studios started to study this. Based on their calculation… Feng Bujue had to get at least 20,000,000 EXP a day to achieve what he was doing…

And what did that translate to?

Normally, after level 40, a normal team mode would take around 4 in-game hours to complete and the EXP rewarded would not be more than 2,000,000. To gain more EXP, one either had to run into a long scenario or play nightmare more… The former depended on luck and the latter came with a big risk. If a player wanted to get more than 20,000,000, then he must be able to guarantee that… He would clear all the scenarios that he joined and none of them should be Killing Game or Solo Mode on normal difficulty.

That only… existed on paper. Even Phantom Dawn couldn't do that. The stronger the player, the harder the scenario. The difficulty of a scenario was tailored to the player.

Other than that, one could also rely on the additional reward. Normally, of the five options, Embodiment of Valor, Praiseworthy Courage, Seized by Panic, Trembled with Fright, and Scared Witless with Fear, the optimum situation was to achieve Praiseworthy Courage. The additional reward for this Terror Rating would be ten percent of the maximum EXP or 50,000 Game Coins, hugely different from the reward Brother Jue had been getting from Embodiment of Valor.

Of course, there was a reason behind that. It was because it was almost impossible to get this rating. To get this rating, one not only had to maintain a zero Terror Point throughout the scenario. The system also had a high requirement of the player's fluctuation in Terror Points, its highest point, and the number of scares one encountered.

Since the start of the game, many players had finished many scenarios but there were so few that ended the scenario with this rating. And among them, only one… managed to get this rating more than once.

Actually, most players for Thriller Paradise, including the professionals… ranked between Embodiment of Valor and Praiseworthy Courage. Members of Zombie Blade would often end up with Embodiment of Valor but that was with the aid of drugs, so that did not count.

Fear was a human instinct. Even through systematic training, it could not be completely overridden. Even for professional players, they were professional players, not killers. No one would ask them to train to forgo their sense of fear. So, when facing the scary things, their reaction would not be so different from a normal player.

For players other than Feng Bujue, Terror Points was an index that would always fluctuate. If they entered a dark room, their Terror Points might hike up slightly. To maintain zero Terror Points throughout a scenario was basically impossible. It was the same in a Killing Game. Even though the scenario would be less scary, Terror Points would be affected during fights. I mean, how could one not flinch when one saw a blade flying at oneself? An ambush, a snipe in the dark, these could all cause fear… the difference being how much fear it elicited in the players.

In conclusion, after inputting all the factors, what Feng Bujue had done… was barely reasonable, or rather… it only worked on paper. It was humanly impossible.

Under that circumstance, the rumors of Feng Bujue being a cheater naturally started to spread like wildfire.