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Chapter 51: S/L
At the front hall of School of Mo’s Great Cave.
A shadow gradually appeared at the center of the littered corpses. He wore the military uniform of the Zhao Army, and the shoulder area of the uniform had three black feathers.
The shadow’s movements were unusually quick, and he swiftly passed by the Zhao Soldiers and Zhao Sergeants while using a very unique method the investigate the bodies on the ground. Finally, he arrived in front of the dead female tiger’s body.
“A rare fearsome beast…” He muttered.
This female tiger was completely unhurt except for its two eye sockets where a huge amount of blood flowed. In fact, one of the eyes were completely mashed, and the red and white mix of blood and brain matter dripping out from it appeared incredibly terrifying.
This shadow stood at the spot for a long time before he turned to look at his surroundings. There were smooth cave walls all over the surrounding of the front hall, and on occasion he would glimpse certain devices made out of sparse wood. There was only one place that stood out of the rest.
It was an incredibly deep and quiet-looking passage. There were even tiny sparks of flames inside.
He confirmed his surroundings one more time before raising his feet and headed towards the passage. His shadow gradually faded and disappeared.
–
Right now, Yue Qiang had just finished looting the tiger’s body. Other than 6.5 Progress Points, he did not find anything else.
Weird. Shouldn’t there be an item drop after beating the boss?
“If you’re looking for something,” Yin said, “you can continue towards the front.”
Hearing her words, Yue Qiang adjusted his vision and looked towards the front of the passage. They had almost reached the end of the passage, and there was a small room not far away. An eternal flame flashed inside with a deep color.
He controlled his character to stand up and walk beside Yin, holding the incredibly weakened girl up. In fact, he himself was incredibly weak; his HP was still at an incredibly low point. It was only thanks to his newly acquired Cockroach stat that he managed to recover a bit.
Yin suddenly said, “You were almost certainly dead just now.”
Yue Qiang was silent.
When the tiger’s tail was trapped by the giant rock, Yue Qiang thought that the battle was already won. But he did not think that the tiger would be so fierce as to have the resolution to cut off a part of its own body! If he was given a knife and put into the same situation, then Yue Qiang might have done the same thing. But this tiger did not have a knife; it literally tore apart its tail, which was as thick as a human arm by force.
It was only now when he recalled it that he was able to get a sense of exactly how dangerous the situation was just now.
“I did not think that your ability to recover is this powerful.” Yin said, “I can especially feel just how powerful your life force is when you were near death. You also seemed to have certain methods that could increase the power behind your fist style. The closer you are to death, the stronger it becomes. Am I correct?”
It was true that during the most dangerous moment of the battle, Yue Qiang had relied on his HP, Rage, Stamina and powerful recovery to just barely win by the skin of his teeth. He typed, “If you hadn’t appraised that skill book for me just now, the corpses on the floor now would have been you and me.”
“Skill book?”
“It’s that book ‘The Philosophy of Cockroaches’ that you appraised for me just now.” Yue Qiang typed.
Yin did not say anything any longer. The duo continued onwards along the passage. The passage was very short, and they quickly entered the small room.
This was a little room with very simple decorations, and the only thing conspicuous was the table at the center of the room.
There were two clumps of light overflowing with light on top of the table.
Yue Qiang hurriedly walked forwards. He had been wondering about the quest’s reward for the longest time now. There had only been a simple system message notifying him that the second stage of the ‘Request Aid’ quest was completed just now, and he did not know if the quest would have a third stage attached to it. But no matter how he looked at it, these two clumps of colorful light on the table should be very important.
Would this be the key item he guessed could ‘avoid death’? Was it a pill that could resurrect a dead person and give flesh to bones, or a peerless art that would give way to reincarnation?
He walked forwards and examined them closely.
To his surprise, these two clumps of lights were actually made of wooden logs!
The logs were placed on an old, decrepit table that looked like it was about to fall apart. There were four pieces of log at the top, left, right and bottom corner of the table. Two of the logs were dark and lightless, whereas the other two were radiating with a gentle, rainbow light.
After he entered the game, every item Yue Qiang had encountered were confined and explainable within the realm of science. Some could even be explained within the realm of ancient technology. But these two shining logs had exceeded his recognition.
Yue Qiang went closer to take a look. The two shiny logs were put at the top and bottom corner of the table. The logs were about the size of a bag of instant noodles. They had a common rectangular shape, and there were some small cracks on them. It was through this cracks that the faint rainbow light had flowed out. It was an incredibly gentle light. The left and right logs looked exactly the same as these logs, but was lightless and appeared incredibly dim.
He picked up one of the shining logs.
At the same time, a few system messages appeared at the bottom of his screen.
[System Message: You have acquired the key item ‘Save/Load Module’.
Save/Load Module: A wooden module radiating with a rainbow light. It can save the entire previous state of the living user perfectly.
Method of Use: Use the Save/Load Module by inserting Progress Points. Within a certain time limit, it will return the user to its strongest physical state. It can be used before the user is about to receive fatal damage.
Time Limit: Every 1 Progress Point can increase the time frame to use the Save/Load Module by 2 hours. The maximum time limit will not exceed 3 days. This limit varies between different life forms.
Usage Count: 1 time(s) ]
The system explanation had appeared rather complicated, but its function could be rounded down to one simple word: Resurrection!
Yue Qiang stared blankly at the system message for the longest time and did not move. Yin walked beside him and asked, “What did you find?”
“I found the truth.” Yue Qiang finally let out a long sigh after a period of drawn out silence. He typed, “This is a Save/Load Module.”
He slowly closed his eyes and fell into deep thought.
The S/L system did not exist in this game, but what he did not expect was that the game had actually given him this S/L item in the form of a reward at the very end of this quest!
Save/Load, was a function that only a single player game would have. Its function was very simple. It allowed a player who accidentally died in the game to start over. If this was a local single player game, there might even be a short, ‘Why don’t you try again, great hero?’ animation prompt. In online RPG games, there was absolutely no such thing as a ‘Save/Load’ system, because every player’s data would be synced to the servers in real time, which could also be seen as a real time save.
One very important aspect of real time save was that every player’s choice was one-off and irreversible. A chance to start all over again did not exist!
Whether a game allowed saving and loading was one point of reference to determine if a game was a single player game or multiplayer game. Yue Qiang had never been able to find the option to save or load, which was why he was slowly suspecting if this was really a single player game. It was also the reason for the question he asked Luqiu Duanyi earlier.
But now, he actually found the S/L function in this place!
Ignoring the other potential functions, the two words ‘Save/Load’ alone was enough to make him consider many things.
“Save/Load function? What is it for?” Yin asked.
Yue Qiang was feeling a little agitated at the moment, and thus did not realize the oddity in Yin’s question. He typed a simple reply, “It is an item that can resurrect someone from death.”
After he finished typing the simple line of words, a dialog box appeared on the screen yet again.
However, this dialog box was not Yin’s since she had been speaking with her mouth all this time. Of course it wasn’t Yue Qiang’s as well.
The dialog box came from the direction of the passage. It said, “Resurrection? That’s, some good stuff.”
A shadow slowly appeared in thin air after the dialog box.
From nothing, to reality.
Thanks!