Chapter 75: Strength Analysis Post
How about striking while the Fuling potion is still taking effect and inserting the arrow?
The thought had barely formed before Zhou Ning dismissed it. He wanted this for self-protection, not suicide. What if he actually died?
After checking his time-travel coins, Zhou Ning saw he had enough for ten consecutive draws. He had no plans to save them, so he simply initiated another ten-draw.
[You have obtained a rare treasure: Einstein's manuscript on the theory of relativity.]
[You have obtained a rare item: The first issue of Playboy magazine from 1953.]
[You have obtained a rare item: Vampire Zhou Ning's Nobel Prize trophy.]
…
Zhou Ning was speechless. He had pulled three rare items in a single ten-draw, a new personal record, but they were no different from junk. None of them were useful.
This Fuling potion was turning out to be completely unreliable.
The five 10th-anniversary cases contained a total of fourteen rifles and seventeen pistols. Zhou Ning piled the guns into a suitcase while reviewing his recent gains.
He had just discovered a hidden mission in his third ten-draw. After accepting it, a prompt appeared on his panel:
Hidden Mission: (Can be triggered under special circumstances)
[Famous Gun Collector]: As a collector, you have a particular passion for famous firearms. Achieve the milestone of collecting 5 famous guns across both the simulation and the real world. (2/5)
Mission Tip: A truly famous gun is defined not by its firepower or range, but by its historical value. Happy hunting, collector!
Reward: Random Firearm x1
Collector Zhou Ning was unimpressed.
The mission was simple and the reward was ordinary. Zhou Ning didn't plan to go out of his way for it; he figured it would complete itself eventually through the lottery.
He glanced at his other two hidden missions. The reading progress for [Literary Life] had reached 2,327. Conservatively, it would take at least two more simulated worlds to finish. The simulation progress for [A Better Tomorrow] was now 2/3. With any luck, he could complete it in the next simulated world.
Still a long way to go, Zhou Ning sighed.
After packing all the guns into the case, he hurried out and headed for the Xilin Grocery Store.
…
The horse-drawn carriage moved slowly along the muddy, dirty road.
The route to the Xilin Grocery Store ran through the old city district. The number of homeless people had been increasing over the past few days; through the carriage window, Zhou Ning could see them walking in groups on every street corner.
Perhaps this is the consequence of Charles VI's assassination, Zhou Ning thought, his heart feeling a little heavy.
Modern-day Braxton had a system of poor relief laws that originated in the Kingdom of Falconry. Magistrates were empowered to administer relief, levy taxes for the poor, and issue payments on a parish-by-parish basis. The elderly and disabled received aid at home; poor children were fostered in designated homes and apprenticed upon reaching a certain age; vagrants were imprisoned or sent to a reformatory.
It was a good system in theory, but as the economy declined and poverty intensified, the financial burden of poor relief on Braxton grew. The Poor Laws gradually became meaningless, making the current situation an inevitability.
This was one of the things that made the game Apocalypse so special.
Unlike in other games, the intelligent computer in Apocalypse never interfered with the course of history. Instead, it coldly and precisely controlled the game world's operation and evolution based on programs and data.
Sometimes, it was hard to tell the difference between the game and reality.
Zhou Ning pulled his gaze away from the window and immersed himself in the game's forum.
He had been so busy the last two days he hadn't had time to check it. The forum's popularity had exploded to a level that baffled him—registered users had reached thirty million. And this was just the closed beta.
He clicked into the discussion area and saw the newly released fourth episode of the web series in the pinned posts. But instead of watching it, his curiosity drew him to another popular post at the top of the page.
The title was eye-catching: An Analysis of NPC Strength in Apocalypse.
The post had been made over an hour ago by a beta tester named Grantham.
His character had spawned in the fanatically religious Kingdom of Sifarik, where on his very first day he had witnessed the Knights of the Earth Temple punishing heretics.
In a video he uploaded, an armored knight was wreathed in golden flames. He raised his spear and thrust it at the heretics before him, a beam of golden light erupting from the tip. It looked incredibly cool.
"This armored knight is called Emlyn, the Spear of Justice. His class is Templar, which is one of the main classes. The Church of Mother Earth has at least dozens of knights as powerful as him, and above them are even more powerful bishops, cardinals, and the pope. While Wayne Sternwell might be the protagonist, he seems to be the type that grows over time. He's definitely not strong right now, not even compared to Emlyn. Has anyone else noticed that the enemies Wayne has faced in his battles have been pretty weak? His track record is flimsy and unconvincing."
"The only two opponents who were stronger, Holvig and Elvis, were only defeated with Sherlock's help. All things being equal, if Wayne had to face a wizard like Elvis head-on, I bet the protagonist would most likely lose."
Grantham went on to eloquently analyze many of Zhou Ning's shortcomings, finally concluding that there were many powerful figures in Apocalypse and that every class was formidable. He advised players to be cautious when choosing a class and not to blindly follow the hype around one character.
Zhou Ning narrowed his eyes. Frankly, the analysis was correct. At least it was more professional than XB's takes. He certainly wasn't that strong at the moment.
But using Elvis as an example was a mistake. Based on what Zhou Ning had learned about the Dogbit AI, the fourth episode of the series was almost certain to feature his fight with Elvis.
He scrolled through the replies. Some agreed with the post, but far more were critical. Zhou Ning's fanbase consisted mostly of young girls with extensive experience in online flame wars. Grantham had replied a few times at first but was quickly overwhelmed and enraged by the criticism.
The thread was a lively, large-scale argument.
A slight smile touched Zhou Ning's lips. He left the post and clicked on the pinned web series episode.
The moment it opened, a blizzard of comments flew across the screen.
"Fourth rewatch."
"All killer, no filler."
"@Grantham, what do you think of this video?"
"God knows how many times I've watched this."
Without even watching, Zhou Ning knew he was the star of this episode.
Unlike the previous episodes, which often ran over an hour, this one was shorter—just over forty minutes.
The video opened on a dilapidated house with a garden, then flashed to the interior, where a group of people in black robes were discussing their plans around a crimson altar.
From their conversation, the audience learned that the Curse God Cult was joining forces with two other factions to advance a grand plan called "The Coming of the Kingdom of God." The assassination of Charles VI was only one part of it.
To ensure the plan proceeded smoothly, several people had to be eliminated. Wayne Sternwell, who had obstructed their plans multiple times, had become a target for either assassination or recruitment.
Zhou Ning scoffed. Do they really think I'm that easy to bully?
He paused the video and scrubbed the progress bar back to the beginning.
He saw the dilapidated house again: it had a garden and a blue roof, a typical Braxton middle-class style. There was a river nearby, which could be the Seton River that flowed southeast through the city, or it might be the canal in the Docklands.
Finding it would just be a matter of taking a carriage and following the river. It wouldn't be difficult at all.
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