Gamers Are Fierce - Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Illusion
Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
Li Ang sat in the living room of his home.
“System? System? Are you there?”
Silence. He did not receive a reply.
“God’s space? System’s spirit? Old man of the ring? The mastermind?”
The voice did not appear again no matter what Li Ang said.
He was currently wearing a yellow janitor uniform, complete with a cap, a face mask, a pair of silicone gloves, and black anti-slip rain boots.
Beside his feet was a cream plastic bag that contained a mop and a piece of cloth. It was half-filled with blood and remnants of the monster cat floated on the surface.
After killing the human-faced cat, Li Ang had immediately run home and taken out the necessary equipment to remove all traces of the corpse. Then, he had run downstairs and pretended to be a cleaner cleaning the area. Fortunately, this district was quite old so there were no surveillance cameras installed on the stairwell. Not many people were walking around in this area either.
Li Ang contemplated this for a long while before placing the brown thumb-sized glass pearl on the table.
[Name: Odd Eyeball]
[Category: Accessory]
[Grade: Rare]
[Effects: Differentiates illusions from reality and creates illusions. The strength, circumference, and duration of the illusion depends on the strength of the user’s willpower]
[Equip Requirements: User has to possess the physiological anatomy of the eye socket]
[Remarks: All living objects with a solid form are illusionary. The changes in Yin and Yang alter their shape, transforming them into an illusion.]
This hard glass pearl was the left eye of the monster cat. When Li Ang looked at this pearl, these words appeared before his eyes, providing a description of the eyeball.
“Hello, everyone. This is a new game you’ve never played before. The first game will only cost you 10 cents, and you will receive 999 weapons. Divine equipment can be obtained easily, and you will never die in the game.”
Li Ang narrated the advertising slogan of a real-life game called Greedy Blue Moon and murmured, “Did this world truly turn into a game?”
If this world was a virtual-reality game, Li Ang could be considered a non-paying player with bad luck playing in hell mode.
He had been an orphan since a young age and had grown up in an orphanage ever since he had been seven years old. At 16, he had left the orphanage and entered society. Even now, he was studying while working part-time.
Usually, children without any disabilities or illnesses would be prioritized when it came to adoption. There were two reasons Li Ang had been “leftover” after so many years.
One, he had entered the orphanage at a much older age and had matured early. Two, his way of thinking was so different that people thought he was weird.
Since a young age, he had exhibited way-above-average logical and deductive skills.
Many books had been available at the orphanage, donated by people from all over the world. After reading the book Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Li Ang, who liked to read, had been able to predict that Snow White’s fate would be so eventful because of the many vile characters around her.
Also, he had read the story of Sima Guang using a stone to break a vat that a child had fallen into. In his opinion, Sima Guang should have burned some firewood at the bottom of the vat until all the water had dried up. The child in the vat would have been safe and the vat would have remained intact at the same time, killing two birds with one stone.
He also used to watch movies at the orphanage. After watching the classic movie The Last Emperor, he had deduced that the eunuch’s son should be a eunuch as well by using his knowledge on genetics.
A film production company had visited the orphanage and asked the children what their biggest wish was.
Other children had wished to be quickly adopted or get presents like stuffed toys and toy cars.
Only Li Ang had said that he wanted the orphanage to accept more twin orphans so that he could play spot-the-difference.
He had not cared much about games such as shouting into the whirling fan, telling people to wear two sets of undergarments in winter for warmth, suggesting that they did not take off their socks when washing their feet to save time by not washing the socks, or bringing the teachers to the rubbish dump to reprimand them for not keeping the house clean.
Children were filled with curious ideas. Li Ang, who had showcased his intelligence, had impressed the visitors of the orphanage.
Intelligence and insanity were separated by a fine line. Li Ang, who would lift his butt to fart to reduce the noise made, stood firmly on this aforementioned line. Upon sending Li Ang off from the orphanage, the principal had predicted that Li Ang would either become famous and successful or become an infamous criminal.
Nonetheless, when the abnormal invaded reality, this prediction was most likely doomed to fail.
“According to the ‘game narrative’ I heard earlier, the cat that killed Old Lady Zhang was one of the players. Given that rumors of strange events happening in the city have recently been spreading, it is safe to assume that the real game has started for some time.
“What is this game’s modus operandi? How do the player and the system communicate? Does one need to complete Quests to obtain rewards? What are the contents of the Quests? Do they require farming or fighting monsters?
“Also, during this time, how many people or animals have become players? Are the government and third-party organizations unaware of this game?
“If they are aware of it, given that players could obtain supernatural abilities and non-players could kill players to be qualified, some organizations could have started to look for players among common folks…”
He felt a sense of danger, yet no “system spirit” appeared.
“I shall wait and observe then.”
With a dark expression, Li Ang contemplated this for a while before taking the glass pearl and holding it in front of him.
This was the only loot he had obtained from the monster cat.
“User has to possess the physiological anatomy of the eye socket…”
The moment the almond-colored eyeball came into contact with Li Ang’s eyelash, it was immediately sucked into it, filling his eye socket at a strange angle.
“What the hell? So suddenly?”
Li Ang jerked in fright, yet he felt no discomfort.
He hastily lifted a mirror and looked into it. His appearance seemed normal, except that his left eye had turned almond in color and had a cat-like pupil.
He looked like a nearly-extinct type of punk who would have lots of tattoos.
“The retina of breast-feeding animals contains rod cells, which are sensitive to light brightness and responsible for one’s night vision, and cones, which are sensitive to light and can differentiate between colors.
“The ratio of rod cells to cones in humans is 4:1, while in cats it is 25:1. This means that the night vision of cats is very powerful and can differentiate between colors extremely well.
“My left eye can see all colors, unlike cats, which can only see blue, green, yellow, and purple. Also, due to its light sensitivity, my left eye can see in the dark much more clearly.”
Li Ang calmly analyzed the situation. “It is still necessary to perform more tests to obtain even more information on this eyeball. Based on the item’s description, however, it should be able to create illusions…”
He closed his eyes and focused. Then, he let his imagination run wild in an attempt to use the illusion to reconstruct the spatial structure of the living room.
Some Spirit seemed to be flowing and gathering.
A long moment later, Li Ang tiredly opened his eyes again. The living room remained the same, other than a few ripples in the air.
“I still was not able to construct the supernatural loop I experienced earlier. Is it because my Spirit is not strong enough?”
Li Ang was slightly disappointed as he started imagining even simpler items.
A fork, a spoon, pots and pans, books, tables and chairs, an alarm clock, a television, a fridge, a sewing machine…
In a few minutes, the living room was filled with various random items covered by a thin layer of mist. They looked authentic up close but would probably scare people who looked at them from far away.
“I conjured something out of nothing… It seems like I became a master in Qigong. Or maybe a magician?”
