For Liang Mushui, his greatest lifelong ambition was to be a salted fish. Even now, as a high school senior with less than a month until the college entrance exam, he felt no pressure at all. He ate when he wanted, drank when he wanted, and played when he wanted. But what he didn't expect was that today, the entire world completely changed.
One second, Liang Mushui was multitasking, listening to the lecture while staring blankly out the window. The next second, a mechanical female voice suddenly appeared in Liang Mushui's mind.
"Welcome to the Trial Game. You now possess an immortal body. Please upgrade and strengthen yourself as soon as possible."
At first, Liang Mushui didn't pay much attention, thinking it was just auditory hallucinations caused by the stress of the impending college entrance exam. That was until some classmates in the class suddenly became agitated.
Someone suddenly shouted, "There's a black dot in the bottom right corner of my vision. If I focus on it, an introduction interface like a game appears. Is it the same for you?"
Only then did Liang Mushui suddenly notice a dot had appeared in the bottom right corner of his vision at some point. No matter where he looked, that dot would always appear in the bottom right. When he focused his attention on that dot, his entire field of vision was covered by an interface.
Race: Human
Name: Liang Mushui
Level: 1
Talent: Super Senses (Greatly enhances personal six senses)
Skills: None
A few very simple introductions, then below them were a red bar, a blue bar, and a blank bar.
Seeing this simple interface, Liang Mushui secretly thought, "Could what that voice in my head just said be true?"
As more and more people saw this interface, the entire class began to descend into chaos. Some students had already run out of the classroom.
Before long, a student ran back into the classroom, shouting, "It's incredible! A huge fountain has appeared in the plaza in front of the school gate!"
Hearing this, all the remaining students in the classroom ran out.
When Liang Mushui arrived at the plaza, he also saw the so-called huge fountain. It was a circular pool about 10 meters in radius, with a water column about 5 meters high continuously spraying from its center. Next to the pool was a stone tablet with the four characters "Revival Spring" carved on it.
At this moment, Liang Mushui looked outside the school gate and realized that the original road had turned into a forest.
While Liang Mushui was still dazed by the Revival Spring, someone suddenly patted his shoulder from behind. This person was his dormmate, the one who slept on the top bunk, whom everyone called Monk.
It turned out that just now, the other dormmates of Liang Mushui had already gone to the highest teaching building and looked around. Besides the school, there were no other buildings in the vicinity, replaced by an endless forest.
Upon discovering this situation, Liang Mushui's dormmate wanted to gather everyone from the dorm to discuss what to do next. After all, the eight of them had lived together for three years, and they were all trustworthy companions.
When Liang Mushui followed Monk back to the classroom, he only saw three people from the dorm. They were: Professor, Mi Feng, and Xiao Luo.
"Why are there only three of you? Where are the other three?" Liang Mushui asked, puzzled.
"They're gone," replied Professor, the dorm leader.
"What do you mean by 'they're gone'?" Liang Mushui continued to ask.
"It means exactly what it says, they disappeared," Professor continued. "We just asked the classmates sitting next to them. They all said that after that voice appeared, they were gone. It felt like they vanished in the blink of an eye."
Hearing this, Liang Mushui felt uneasy. How could three people just disappear? Would he also suddenly vanish? But no one could answer his question now.
"Regardless, everyone who is still in the dorm is here. Let's discuss what we should do next," said Mi Feng, the tallest in the dorm.
"When I went to the school gate to look for Mu Shui just now, I saw some people had already left the school and were walking towards the forest. How about we wait and see what happens to them first?" Monk said slowly.
Although the reason was unclear, so many incredible changes had occurred in this world, and various signs hinted that this world seemed to have truly become a game. Liang Mushui and the others had initially wanted to leave the school to explore, but then the strange incident of people mysteriously disappearing occurred, so they had to be careful. In the end, everyone unanimously agreed to first see what happened to those who left the school before deciding on their next step.
Soon, those students who had left the school reappeared inside the school, but they didn't return through the school gate; instead, they appeared directly in the Revival Spring.
According to those who returned, not long after they left the school, they encountered some fierce wild beasts in the forest, like Wild Dogs and wild boars. As soon as they saw humans, they attacked. Before long, they were bitten to death by these beasts, and then they reappeared in this Revival Spring.
The news that one could die and be resurrected quickly spread throughout the school, making the people inside the school even more convinced that this world had truly become a game. The boys, especially, were eager to explore outside the school.
"I think we should also go out and explore. Staying in school doesn't seem to be of much use," Liang Mushui said slowly. "And that voice earlier also told us to upgrade and strengthen ourselves as soon as possible. If this world has truly become a game, then fighting monsters and leveling up should be the fastest way for us to become stronger."
After receiving the news that they could be resurrected, Liang Mushui and the others gathered again for a discussion.
Soon, they also made a decision to explore outside the school. However, they weren't just leaving casually. Since they knew there were fierce wild beasts in the forest, they definitely needed to make some preparations.
Xiao Luo and Professor each dismantled the classroom desk tops and then taped them to their arms as shields. Liang Mushui and the other two returned to the boys' dorm and scavenged three iron clothes drying poles. Just like that, the five of them left the school and headed towards the forest.
After leaving the school gate, Liang Mushui and the others felt as if they had entered a new world; even the air they breathed felt especially comfortable.
After leaving the school, they kept heading east. Perhaps because not many people had left the school yet, they didn't encounter any other classmates. After walking for about 2 kilometers, they finally encountered their first wild beast.
It was a large black dog with a completely dark coat. When it saw the five of them, it growled fiercely at them, its saliva dripping onto the ground, as if it had been hungry for a long time, looking as if it would attack Liang Mushui and the others at any moment. However, because there were more of Liang Mushui's group, the Wild Dogs didn't immediately pounce on them, and so they remained in a standoff.
Professor had always grown up in the city center and had never seen such a wild beast. This was completely different from his imagination of fighting monsters and leveling up. When the Wild Dogs scanned him back and forth, he instinctively turned and ran.
The moment Professor turned around, the Wild Dogs immediately pounced on him. Seeing this, Liang Mushui inwardly cursed, knowing very well that when encountering wild beasts in the wild, one must never be timid, especially not turn their back on them, otherwise the beast would attack immediately, just like now.
By the time Liang Mushui reacted, the Wild Dogs had already knocked Professor to the ground and bitten his shoulder.
So Liang Mushui immediately took his clothes drying pole and stabbed fiercely into the Wild Dogs' abdomen, while also shouting loudly to the others, "Attack its abdomen! The abdomen is its weak point!"
The others heard Liang Mushui's shout and reacted one after another. Monk and Mi Feng also took their clothes drying poles and, like Liang Mushui, stabbed into the Wild Dogs' abdomen.
The Wild Dogs, suddenly attacked by three people, let go of Professor and dodged to the side, while looking fiercely at everyone.
"Don't stop, keep attacking! There are more of us, we can definitely take it down!" Liang Mushui shouted, then continued to attack the Wild Dogs.
Subsequently, although the three's attacks were uncoordinated, they couldn't be stopped by their sheer numbers. Even Xiao Luo, who was tied to a desk, managed to hit the Wild Dogs hard. Before long, the Wild Dogs fell to the ground motionless, then transformed into tiny white lights and disappeared.
Liang Mushui and the others only relaxed after seeing the Wild Dogs disappear, all of them panting heavily. And to their surprise, a wood-chopping knife appeared where the Wild Dogs had vanished.
Liang Mushui stepped forward and picked up the wood-chopping knife. At the same time, a white text description of the wood-chopping knife appeared in his vision: "A common wood-chopping knife. The blade is slightly sharp, increasing personal strength by a small amount."
"Good luck, we got equipment on our first monster kill!" Liang Mushui said, showing the wood-chopping knife to everyone, and also passed it around for them to examine.
"I suggest this knife be given to Mi Feng. He's the strongest among us, and the knife will be most effective in his hands," Liang Mushui continued.
Liang Mushui's suggestion quickly received everyone's unanimous agreement.
"By the way, Professor, how are you feeling now? Can you still continue?" After distributing the spoils, Liang Mushui inquired about Professor's injuries.
"Aside from a bit of pain, I feel fine, but I don't know if I'll get rabies," Professor said with a mournful expression.
Next, Liang Mushui and the five of them summarized their experience: In fact, with the strength of the five of them, dealing with one Wild Dogs was completely fine. If they had been able to remain calm at the beginning and cooperated a little better, they should have been able to defeat the Wild Dogs without taking any damage.
With their first kill, Liang Mushui and the others gained a lot of confidence. They subsequently encountered Wild Dogs five or six more times. The most thrilling time was when they encountered three at once, but by then, they were no longer very scared, and their cooperation was excellent. Professor and Xiao Luo, holding their desks, each blocked a Wild Dogs, then Liang Mushui and the other two focused on eliminating one first, thus defeating them one by one. The only regret was that they never dropped any more equipment later.
At the same time, they also discovered that on the personal introduction page, a small yellow section had appeared at the far left of the blank bar below the red and blue bars, occupying about 2% of the total length.
"It seems this is the experience bar, but it's increasing too slowly. It's been two whole hours and it's only gone up that little bit," Professor complained.
"Actually, if we want to go faster, there's a way, it just depends on whether you dare," Liang Mushui looked at everyone, then looked towards the depths of the forest, his meaning clearly implying to go deeper into the forest and fight stronger wild monsters.
Everyone understood Liang Mushui's meaning. Fighting Wild Dogs no longer posed much of a challenge for them, and the experience was so little that it couldn't satisfy them. So everyone unanimously agreed to continue exploring deeper into the forest.