But why? Everything had been perfectly normal when he logged off yesterday! His attribute points from yesterday... were clearly much lower by comparison.
Liu Kongkong sat in his chair, racking his brain.
He knew the game could change a person's body, but he never imagined the transformation could be this dramatic, and this fast.
"So once a single attribute exceeds 1,000 points, the body undergoes a noticeable physical change in real life?"
He immediately ruled out 100 as the threshold — his points had far exceeded that when the Path of Samsara dungeon first opened. Was it 1,000 then? Or 2,000...?
"Forget it, I'll just go back in and test it."
Practice makes perfect!
Liu Kongkong flipped himself into the Game Pod and logged into the game without missing a beat. He glanced at the Void Space death counter, which was still climbing like crazy, and noticed that a few pieces of equipment dropped by the Yin-Yang Scorpion-Tailed Lion had already appeared in the loot pool.
But he had no time to deal with that right now. He opened his character panel. The current points had been allocated before the evening meeting, and in just a few short hours, several thousand players had contributed another 2,154 attribute points to him.
"Let's try adding another 1,000 points to Constitution!"
A few minutes later, the allocation was done. He logged out in one smooth motion, opened his eyes, and sprinted to the bathroom without a word.
No difference?
He ran back to the Game Pod, logged in again, and this time spent 625 attribute points to bring Strength up to 1,000. Then he logged out again!
"Okay, Liu Kongkong, take it slow. Carefully step out of the Game Pod..." The moment he opened his eyes, he could feel that his body had undergone another massive change. Knowing he had just pumped Strength this time, and if his theory was correct, one careless move could send his foot straight through the Game Pod.
He eased himself out of the Game Pod slowly, then gently picked up the water glass on the table. He gave it a light squeeze — nothing happened. He applied just a little more force.
Bang! The glass exploded in an instant.
Understood. Liu Kongkong stared at the shards in his hand.
"From what I can tell, once any single attribute reaches 1,000 points, the body undergoes a substantial real-world improvement. But my Constitution is already at 4,000, and it's only changed once. Have I hit the ceiling, or does it need an even higher number? Ten thousand points?"
Getting Constitution to 10,000 wasn't difficult for Liu Kongkong — but what would he look like at that point? Right now, his physique had bulked up somewhat, but it was still within an acceptable range. Wearing long sleeves and long pants, people who knew him would just think he'd gotten more muscular.
He spent some time adjusting to his new Strength, then decided it was time to revisit some superhero movies.
Too wired to sleep after the films, Liu Kongkong logged back in.
Over the past two hours, quite a few more attribute points had accumulated. He dumped them all in at once.
Name: Liu Dameng
Class: Apprentice Blacksmith (Level 20, Max Level Reached)
HP: 40,001 / 40,001
Mana: 4,661 / 4,661
Strength: 1,000
Constitution: 4,001
Agility: 1,000
Intelligence: 1,000
Spirit: 467
Available Points: 0
Skills:
Passive Skill: Sharp Eye (Level 1) — Observe a target's level.
Time Is Money (Level 6)
Looks Are Justice (Level 5)
Life Needs Miracles (Level 6)
Let's Upgrade (Level 2)
Good Enough to Get By (Level 1)
After reaching Level 20, EXP had been locked — presumably he'd need to leave the Starter Village before he could continue leveling.
"The next thing to do is finish crafting the equipment I have in mind, then wait for them to clear the dungeon. The housing situation can be put on hold for now — if my body keeps changing in extreme ways, it's probably better not to live somewhere densely populated."
Besides, if the game had these kinds of effects, he could set up Game Pods for his parents too — treat it as a health regimen. Liu Kongkong sorted through his mental to-do list while pulling the dropped items from the dungeon interface and organizing them.
"A Masquerade Ball?" Liu Kongkong blinked. He had set this item to drop from the first boss, but the drop rate wasn't high. He hadn't expected it to show up this quickly.
"That's my Masquerade Ball!"
"Boss, boss, just let it go! It's just one item — let's focus on running the dungeon! You can come back and farm it later." No. 1 tried to console him from the side. Ever since the Masquerade Ball had dropped, Big Dumb Duck had been muttering about it for hours. If this guy weren't his employer, No. 1 wouldn't even want to run with him.
He really was terrible...
Most of the rest of the team could dodge the Blood-Light Moths' attacks for three or four rounds, but Big Dumb Duck couldn't even survive the first round. The problem was that no one else could spare a hand to save him — the Blood-Light Moths' first wave of attacks was somewhat concentrated, but each subsequent wave grew increasingly chaotic, and everyone had to stay completely focused just to barely dodge through.
Meanwhile, Night's Gentle Chill and the others were doing even worse than Big Dumb Duck's group.
After all, there were five equally terrible players on that side...
"Hey Ye, do you think we're dragging the team down?" Heart and Soul felt miserable. Every teammate around them moved with agility and lightning-fast reflexes, making him feel like a disabled person by comparison.
Night's Gentle Chill's mouth twitched at those words. Some things you keep to yourself — there's no need to say them out loud! Five useless players going in and immediately wiping — did he think that was something to be proud of?!
Seeing that Night's Gentle Chill said nothing, Heart and Soul slumped powerlessly onto the ground. Over the past while, everyone had tried all sorts of strategies — like having the team's Assassins rush in at the start to burst down a single Blood-Light Moth. That had actually worked, but the very next second, all five of them were dead.
"Don't lose heart. We've already sent people to find outside help. And our second team isn't weak either — they might be able to clear it." Night's Gentle Chill knew Heart and Soul's personality well after years of friendship. "It's just that our attributes are too low right now. I just came out of the Starter Village and spotted a scalper selling some really cool equipment."
"What equipment?"
"The Death-Defying Ferris Wheel..." Night's Gentle Chill described the weapon. "The Strength requirement is just way too high to wield. But if you could spin that thing up — I bet it'd wipe out a whole swarm of those moths in an instant!"
"...300 Strength, in the Starter Village? Even if you dumped every single point into Strength, you still couldn't equip it. What kind of idiot made this thing...?"
Who else could it be?
The scalpers hadn't said, but Night's Gentle Chill could figure it out with their eyes closed — it had to be from the blacksmith. After all, in the Starter Village, Liu the Blacksmith was the only one who could make something like that.
"By the way, who's this outside help you mentioned?"
Night's Gentle Chill had come back earlier looking genuinely excited — it was probably because of this outside help.
At the mention of it, Night's Gentle Chill perked right up: "Do you remember who was the first in our zone to reach Level 18?"
"Wasn't it someone called Sunny Sky?"
"That's the one. I had someone reach out to him earlier, and we just got a reply."
Heart and Soul looked puzzled: "Isn't he just fast at leveling? We've got Level 19 players on our team too — does being one level higher really make that much of a difference?"
"His level isn't the only thing going for him. And perfect timing — he's here." Night's Gentle Chill had already arranged it beforehand, removing a team member to make room, then pulling Sunny Sky into the party. A minute later, a man with an icy expression walked up to the group, a long spear in hand.
"Let me introduce him — this is Sunny Sky, hidden class: Spear Walker."
A hidden class?!
Every member of the team stared at Sunny Sky in stunned silence. There was something like that in the Starter Village?!
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