Chapter 19: A Trembling Forum, an Unprecedented Settlement

The eerie game has an official forum, which is not controlled by players, but players can leave messages and post there. This forum mainly discloses information about the eerie game, one of which is the game’s settlement results. However, since settlement information is personal privacy, the eerie forum only reveals general details.

Even so, it shocked everyone.

...

Zhou Lu waited in front of the computer with the core members of the Lancheng team.

“You’re saying that the newcomer inside has the ability to erase the gates?” Zhou Lu looked at Liu Tong with great anticipation.

“That’s right. That newcomer behaves oddly but possesses a very strange power. Using this power, he managed to pin the eerie card onto the wall twice, which is how we cleared the level,” Liu Tong truthfully reported to his captain.

Bai Wan still vividly remembered the scene of the eerie card pinned to the wall.

“If what you say is true, then that ability must be extremely valuable.”

Zhou Lu couldn’t help but recall past experiences. If someone could make gates disappear, the casualty rate among previous team members wouldn’t have been so high.

“So, what does he do in real life?” Zhou Lu was curious. What kind of profession could awaken such an ability?

Liu Tong hesitated before answering, “According to him… he seems to be a miner? But not quite like an ordinary miner.”

“Ah? A miner? What’s different about it?” Zhou Lu was somewhat surprised.

Liu Tong thought of Bai Wan’s previous self-introduction and said with a complicated expression, “It’s a bit complicated… it’s like a miner, but more like Mario… You know Mario, right? He can enter the sewer to reach the coin house…”

“Huh??” Zhou Lu and everyone else in the room fell silent, then looked at Liu Tong with strange expressions.

What kind of hellish-level cold joke was this?

Zhou Lu was stunned for a long time, then sympathetically patted Liu Tong’s shoulder, saying, “I know you’re under a lot of pressure after just finishing the dungeon. I’ll give you two days off to rest. By the way, Lancheng recently opened a new bathhouse; let’s go relax there this weekend.”

With that, Zhou Lu smiled mischievously and winked at Liu Tong.

“No, I’m serious, Captain… you should go by yourself,” Liu Tong said with a smile and a tear, recalling how seriously that mysterious youth had introduced himself.

“Heh heh heh, the ladies inside are very pretty. Really not going? Then I’ll go alone,” Zhou Lu grinned.

“Captain, the settlement results are out.”

A white-haired girl behind Zhou Lu suddenly spoke.

Su Yueling had been observing the page carefully and immediately noticed the forum’s settlement notification.

“Oh? Come quickly and see how the mysterious newcomer Liu Tong mentioned performed.”

Everyone gathered around, eagerly looking at the clearance settlement.

[System: The Ghost Ship dungeon has ended. Player clearance information is now published as encouragement…]

The results for Liu Tong and others were released first: Liu Tong received a B-rank evaluation and 150 eerie coins; the others only got a basic C-rank evaluation.

“A B-rank is quite good, keep it up,” Zhou Lu patted Liu Tong’s shoulder.

Liu Tong was still a newcomer but quite sharp and cautious, so he had a promising future.

“This run was cleared thanks to Bai Wan,” Liu Tong shook his head after hearing the praise.

To be honest, his performance this time was average; getting a B-rank was unexpected.

Zhou Lu and the others scrolled to the bottom of the announcement, eagerly awaiting Bai Wan’s performance.

Every new player in Lancheng was a potential recruit.

Not to mention, this newcomer was said to have astonishing talent.

“Oh? That newcomer’s in-game name is ‘Family’?” Zhou Lu asked curiously.

When they saw Bai Wan’s settlement evaluation, their mouths dropped wide open, growing more and more shocked.

[Player Name: Family.

Settlement Rank: -S, earned zero eerie coins.]

[Obtained Exclusive Title: He Always Messes Everything Up

Quality: Epic

Effect: Players with this title have an abnormal attraction to eerie entities, which will prioritize attacking the player.]

[Finally, due to some uncontrollable reasons, the Ghost Ship dungeon has been permanently taken offline. Thank you players for your continued support.]

Everyone fell silent for a long while after reading.

“Did I see that wrong?” one young man wearing glasses took them off, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.

Why was the rank a negative S??

What the hell was this???

How could there be a negative rating??

“And… that newcomer actually received a title?” Su Yueling’s big eyes were filled with astonishment.

Titles were honors granted only to the most exceptional geniuses.

Among all eerie game players, only a very few ever earned titles.

“But what kind of ability is that?” Zhou Lu was dumbfounded.

He always messes everything up?

And the ability was to attract eerie entities?

What kind of terrible power was this?

What had this mysterious newcomer done? Could it be that he killed the father of the eerie game…

Zhou Lu couldn’t think of any other reason for the eerie game to take such drastic measures besides avenging a father.

Liu Tong also stood there dumbfounded, especially after reading the last sentence of the settlement:

[Due to some uncontrollable reasons, the Ghost Ship dungeon has been permanently taken offline.]

He also recalled that Bai Wan had not left the dungeon immediately but said he wanted to “look around a bit more…”

No way.

Damn it, you said you were just going to look around! How did you end up shutting down the entire Ghost Ship dungeon!

Liu Tong was both amused and frustrated.

The eerie game forum was in a state of overall shock.

Most people knew Liu Tong as an old player.

And only one old player was assigned in the initial dungeon, so the player codenamed ‘Family’ was undoubtedly a newcomer.

Obtaining a title was incredibly difficult.

This was the first time in history that a newcomer earned a title in the initial dungeon.

“So amazing! I remember my first dungeon run—almost scared me to pee. And this guy, also a first-timer, actually got a title. Is this some kind of prodigy?”

“Indeed impressive, but the title’s ability is kind of creepy. Wonder what this big shot thinks? Haha, an unprecedented negative rating.”

“Why was the Ghost Ship dungeon suddenly taken offline? I really want to know what happened inside…”

Suddenly, someone posted again in shock: “Holy crap, this newcomer big shot is already in the top fifty of the bounty board.”

“Really? No way, it’s true! Ranked 48th!”

The bounty board was a ranking system in the eerie game. Though nobody knew exactly why the system had it, the only clear thing was that only promising players could enter the list.

By killing players on the bounty list, one could earn generous eerie coins.

Some said the eerie game set the board to hunt outstanding players; others said it was a trial for elite players.

In short, entering the bounty board was both an honor and a risk.

Currently, the board was dominated by veteran players, with the top hundred all having played at least five dungeons.

For a newcomer to directly reach 48th place was unprecedented.

What exactly had this newcomer done to earn such an extraordinary title, ranking, and rating, and to enter the bounty board?

Zhou Lu and the others were extremely curious.

“What exactly happened inside the Ghost Ship?” Zhou Lu asked Liu Tong.

Liu Tong shrugged helplessly, “Boss, I really don’t know.”

After clearing the dungeon, he left first and didn’t know what the somewhat crazy Bai Wan had done afterward.

“You should contact him quickly and see if he’s interested in joining the Lancheng Official Bureau,” Zhou Lu said. He was very eager for talent. A few months ago, Lancheng had a B-level eerie incident where many hunters died, so they urgently needed newcomers.

Liu Tong nodded.

Players who had played together could send private messages through the forum.

Though he also had Bai Wan’s phone number.

In the game, that bastard Bai Wan had once used his phone to call eerie entities, so after leaving the game, he threw the phone away.

Liu Tong found the ID called Family on the forum and sent Bai Wan a message.

In Lancheng, inside a residential complex,

Bai Wan was admiring his game rewards. After playing with the mini ghost ship for a while, he picked up the blood-skull statue.

Unexpectedly, as soon as his hand touched the statue, it seemed to come alive and directly merged into his arm.

With a flash of blood-red light, the statue formed a blood-colored red eye on Bai Wan’s arm.

The system’s voice came again.

[Abyss-quality eerie items will merge with the user; do not panic.]

Bai Wan looked at the eerie eye on his arm in surprise and curiously asked the system, “System, now that I have this eye, can I use the Ninth Layer of the Eerie Domain?”

[No, you cannot.]

The system answered coldly.

“What about the Eighth Layer?”

[Not even the First Layer.]

“Ah…” Bai Wan rolled his eyes. Even an abyss-level eerie item was just this?

Disdainfully glancing at the eye on his arm, he opened his character skill panel. After clearing the game, he had one skill point to upgrade his skills and one chance to learn a new bug skill.

Just as he was about to start learning, his phone suddenly rang.

Looking down, it was a private message from the eerie game forum.

At first, Bai Wan was curious how the eerie forum appeared on his phone, but then he thought that since this was the eerie game, it would be normal even if it appeared on his toilet at home, so he didn’t mind.

Opening the forum, he saw a message from a player named ‘Tong’:

“Damn, brother, what did you do to the Ghost Ship?”

Bai Wan immediately guessed it was Liu Tong and replied:

“I’m innocent, bro, I didn’t do anything.”

The other party quickly responded:

“Heh… when you pinned ‘Chen Weiyu’ to the wall, you also said you did nothing. Never mind that for now. How about it? Interested in joining our Lancheng Special Affairs Bureau? The salary is 100,000 a month, plus you’ll get lots of info on eerie dungeons. Official employees get 200 eerie coins monthly and can rent eerie items.”

Bai Wan was tempted by the benefits.

A monthly salary of 100,000 would make life worry-free.

Two hundred eerie coins a month was quite a lot, considering a basic eerie game completion reward was only 100.

But he also knew eerie coins weren’t easy to earn.

Effort and reward must be equal.

He asked:

“What do I have to do to join the bureau?”

After about ten seconds, Liu Tong replied:

“You’re already an eerie player, so I won’t hide anything. You saw what happened in the Ghost Ship—it’s based on historical events. Our bureau’s sole mission is to hunt supernatural and protect Lancheng.”

So there really were supernatural things?

Bai Wan was not surprised.

A game like the eerie game would have them. What was strange about having supernatural phenomena in the world?

He wasn’t very interested in the bureau, but it was a good chance to gather intelligence, so he replied:

“Hunting supernatural? Can we really do that?”

Liu Tong explained:

“Yes, check your character info page. There’s an option called Hunting Mode. Once enabled, it creates a hunting domain where items from the game can be used in reality.”

Liu Tong seemed to want to show sincerity, replying in great detail.

“Skills will change slightly inside the hunting domain. You can check for yourself. But be careful: when hunting mode is on, the supernatural inside has nothing to do with the game anymore. No special escape paths and no eerie coin rewards after clearing.”

“You can think of hunting mode as a benefit the eerie game gives players. When players encounter supernatural beings in reality, this mode helps save their lives.”

Bai Wan was somewhat surprised by Liu Tong’s reply.

He had thought the eerie game was purely villainous.

But now it didn’t seem so absolute.

Without the eerie game, humans would be very vulnerable to supernatural threats in reality. Hunting mode gave humans a way to fight back.

So the so-called official Special Affairs Bureau was an organization that used power gained from the eerie game to combat real-world supernatural threats?

Dangerous—very dangerous.

Hunting supernatural sounded extremely risky.

Clearly, those 200 eerie coins a month weren’t easy to come by.

If powerful supernatural beings invaded and ordered him to hunt, would he have a choice?

Therefore, Bai Wan politely said:

“Sorry, I really want to hunt supernatural with the bureau, but after careful consideration and assessment, I find that I am not suitable for the current position. Thanks again for the opportunity.”

“…”

Liu Tong’s mouth twitched upon receiving the message.

Damn, this guy was quite good at social etiquette…

Like he was attending a civil servant interview?

Liu Tong quickly sent over many documents.

“No worries. Take a look. This is a special employment contract. No responsibilities or orders—just complete tasks for rewards. Basically, a cooperative mode.”

Bai Wan was stunned as he looked at the stack of files Liu Tong sent.

“So professional? You were ready for this.”

Liu Tong replied:

“Hey, you young folks these days, nine out of ten don’t want to join official agencies. How could I not be prepared?”

Bai Wan laughed after reading the reply.

“Okay, I’ll look it over first and reply later.”

After sending the message, Bai Wan put the phone aside. He’d check the files after learning the new skill.

Leveling up was the real priority!

Filled with anticipation, Bai Wan opened the character skill page and saw an exclamation mark indicating a new skill was available.

He immediately clicked to learn it.

After a few seconds, a sunflower-shaped cursor lit up.

[Congratulations, you have obtained the bug skill: Sunflower That Absorbs Sunlight.]