Chapter 241: Chapter 241 – No More Free Games?
“I’m alright, I’m alright. I’m perfectly fine!” Ren Suo said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor in the school? Why did you go to such a dangerous place?” his mother questioned.
“I’m perfectly fine though…” Ren Suo said.
Ren Suo finally managed to appease his mother. He heard Ren Xingmei on the other end of the line persuading their mother to calm down and catch her breath, then took over the call. She said, “Seriously, Bro, why did you suddenly go to such a dangerous place? Didn’t you say that your work pays well while not involving much risk and is close to home? You even appeared in the video now.”
“Well, you’re still young, so you would not understand,” Ren Suo said.
“What nonsense, you’re only five years older than me, and you’re worse than me at playing games,” Ren Xingmei retorted.
“I’m better than you at games now!” Ren Suo exclaimed.
“Oh, really? Let’s have a 1v1 then, take your pick, fighting, MOBA, RTS, or FPS?” Ren Xingmei replied.
“The connection here is poor, we’ll 1v1 another time,” Ren Suo said. Although his hand speed and reaction speed had increased, it was not just once or twice that he had been ‘destroyed’ by his sister in games. He quickly changed the topic and said, “You can now brag to your friends that your brother has appeared in Naisser Ren’s video. You can say that he is the very handsome healing Practitioner in…”
Ren Xingmei said, “I’m not the kind of person to do that—well, not unless you personally accompany me to our class gathering. What’s more, appearing in the video is nothing to brag about, unless you’re Naisser Ren himself.”
Ren Suo replied, “No, there would be a generation gap between you guys and me. I’m impressed though, you correctly guessed that I am…”
“Don’t push it. If you are Naisser Ren, then I am Ren Woxing’s descendant,” Ren Xingmei said. She sighed and whispered into the phone, “Anyway, if you’re ever going to do such a thing again, remember to call to inform us beforehand.”
“If you’re not going to inform them, then, at the very least, don’t let them see you in such a situation.”
“You must tell me though so that I can be mentally prepared to respond if something happens to you. Remember, you must tell me!” Ren Qingqing said.
Ren Suo replied, “Okay, okay…”
Hanging up the phone, Ren Suo rubbed his neck—that was an extremely long phone call.
Shortly after “The Mage Under the World Tree” was uploaded, he received a call from his mother, who bombarded him with questions. Undoubtedly, it was because Ren Suo appeared in the video, in the scene where he was attempting to treat the badly burned Mage.
Ren Suo’s parents actually did not usually watch Naisser Ren’s videos, but their relatives and neighbors had gone to them and told them things like: “Your son has made it big and even appeared in a video where he helped the nation”.
That was when they asked his sister to show them the video, and so they watched the ‘fantasy blockbuster’ uploaded by Naisser Ren together.
Consequently, when they saw their son on the dangerous battlefield, they were so shocked that they immediately called to ask him if he was alright, and even wanted to purchase plane tickets to visit him overnight.
With much difficulty, Ren Suo eventually managed to stop them from flying over to visit him, and even had to send a video of himself for them to believe that he was still alive and kicking.
The video “The Mage Under the World Tree” was just as Ren Suo had hoped, with none of the conversations between the mages included. As such, the lies fabricated by Mage were naturally not exposed.
Ren Suo received another text message on his mobile phone—it was an intranet notification. He had no choice but to turn on his computer to check what was going on in the intranet.
“Research: Location of the Second Mystery Realm”.
“Indeed, it’s this question…” Ren Suo muttered to himself. The topic did not come as a surprise to him.
When he was clearing the second checkpoint in the game, no one had entered the mystery realm, even after he had finished fighting the boss character. He guessed that the second checkpoint was likely located in an area where few, if any, people visited. If it was not located in a desert, it could be somewhere which was not along established sea routes. It would not even be bizarre if it was actually located deep under the sea.
At present, all of the other six mystery realms had their ‘owners’. The significance of the mystery realms was also revealed by Caroline: defeating monsters in the mystery realm could speed up a Practitioner’s practice.
Although researchers were still studying whether there were any side effects to this effect of enhancement, the mystery realm was certainly considered a crucial strategic resource: the cultural relics from the other world could be obtained; the mystery realm could act as a practice ground where there was a high concentration of Reiki energy; it was a place where extraordinary creatures would appear; and it was even an extremely special place for research…
The nation was also going by the philosophy of “possessing what others don’t, and excelling in what others also possess”. At such a juncture, whichever nation secured the second mystery realm first would be one step ahead of other nations, in terms of the Extraordinary resources that they possessed. Moreover, if mystery realms could be physically moved…
However, even Ren Suo himself did not know where the second mystery realm was located. Even if he did, there would not be any factual basis for his guess. As such, he just liked an answer that already had many likes, as evidence of his effort—even though doing so would only reward him with very few researcher points, if any. The person who wrote that answer appeared to be a doctor of geography.
There was still some time before the clock struck twelve, so Ren Suo turned on the Mini Worlds game console and reviewed his latest ‘profits’:
On the [Equipment] page, in the equipment column for ‘Naisser Ren’—which was Ren Suo himself—was a row of dream-like icons that were barely visible:
[Insights of the World], [A Thousand Miles A Day], [Close to Worlds Apart], [Moonlight].
They were the four Coupling Abilities which Ren Suo possessed, all of which were Level 1—accompanying Dong Chengling to watch the movie two days ago had not increased their Coupling Level.
On the other hand, [Moonlight] was the Coupling Ability he acquired after he accompanied Gu Yueyan to train.
The location of the training was on a hill in the school. There were streetlamps lining the road on the hill, so his safety was very much guaranteed. When Ren Suo arrived, Gu Yueyan no longer held back from utilizing all of her energy. After finding a barren plot of land with gravel, she began to ‘invite the moon’.
Undoubtedly, her ability was related to the light reflected by the moon. It was a cloudless night that day, and the silver light of the full moon was scattered due to the dense forests on the hill. However, as Gu Yueyan cast her ability, the streaks of moonlight converged together, forming a sharp blade that was fired at the ground!
In the middle of the barren land, a large pit with a radius greater than 2 meters was carved out of the ground. Ren Suo took a closer look and found that it was one meter deep—that meant that the moonlight was only unable to maintain its form of a blade after penetrating 1 meter deep into the ground, following which it ‘exploded’ as an high-energy shockwave.
It was an extremely powerful attack ability!
In addition to that, she was able to ‘command’ the moonlight to converge at a specific location with just a flick of her finger, without even accumulating any energy prior to that. She was able to blast a boulder which she pointed at apart, like a fixed bomb, albeit with much less explosive energy.
The truly dangerous attempt was when Gu Yueyan tried to turn the moonlight into an armor suit on her body. She was still unable to control her ability to such detail, so the disordered streaks of moonlight could very easily end up cutting her instead. Some of the wounds caused by the disordered streaks of moonlight were so deep that her bone could be seen.
After one night, Ren Suo had almost depleted all of his Reiki energy just by healing her—and that was even when he was equipped with [Small Holy Grail of Purity], where the healing effect was nearly 100% and the consumption of his Reiki was reduced by 30%!
Ren Suo knew from a long time ago that the amount of Reiki energy consumed by Awakened Abilities was much lower than regular abilities, especially for Awakened Abilities that directly relied on natural energy. However, Ren Suo had not expected there to be such a huge difference, and Gu Yueyan had barely consumed any of her Reiki energy after one night.
Ren Suo had also asked Gu Yueyan why she needed to practice in such a self-inflicting manner. She said then: “There are barely any instructors who guide people to master Awakened Abilities. If I want to master my ability and be able to control it well, I can only rely on myself to slowly train. Now that you are around to heal me whenever I’m injured, I would certainly want to make full use of this opportunity to train as quickly as possible. Besides, I want to try using my Awakened Ability in other ways, apart from attacking.”
“Sigh, I don’t have a choice either, since I don’t know any healing abilities. I will practice cautiously in the future, and if I injure myself, all I can do is to wait for the wounds to heal slowly…”
When Gu Yueyan said that, her voice sounded normal. However, after she finished one sentence, she would pause for a moment and glance at Ren Suo before continuing, then pause and glance at Ren Suo again…
For the sake of the Coupling Ability, Ren Suo agreed to assist her in training her ability twice a month, on every full moon day. In exchange, Gu Yueyan paid him in cash—she seemed to come from a really wealthy family, so Ren Suo was not losing out.
[Gu Yueyan, Level 1 Coupling, Coupling Ability ‘Moonlight’: Shoot a damage-inflicting streak of moonlight, consumes the user’s energy.]
On one clear, windy night, Ren Suo secretly tried shooting a streak of moonlight in the wilderness. As it was his first time, he was slightly nervous. He felt his body becoming very warm initially, but after he fired the light, he felt extremely cool, and the effect was also extraordinary—it was able to create a mark that was one-third of a meter deep on a large boulder. There was no explosion, and the attack speed was extremely fast, yet silent. It was perfect for sneak attacks.
Although it was not as powerful as the original version possessed by Gu Yueyan, Ren Suo was already very satisfied, considering that he had acquired it without much effort. Moreover, he was able to cast the ability immediately and without practicing at all.
Nonetheless, he still needed to buy an attack ability from the Knowledge Web that was similar to Gu Yueyan’s as soon as possible. Only then would he have an excuse to explain himself if he used that ability in public.
Of course, he needed excuses for himself, but not for the rest of the game characters.
The other game characters could also equip any of his Coupling Abilities. Since the Coupling Abilities which Ren Suo acquired were permanent and would not be lost, possessing them was equivalent to having more abilities for the game characters to choose from.
At present, [Insights of the World] and [A Thousand Miles A Day] were not very useful for the game characters, but it was not the case for [Close to Worlds Apart] and [Moonlight]. After all, [Close to Worlds Apart] was a teleportation ability, while [Moonlight] was a silent, long-ranged damage ability. After the game characters were equipped with those abilities, their own abilities might even be modified as well.
Tick-tock.
The hour, minute, and second hands of the clock overlapped each other. Ren Suo glanced at the clock on the wall and took a deep breath.
“It’s August.”
He opened the [World Shop], and indeed, the [Free Games of the Month] section appeared.
Filled with anticipation, he clicked into that section, and then he saw—
It was empty.
There, was, not, even, a, single, game! There was only a big [+] symbol!
“What? There are no free games anymore?!”