DSMC Chapter 178.2

At last, noon arrived.

The system immediately popped up a notification, without being even a second late.

[New Instance Launch Announcement]

[To all players: The <Destiny> game instances have been in operation for five years. In order to provide players with a better gaming experience, effective immediately, 10 Newcomer-level instances, 12 Easy-level instances, 10 Intermediate-level instances, and 7 Hard-level instances will be taken offline. There will be no changes to the Top-level instances for the time being. At the same time, we will launch 20 new Newcomer-level instances, 15 Easy-level instances, 13 Intermediate-level instances, and 8 Hard-level instances. Players may check the names of the new instances in the “Instance Selection Area.” We wish everyone an enjoyable game~]

Yan Jiyun: “Fuck!!!”

This cursed, godforsaken, piece of—!

Yan Jiyun opened the Instance Selection Area. The system was still being sneaky, it hadn’t directly announced the names of the instances that had been taken offline.

The major guilds were definitely very concerned about this, and so was he. After scrolling through the list, he discovered that every instance he had entered had been taken offline.

Could some of his guesses from last night actually be true? The Cruiser Fleet had been right to look for people who were good at farming NPC Favorability.

Yan Jiyun suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. If the game could use its own rules to drag the elites of the guilds into the Top-level instance, was it possible that it would also deal with players who were good at farming Favorability?

Could it be that the reason no one on the Favorability Leaderboard is farming Favorability isn’t because nobody knows how to do it, but because all the players who did know how to farm Favorability have already died in various difficult instances?

Gu Wenzhu also noticed what had happened to the instances they had entered before. “[Hide and Seek] was taken offline?”

This was the first instance the three of them had entered together.

Yan Jiyun sighed dejectedly. “It’s not just [Hide and Seek], [Mermaid] and the subsequent instances were taken offline too.”

Qiu Xi: [That’s way too much of a coincidence. Every instance the three of us entered together got taken offline.]

Yan Jiyun thought to himself, ‘It definitely wasn’t a coincidence.’

Gu Wenzhu was quick-witted, but he had also come up through the game as a newcomer and had limited information. For the moment, he didn’t say anything.

If this were an ordinary bug, Yan Jiyun would have shared his thoughts with them immediately. But right now, he was also relying on speculation, and he didn’t have enough information. There was no need to add unnecessary psychological pressure to them yet. He could bring it up once he had more concrete information.

After putting the old instances aside, they also had to start preparing to enter the Intermediate Area.

At the very front of the Intermediate Area’s Instance Selection Area were all the new instances. Each name had a [NEW] tag after it, while the old instances did not, making the distinction immediately obvious to players.

At this point, all three of them received a message from He Yuanle, asking what kind of instance they wanted to enter and saying that he had some ideas of his own.

Yan Jiyun’s gaze remained fixed on the eight newly released Intermediate Area instances. He wanted to test whether the system would target NPCs whose Favorability had reached 100.

If NPCs really were that important, then he would have found a breakthrough point in the system, and perhaps he could leave the game and return to the real world sooner.

He Yuanle was sincere enough, so they didn’t make him keep spending points to send messages. Going back and forth was actually quite tiring, and the system’s mail function was genuinely terrible. One message cost 10 points, and sending too many back and forth wasted quite a lot of points.

They simply told him to come to their small base.

He Yuanle had already asked around about them, so he arrived less than ten minutes later.

It was raining in Central Zone today. Seeing that even his shoes weren’t wet, Yan Jiyun asked, “Do you live next door?”

He Yuanle didn’t bother hiding it. “Well, since I was planning to clear an instance with you guys, I rented a place next door. That way I can come over for meetings whenever we need to.”

Gu Wenzhu said, “All right. Everyone’s here, so let’s begin our team’s first meeting.”

He Yuanle became excited. “Now that we actually have a team, shouldn’t we give it a more impressive name?”

Gu Wenzhu thought it was a reasonable idea. “Sure. What should we call our little team? I’m terrible at naming things.”

Yan Jiyun said, “Whatever.”

He Yuanle: “Settled, then. Team Whatever.”

Qiu Xi applauded in agreement.

Yan Jiyun shot He Yuanle a sidelong glance. “I meant any name you want. You two make it sound like you’re flattering me.”

He Yuanle said, “I think Team Whatever is pretty interesting.”

Gu Wenzhu nodded. “Yeah. Very casual.”

And just like that, the four-person team settled on the name Whatever.

The lighthearted, pleasant moments were always short-lived. Next, they got down to business: the selection of their Intermediate-level instance.

Yan Jiyun stated his preference first. “I want to enter a new instance.”

Gu Wenzhu and Qiu Xi weren’t surprised at all. If Yan Jiyun hadn’t chosen a new instance, that would have been strange.

He Yuanle, the only Hard-level player in Team Whatever, said, “I have no objections. Come to think of it, those of us who entered the game later have never experienced a first-clear exploration. Since we have the chance this time, we should definitely give it a try.”

Gu Wenzhu suppressed his excitement and analyzed the pros and cons of the old and new instances.

“Let’s be clear about the drawbacks first. For old instances, we can buy information from the major guilds, and they might even offer discounts now. But with new instances, we’ll truly be going in blind. There won’t be any information at all, and even when it comes to buying props, we’ll have to rely entirely on our instincts.”

That wasn’t particularly important to Yan Jiyun. The props he bought before entering an instance were rarely used anyway. They usually just sat there gathering dust in his prop bar.

“I actually think we only need to buy the basic props .” He had already decided to buy more medicines that would be useful for his physical condition, along with some basic stealth and hiding tools. There was almost no need to consider instance-specific items anymore.

He Yuanle had always appeared in instances as an invisible presence and a weak player. Naturally, most of the items he bought were focused on staying alive, so he readily agreed with Yan Jiyun.

Qiu Xi indicated that he had no objections.

Gu Wenzhu said, “Since everyone agrees, let’s pick one of the eight new instances.”

Anyone with trouble making choices would probably find this agonizing.

Fortunately, Yan Jiyun had always been decisive. He had already looked through the names of all eight instances just now. After going through several instances, he knew that the actual contents often had very little to do with their names. They might as well choose whichever one seemed most appealing to him.

Gu Wenzhu spoke first.

“Oakley Town. It sounds like something that happens in a small town. Compared to the other seven instances, this one is obviously a little more straightforward. Does anyone have another instance they want to choose? Bring it up and we can discuss it together.”

He Yuanle had his eye on one of them.

“Zhenyuan Hotel. How about this one? I think it should be a story that takes place in a hotel. Maybe there’ll be a murder case.”

Qiu Xi joined in too, writing in his notebook: [Rock, Paper, Scissors. I think it might have something to do with children.]

Seeing that all of their choices were fairly straightforward, Yan Jiyun picked one as well. “The Only One in My Heart. I think it might be an emotional mystery. Should we consider this one?”

Gu Wenzhu said, “Emotion-related? We could give it a try.”

He Yuanle became excited. “A complicated relationship between a couple? Even better! Over the next few days, we can do some research online about relationships and read advice from relationship influencers. Once we get out of the game someday, we could even become streamers.”

“Your vision is very ambitious, but reality is painfully harsh. Have any of you actually been in a relationship?” Yan Jiyun asked, resting his chin on his hand.

The other three fell silent for two seconds.

As the oldest among them, Gu Wenzhu gave a small laugh. “I have.”

He Yuanle gritted his teeth.

“We went to the same university and dated for a month before breaking up. Then she suddenly grew taller than me by one centimeter. I suspect she thought I was too short and broke up with me because of that!”

Qiu Xi also silently wrote in his notebook: [I liked a girl who worked with me at a bubble tea shop, but we never got together.]

All three simultaneously looked at Yan Jiyun, who had been the one to actively choose the relationship-themed instance. They felt that he probably had considerably more romantic experience than they did.

Yan Jiyun’s masculine competitive spirit suddenly exploded. ‘They’ve all dated before. I can’t lose!’

He dropped a bombshell. “I have a girlfriend who’s been living with me for more than half a year.”¹Qi Feng: ? My status has changed from “Master” to “Girlfriend” now?

He Yuanle gave him a thumbs-up. “As expected of our captain. That’s badass!”

A trace of envy flashed through Gu Wenzhu’s eyes.

Qiu Xi blinked and gave Yan Jiyun a congratulatory gesture.

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Ahem. The lie’s already out there. Might as well stick with it. None of them know whether he actually have someone living with him anyway.

In truth, whether they had any relationship experience or not didn’t really matter. After chatting so casually for a while, the four of them had actually become much more familiar with one another. It turned out that all of them were willing to share things with each other.

It didn’t really matter which new instance they chose. Since the atmosphere had already reached this point, it would almost feel wrong not to choose [The Only One in My Heart].

This time, Yan Jiyun was actually glad that he wasn’t entering an instance with Qi Feng. That meant he could test something: if he and Qi Feng entered different instances, would the newly introduced Master-Pet dynamic notifications still work?

The four members of Team Whatever agreed to enter [The Only One in My Heart] three days later. A week of rest was more than enough time to prepare.

On the second day after the new instances were released, quite a few guilds had already sent players in to pioneer them. Whichever guild’s players came out the fastest would gain the first-mover advantage in the market.

At nine o’clock in the morning three days later, the four members of Team Whatever prepared to enter the new instance.

In truth, all of them had been somewhat nervous over the past three days. It was their first time pioneering an instance, so it was bound to be thrilling and dangerous.

Compared with the other three, Yan Jiyun was more worried about Qi Feng in the Top-level instance. The system sent him daily notifications about Qi Feng’s situation, but there were fewer and fewer updates each day, and every message made his heart jump.

He had never imagined that the instance Qi Feng entered would turn out like this.

Since he had this function, Qi Feng should have the same function as well.

Afraid that his hand might tremble and cause a mistake, Yan Jiyun handed the authority to select the instance over to the more steady Gu Wenzhu.

This time, entering the instance went smoothly. No system updates or other problems occurred during the process.

One second after the instance opened, Yan Jiyun successfully entered.

[Instance Name: The Only One in My Heart]

[Instance Duration: 8 days]

[Instance Difficulty: Level 4]

[Main Mission: Leave Jiangnan Town before the game time expires.]

[Surviving Players Number: 100/100]

The moment Yan Jiyun entered the instance, he heard the lively sounds of horns and drums.

He was standing in the middle of a crowd. Children were running back and forth along a road paved with bluestone slabs. Up ahead was a long wedding procession.

A young man in wedding robes sat atop a horse, smiling brightly as he looked down the road ahead.

Sure enough, it was a relationship-themed instance.

This time, the plot is appearing really quickly.

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  Qi Feng: ? My status has changed from “Master” to “Girlfriend” now?