After reading the mini-game rules and message, Zen understood why the girls were struggling. It wasn’t whack-a-mole. It was a simple game of Simon Says.
“I think I got it,” Zen smiled and explained Huff N Puff’s mini-game.Throughout his summarised explanation, they looked at him with complete focus. Feeling confident that they understood the rules, Zen asked if they had any questions.A brief pause later, Oritha nodded.“Who’s Simon?”Stunned, Zen’s brain buffered for a long time. He had never considered this before. Wasn’t it common to accept the names of things other people invented?“Uh…” Zen stuttered. “I didn’t invent the game. Simon is probably the person who invented it?”“It was probably named after one of the Godfathers,” Akiko nodded, and Oritha rested the case.Leaving it to their imagination, Zen quickly moved past that subject tThe four lumps of flesh littered the main dungeon, making it a little claustrophobic. Zen wondered why the boss’ bodies did not disappear even after their souls were rested. However, upon closer inspection, he noticed some broken invisible strings.Sasha looked like she had aged three years. Zen felt terrible for taking this long to figure out the mini-game dungeons.“Did you manage to land a hit yet?”The sniper shook her head and pointed at Liu Feng. The blind man was going head-first with the boss, but Mandy’s lute was overpowered. Apart from launching sonic waves, it was a sturdy shield that could not be shattered.Zen looked at the lute in Mandy’s arms and frowned. The zombie musician never moved from her spawn spot. It was strange as all the bosses they had dealt with moved.Unless…With hawk-like eyes, Zen observed his party members fight. Liu Feng, Oritha, and Akiko tried to overpower the boss wit
According to everyone else, fighting Mandy in the final phase was the easiest part of their raid. Zen wisely kept his comments to himself. It was nice everything worked out, even if they failed to clear their first dungeon run in five minutes.Zen shuddered when he recalled how Mandy exploded ten seconds after entering her final stage. Nobody held back, attacking her from all fronts. Zen had never seen a boss’s health bar drop that quickly before. He didn’t get time to blink before she was pulverised. If it weren’t for this mausoleum's puzzle element, they might finish it within a minute.The anticlimactic ending was very befitting of their party. Zen would have it any other way. As terrifying as it was having two of the academy’s most fearsome assassins on his team, there was also reassurance.“What did everyone get?” Sasha asked after receiving her reward for helping to defeat Mandy.Loot drop was random, and most of them rec
There was no need to consider what to do after the lift brought Godly Food back to the mushroom meadow. Nobody stopped to listen to the peaceful lute music or admired the peaceful scenery. In fact, nobody got out of the lift because they were counting on Akiko, who was trying to jam the door shut again. However, after fifteen seconds of trying, they were forced to alight.“They should have an automatic re-run option,” Oritha growled as she stepped out of the magical lift.When everyone got out of the magical lift, it disappeared into thin air.The girls were the fastest to get to Mandy’s statue. Everyone was ready for the next round, but Zen did not accept the mausoleum invitation.“What’s wrong?” Sasha asked. “You don’t want to farm loot?”Zen shook his head hesitantly. Sometimes he wondered if he was pushing his limits too much in front of these assassins. However, communication was of dire import
“Six minutes and thirty-nine seconds,” Sasha sighed after they stepped out of the elevator. “The mausoleum is too big, and Gloomie’s mini-game is too difficult!”Oritha laughed. Unlike Sasha, she cleared the Simon Say game faster, even after messing up the sequence once. That wasn’t her fault. Liu Feng had no idea if “Mike” was a microphone of a man’s name in the context and hesitated too long, resulting in their failure. She did her part perfectly.“It’s ok,” Zen quickly positioned himself between his self-proclaimed big sister and the Amazonian. “We will improve over time. I’m sure we will be speed-running the mausoleum blindfolded by the end of the next run.”Without missing a beat, Liu Feng chimed in about how easy that would be. Why blindfold when being blind is more permanent?Laughing at the dark humour nervously, Zen ushered the party to the next run. They descended
“I think we can break the five-minute record with more puddings and better armour,” Zen panted after their sixtieth run. Even if he wasn’t doing much, keeping up with their pace was already challenging.The girls were getting faster as they became more familiar with the mausoleum. However, it still took five minutes to finish a run, even with the fastest path. They had been doing this for nearly six hours. Zen couldn’t continue. He needed to rest before waking up to prepare breakfast.“We can gather the ingredients,” Liu Feng offered helpfully. “What do you need?”Checking his recipe, Zen told them the basic speed slime pudding required one boss slime eye and five green slime goo. The monsters were relatively easy to find, but it was tedious to fight alone. Not to mention, the slimes came in groups. Zen would spend more time retreating than killing slimes if he did it alone.“We’ll need one hundred boss
Zen woke up.Zen finished making breakfast.Zen ate his breakfast.But nobody was up.Despite the short few hours of sleep after last night’s mental breakdown, Zen felt better. Sleep deprivation was scary, and he wanted to apologise for the outburst. However, none of his party members was awake. They must have spent all night farming for pudding materials. The busy chef did not have time to check his inbox, although he received multiple notifications about gifts from them.“Maybe I should send everyone a message and deliver the food to their rooms,” he decided after checking the time.Zen woke up near noon. That was usually when the kitchen would be bustling with activity and starving folks who had just completed their morning training. However, most people were asleep today from the excitement of last night. Unlike Party Godly Food, the other students were most likely busy preparing for the treasure hunt event and trading
Zen finally logged in after delivering lunch. His inbox was flooded with notifications. His party members sent so many gifts that Zen had no idea where to start. They didn’t only send him pudding ingredients, even if that made for more than seventy percent of the mail. The game developers should increase the in-game item mail cap so that Zen did not have to deal with a hundred gift messages. His members also sent what they received from sixty runs of the mausoleum. It was too much to read, so Zen spent the next fifteen minutes mindlessly opening gifts and storing them in his inventory.Thankfully, he had enough Steel Silk to work with. However, those weren’t the only things his party members sent. Zen spent a reasonable amount of time reading through the different talisman cards they gifted. Some of those talismans had wonderful effects. On the other hand, there were also talismans with random trash-sounding abilities.Either way, Zen was grateful.T
With little progress at the blacksmith, Zen left to check on Paul. However, the armourer wasn’t in his workshop. Hence, he decided to walk around town for a while to kill time. His crafting inventory was still hard at work when it gave Zen an idea.Stopping outside the restaurant where Martha’s fruit stall initially was, Zen saw Chef Marvin standing around. The friendly chef waved to Zen and warmly welcomed him with a heavy back pat.“It’s good to see you again! Have you been eating well?”If Gilda were here, Zen would have been glared to death for ‘flirting’ with Marvin. Smiling awkwardly, Zen asked if he could borrow the kitchen to make some slime puddings.“Of course!” the cheerful NPC grinned and showed Zen the kitchen at the back of his restaurant. “Let me know if you need any help!”Dismissing the touchy-feely chef, Zen looked at the kitchen.Cooking on a real range was faster than
From floor five to floor nine, Zen discovered many changing elements in the virtual world. The dungeon mechanics became more complex as they climbed the floors. It was difficult to believe that until floor ten, they were still in the tutorial stages.Damian’s game guide from floor five was very different from Zen’s version. The cyborg logged every single type of equipment and monster as an encyclopaedia page, including replicated screenshot images. He rated them according to their value, usage, frequency of occurrence, something Zen had not considered, and prices. The floor map was also marked to indicate where they could commonly be located, along with an estimated loot drop guide. Compared to Zen’s walkthrough guide, Damian created a very different and detailed directory.Although their styles were very different, Zen teared up with gratefulness for the guide Damian put together. If Zen excelled at game progression strategy, Damian’s information w
Liu Feng was not pleased to learn that Zen was already considering inviting another troublesome person into his circle after sparring with Akiko. Yet, he could not say he was surprised. In the brief weeks of meeting Zen, he had seen enough to know it would not be the last time either. From the get-go, even Liu Feng had been drawn to the young cook because of this attitude. It was both the young man’s charm and weakness.While the blind teen had enough respect for Chatura, a famous strategist, he hated dealing with snake-like personalities. They already had several ticking time bombs in the Godly Food Party, and the Lau Triad’s influence could only shield Zen from so much harm. Damian Gorski had provoked half the Round Table, and Zen had rejected everyone there. An omerta might be sacred, but it was not always upheld by both parties. There were many ways to cancel an omerta, usually involving the death of one party, and Liu Feng did not wish to crush his younger swor
After finishing his dinner, Zen sipped on the weird concoction called tea from a heavy stainless steel tool holder sterilised in isopropyl alcohol. The cyborg offered to distil and mix some of his alcohol supply into the tea for a ‘better flavour,’ and Zen smartly declined. He did not have a mechanical gut that could be replaced easily. It was best to stick to conventional instant tea in unconventional cups, even if Damian stuck two very different flavours of instant tea in one cup.Although Damian had overheard the conversation in the kitchen, Zen still told him what he knew from Bolt and asked if Damian had a way to verify the information. Due to the many rumours floating around Chatura, it was difficult to know the kind of person she was. It was obvious who spread those rumours.Within thirty minutes, Damian uncovered a lot more than Zen thought was possible. Then again, he should probably not be surprised that the Gorski had such an extensive information ne
Sneaking dinner back to the room, Zen thanked Bolt and Yelena for updating him about the new faction. Although neither invigilator liked the strategist, Chatura was a very powerful person whom Zen found intriguing.Unfortunately, Liu Feng and Akiko were out. They said they would be sparring in the training ground and were not back yet. Sasha and Oritha were still in the gym, making Damian Zen’s only option to discuss this new situation with them.Deciding to take a quick shower, Zen sent Damian a text and asked if he could come over to discuss something confidential in thirty minutes with his dinner. The cyborg took a while to reply, but Zen smiled when he received an affirmation in the middle of his shower.Thirty minutes later, Zen knocked on Damian’s door, freshly showered and with a packed dinner in his other hand. There was nobody in the corridor, so Zen relaxed.Damian opened the door within seconds and welcomed Zen in.“Pardon the me
When Bolt returned with the first aid kit, he was largely relieved to see how Yelena was taking care of Zen. Taking over, he checked on the burn injury that had greatly reduced thanks to the ice cream tub, although the same could not be said of the melting liquid inside.“That might have to go back into the freezer for now,” he gently told Yelena, who agreed.Now that the actual adult was back, Yelena threw the explanation to Bolt. She hated the woman Chatura. There was no way she wanted to explain all the complicated history to Zen when she could barely speak English. Besides, between the two of them, Bolt was supposed to be the smarter one.“Oh, Chatura. Yes… it’s a complicated story,” Bolt frowned. “There are so many rumours and versions about what happened to her before she had been turned into an invigilator here. I’ve never personally met her or talked to her in my time here. However, I don’t think we have a
After spending most of the day in the virtual world, the rest of Party Godly Food excused themselves to hit the gym and stretch their muscles. Damian returned to finish compiling the game guide while Zen worked on preparing dinner. Yelena and Bolt were present, so there was no need for anyone else to keep him company. Not to mention, the kitchen hands were very helpful. Most of the ingredients Zen needed were already prepared. The dirty dishes from the last meal were washed meticulously and left to dry on the counter.“Did you find anything new in the dive this time?” Bolt asked while Zen mixed his seasoning.Zen wanted to make something simple for dinner as they had a heavy tea. Fried rice and some soup will do. There was more than enough for everyone later.“There were new things,” Zen admitted, reluctant to reveal too much information about the new features and unique split-path quests he and Damian had discovered. “However
Collecting the rewards for successfully defeating John’s cousin, the party members of Godly Food jumped into the portal leading to the next floor. Zen knew that the dungeon had different themes on every ten floors. The tenth floor of each themed stage would be different from the other stages in difficulty. It was why the vanguard team struggled with the twentieth floor’s boss. In addition to the stage mechanic’s difference, the final boss was also tougher to deal with. If not for the monstrous capabilities of the combatants, Zen doubted they could breeze through the first ten floors as quickly as they did.Anticipating a village or town vibe similar to the other floors from before, Zen was stunned to find himself in a rocky cave full of darkness. It had ominous vibes, and only Liu Feng moved confidently in the darkness. Everyone else minimised exploring further without a light source.“We’ll log out here,” Akiko informed Damian. “Y
After entering the boss dungeon den, Zen shivered. It wasn’t similar to a wolf’s den. If anything, it appeared closer to an actual dungeon, as if someone had deliberately attempted to imprison the boss here. The stale smell of dogs and many broken chains of different sizes on the ground spoke volumes about John’s cousin.Unlike the short werewolf, who remained in his werewolf form constantly, the boss was a monster who could transform. Depending on the moon cycle, it could be a violent and bloodthirsty monster or a broken man who lived in constant fear and misery of his curse.“He changes according to the moon cycle once the rampage begins,” Akiko explained. “I took a while to figure out how to kill him, even on the first run. He’s immune to damage on a blood moon. We need to finish it as soon as possible.”With a full party participating in a boss battle, Zen had faith they could conclude it before even the blood moon p
Finally approaching the final boss’s cave, Zen wondered if the storyline would change because they had let Han murder John brutally. His body had been hacked into pieces and scattered around the rotting forest. The maggots would get to it soon and reduce it to bones. Yet, the cruel butchering session remained fresh in Zen’s mind.Everyone in the party knew that feeling all too well. Having lived in the underworld, they sympathised with Zen, who had lived like a civilian his whole life. Although not everyone participated directly in the act of murder, they knew what it meant to take a life. Even Damian had seen it happen. He knew how to interrogate for information and was quite adept at the craft when required.“Don’t think too much about it,” Liu Feng was the first to break the silence. “He wasn’t even real. This is a game designed by the Godfather to find the next successor. It’s just another test.”Even if it wer