35 The Mountain Pool and the Haunted Mansion (2)(Chapter preview)

Then the quest tab changed. "Explore the house to find a way to escape it."

After reading that, Feng Bujue turned around without a second word to try to open the door. This was a French door that had wooden paneling. Feng Bujue grabbed the two doorknobs and twisted them until they made a tingling sound. Naturally, the door was locked, and it would not open so easily.

Invincible Champion huffed patronizingly. "Plebs will always be plebs. Only plebs would expect the door to open like that."

Creak, creak.

Wang Tanzhi joined Feng Bujue. He used the chef knife and wiggled at the space between the paneling while his other hand worked with the doorknob. He used his action to show support for Feng Bujue.

Invincible Champion started to groan again.  "Hey, the little brother that has 'panicked' in his title, are you deaf? I already said…"

Kuang, kuang, kuang.

The two made it worse. Each pulled on the door and yanked it with the all their might.

"Are you two mad?" Brother Invincible was running out of words to insult them.

Pa! Pa!

Two crisp sounds later, the two doorknobs were yanked off their frames. Well, even if they had the keys now, they would not be able to escape that way.

"Hey! What are you doing‽" Invincible Champion gasped, and for that one second, his Terror Points rose for some weird reason.

Bang, bang, bang…

Then they used their shoulders to ram into the door that had lost its doorknobs. Finally, two minutes of madness later, Feng Bujue turned around, fixed his collar, and cleared his throat. "Looks like this door really can't be opened."

Motherf*cker! Invincible Champion cursed internally, but he could not curse in game so he could only roar angrily, "Didn't I tell you that from the beginning‽"

"Action speaks louder than words," Feng Bujue replied. "I'm just using my actions to prove the validity of your words."

"Then, why don't you prove if there is a punishment for random quitting and abandoning the team?" Invincible Champion challenged.

"Hmm… So, it's some kind of supernatural power that blocks the door, huh…" Feng Bujue scratched his chin and said something obvious.

"So, now you chose to ignore me‽" The fury in Brother Invincible's heart continued to rise.

Passing Rain stood to the side and watched for a while before turning wordlessly to the darkened passageway on the first floor. Since someone had already proven that the door was not passable, there was no reason for her to stay and watch that tragedy. Laughing Soul followed and left the living room with the other girl.

Seeing the two walk away, Long Aomin hesitated. Brother Invincible, who was angry, finally noted their movement, and he shouted in their direction, "Hey, don't wander off like that. If you trigger something…"

"It's fine." Feng Bujue suddenly interrupted the man. "From the content of the quest, the more things that are triggered, the better."

As he said that, he walked to a glass window next to the door. The door was rectangular, one meter tall and thirty centimeters wide. The window had a tapered top, and the frame was made from wood. Looking outside, the other side of the window was covered by a layer of fog, and nothing could be seen.

Feng Bujue took out his wrench and whacked it against the window. When the heavy metal fell on the window, Feng Bujue felt his arm shudder like the wrench had fallen on something metallic instead of something fragile like glass.

"Hmm… This window is similar to the door. There is some kind of mysterious power protecting it on the surface," Feng Bujue concluded.

Invincible Champion shook his head and sighed. "I should have known casuals would not have common knowledge. Why would the system create a scenario that can be solved so early with brute force?"

He turned and walked up the stairs. "The three of you are together, right? Please don't follow me. Bringing three plebs with me is most definitely a tragedy. You might cause me to fail. So, you three handle the first floor, and I alone will check out the second floor."

Invincible Champion had already categorized the three as extremely useless teammates. Other than Long Aomin, who had the title Team Defender and seemed like he was fairly useful, the other two were extremely useless. The Panicked Hidden Assailant, from the title, had to be a complete tool. While the meaning of the title of Cold-blooded Skull Cracker was an unknown, his attitude annoyed Invincible Champion, and he had committed many brainless actions.

The most brainless action he did was to ask him about 'Fearless Champion'. Those who did not understand the work of a gaming studio liked to ask such pointless questions. Actually, in Regulation Studio, a quick rise in terms of level did not mean much; it was merely a different delegation of work.

Professional gamer was a valid career in 2055. Among the career paths, the most abundant was the small-size gaming studios. They saw themselves as professional, but their planning and administrative power were extremely lacking. Normally, the boss would also be the manager, accountant, and lead gamer. Most of the time, the boss would also have the heart of a gamer and thus be prone to using company resources to benefit themselves, like using group resources to gain some fame in the virtual game. Such studios were like mushrooms after the rain. It was a common affair for them to come and leave, and their income was very unstable. Such teams formed the foundation of this career.

Moving upward, at the middle section of this career, most of them were small to middle size, but they had a certain degree of management efficiency and quality control. The difference between these studios and the lower groups was that these studios often had one or two 'celebrity players', meaning expert players in a certain filed. For studios that focused on competitive games, sometimes one or two such celebrity players would be able to support the whole studio. But for most studios at this stage, they had moved away from the every-man-for-himself type of management and were able to effectively make use of the various resources available.

To be frank, no matter the field, if one wanted to have a long career, then one had to plan for it. A gaming team without a plan was no different from a gathering of random players; they merely had more time to dedicate to gaming.

At the top of the pyramid were top studios like Regulation. They had professional teams to manage the logistic, and the gamers were split into groups to complete their missions. In the six-member group that was responsible to rush their level, each of them had a specific mastery and role to play. The item resources and information were provided by the studio in real life, and all the equipment and Skill Cards collected by the members were given to the level-rush group first.

Even an isolated member like Invincible Champion had his own role. Actually, his level was not that important; his main mission was to increase his fighting mastery and collect information. He could have skipped the other masteries, and it would not have mattered. The same went for equipment as the studio would provide him with those later. For the time being, all Regulation wanted was firsthand information, and Invincible's responsibility was to test out the actual effects of someone who focused on mastering fighting.

Therefore, whenever a stranger asked Invincible Champion about the studio, his feelings could be summarized in a single word—annoyed. Firstly, that was confidential business information, so he could not talk about it, and secondly, even if he could, he had no interest sharing it with others.

"Okay, but Brother Invincible, you'd better be careful since you're alone," Feng Bujue said with a peaceful smile.

After hearing that, Invincible Champion shivered. A curious feeling made his Terror Points jump like Feng Bujue's words were an omen that something bad was about to happen. He turned back to peer at the three in the living room. He turned back upstairs and tossed the thought out of his mind.

Seeing his shadow disappear around the corner of the second floor, Long Aomin asked, "Brother Feng, why did you put on such an act? You have to understand how the system works by now. Obviously, there is no chance that we can escape from the door and windows. Even if you wanted to test that out, there was no need to make such a big commotion out of it, right?"

"Only then will he be able to think we don't know anything," Feng Bujue answered. "Then he'll make the reaction that he just did, abandoning us 'dead weights' and moving away on his own."

"Brother Jue, you're not planning to do something bad, right? This game bans players from attacking one's allies," Wang Tanzhi said. He had helped Feng Bujue earlier not because he was cooperating with him but because he really thought the door could be opened.

"I'm not going to harm him; I just thought it is more effective for us to split up for a scenario like this," Feng Bujue explained. "At least the two girls shared the same idea and walked off on their own, but that fella… is most likely not someone who would discuss the plan with us.

"From his perspective, he has the highest level, and he is the most professional. Therefore, it's natural for him to think he's the leader. If I suggested for us to split up, there was an eighty percent chance he would deny the idea. When I pulled on the door, he even tried to stop the two girls from leaving, so you can see from that, he was planning for us to move together in a group."

Feng Bujue walked over to wall and squatted down like he was observing something. "But this is for the best; he has wandered off on his own."

He used his palm to remove the layer of dust and spider web on the wall. "We should split up as well. When the main quest is updated, we'll come back here to meet up."

Xiao Tan was shocked. "We're going to split up as well?"

"As I mentioned earlier, it's more effective this way," Feng Bujue answered without taking his eyes off the wall. "Don't worry, this kind of place usually has a haunted setting, so the main purpose of the scenario is to scare people and set up puzzles. The only way you might get hurt is from traps, so just be careful when you're exploring."

Before he finished, the system audio said, "Side quest triggered."

The three looked at the quest tab. The original main quest was still there, but below it was a new quest. "Find all six parts of The Haunted Palace. Current Progress: 1/6"