He Wuning knew that the official command center had a rough rating system for most players. The “Broker” had explicitly told him that his profile was rated A and mentioned that if he chose to join a combat team, he would certainly be a key talent to cultivate.
But He Wuning had refused.
He had always been a lone-wolf type of player; joining a team would likely only cause trouble—disobedient, overly self-conscious, a thorn in the side. It wasn’t a good fit.
He Wuning was also aware that by telling Yi Luo about his ability changes, he was both placing trust in him and effectively reporting to the officials.
Having just accepted Yi Luo’s order, He Wuning opened his backpack and paused, then looked up: “Are you in a hurry?”
“Huh? Not really,” Yi Luo raised an eyebrow. “What’s up? Did the synthesis time get longer?”
He Wuning pulled out a peeling knife and got out of the car. “Not enough materials.”
After the milk tea upgrade, the amount of materials required had skyrocketed. The piles of ingredients collected during the day—tea leaves, milk, and more—were suddenly insufficient.
Yi Luo was momentarily stunned, then couldn’t help laughing: “So this is… fresh kill, fresh sell?”
He hopped into the driver’s seat confidently. “Can I use the car? Want me to drive for a bit?”
He Wuning thought that using the car would be more efficient and nodded, putting away the knife.
Yi Luo drove steadily while He Wuning leaned against the door to rest. Yi Luo observed him through the rearview mirror and made small talk: “This car doesn’t have a sound system?”
Q-chan perked up: “I can sing for you!”
Yi Luo immediately rejected it: “Never mind.”
Q-chan: “Ugh.”
They turned a corner and stopped, Yi Luo gesturing for He Wuning to get out and collect materials. “Check if this is enough.”
“I’m telling you, your car should really have a collector. Pick up materials along the way, how convenient would that be?”
“I don’t install stuff,” He Wuning said firmly. “Can you repair or modify vehicles?”
“I wish I had some skills to modify vehicles,” Yi Luo shrugged. “Depends if the system allows it.”
He Wuning collected the materials, then hesitated: “Have you ever seen an item called ‘Administrator Permission Fragment’?”
Yi Luo’s gaze suddenly turned strange. “What did you just say?”
He Wuning frowned at him and repeated: “Administrator Permission Fragment.”
Yi Luo’s expression was hard to read. “…What did you say? Why did the game immediately censor it? You weren’t cursing me, were you?”
He Ning expressionlessly replied: “Idiot.”
“That I heard. So it wasn’t a curse.” Yi Luo raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Then what system blocked it?”
He Wuning frowned. Q-chan peeked out: “Useless! People without the qualifications can’t access that info. You don’t have permission to reveal it yet.”
He Wuning paused, then tried sending a message to Yi Luo: “Administrator Permission Fragment.”
When Yi Luo opened it, the message had turned into a jumble of characters. He seemed to realize something, his eyes narrowing with curiosity.
“Looks like you’ve had a bit of an adventure.”
He Wuning seemed a little helpless. Yi Luo laughed: “Never mind, no rush. Take your time. Milk tea ready? I’ll head back, and before I go I’ll fix your car…”
Before he finished speaking, his gaze toward the safe zone froze, and the smile vanished. “He Wuning, look at the edge of the safe zone.”
“Has… it expanded?”
They were a certain distance from the safe zone, and it was nighttime. Apart from a gifted sniper like Yi Luo, ordinary people wouldn’t see the boundaries clearly. But Yi Luo was certain.
“It really has expanded,” he frowned. “The rice noodle shop sign on the city side was only half-visible before, now you can see a new barbecue stall sign.”
He Ning opened the forum. Clearly, they weren’t the only ones noticing the anomaly. Not only were player forums panicking, but viewer forums were even more frantic. Many residents near City A were calling for evacuation.
—In fact, they had already evacuated. As soon as the game’s fallen zone appeared, emergency protocols had been activated, and residents around City A had left. The safe zone had only expanded by less than two meters, posing no real threat to them.
But humans in panic had long forgotten rational thought. Some were even shouting about fleeing abroad—too bad the Earth is round, and other countries also had B- and C-level game fallen zones. Looks like there was no escaping.
At times like this, some people even started treating it like a geography problem, calculating the farthest point on Earth from all three fallen zones, calling it the “Destiny Circle,” and declaring they would start a global run from the danger zones.
He Wuning shook his head. He raised his hand to switch zones, but his gaze froze.
Yi Luo seemed to be contacting the officials, and his expression was grim. Hanging up, he looked at He Wuning. He Ning pursed his lips: “Did you see the new zone?”
Yi Luo rubbed his forehead. “I saw it. Besides fallen zones A, B, and C, a new fallen zone has appeared. There are now four fallen zones on the planet.”
On the viewer forums, official announcements had started appearing. On the blue planet, four circular red areas, like wounds, marked the fallen zones.
Yi Luo remained silent for a moment, then spoke: “The expansion of game zones isn’t the first time—these announcements will soon be officially released, but I can tell you in advance.”
“In the days leading up to City A becoming a game fallen zone—when the boundary expanded fastest—the radius grew nearly a hundred meters.”
“Did you see the number of online players in each forum zone? That represents the number of survivors in that area.”
He Wuning glanced at it. At that moment, City A’s online players barely surpassed one million, a figure that had barely changed in his memory.
“Many people have already died,” Yi Luo said quietly. “Once the number drops below one million, the game fallen zone expands. Today, monsters with abnormal strength, like the Stone Giant, appeared worldwide, and casualties surged.”
“Zone B is in a developed country. They’ve done some adjustments. Although the radius of Zone B expanded nearly ten kilometers, they barely contained it. But Zone C…”
“They recently had armed conflicts. The game fallen zone now includes their capital. It’s almost anarchic. Once the number of players in the fallen zone dropped sharply, the zone expanded explosively until it formed a sphere of about 1,000 square kilometers, then stopped. A new game zone later appeared near Zone C.”
He Wuning was silent for a while. Rarely, he asked a naive question: “We didn’t lose that many people, right?”
Yi Luo lowered his head. “The number dropped by five percent, and most were key targets with strong awakened abilities.”
“The team that Healer Bai Yan was in was almost entirely wiped out. Only he was sent out from the respawn point and is still in critical care.”
He Wuning: “…”
He knew that in the safe zone there were respawn points. Players killed not by monsters but by other players—wouldn’t truly die. They would drop equipment and items, lose all levels, and respawn at the respawn point.
After realizing this, desperate team players, to save their companions, would… personally kill them.
He Wuning closed his eyes, gripping his knife tightly. For a moment, he seemed to recall the sticky feeling of blood covering his hands and clenched his teeth hard.
“Then why did it only expand this little?”
He heard himself ask.
“There are monitoring stations outside,” Yi Luo said, looking at him. “If they detect a drop in player numbers, the officials send in forces to replenish them.”
“The safe zone expanded just now. They probably didn’t expect so many casualties in a single day. They were caught off guard initially.”
“Looks like Zone C is now a complete game zone. Once a zone is fully formed, they’ll create a new one. For now, the only way to suppress expansion is by replenishing numbers, to prevent further losses.”
“Though the game’s purpose is still unclear, it seems to be gradually consuming our land.”
Ding dong—
At this moment, almost everyone in the global game fallen zones looked up simultaneously. An emotionless mechanical voice echoed across the sky:
“Congratulations to 50% of Blue Star players for completing awakening tasks. First non-stop update completed. Version 1.1 has passed random testing and officially launches today.”
“Some monster strengths have been increased; five new common monsters added; three new dungeons added; dungeon difficulty differentiation added; fixed bug where teammates’ damage couldn’t be ignored; five new field bosses added; field boss spawn rates increased…”
With each announcement, everyone’s hearts sank a little further.
“Enjoy your game.”
From a distance, He Wuning heard a burst of swearing erupt from the safe zone, human voices mingled with cries of despair. He lifted his head to the sky.
No one knew what this game was ultimately trying to do. It had given humans the possibility of awakening. As awakened humans gradually adapted to fighting monsters, the game again increased monster strength, like a cruel observational experiment.
His communicator buzzed. He Ning absentmindedly opened it. The sender was “Voice of the World”: “Version 1.1 of the game is now live. Methods to obtain Administrator Permission Fragments have increased. We look forward to your early rise to power. Enjoy your game.”
Administrator Permission Fragments.
He Wuning asked Yi Luo: “Have you ever seen an item with unknown function, marked with three question marks?”
Yi Luo came back to his senses, shaking his head: “No.”
“Then look for it. It’s something good.” He Wuning couldn’t say more, so he hinted indirectly.
Yi Luo guessed it was related to what He Wuning had tried to say but was blocked from sending, and he nodded seriously: “Alright. I’ll have others keep an eye out, too. You, by yourself…”
He Wuning didn’t lift his head: “I won’t die.”
Yi Luo laughed: “You better not.”
He got out of the car. His tall, upright figure seemed to melt into the night. He Wuning called out: “Hey.”
Yi Luo turned back. He Wuning hesitated for a moment before saying: “Are you usually free?”
“Hm?” Yi Luo looked puzzled.
He Wuning looked away: “My car’s breaking down fast.”
Yi Luo smiled: “Then call me anytime.”
He waved his back at He Wuning. He Wuning stood with hands in his pockets; only his fingers inside moved slightly.
He frowned at his hand, as if annoyed at himself for instinctively responding.
Leaning against the car, he asked Q-chan: “What qualifications are specifically needed?”
Q-chan landed on his shoulder: “You need an ability system rating of S or higher, an intelligent system after awakening, and… a bit of luck.”
“His system rating is certainly fine, but without an adorable System like me, it still won’t work!”
He Wuning glanced at him, forcing a smile: “So I should thank you?”
“How do you get the fragments?”
Q-chan answered honestly: “According to current permissions, they are obtained randomly.”
So there must be hidden rules, but they couldn’t be revealed yet.
He Wuning took out the key, expressionless, thinking about the two times he had obtained fragments. The common factor…
Only his intuition.
Both times, his intuition told him the monsters seemed to come alive for an instant.
“Can you scan for nearby monsters with abnormal strength?” He Wuning looked up at the perpetually round moon. Tonight he probably wouldn’t sleep, might as well get some exercise.
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The author has something to say:
Q-chan: Boss, why are you taking a knife out at night!
He Wuning: Restocking.
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