A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

It was a tranquil summer night. The bedroom was completely still, the only sounds drifting in from outside being the chirp of cicadas and the call of birds.

The summer heat was unbearable, so Ke Mingqing used the remote to turn on the air conditioner. He lay back on his bed and opened the player forum.

To guard against the possibility that the alien queen was spying on him, he deliberately overlapped his phone screen with the system interface, creating the illusion that he was just browsing his phone late at night.

The player forum had been unlocked for less than an hour, but users from all over the world had already posted several pages of threads.

It made sense. In a life-or-death crisis like this, even with so few of them, their psychological solidarity was obvious.

The posts generally fell into four categories.

The first category sought psychological comfort from other players. For those who had already suffered a mental breakdown, unlocking the forum was like rain after a long drought. It was a lifeline in the dark; they desperately needed "their own kind" to share their plight.

However, as the player with the most dangerous starting conditions of the hundred, Ke Mingqing didn't have the luxury of sharing his burden. Right now, the only player he could trust was Kuroki Hitomi. Since their lives were bound together, any betrayal would trigger a severe backlash for them both.

The second category of thread involved recruiting other players in the same city—essentially local meetup posts.

The third category was more about trolling:

"Help Thread: Regarding the fact that my macho friend accidentally bought a B-grade skill and discovered it transforms him into a magical girl—Poster: Paranoia."

"A brutal tier list ranking Roundtable heroes, magical girls, and recently emerged villains from god-tier to trash—Poster: Paranoia."

"Hehe, do male magical girls count as transgender? If so, would I have an easier time if I flew to the US?—Poster: Paranoia."

Almost all threads of this nature were posted by the same player. To have such a wild train of thought during a life-or-death crisis made Ke Mingqing suspect that this person either had a mental issue or genuinely didn't value their own life.

Having nothing better to do, Ke Mingqing clicked into the tier list thread to take a look.

Rain Crow was rated "freaking awesome," Magical Girl Ember was "god tier," and White Jack was "absolute trash." He could already imagine how these players would rate him once he made his superhero debut.

Ke Mingqing let out a deadpan laugh and memorized the poster's ID.

He made a mental note. 'If I ever get the chance, I'm definitely going to use Theater Puppet to mess with him, and I'll smack his ass hard with my magic cane.'

Of course, none of those threads had much substance, offering zero practical information. Ke Mingqing swiftly filtered through the noise, his thumb swiping rapidly.

He was looking for the fourth category of thread.

These were far more meaningful. For example: "Documenting the skills I've pulled from the skill shop these past few days. Everyone is welcome to share—Poster: Orange Peel."

"The purpose of attribute points: I suggest allocating your stat points based on the skills you possess—Poster: Even Chunibyo Wants to Exterminate Superhumans."

A moment later, Ke Mingqing's thumb paused.

His gaze stopped on one particular thread. The title read: "On the Attribute Growth Limit of Every Player." The poster was named "Fanquan," and their IP location was New York, USA.

Ke Mingqing clicked into it and was met with a dizzyingly long wall of text.

He suspected the poster was either a meticulous scholar or a power-scaling fanatic who basically lived on debate forums in their past life.

[Raising the three attributes from E Rank to D Rank requires 9 stat points; by that logic, raising all attributes from E Rank to S Rank requires a total of 45 stat points.

And the system provides us with the following growth paths:

1. Weekly Missions (Can be completed once a week, making it 4 times a month. In addition, a 'Special Mission' will refresh once, totaling 5 points a month. Over six months, that amounts to 30 stat points. This is the primary avenue.)

2. Level-Up Rewards (1 stat point awarded for every 5 levels gained—reaching the max level of Rank 50 yields a total of 10 stat points.)

3. Main Missions (Each player is assigned 1 to 3 unique main missions. The deeper the stage of the main mission, the more stat points rewarded—it's estimated players can acquire around 12 stat points through the main storyline.)

In summary, players can theoretically acquire around 50 stat points in total.

As long as they steadily follow the system's growth path, every player has the opportunity to become an S Rank super-human species within half a year, or perhaps even less.

Furthermore, because of the existence of 'items' and 'skills,' a player's performance will far exceed that of other super-human species of the same rank.

—Fanquan.]

Ke Mingqing yawned as he reached the end. 'Are you a shill hired by the system?' he thought. 'Painting such a rosy picture.'

He smacked his lips, yawning until tears welled in his eyes. "That calculation assumes you complete every single mission without missing one," he muttered softly. "But before that happens, two-thirds of the players will likely be dead."

"In the end, at most twenty or thirty players will reach their perfect form." Ke Mingqing admitted his thoughts were pessimistic, but it was the truth. After all, it had only been a few days, and two players had already died suddenly. There was still half a year left to endure.

Then, another thought struck him. 'But looking at it this way, my advantage really isn't small. Other players only get one or two main missions, but I'm different. Assuming every family member gives one main mission, that's six. Add Jiang Qingzi to the mix, and that's a full seven main missions.'

'At that rate, by the later stages, I'll average over twenty stat points and tens of thousands of superhuman coins more than them... My early-stage leveling speed won't be something they can match, either.'

He did some quick mental math. 'If the attribute limit for other players is an S Rank super-human species, then I might just become the only SS Rank super-human species.'

Yet, upon realizing this, Ke Mingqing let out a heavy sigh.

'Of course, the tradeoff is that my situation is far more dangerous than theirs. I probably have the highest chance of sudden death out of all one hundred players.'

He scrolled through the forum a bit more until a specific thread caught his attention.

[The Family's Black Cat: Players whose starting location is 'Leijing, China,' please reply under this thread.]

'The Family's Black Cat...'

Ke Mingqing stared quietly at the ID, suddenly recalling Kuroki Hitomi's WeChat screen name. 'Could it be that Japanese exchange student?'

He clicked into the thread. Three players had left comments at the bottom. Their forum IDs were "Paranoia," "Meng Qing," and "Orange Peel," and all three had their IP locations firmly set to Leijing, China. Players could turn off their IP tracking at any time; they had left it on specifically to prove to one another that they were indeed in the city of Leijing.

It was a small world. That player "Paranoia," who had just made the thread harshly critiquing White Jack, also happened to be one of the Leijing players.

Ke Mingqing pondered for a moment before opening his friend chat interface.

[Ke Mingqing: Is that "The Family's Black Cat" on the forum you?]

[Kuroki Hitomi: Yes. I can already confirm there are three players in Leijing. Aren't you going to make contact with them?]

[Ke Mingqing: I'll leave the task of contacting them to you. I told you, my situation is a bit inconvenient.]

[Kuroki Hitomi: Oh, alright. I'll report back to you if I get any information.]

[Ke Mingqing: Can you handle them?]

[Kuroki Hitomi: Yeah, I won't hold you back.]

'Nothing else to do today. I should just sleep,' he decided.

Ke Mingqing closed the chat panel, rested his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes.

It started to rain.

Pea-sized raindrops pattered against the windowpane. Ke Mingqing loved falling asleep to the sound of rain. He assumed he would sleep until he woke naturally, just like every night before this. But deep into this particular night, the rain inexplicably fell silent.

It was as if someone outside the window was blocking the falling rain; the continuous patter simply vanished.

Feeling a slight tickle on his face, Ke Mingqing slowly opened his eyes.

At that exact moment, he groggily made out the shape of an eyeball—yes, an eyeball.

This eyeball was embedded in the surface of a metal box. The box itself was held aloft by a patch of black light, hovering directly below the ceiling. The eye stared silently down at his face.

'What is this...' Ke Mingqing thought in a daze. 'Am I dreaming?'

But as his vision cleared from its sleepy blur, his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of a pitch-black figure sitting right outside his windowsill.

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