Chapter 15 An Unexpected Event

After walking along the street for about fifteen or sixteen minutes, the five arrived at the entrance of the police station. The building occupied about 500 square meters, with the main entrance facing the street and a parking lot around the side.

Feng Bujue first went to check the side entrance. It was a driveway with a high wall at the end. A retractable iron gate blocked the entrance. Peering inside, it was pitch black. It seemed this route was a dead end.

When he returned to the main entrance, Long Aotian had already finished his inspection. The main entrance was made of wood, with a double-door design, very thick and sturdy. It was tightly closed, and something inside the police station seemed to be blocking the door, making it impossible to push it open even a little.

Feng Bujue shook his head slightly, indicating that the side door was impassable. Long Aotian spread his hands and said, "This side won't open either."

Wang Tanzhi took a few steps sideways, looking at the exterior wall of the building. "The windows are all covered with iron bars. It looks like it's going to take some effort to get in..." Before he could finish speaking, his expression changed. "Uh... did you guys hear that..."

Feng Bujue had certainly heard it. He shouted, "Get back!" and quickly stepped forward, grabbing Wang Tanzhi's shoulder and pulling him back.

Long Aotian, Gudu, and Jimin had already retreated upon hearing this. Just as Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi took a few steps back, they heard a muffled sound behind them. Turning around, they saw... the wall next to the main entrance of the police station was violently smashed open from the inside, and a tall monster poked half of its body out. If Wang Tanzhi had stood there for a few more seconds, he would probably have been crushed under the rubble.

"Okay... I guess what I heard just now was the sound of it charging towards the wall." Wang Tanzhi's face was pale, but his voice wasn't very loud. He had already passed the stage of being startled by every little thing and was gradually becoming numb to the various situations that would normally raise his scare value to around 50%... because his scare value had been hovering around 35% for a long time.

Like every mini-boss that breaks through a wall, the monster roared as it appeared. Feng Bujue actually recognized this thing – a Blood Corpse...

This Blood Corpse was clearly stronger than the one Feng Bujue had encountered in the newbie tutorial. It was more muscular and sturdier. The one he encountered before only managed to make a hole in the wall with its hands, but this one directly smashed a piece of the concrete wall.

"Very good... not only did it open an entrance for us, but it also hinted with a powerful monster that there are good rewards inside, ha..." Feng Bujue curled the left corner of his mouth, staring at the tall and ferocious monster with a predatory gaze, as if he had encountered something good.

"Crazy Brother... if you want to say 'good,' that's only if we successfully kill this monster, right?" Long Aotian was sweating. He couldn't think too much; he only knew that this fight was going to be difficult.

"Here." Feng Bujue actually handed the pipe wrench in his hand to Long Aotian. "This doesn't have equipment requirements. Brother Long, use it for now. It has bonus damage when hitting the head."

"This..." Long Aotian hesitated. Feng Bujue's actions were equivalent to making a trade request, and it was free.

In this world, trust between people is quite poor. Fine equipment is undoubtedly a good thing in the closed beta stage, and you have to think carefully before giving it to someone else. If the other party gets it and has a change of heart, forcefully logging off and abandoning the script just to steal your equipment, there's nothing you can do. Who told you to offer the trade in the first place? The system can't help you.

"Hurry up and take it." Feng Bujue said.

Long Aotian took the Mario's Pipe Wrench, and his expression changed slightly when he saw the attributes. Feng Bujue had given the impression of being a very shrewd and cautious person, so it was hard to imagine him easily giving powerful equipment to others.

"Crazy Brother... aren't you afraid that I'll steal your equipment and just log off?" Long Aotian said. Generally, people who say this won't actually steal equipment. The kind of people who really steal equipment usually just log off directly.

"Afraid?" Feng Bujue smiled wryly, thinking to himself, *I wish I could be afraid.*

He replied, "Using 'concerned' would be more accurate... but to be honest, I'm more worried that we'll be wiped out here."

At this time, the Blood Corpse had also torn open the lower half of the wall and came out onto the street. After completely exiting the police station, the Blood Corpse looked even more ferocious. It was over two meters tall, with knotted muscles, covered in a layer of semi-congealed blood. Its skinless face was more terrifying than a pure skeleton. This monster was obviously a mini-boss, and the condition for triggering its appearance was for the players to stay at the entrance of the police station for a period of time and try to find a way to enter.

"Brother Long, you stall it for a bit and buy some time. I'll go around behind it, sneak in through that hole, and see if there are any guns or anything. I'll come out and help if I find any." Feng Bujue said, "Pay attention to preserving your survival points, don't fight it head-on."

When he saw the Blood Corpse, he weighed the results and losses of the battle. They didn't have any restraint-type equipment like [Blood Corpses Must Die] right now. The only things they could use to hurt this monster were shields, pipe wrenches, and fruit knives. Using these close-range short weapons against the smaller Corpse Baby was okay, but facing this Blood Corpse that was even taller than Long Aotian, this configuration was stretched thin.

So, the best way now was to strengthen Long Aotian's strength and have him hold off the Blood Corpse. As for Feng Bujue himself, he decided to venture into the police station to search for weapons. The appearance of this Blood Corpse made Feng Bujue even more convinced that there were some items with tactical value hidden inside the police station. Skills, equipment, and plot items were all possible. He planned to find one in the shortest amount of time and then quickly return to deal with this monster.

"Don't worry, even if I get killed before you come back, I'll find a way to return this equipment to you." Long Aotian replied, and then he stepped forward, immediately attracting the Blood Corpse's attention and starting a hit-and-run tactic.

"Well... there's no need to be so serious, it's just a piece of equipment." Feng Bujue seemed nonchalant. He showed no fear in the face of the hideous Blood Corpse, bent forward, moved at high speed, went around its side, and leaped into the hole in the wall with a hurdling motion, disappearing into the dark police station...

The two people in the distance were a little at a loss. Gudu and Jimin were still playing the roles of unarmed people who couldn't help. They were also helpless, so they had to retreat a little to avoid getting in the way.

Wang Tanzhi cautiously approached the Blood Corpse. The monster's attention was mainly on Long Aotian, so as long as there was a suitable opportunity, he would go up and slash the Blood Corpse, hitting it and running away, only attacking when he was sure that he wouldn't be seriously injured by the boss.

Unlike Long Aotian's combat style of meeting force with force, being able to withstand and attack, Wang Tanzhi's combat style was more inclined to agility. He dodged and weaved, attacking unexpectedly, advancing and retreating, focusing on attrition. This kind of tactic was not suitable for using blunt weapons or shields. Bladed weapons were the best choice. He didn't need strong strength support, as long as he was fast enough, a light graze of the blade could also deal damage.

Later, these two were players who specialized in fighting as their main focus, but with the same specialization, two characters with vastly different combat styles were born. Their styles could be seen in this script, one specializing in "strength" and the other specializing in "speed."

In the later stages of the game, players' abilities constantly became stronger, and players with the same specialization would produce unimaginable differences due to their personal understanding of combat styles. And there were other specializations, such as "fighting" combined with "shooting" or "fighting" combined with "healing," plus countless skill combinations. It could be said that the characters in Thriller Paradise had unlimited possibilities.

This was why the game didn't set up "classes." With the powerful performance of this system, classes would become a restriction on players.

The late-game experience and personalized character attributes of an online game were very important. If every character had the exact same attributes at the highest level and was also restricted by "classes" in terms of usable skills, it would be quite boring. Any ordinary player only had to look at the strategies written by those top players to basically know what the final basic attributes of the class they were playing were, what skill combinations there were, which equipment to get to match the skills, and so on...

But the current game settings gave players a huge space to freely play. First of all, there was no such thing as "character attributes" except for physical strength. Survival points and scare points were always displayed as percentage energy bars, with no specific values. How much damage an attack dealt and how much damage armor could withstand were not given in numbers or anything like that.

Secondly, skills and equipment were all randomly generated, and there were no classes. Specialization was everything. Players would unlock and explore their preferred specializations during the script process. If they had the ability, they could train all six specializations to S-rank.

Under this highly free setting, the biggest selling point of Thriller Paradise besides the scare value system—the "title system"—allowed each player not to get lost in the complex combat orientations of the later stages, while ensuring the personalization of the game characters and giving them a "focus." This system could be described as the finishing touch that Dream Inc. had painstakingly come up with.

"Titles" would grant players a special ability outside of the twelve skill slots. For example, Long Aotian's [Lightning Charge] was a special ability that didn't take up a skill slot. Titles would change as players grew. Starting from level ten, the system would update players' titles in real-time after completing a script based on their performance and abilities. And titles were unique. Even if the same title appeared, the special ability given might not be the same. Special abilities were not necessarily active skills; they could be passive or even some kind of invisible, non-explicit bonus.

By the time of the open beta, titles were like trademarks in scripts above level twenty. When queuing up for team survival mode, it didn't matter what the teammates' nicknames were. Players generally looked at what their teammates' titles were first. After looking, they basically knew what these people were good at. Something like [Brave Charger], [Reckless Brawler], [Precise Gunner] were simple and clear, so you knew at a glance. Of course, titles could also show strength. At level forty and above, in addition to the kind of titles just mentioned, you might also see titles like [Eastern Heretic], [Western Poison], [Southern Emperor], [Northern Beggar]. You could tell at a glance that they were high-level players, and there was hope of riding their coattails...

Getting back to the main topic, just as Long Aotian and Wang Tanzhi were entangled with the Blood Corpse, Feng Bujue was groping his way forward in the dark police station...