A whole three that he hadn't unlocked!
Wow.
The gamer in him was dying of shame.
Would they let him re-do it?
The gamer part of his soul curled up and screamed even louder.
What of the library instance?
He checked, and saw that the page was lit in green. It had a [Collect] option. He clicked it, and got another item. It had a blue background.
|Received: Library Card
Huh.
Maybe it was a reward for finding all of the monsters in that substory. The reward wasn't that great though, since it was just a sub-story.
He clicked on it to see if there was more description.
To his delight, there was!
|Allows broadcaster a 10% chance to survive a death-level injury within a library, chance resets at midnight
"…That's actually cracked."
Wow. That was actually a pretty great reward. A ten percent chance may seem low, but it didn't seem as though it was a limited use item.
Maybe the rest of his items had descriptions too. Checking them would take time. Ah'Ming did the normal thing and decided to leave that kind of work for a later date.
He zoomed in on the monsters.
It showed the shadow monsters, but even those had separate tabs. Apparently, there had been different types of shadow monsters. They'd all been in the shapes of different animals, but it had been dark, so he hadn't noticed. They were still close enough to be grouped under one broad name though.
The librarian, on the other hand, was both more and less complex.
It had a picture of a pretty woman on the front. The current subtab read: Librarian; Human form. It only showed the weakness that Ah'Ming had discovered, which was slashing with claws. The same problem was there under the shadow monsters.
In order to have their weaknesses listed, you had to test them out yourself. How novel!
The other subtab belonging to the librarian was: Librarian; Hybrid form.
It basically listed the same thing, but with a few lines of dialogue. It also had her attack patterns too. Maybe he could sell that on the forum.
He snorted and moved on.
Ah'Ming closed the monsterpedia, and looked at the next tab.
It was labeled 'Teammates', and was still greyed out. He needed to find Huipao and the others soon.
The next page was listed as 'Quests'.
It was mostly empty, but it had one.
|Survive for seven days in the resort of your dreams!|Rewards: [][][][][][][]
Interesting. Maybe during the sub stories, there'd be more quests. That was probably how the people in the library had known automatically what they were meant to do.
He skipped it, ignoring the redacted part.
Finally, the long awaited forum.
It was chock-full of information. Hundreds of posts, but they all had to do with the current instance. He looked over and, yes, it was limited. According to the little screen that popped up when he tried to get rid of the 'Resentful Resort' tab, he could only view the information regarding other instances when he exited this one.
He looked closer at one that was pinned at the top.
|ADVICE FOR NEWBIES
|Sponsored by GUILD: Prophet
Perfect! Finally, a good explanation for whatever is going on right now. Huipao had tried, the strange dear that he was, but it really hadn't helped much. The other two, the moss person and the maybe-spyglass person had been moderately informational, yet they hadn't provided anything for a newbie. Ah'Ming's fault, since he didn't want them to know.
He started reading through the posts, absorbing information like a sponge.
|Welcome, you unlucky fools, to the broadcast.
That wasn't a very auspicious opening. He shrugged, and continued on reading.
|If you are actually a real newbie and aren't reading this for shits and giggles, listen up.
|This is a live broadcast where you should try and be as entertaining as possible. Countless entities called the audience are out there, watching your every move. They don't even stop when you're in the bathroom—
Pause, what?
He looked around, suspicious at the viewers, before realizing that nothing that he could do would change the fact the audience had already seen his… um. Crown Jewels.
Yeesh, warn a guy first!
|—or when you're busy dying. They will always be watching.
|Next up on the list, teaching you about important things!
|You can probably see the system, right? It takes a different form for every person. There are notebooks, normal screens, even poker cards. It depends on what the broadcaster, or player (as some people call it), is most comfortable with.
|You will see many different tabs, including common ones like Inventory, Shop, Forum etc. The problem is, the system follows what you think is best. So, if you forget that the shop exists, the tab will disappear on your system. You need to remember, and know about the roles and rules for them to appear. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO MONSTERS. IF YOU FORGET ABOUT THE MONSTERS, THEY ARE STILL THERE. THEY WILL KILL YOU. Love, Xianxia Maniac
|Written by PLAYER: [][][] [][][][][][]
|Up next: monsters.
|Note: this post is not system endorsed, follow at viewer's own caution.
Huh.
He clicked on the next, since the author was a vibe.
|So You're Trapped in the Broadcast: A Beginner's Guide to Not Dying Immediately
|Sponsored by GUILD: Prophet
|If you're reading this, congratulations. You're either very new, very lost, or already dead and don't know it yet. This guide will not save you, but it may delay your funeral.
Ah'Ming snorted. He liked this writer's style.
He kept reading, absorbing everything he could. Information about instance types, how to tell if you were possessed or stalked, dining locations in the resort, unlocking talents, reading NPC languages...
He spent the next hour reading, conveniently ignoring the massive red bar floating above his head. It was steadily decreasing, a little bit at a time. According to one of the numerous, numerous blogs that he'd read, it was basically a time bar that told you how much time you had left in your room safely.
Once it was under an hour's worth of time, minor ghosts or monsters could come bother you.
Under ten minutes? Major ghosts.
If you survived long enough to reach zero, it was theorized instant death. No one had ever reached that far.
Funky.
He looked atop his head. There weren't any numbers or anything. But, in the last hour or so, it had decreased by a little bit. He looked back to the page.
It listed a few values.
Hmm.
Interesting.
If there's a B and a B+, that should be enough for the rest of the day plus night. If he didn't oversleep.
He abandoned the nice, amazing, still-warm bath. The water drained away with a sound like a really gross gurgle. Ah'Ming toweled off, dressed in record time, and immediately sprinted for the bed as if it might vanish out from under him.
He jumped.
The mattress accepted him with alarming enthusiasm, swallowing him nearly a foot deep like a marshmallow with delusions of grandeur. Pillows shifted while blankets cocooned, making a massive ripple. He wriggled until comfort was achieved and civilization was restored.
Settled at last, warm and safe and very nicely unpunctured, Ah'Ming reopened the forum and kept reading, letting other people's near-death experiences lull him toward something almost like peace.
He probably wouldn't, so he didn't set an alarm.
G'night mister system.
|Good night, [][][][]