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Second chapter of the week brought to you by Translator: Craxuan editor: darklord5555

Chapter 31: Solving The Mystery (2)

Yue Qiang slowly read through the unlocked portion of the manual, and finally gained an understanding in many things.

The blue progress bar represented the ‘World’s Conversion Rate’.

In this game, anything the character did can increase this ‘conversion rate’, such as killing mobs, chatting, and even dying. It’s just that the conversion rate of normal actions were extremely low, and performing quests – especially hidden quests – would greatly increase the conversion rate.

The blue progress bar ‘World’s Conversion Rate’ was very helpful inside the game. For example, when the conversion rate had exceeded 10%, it would become possible to activate the hidden quest to acquire the dialogue system. Once this hidden quest was completed, it would become possible to chat freely with the NPCs. More than just information, it would also become possible to obtain additional rewards through certain skills, just like how Yue Qiang had blackmailed 4 treasures consecutively from the doctor Ming Que.

As the world’s conversion rate continued to increase, a character would be able to make more and more choices inside the game. The degree of freedom and possibility of obtaining ‘Special Stats’ would become higher and higher as well. The explanations regarding ‘Special Stats’ and a whole host of related questions were also provided at the back of the manual. For example, Yue Qiang’s actions were limited inside the house when he first started the game. If he touched the door, a dialog box would be triggered informing him that he had been limited inside the house. This was the situation he would face when the degree of freedom was limited at 0%. With 70% degree of freedom now, not only he could walk out of the door, he would also be able to jump out of the window, and even use his newly acquired skills to blast away the house before leaving. He could do almost everything just like in the real world.

Essentially, what the blue progress bar affected was the game’s degree of realism. This could be seen from the obtaining of information, the increasing degree of freedom, and even the NPC’s intelligence and many other aspects. As the progress bar increased, the Game’s world grew closer and closer to the real world.

However, that was not all.

Since the blue progress bar was explained as the ‘World’s Conversion Rate’ inside the game manual, it meant that as the Game’s world was slowly converting into a realistic world, the opposite was also happening at the same time.

This was the source of Yue Qiang’s fear: The real world was gradually being turned into a game.

Even if the conversion had already happened for real, he still could not accept it.

But it wasn’t something he could avoid. From the moment Yue Qiang dropped all 8 free distribution stat points into his Charisma, his life had irreversibly changed. (T/N: And this is what dem synopsis meant baby!)

The more and more formulated speech and tone of the cla.s.s beauty Rao Xiao Ting, the unadulterated admiration of the waiters and waitresses in consumer sites, the dead silent single player game forum on the internet… Everything pointed in the same direction – the entire world around Yue Qiang was gradually losing its life; the living, breathing energy that animates the very soul.

The game manual did not provide a direct explanation, but the two words ‘Conversion Rate’ were already the best explanation.

He could almost be certain that this game was gradually and continuously extracting something from the real world; something like ‘Life’ itself and injecting it into the Game’s world. The blue color represented the progress rate of this extraction process.

If the extraction progress reached 100%, what would happen?

Yue Qiang felt pins and needles on his scalp. The explanation given by the manual regarding the ‘Blue Progress Bar’ was only so much, and then he couldn’t help but recall even more memories, such as the one time when Luqiu Duanyi had once told him to, ‘Pay attention to the color of the sea. It means how much time you have left’.

He could now completely confirm that the thing she mentioned back then was without a doubt the blue progress bar. Then what about the time he had left? If the progress had reached 100%, did that mean that the Game would turn completely real, and the real world turn completely into a game? Or would something even more unimaginable happen?

Yue Qiang thought rapidly when he suddenly realized something. Why did that woman, Luqiu Duanyi, seem unaffected by the conversion process?

The biggest doubt of this woman was that she knew how to learn the skills inside this game! One would be that seemingly joke-like Run skill, and the other would be that initially incomprehensible, but ma.s.sively powerful when applied Killing Style, One skill.

Without her, Yue Qiang would have died in the game’s first quest a long time ago.

Luqiu Duanyi had appeared in Yue Qiang’s world seemingly out of nowhere. Now that he thought about it, there were only too many illogical points about that high cla.s.s fitness club in the first place; most of all was that woman herself, of course. In that case, then what was her background then?

He could not figure out the answer, so he decided that he might as well set aside these questions and continue reading the rest of the ‘Game Manual’.

Clicking the mouse and turning over a page, the second page of the manual explained the meaning behind the green progress bar. Its explanation wasn’t as simple and easy to understand as the blue progress bar; there were many spots that displayed ‘??’.

The system’s explanation to these ‘?’ was that his cultivation of the heart wasn’t enough and thus, he couldn’t read them.

It looks like I must increase the level of the cultivation of the heart before I can obtain more information. This may be one of the reasons why Luqiu Duanyi had told to increase my power as soon as possible. While thinking, Yue Qiang began to research carefully the unlocked portions of the page.

The system’s explanation towards the green progress bar was like this:

The green progress bar, represented the activated functions, skills and stats.

There were two activated functions, and they were the dialogue system and realistic combat system. There were also a whole list of question marks at the back indicating that the remaining information was at an unviewable state.

There were three activated skills, and they were:

There were no ‘?’ labeled at the back. Instead, there was only a small ‘Turn Page’ b.u.t.ton at the side. It was very possible that the skills to be added under this page were not fixed, and were based off the skills that the Player could freely learn. Since there were infinite possibilities, they were displayed using an automatically incrementing ‘Turn Page’ method instead of ‘?’.

There were only five activated stats, and he had memorized these a long time ago: Strength, Vitality, Wisdom, Wealth and Charisma.

There was also a subcategory under the explanation of the activated stats. There was only one slot activated under the subcategory, and that was ‘Stamina Gauge’.

Yue Qiang’s expectations towards this set of stats was also the greatest. The reason was simple. The increment, and even the extension of his stat options was the true key to increasing one’s power in this game! His previous a.s.sumption that he wasn’t just fixed to 5 stat options, and that they could be slowly expanded had also been confirmed.

If an NPC could have 6, or even more stat options, then on what basis he, as the Player could only have 5, especially when Strength and Vitality were the only combat-related stats he had. The remaining three did not appear to be much useful right now.

As for the activation of additional gauges under the subcategory, could he perhaps a.s.sume that a character could activate more than one gauge in this game?

If this is true, does this mean that as long as I discover the right method, I have the opportunity to activate the Rage gauge, energy gauge, MP gauge, blood pool gauge etc. and even the legendary internal power gauge?