With a slight twitch in his mouth, Bai Zhi returned the little black suit in his hand.
"By the way, speaking of strength, do you know the overall strength of the current players? What is the strength of the top players?"
"Strength? It's actually difficult to characterize a player's strength."
Since the other party was unwilling to accept it, Cyborg didn't force it and simply took back the suspect suit.
It was not like he had never tried on this suit before, and then he was almost killed as a criminal by his comrades in the military area... The key is that he couldn't reason with him after he was killed.
"It's hard to determine? Is there no such thing as strength value?"
Bai Zhi raised his eyebrows slightly.
"It's not that, it's because... let's put it this way."
Shaking his head slightly, Cyborg didn't mean to hide it, so he spoke.
"If we really want to make a qualitative statement, it is probably that the stronger the player, the stronger the life-saving ability. After all, in the face of endless weird stories with various special rules, surviving is the most important thing. After all, the only way to survive is to stay alive. Only then…”
"When you play the game, you also give out six meaty outfits!?"
Bai Zhi looked like he had found the same kind of surprise.
"… no."
The corners of Cyborg's mouth twitched slightly.
"If we really want to talk about it, in terms of the overall strength evaluation of the player, the player's own life-saving ability accounts for half of the score."
"What about the others?"
Recalling that his perfect skill was basically based on life-saving considerations, Bai Zhi raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What about the so-called actual combat ability? Not to mention overwhelming the sea, huge waves, and so on. It should be no problem to shovel through a tiger with a slide shovel, or kill a 50-meter-thick steel plate with a fist, right?"
"It is true, but if their self-protection ability is not strong enough, such players will not survive long at all."
Cyborg shook his head.
"Various types of ghost stories emerge in endlessly. Some ghost stories have no entity at all, but are simply a curse, a sentence, or a photo. When faced with such weird and intangible ghost stories, your actual combat ability What’s the use of being stronger?”
When he said this, Cyborg's expression darkened involuntarily.
"I was once responsible for the finishing work of a ghost story incident. That ghost story was actually not strong, but it killed dozens of players and even almost got out of control. If it got out of control, it would lead to Millions of people died...can you guess what the weird story is?"
"What weird story?"
Bai Zhi frowned slightly.
"… one sentence."
"What?"
"It's very simple, just because of one sentence."
Cyborg let out a breath.
"Anyone who knows that sentence will have a strange spontaneous combustion phenomenon in their body, and then they will be completely burned to death. When we finally figured out the nature of this strange story and the pattern of death, dozens of players died, and hundreds of others died. Ordinary people were burned to death, and thousands of people were admitted to the intensive care unit... In the face of such weird and strange stories, what use is your actual combat ability? In the end, everyone's memories were sealed, and that strange story was finally given away. Take control."
"Well... no wonder the price of protective items in the auction house is so high."
Bai Zhiruo nodded thoughtfully.
"... So, the specific strength evaluation standards for players are roughly divided into three parts."
After a moment of wordless silence, Cyborg continued.
"The first thing is the self-preservation ability to ensure your own safety, the second is the intelligence to deal with researching strange stories and finding out the rules, and the last is the actual combat ability. First improve your own life-preservation ability, and then consider improving other aspects of strength. This is the most correct way. Apart from this, all other ways are wrong ways..."
Before he could finish his eloquent words, Cyborg shuddered inexplicably.
Somewhat strangely, he turned his head and looked around, but he didn't find anything unusual. On the contrary, a certain girl on the side turned her head silently.
"The most important thing is the ability to save one's life..."
After thinking about it for a while, Bai Zhi discovered that his life-saving ability is actually quite strong. The advantages brought by perfect-level skills are too great. Not to mention the strong concealment, he can not only fight, but also resist. But I can still run...
… … … … … … … … … …
After some discussions, the three finally decided to rest here for a night. Night was not their time, and dangers hidden in the darkness were everywhere.
No matter which aspect you consider, waiting until daytime before taking action is the best choice.
...a night of silence.
Soon, the next day comes.
The sky was gray, as if covered with a layer of black gauze.
After sorting things out a little, the three of them walked towards the castle. Everything was calm last night, and the other two teams seemed to have no intention of taking action.
The entire Rose Manor was eerily quiet.
For safety reasons, Cyborg took the lead and walked at the front, while Bai Zhi walked at the back to break up the rear. However, the further they walked along the way, the more frightened they became.
Everything was quiet in the entire manor, there were no bugs, no butterflies, not even an ant, as if they were the only living creatures in the manor.
Walking silently through the silent trees, they seemed to be traveling through an ancient and forgotten country.
The further he walked, the tighter Bai Zhi's brows became.
"What are you looking for?"
Deliberately slowing down his forward speed and falling one position behind, the deceased Zero came to Bai Zhi's side and walked side by side with him.
"… traces."
Turning his head and looking at the girl next to him, Bai Zhi exhaled in his mouth.
"The traces of human passing, the traces left by human beings, the traces caused by human beings... In the mirror maze, we found the traces left by the previous humans. Following those traces, we walked out of the maze... The impossible is You can’t find it in the manor.”
"Did you find anything?"
Turning her head and looking at the dense trees around her, the girl tilted her head slightly.
"No, nothing."
Bai Zhi's face looked a little ugly.
"I have a hunch that this time..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Cyborg's voice came from the front.
Volume One: The Gap between Illusion and Reality: Chapter 247 Chapter 243: Forest of Dolls
Desolation, deathly silence... This is the only feeling in Cyborg's heart.
Walking among the trees, the further he walked, the more uncomfortable he felt.
The entire Rose Manor was filled with a heavy air of death, and the surroundings were eerily quiet, except for the rustling sounds they made while walking.
—There are no traces of any biological activity here.
As a special forces soldier, Cyborg performed his duties very well. In this unknown environment, those at the front are often the most dangerous, but he never looked back. As the captain, he could never let others Two walked in front.
In the distance from the mirror maze to the castle, there is actually no road. Maybe there once was, but it has been heavily covered by plants that have grown wantonly for who knows how many years.
Therefore, in this case, the steel frame walking at the front is also responsible for clearing a path.
At the very beginning, Cyborg was still wary of the beasts or monsters that might rush out of the woods, but now, his heart is expecting monsters to rush out as soon as possible. … The change in mentality is quite obvious.
So, when he saw a corpse hanging on a tree trunk nearby, not only did he not feel frightened, but he actually breathed a sigh of relief.
"…doll?"
Soon, Bai Zhi and the deceased Ling also caught up.
By now, they had left the cluttered bush areas and entered a forest. A doll that looked like a human corpse was hung at the entrance of the forest.
In psychology, there is a saying called the uncanny valley effect.
The so-called uncanny valley effect means that because robots and humans are similar in appearance and actions, humans will have positive emotions towards robots; when the similarity between robots and humans reaches a certain level, humans will react to them. It will suddenly become extremely negative and disgusting. Even if the robot is only slightly different from humans, it will appear very conspicuous and dazzling. As a result, the entire robot will have a very stiff and terrifying feeling, just like facing the walking dead.
Specifically, if an entity is sufficiently "less-anthropomorphic" than its human-like features will be conspicuous and easily identifiable, it will create an empathic effect. On the other hand, if an entity is "strongly anthropomorphic," its non-humanoid features will become prominent, creating an odd feeling to a human observer.
——This is how the doll hanging on the tree in front of Bai Zhi and the others gave them this feeling.
This doll is too lifelike, every detail on the body, every fold, the expression of despair on the face, the fear of death... It's as if they are facing a real corpse, giving It brings a very strong sense of discomfort to people's psychology.
Of course, if it was really a corpse, it would feel better, but whether it was the plastic skin, the glass bead eyeballs, or the large pieces of cotton exposed from the damaged parts of the body... they all fully explained it. The corpse in front of him was nothing more than a well-made doll.
As a gust of breeze blew by, the doll swayed gently in the air. With the blessing of the uncanny valley effect, it invisibly brought an unspeakable unknown fear to people's hearts.
"It's a human being... He escaped here in his final escape, but when he was about to step into the bush area, due to some unknown reasons, he chose to commit suicide in despair to defend his final dignity... …”
Bai Zhi withdrew his eyes from the fallen white cotton balls on the ground, raised his head and looked at the doll hanging in mid-air in front of him, with a noncommittal look on his face.
"In this Rose Manor, does the so-called death mean turning into this kind of ghost?"
"...is it a curse?"
Taking a deep breath in his mouth, Cyborg's expression became serious.
As a high-level player in the military, he is naturally not unfamiliar with this kind of curse or scenes similar to memetic pollution, or he has dealt with this type of thing many times.
But compared to the situations he had dealt with that had been contaminated and turned into monsters, the doll in front of him was pretty good. At least it didn't look like it would give people nightmares at night...
"Maybe... In short, everyone should be careful and don't touch this kind of ghost thing. It's hard to tell accurately about curses."
Shaking his head, Bai Zhi turned around and looked forward.
"As for whether that's the case, we can just go forward. We should be able to find more dolls... hurry up."
In the forest, a breeze blew by.
Along with this breeze, the doll hanging on the tree was blown around, and its glass eyeballs stared blankly in the direction of the three people below...
… … … … … … … … … …
Just as Bai Zhi had guessed, the further forward they went, the more dolls they saw.
Some were standing in the woods in a standing position, while some fell under the trees. Some dolls had a big hole in their chests, and large swaths of cotton were scattered. Some dolls' heads simply fell off and rolled down. When they reached a corner, their godless glass eyes looked at the sky through the gaps between the trees... This forest was almost filled with dolls.
But without exception, the workmanship of these dolls appears to be extremely sophisticated, giving people an extremely uncomfortable look.
"..."
No one spoke, and the three of them walked through the dolls in silence.
In fact, after all, what can be said about this kind of thing
This is not an online game, nor is it a game that can be played again and again. Everyone has only one life, including the players.
Although players are said to have the power to fight Kaidan, the risks they take are dozens of times that of ordinary people. Compared with ordinary people, players are at the forefront of resisting Kaitan.
About half an hour later, Bai Zhi and the others passed through the forest of dolls.
After walking out of the woods, everything in front of them suddenly became clear. A huge fountain square appeared in front of them, and behind the huge fountain square, an ancient castle stood there.
However, after walking out of the woods, everyone's expressions, including Bai Zhi's, couldn't help but change.
Not far in front of them, in front of the huge fountain square, a little girl wearing a white princess dress and holding a rabbit doll was standing there, seemingly waiting for their arrival.
Volume One: The Gap between Illusion and Reality: Chapter 248 Chapter 244: Being handsome is really a trouble...
-This is a situation they did not expect
After carefully cutting their way through the mirror maze and artificially carving a path to the castle, a little blond girl wearing a princess dress appeared in front of them.
“Welcome all guests~”
Lifting the hem of the white dress with both hands, the little girl leaned forward slightly and bowed to them gracefully.
"Welcome to Anna's castle. I am Anna, the owner here. Please come with me into my castle. I will provide you with the most perfect hospitality. I hope you will enjoy your stay here."
"Hospitality? You mean those dolls abandoned in the woods?"
Bai Zhi narrowed his eyes slightly when he looked at the little blond girl in front of him who was wearing a white princess dress just like any other person.
- He never thought that Anna would appear in front of them in the middle of the mission.
The opponent seems to be weak... Maybe we can try to kill the opponent here
But as soon as this thought appeared in his mind, Bai Zhi decisively chose to give up.