Player Reload
Chapter 449 - 417 Essence

Chapter 449: Chapter 417 Essence

Survived...

The flying ashes from burning the book drift through the air, and Binary Tree turns back to look at the book "Robot Motion Programming," its pages that once held significance have now become ordinary white paper, without any abnormalities.

A sense of post-apocalyptic relief arises, and he solemnly nods to Li Cheng. If not for the inappropriate circumstance, he might have directly "applied for friend transfer gratitude" and gone through the entire process.

"Thank you."

Red Spider is equally grateful. Having just escaped trouble, he quickly returns to his role as a cool guy in a suit, using the nozzle of his handgun to push up the glasses on his nose, saying in a pretentious manner, "The Suited Thugs Guild always repays debts and returns favors."

After speaking, he freezes in place.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Until cold sweat drips from his forehead, he hoarsely says, "I can’t log out!"

After being subdued by the woman in black and confusingly sealed into the book, Red Spider no longer holds the desire to "continue exploring and make a fortune in the Hidden Room,"

preferring to log out of the killing field immediately, giving up exploration, and then thanking Pifu after going out.

However, when he opened the player personal panel and mentally clicked the [Logout Killing Field] button, there was no response.

He stands in place, unaffected.

Cold sweat slides down his cheeks, and Red Spider instantly recalls a post he saw on the player forum, discussing several potential reasons for being unable to logout of the killing field.

First, the player is trapped in an illusion realm and unaware of it.

Second, there is a problem with the player’s brain, unable to generate the thought of leaving the killing field.

Third, the player is actually in the real world, not in the killing field.

Red Spider carries equipment that can resist illusion techniques, so the first possibility can be ruled out.

Considering he can normally open the player panel and click the logout button, the second and third possibilities can also be ruled out.

That leaves only the final possibility,

Red Spider’s own essence has become "incomplete."

Li Cheng immediately responds, "Left-right half-person experiment?"

"Probably." Binary Tree’s face looks extremely gloomy, he also tries to log out of the killing field, but it’s equally impossible.

"What’s left-right half-person?" Gray Rain blinks.

"An experiment organized by the Evil Science Alliance three years ago."

Li Cheng explains, for the purpose of exploring the various rules of the killing field system, the Evil Science Alliance once organized an experiment, using biological modification and soul separation technology,

splitting a player’s body along the midline, allowing both the left and right halves to survive, with each brain able to think independently, and each half receiving half of the soul allocation.

In this situation, the brain on the left side of the body thinks about logging out of the killing field, while the brain on the right side doesn’t think anything at all.

Yet the final result is that the player still remains in the slum, without returning to the real world.

This test revealed a hidden setting of the killing field—a player who has merely lost arms and legs is still recognized as a player by the system and can use all functions of the killing field system.

However, if too much of the essence of being alive is split, the system does not recognize them as a complete "player,"

and it is necessary to either reunite the left and right halves or eliminate half of the body and soul to use the player panel normally.

Players at the time speculated this hidden setting was likely to prevent system glitches—otherwise, a player could split a perfect copy, let an ordinary person kill the copy, and unexpectedly gain additional essence.

Or take a more radical approach, bind an ordinary person at Lv1, anesthetize them, then put worms into their exposed brain, allow the worms to kill them to become Lv1,

and then have others cut the worms into a hundred pieces, unexpectedly gaining a hundred portions of essence.

The left-right half-person experiment became quite well-known, and both the Evil Science Alliance and several other large guilds conducted a series of tests around the killing field system, also known as the CCB plan,

which stands for "Check for bugs."

"My essence has been taken away." Red Spider’s pupils contract, and fear is embedded in his hoarse voice.

"Me too."

Binary Tree slowly exhales turbid air; part of his brain has already been replaced with an electronic brain, and he is used to introspecting with the Linux operating system.

In his data stream vision, the code that makes him "Binary Tree" suddenly disappears by half.

If a typical program loses 50% of its code, it will inevitably report errors, stop running, or fail to start at all.

But Binary Tree remains standing just fine, not even knowing where his discomfort lies.

The methods involved are utterly incomprehensible.

And when Li Cheng tells them he recently heard of some existence disguising itself as the killing field system and issuing tasks, the two’s minds become even more confused.

Red Spider frowns deeply, "What do you mean, is that black-robed woman with reality-twisting powers deliberately playing with us? Trying to make us play a death game like in ’Saw’?"

"It’s not necessarily the black-robed woman."

Binary Tree adjusts his heavy VR glasses, "Earlier, the drone sent by Fuding Hualong captured an image of a suited baby.

The Secret Realm likely harbors more than one or two abnormal existences."

The atmosphere at the scene stalls; if the Secret Realm were truly a system task, things would be manageable at least—task objectives and failure penalties would follow certain rules.

But this is not a script task, facing completely unknown rule-level anomalies gives a sense of "The ref and umpire are both on my side, what can you fight me with?"—helplessness.

"There is still good news."

The programmer Binary Tree quickly suppresses his bleak mood, calmly analyzing, "At least, neither Red Spider nor I died immediately, which proves that White Horse Tombstone still has a chance of survival.

Find them, another person means more strength."

After saying that, he raises his right hand, turning it into a green data stream, gently pressing it against the wall.

The green data stream spreads like radar waves, spreading along the wall surface, gradually expanding.

This move called [Cyber Secret Technique·Passive Phase Control], employs a radar-like detection technology to scan the surrounding environment’s terrain and features.

It is usually used for wide-area exploration, or serving as a 3D modeling artist in the real world.

The radar wave goes out and returns, Binary Tree retracts his arm, his expression rather peculiar.

Red Spider instinctively asks, "Scan results not successful?"

Binary Tree does not respond, pressing the button on the side of the VR glasses directly to project a three-dimensional image.

The entire Secret Realm is shaped like an inverted pyramid. The majority in the middle is solid, the radar waves cannot penetrate.

Around the pyramid are descending, contracting corridors.

Scattered among the corridors are various buildings, the library where Li Cheng and others are located is at the uppermost level of the corridor.

The implication is clear; if you’re a man, descend a hundred floors.

Scattered among the corridors are various buildings, the library where Li Cheng and others are located is at the uppermost level of the corridor.

The implication is clear; if you’re a man, descend a hundred floors.