Volume One, Chapter 19: The Contaminated Copy

“Judging by appearances, it seems the authorities haven’t publicly condemned the Trickster class players at all!”
“Where did this label of ‘public enemy of all’ for the Trickster class come from?”

Scrolling through the forum posts, although Qin Shang didn’t have sufficient privileges and wasn’t sure how to redeem points, he noticed quite a few dungeon guides with the prefix ‘Trickster’ in their titles.

Other players didn’t seem to reject or resist the Trickster class, so why would the sheriff, known as the ‘Eagle of Justice,’ declare the Trickster class as the public enemy?

“Also, should I side with the authorities?”

Qin Shang rested his chin on his hand, pondering for a moment. Suddenly, a shiver ran down his spine as he recalled his wife’s note in the memo: “Never trust anyone one hundred percent.”

Who knew if this wasn’t some kind of sting operation by the authorities?

“If Qiqi is also a player in Divine Path, would she, after becoming a player, consider siding with the authorities?”

“Chances are high. Then what kind of attitude would the authorities have toward her? Is Qiqi also a Trickster class?”

Qin Shang pursed his lips and began searching for related information.

He first tried searching for Jiang Qiqi’s name on the forum but found no such user.

He thought about it—no ordinary person would use their real name as a Divine Path ID.

There’s a saying: better to have a wrong nickname than a wrong real name.

Jiang Qiqi was lively and spirited, fond of games, albeit a novice who loved playing despite poor skills. After playing a few rounds with Qin Shang, although he didn’t complain much, Jiang Qiqi, an avid gamer, quietly spent six yuan to change her ID to ‘NoobButLovesIt.’

“Let me try ‘NoobButLovesIt’...”

No such user!

Qin Shang scratched his head and then entered “DevotedMotherMidline.”

This time, it wasn’t that the user didn’t exist; rather, his current privileges were insufficient to view the profile.

A smile lit up Qin Shang’s face.

Although such a cliché ID might be used by others, if Jiang Qiqi were a Divine Path player, the likelihood of her using it was higher.

Before she went on a business trip to Yanjing, she had told Qin Shang she wanted to have a child with him and hoped he would recover soon...

Moreover, most mid-lane heroes in MOBA-style mobile games tend to be cute and lively, fitting Jiang Qiqi’s taste.

So when she played, she mostly used that ID to play mid-lane mages.

“It’s a pity. If I could access the timestamps and content of Qiqi’s posts, I might be able to deduce her class and related dungeons.”

“Maybe even pinpoint the exact date she went missing!”

Qin Shang felt a twinge of regret.

But after nearly ninety days since his wife’s disappearance, he had long given up hope.

Any clue now was a godsend; having clues was better than none.

Next, Qin Shang searched the official Divine Path player forum for the term [Death Train].

He found very little information. In the dungeon guide section, there wasn’t even a single guide related to [Death Train].

Only in the casual discussion area did some fragments appear, but most were dated between 2018 and 2019, and the content was mundane, mostly third-party retellings.

For example...

Player A:
“I have a close friend who plays the ‘Teacher’ class. One day, he came back from a dungeon, visibly shaken, and mentioned [Death Train]. That’s how I learned about it.”
“I wanted to congratulate him on surviving an unexplored dungeon with no guide, thinking he could provide a dungeon walkthrough, which would be lucrative.”
“But he looked dejected and upset, so I asked more. For the first time, I heard about a dungeon with a rest period divided into two phases. After twelve hours, my friend re-entered the dungeon.”
“Since then, he hasn’t been seen again. Most likely, he perished inside...”

Player B:
“[Death Train] is a cursed dungeon. It seems contaminated; many clues are incomplete. There was a Divine Path player called ‘Genius Trickster’ who provided many game strategies but went into [Death Train] one day and came out panicked, leaving a suicide note.”
“After twenty-four hours, when Divine Path reopened, that player never returned.”

Player C:
“That sounds like a Trickster-class dungeon. Other classes probably don’t need to worry; we can’t even match into that dungeon...”

Player B:
“No, [Death Train] used to be a single-player Trickster exploration dungeon. It was cleared before under the name ‘Train Exploration,’ code 0927, a B-rank single-player Divine Path exploration dungeon.”
“Later, it became a multiplayer dungeon renamed [Death Train]. The difficulty mysteriously rose to A-rank. And as is well known, Trickster multiplayer dungeons have a higher difficulty level for Trickster players than for others.”
“Rumor has it it was cursed and contaminated by some indescribable force.”

Qin Shang’s expression stiffened upon reading this.

The Death Train dungeon indeed had two parts, an upper and a lower section. Completing fifty percent exploration allowed return to reality.

But players had to re-enter twelve hours later.

As a novice Divine Path player, Qin Shang had assumed other dungeons were the same.

But after reading those posts in the casual discussion board, he realized he had made a subjective mistake.

Normal game dungeons have no halftime rest!

Moreover, he hadn’t expected that even official players didn’t have a walkthrough for this dungeon.

In other words, [Death Train] was one of those uncharted dungeons mentioned by administrators in the moderator section.

Earlier, when browsing the dungeon guide column, he had specifically searched for ‘uncharted dungeons.’

New clearances usually received highlighted titles marked as featured posts with a brown background and rewarded ten points.

Though he still didn’t understand the use or acquisition of points, after browsing the forum for a while, Qin Shang felt the terrifying value of points!

One point equaled one million RMB.

There were posts in the casual exchange section seeking to buy points.

In other words, publishing a first-clear A-rank dungeon guide could earn ten points, essentially a ten-million-yuan reward from the authorities.

This showed how seriously the authorities regarded unexplored Divine Path dungeons.

It made sense—after all, Divine Path players were human.

Many were likely chosen as players by Divine Path inexplicably.

Who knew what criteria the supernatural game Divine Path used for selection?

But A-rank and above dungeons had extremely high fatality rates.

A guide for an A-rank dungeon might save countless future players’ lives.

At least so far, Qin Shang hadn’t uncovered the mystery behind the disappearance of [Death Train] passengers.

Beyond the four main sections, Qin Shang found a mini-program on the forum called Official Dungeon Archive.

However, it was only accessible to official Divine Path players.

Now he roughly understood the distribution of Divine Path players.

It seemed all players with an invitation code or account could log into this forum.

This included the dungeons involving the so-called public enemy Tricksters, all freely traded in the dungeon guide section.

It was like a vast marketplace for a large community.

Within the forum, all personal player information was confidential.

Logging in required only an ID and password verification; the authorities didn’t know anyone’s real-world identity!

To view guides for other classes or even one’s own class’s paid guides required points exchange.

The simplest way to acquire points was to purchase them with money.

One point equaled one million RMB, and conversely, one million RMB could buy one point.

Qin Shang now had a rough grasp of the factions.

Divine Path players could be divided into two groups: those affiliated with the authorities and independent free players.

The former, having submitted to the authorities, naturally used their supernatural powers to serve official purposes.

Qin Shang currently had no points, so he couldn’t access paid posts.

He could only browse the casual discussion board.

The earlier information on [Death Train] had come from there!

“Those affiliated with the authorities seem to enjoy particularly good treatment...”

“Someone posted that official players only needed to pay a small number of points for a monthly subscription to view all paid posts.”

“In other words, the dungeon guide content was primarily sold to non-official Divine Path players.”

“Free players, having left the dungeon, didn’t care whether their trading partners were public enemies or not. So trading with Tricksters was reasonable...”

While scrolling through posts, Qin Shang finished a pack of instant noodles, barely filling his stomach.

He continued searching the casual discussion board for more about [Death Train].

“It seems other players who entered this dungeon all returned after the first phase.”

“According to many reports, those who entered [Death Train] faced no real threat during the initial round.”

“In other words, the true danger lay in re-entering the dungeon for the second time.”

The second phase involved exploring Carriage No. 3, which must harbor some lethal hazard.

Even official Divine Path players had vanished there without a trace.

Frowning deeply, Qin Shang thought,

“A contaminated dungeon?”