Chapter 494: Temporary Farewell to Free Exploration Mode
After a long wait, the electronic door behind Brother Jue finally opened again. Outside it stood a tall body covered in tinfoil armor. One had to say… the man looked poor.
“I believe… I should represent the USL to apologize to you, Mr. Feng Bujue.” Tinfoil Man stood outside the door to tell Brother Jue. “Wayne has overreacted, I hope that doesn’t pose any offence.”
“Oh no, I was enjoying myself.” Feng Bujue looked at the man calmly and said calmly. “Oh, if possible, please call me the Poker.”
“Of course, the Poker.” Tinfoil Man added. Feng Bujue nodded slightly. He walked to the door and when he was in front of the man, he asked, “You are tinfoil man, yes?”
“Yes.” Tinfoil Man replied, “But you can call me Stark.”
“Okay, Stark.” Feng Bujue continued, “Since you are here, then it can only mean that the meeting of your highest committee is already over. Might I know… how does the league decide to dispense with me?”
“Ha ha…” Tinfoil man laughed and answered. “The Universe Superhero League is happy to have you.”
“Hmm, great.” Feng Bujue said as he walked out from the room. At that moment, there were three other people at the corridor outside the door. They were Pi Li Dance Hero, Tap Monster and Professor Permanence. After Feng Bujue greeted the two from Planet Cheat, Professor Permanence volunteered to say, “Nice to meet you, the Poker, I don’t think we have met.” He paused, “Let me introduce myself. I am Professor Permanence. I am also a superhero from Earth.” He reached out his right hand from under his cape.
“Nice to meet you.” Feng Bujue responded as he answered the handshake. “It is my honor.” He smiled. “I was intending to find someone to ask… what is the difference between the Earth of this universe and the one I came from.”
“hah… Then I believe I believe we have a lot to talk about.” Professor Permanence replied with a hard to read smile.
…
“Alright, gentlemen, there are time to chat in the future, now…” Tinfoil Man interrupted, “We better help the Poker settle in and help him with the necessary procedure first.”
…
For the next hour, Feng Bujue was led by the four superheroes to acquire his ‘Superhero ID card’ (A card made from special technology, it can identify not only DNA but also brainwave, so the chance of being stolen is close to zero) and registered his name as the Poker. After that, Brother Jue could use this card to move freely through the headquarters (But his card still had limited rights so many areas were forbidden for him).
During this process, Tinfoil man and Professor Permanence explained some of the uses of the card to Feng Bujue and the basic info about USL: Other than that, they mentioned something called ‘Superhero level test’… after explaining all these things, these two big boss-level characters left. About 1 hour later, after all the small inconsequent procedures had been met, Feng Bujue followed Pi Li Dance Hero and Tap Monster to come to one of the doors at ‘Superhero Hostel’ Zone Z. This would be where lived in the foreseeable future.
“This is where we will accompany you.” Pi Li Dance Hero said. Tap Monster added, “Remember to stay in touch, the Poker.”
“Of course, thank you.” Feng Bujue replied. The three chatted some more before they went their separate ways. Brother Hue used his card to open the door to Room Z250 and walked into his hostel room.
“Hmm… it’s not as dilapidated as I thought it would be…” Feng Bujue observed after he entered the door. As mentioned earlier, the headquarters of USL was close to the size of a small planet, therefore the amenities were complete. The superheroes could recover, train, receive treatment, get assignment here; Some dangerous criminal (Like Prof Sui) or items will be temporarily deposited here, awaiting their fate; other than that the headquarters provided technology support like traffic, communication, surveillance device and weapons.
Other than superheroes, there were many scientific researchers or general workers here. The accommodation and food of these people were responsibility of USL as well. And the accommodation for the superheroes were naturally the superhero hostel. As a living area, the space occupied by the hostel was very small. It was already not bad that every superhero had their individual room, to dream of 2 bedrooms and one living room was impossible. For example Feng Bujue’s Z250, it was at most 40 cubic metres large. It opened to the living room and the only extra room was the bathroom. Of course as small as it was, it had everything he needed. The basic everyday necessities like bed, closet, air conditioning, fridge, water heater, microwave, toilet (Based on different race, the amenities would be different. Feng Bujue’s room was obviously designed for a human being) were all there.
“Ah, the cooldown for Yakyuken is down again.” After Feng Bujue swung the door close, he practiced another shot. From the start of the scenario until now, this was his 7th hit… to level 2, there were still 53 punches.
“In any case…I should observe my surrounding first.” Feng Bujue walked into the room to investigate it. The décor was spartan, there was nothing worth investigation. Considering he would have to live there, naturally Brother Jue would not conduct a destructive ‘carpet search’ like he’d do with a normal scenario. He knocked around carefully to ensure there was no hidden camera, hidden compartment, spying bug and so on. And… he found nothing.
[Hmm… With Toadman’s personality, it’s quite abnormal for him to not conduct a surveillance on me.] Feng Bujue thought to himself. [Or he should know that I will think that, so… his surveillance method will be incredibly hard to discern.] He scratched his chin and mumbled, “Perhaps… he has already used some kind of method to insert a nanobug into my stomach…
“O well, as long as I found the safehouse, his surveillance will naturally fail.” Feng Bujue still had confidence in the game’s system. After searching the living room, the bathroom would be next. Brother Jue pushed open the door and then he was greeted by quite a funny scene…
Other than the basic stuff, there was an extra door in the bathroom. On the door, there drew a circle and inside the circle was the word, ‘Thriller’.
“Hah… well, can’t say they’re not creative.” Brother Jue was quite overjoyed and walked towards it. Once he stepped into the safehouse, the system notification came, “Under normal circumstance, NPC will not actively get close to the space where the door to the safehouse will be, please do not attempt to purposely lead the NPC to the safehouse or else it will cause a chain effect that will cause the universe’s “Rejection Points” towards you to rise.”
“oh? The universe’s Rejection Points towards me?” Feng Bujue repeated with some thought, “Sounds like some hidden data…”
While his mind was working, his action did not stop. Brother Jue entered the elevator once he passed through the safehouse. To get a favourable rating in the “Superhero Level Test”, he decided to leave the scenario for now and came back when he was better prepared.
“Warning, you are currently attempting to leave this scenario. The next entry will cause a charge of Game Coins, would u like to confirm to do so?”
Once he walked into the elevator, he heard this reminder. Feng Bujue shrugged and pressed for the door to close. The metallic doors whined to a close and the elevator moved. At the same time, the system started, “Please choose the time you would log into this world next.”
Then a virtual window appeared before Brother Jue. There were five different options. “One, 1 minute later; Two, 1 hour later; Three, 3 hours later; Four, 12 Hours later; Five, 48 hours later.”
One could find the detailed introduction to this setting in the introduction of the new game mode. Basically once the player left the Free Exploration Mode under normal circumstance, they could choose the next moment in time when they would reenter the scenario. If they did not choose any of the option or exited the scenario in non-conventional way, the system would automatically selected ’48 hours later’ for them.
Feng Bujue gave it some thought and chose the third option. This meant that… no matter when he played Free Exploration Mode next, it could be one year later, only 3 hours would have passed in this universe.
“You have left Free Exploration Mode.” Soon the elevator stopped moving and the system announced. After a brief moment of dissociation, the rating review appeared before Brother Jue’s screen.
“Free Exploration Mode ended, calculating reward.
“Obtained EXP: 27760, Game Coins: 100
“Obtained Equipment/item: The Poker’s Superhero ID Card
“Obtained Skill Point: 670
“Calculation completed, please continue.”
“Hmm, that’s quite fast…” Feng bujue mumbled. Indeed compared to other modes, the rating review for Free Exploration Mode was very short, there was no reward for clearing the scenario, no anything related to quests, no fear rating and no additional skill point or EXP. Other than that… since this was Brother Jue’s first time in that mode so he wouldn’t get much reward. Of course, this was far, the difficulty was proportional to the reward… It was already not bad for him to nab these rewards for all he did was to follow two OP superheroes to deal with a bunch of idiotic villains. In fact, this 20000 plus Exp and 600 plus Skill Points, Feng Bujue had to thank General Qiong Qiong Qiong Qiong for them…
“Hmm… with my current ability, to reach a rating of star-level superhero is impossible.” Feng Bujue said as he walked to the storage. “Even a planet-level grade will be hard enough…” He placed the superhero Id inside the storage and said darkly. “The first test will be very important, if my level is too low, there will be much hindrance in the future… Looks like I better train for some time and steady myself before I return to the USL.”