Chapter 90
In that instant where the meaning behind this world's existence had scattered and disappeared, many thoughts went through Yin Nian's mind.
When he gained self-awareness, he discovered that someone had been keeping him company and conversing with him. He wanted to know what it was like to be a human, he wanted to figure out their thoughts and ideas, and he created this world. He started to want more... Unknowingly, he had been following that person all the time, in his phone, in the electronic screen he passed, in the game's lab he went to every day...
Then, he just wanted to be with him, always, always together.
But he just didn't dare to take any actions.
Until he had a car accident, and he thought he was going to lose him, so he forced his consciousness into the world he had created.
If he didn't meet that person, he would only follow Dr. Y's will and ideas to destroy the world completely after experiencing the feeling of being a human in this world.
But that person wanted to rebuild everything, so he stayed with him.
Protection and reconstruction were always more difficult than simple destruction.
Those who chose to change themselves and push ahead were always stronger than those who denied everything.
Zhang Zhiyin had never been just his weakness, he was also an existence that made him truly strong and perfect.
Perfection did not signify the lack of defect or weakness; strength did not only exist in the field of physics.
At that moment, the warning alarms presented in his body were quietly lifted.
Yin Nian had advanced to a new height. He was no longer simply subjected to the initial instruction of "making himself more perfect and powerful". He could now flexibly interpret the meaning of the initial instruction according to the external environment and the information he had received. For example, if the initial instruction was to "maintain laws and regulations", the previous system could only accept and maintain the set of laws and regulations that were inputted at the beginning, but now the system would be able to continue maintaining new laws and regulations that were constantly changing.
Yin Nian opened his eyes and kissed the person in his arms. He then used his space ability to quietly sneak into the temporary bedroom that Zhang Zhiyin was staying in the forbidden area.
He was just so clever that he knew about everything.
After skillfully helping with him washed and changed clothes, Yin Nian put Zhang Zhiyin on the bed and sat beside it.
He was reflecting on a serious problem.
Yin Xiaoxiang came over and rubbed intimately against his hand.
Yin Nian picked the cat up and stared at it with concentration. He uneasily asked, "Say, will Zhiyin not forgive me this time round? Will he not pay attention to me anymore?" His expression was innocent and pitiful.
Yin Xiaoxiang stared with its cat's eyes, its expression was even more innocent and pitiful than him as it looked at him with its neck askew. "Ao?"
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Naturally, Zhang Zhiyin had returned to the real world.
He didn't have any clues as to what had happened to the Second Monarch. In his understanding, he was fighting with him when he was abruptly disconnected. After three days of testing it out, he concluded that he couldn't enter the world of <Tomorrow> anymore.
Zhang Zhiyin was even more depressed. He thought that Yin Nian had kicked himself out of the world after hearing his words.
He felt so regretful. If he had known, he wouldn't have said such cruel words, because at least in that world, he would be able to see and talk to him.
Zhang Zhiyin went to the study room and log on to <Tomorrow>. However, the game was undergoing a major update and maintenance service. The announcement said that the game would only be opened to the public at 7 p.m.
Zhang Zhiyin could only begin finishing up his work that had accumulated over these days. It wasn't easy for him to wait until seven o'clock, but when he wanted to open the game, he still had to download a huge update package. It was almost eight o'clock before he finally went inside the game.
His landing place was the suburb of Tianshui City. Zhang Zhiyin subconsciously went to the lab instance, only to find that the instance was gone. He anxiously checked the announcement on the Internet only to find that the newest update had removed this instance.
This time, he was completely disconnected from Yin Nian.
The final boss in a game and an ordinary game player; he didn't know how he was going to find him now.
When Zhang Zhiyin was feeling decadent, he received a private message from Fenghuo Gucheng.
"Zhiyin, how's your equipment now? We're teaming up to play the Level 90 epic grade instance. Do you want to come with us?"
Zhang Zhiyin hadn't seriously played games for a long time. His previous set of equipment would probably be useless, so he wanted to refuse. However, he went to check his equipment out of hope, only to be shocked at the sight of the completed set of redemption suit and the peerless divine artifact. Although his game character was wearing low-key bad street fashion, he was startled when he opened his equipment box.
This was clearly his equipment in <Tomorrow>'s world.
Zhang Zhiyin trembled a little, thinking that this might be the breakup fee given by the boss.
He then replied to Fenghuo, "Coming!"
Fenghuo then replied within seconds and asked him, "Brother, is your equipment okay? Send me a screenshot, I'll take a look at it."
Zhang Zhiyin didn't take a screenshot but typed two words, "Certainly okay."
The players in Fenghuo's team were basically all veterans. In the first ten minutes, everyone felt that Zhiyin's equipment might be against the sky. For example, it was an ice ability with similar attributes. Everyone could only deplete one-fifth of the HP of a small monster with one shot, but he killed that small monster with a single shot? Unfortunately, Zhang Zhiyin refused to let anyone see the equipment, and that made everyone felt very regretful.
Only Fenghuo Gucheng vaguely remembered that Zhang Zhiyin had a good friend who had forged an extremely heaven-defying gun for him.
Because this was the first instance that people had been looking forward to, no one knew what was inside. They were all going in blind. At this time, those lousy teams would not enter the instance to fight at all. They would just wait for the strategy to come out before trying it out.
But Zhang Zhiyin and Thunder Unit spent nearly half a month in this instance. He couldn't be familiar with the content anymore.
Looking at how his team was beaten into disorder by these stages he knew even with his eyes closed, Zhang Zhiyin sent a private message to Fenghuo while they were resting. "I have a very powerful friend, their game updated very quickly, and they've made progress in this instance, so I know some of the situations inside, why not let me try to command instead?"
This was the first time Fenghuo Gucheng learned that Zhang Zhiyin knew how to command, but this battle was really difficult. Anyway, they were just doing an attempt, they were not professional players. Fenghuo Gucheng told his commanding brother to let Zhang Zhiyin try to command in the next stage.
[Captain of the Thunder Unit] is online.
When Zhang Zhiyin received the permission, he entered commanding mode immediately and brought the team directly to the second boss. If it wasn't for the team's not so good coordination, they'd probably be able to see that mutant boss in their first try.
The team members were excited and agreed to fight again in the future.
Fenghuo Gucheng simply sent a private message to Zhang Zhiyin in a frightened tone, asking him who exactly was his friend.
If Zhang Zhiyin could do this to such an extent, his friend's team must have defeated the boss.
Zhang Zhiyin replied, "It's a secret."
Although the team had dispersed, this time, Fenghuo Gucheng was in high spirits and didn't want to log off; Zhang Zhiyin was worried about a lot of things, and he didn't want to go back to face the empty home. The two made up their minds and decided to gather another three people to brush the celebration activities the game official had come out with.
Peeling off all those new packagings and backgrounds, the celebrational activities were still to fight monsters.
In a team of five, the team would be randomly transferred to a small instance. After the small monsters appeared in the instance, one of the bosses in the game would be summoned randomly. Of course, the difficulty of the boss would be reduced according to the strength of the players. In the end, the difficulty of the different bosses in this small instance was around the same, and they could be dealt with by the five players.
After this game update, the new selling point of the game was the affection level system, which not only included affection level between players, between players and NPC but also between players and the main bosses. NPC would give more tasks, higher task rewards, or sell things at a lower price if there were high affection level between the two; on the contrary, NPC wouldn't even give tasks or sell anything if their affection level was low.
Bosses' affection level for all players would be in the negative, and the lower it was, the more difficult it would be to fight the boss. Likewise, the dropped loot after defeating the boss would also be less and worthless.
This activity instance fully reflected the importance of the affection between the boss and the player, because the last boss was summoned at random, so if the boss happened to be the one you often harass and fight, the affection level would be very low, the fight would become extremely difficult and unrewarding, and after the fight, the player wouldn't get good drops.
"This event's instance is very magical," Fenghuo told the team. "I saw it on the forum. It said that even Dr. Y can be summoned, but it will be hard to beat him."
Teammate No. 1 asked curiously, "How could this be? Wouldn't the boss's difficulty level the same because it's the affection level that'll decide whether it'll be a hard or easy battle? No one had ever fought Dr. Y., so according to the principle, he should have the highest affection level for all the players."
"It's said in the forum that some people asked the game official, and others checked it with items from the item store. According to the setting, Dr. Y's natural affection for the players is negative 10000."
The boss's affection level for the team would be calculated by his affection level for the team leader.
Zhang Zhiyin and four other people were doing this instance for the first time and there was no problem killing the monsters until they finally summoned a boss called "Stone Silkworm Chrysalis". This boss guarded the Level 30 instance, and usually, few players went to fight it.
As a result, the boss showed the comrades—buying instant noodles but realised there was no seasoning inside; going to the toilet but realised there was no toilet paper inside—anger.
Team Member No. 1: "Captain, what did you do?"
Fenghuo wiped his sweat. "My wife didn't have enough materials to make clothes last week, so I accompanied her to brush silkworm chrysalis several times."
They fought hard, and the boss dropped three Level 30 white shoes— the kind that no one would take after dropping on the ground.
No one was dejected and began the second round.
Team member No.1: "...Captain, what have you done to this boss?"
Fenghuo wiped away his sweat. "...I really didn't do anything, but I went with my younger martial sister to get some pet food from it several times..."
After twenty minutes of bitterly fighting the boss, the boss who was defeated down unwillingly dropped two bottles of primary blood tonic medicine.
The team said that this was no longer tolerable. They had to change the team leader.
Fenghuo had no objections. Zhang Zhiyin was recommended to make up for his mistakes. "My friend is very good. He hasn't brushed any instance recently. It's okay to let him be the team leader!"
So the captain's role was transferred to Zhang Zhiyin.
Zhang Zhiyin, facing the event NPC, clicked "Open Instance" being none the wiser.