Chapter 21 – Cat Dad’s Sprint Burst
Ding
<A reminder: It is 6.50 AM.>
Xiaomao stared at the notification panel while he was sitting on the dirty rock in front of the dungeon entrance. He sighed.
‘What a waste of time. I should at least skip school for three days and play the game all day and all night. Oh, wait. I haven’t slept properly yet. I guess I have to sleep in class or something.’
Xiaomao left the dungeon cave and came back to the abandoned port. He thought of something and remembered that his fisher bot was in the middle of the work.
Xiaomao opened Slave One’s status menu. At the instruction and order box, he manually assigned instructions, waypoints, and actions that Slave One needed to perform next.
The orders were compiled under a new shortcut – Gnoll Dungeon Transport. Xiaomao asked Slave One to come to the island and transport his items back to the warehouse chest in the Labor Guild’s apartment by using the waypoints that Xiaomao had programmed. After transporting everything, Slave One needed to carry on fishing until further instructions.
Once the programming task was completed, Xiaomao unloaded equipment items from his inventory slots to the ground.
After Xiaomao had finished arranging his items, 100 pairs of boots were neatly placed in rows and columns.
That was Xiaomao’s harvest of the day.
.
LEVEL: 10
EXP: 460,000 / 700,000
Contribution Level: 1
PACT Weekly Income: 1/100
EXP: 10/160,000
Status Attributes
STR: 50 (+25)
DEX: 50 (+25)
AGI: 50 (+25)
VIT: 50 (+25)
INT: 50 (+25).
WIS: 50 (+25)
Allocable Status Points: 250
Spiritual Roots
Fire: 1
Water: 1
Wind: 1
Metal: 1
Wood: 1
Lightning: 1
Darkness: 1
Light: 1
Allocable Status Points: 250
.
Gaining nine levels within a night was not something to brag about. However, it was a different story if the NFT character’s rarity was Super Rare or Ultra Rare.
Common NFT only needed 1,000 EXP to advance from level 1 to level 2.
Uncommon NFT required 5,000 EXP to do the same thing.
Rare NFT required 10,000 EXP.
Super Rare NFT required 50,000 EXP.
And Ultra Rare NFT required 100,000 EXP!
The disparity between thresholds was like heaven and earth. However, the reward was worth the grind as long as the player knew what to do.
Xiaomao’s tentacles trembled as he admired the prize of his effort. Still, he refused to add any point to his status attributes or spiritual roots for now.
‘Log out. Log out! Don’t get too addicted.’
Xiaomao had done everything he could. He left them for Slave One to pick the items on the ground and finish his duty.
WHOOSH
Ding
<You have logged out of the game.>
<Miao Xiaomao’s data and character have been updated!>
<Synchronizing Rate: 8.19 %.>
…
Xiaomao slowly opened his eyes.
Again, Mu-Nyang had been menacingly staring at his face while he sat on the capsule’s hatch glass. The cat meowed and tried to wake his slave as he was hungry.
Xiaomao opened the hatch and chased Mu-Nyang away from the game capsule. As he got up, he frowned.
Did he allow Mu-Nyang inside his room last night?
Whatever. That was not something he should be caring about. Mu-Nyang was a smart cat, and he had seen the naughty cat opening doors by himself several times.
Xiaomao shrugged and abandoned the thought. He walked toward the bathroom for the morning shower.
10 minutes later, Xiaomao stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He picked up his toothbrush and toothpaste to brush his teeth.
As soon as Xiaomao looked at his reflection in the mirror, he paused.
Xiaomao rubbed his eyes. Then, he wiped the mirror with a piece of clean toilet paper to get a clearer vision.
In the mirror, Xiaomao’s sclera was black while his pupils were yellowish.
“!?”
Xiaomao shut his eyes and concentrated. After a minute of meditation, he reopened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror again.
The white sclera and brown pupils were the same as usual.
Xiaomao almost had a heart attack. Those black-sclera and golden pupils were the eyes of Chaos Demon God’s apostles and players from Chaos Demon God’s faction.
‘I’m mutating too fast. But wait. I should have inherited the catopus traits, but why did my eyes turn yellow? Why am I mutating into a Chaos Demon God’s apostle?’
He tried to summon his status menu by closing his eyes.
As usual, the blue menu screens appeared behind Xiaomao’s eyelids. He could vaguely see the numbers, but he couldn’t read the texts.
‘It’s there, but I’m evolving too fast. At this rate, I’ll awaken my superpower within a month. But how?!’
Xiaomao was confused. In his previous life, nobody could awaken their power within a month after playing the game. Even those nasty politicians and oligarchs couldn’t get awaken their superpower even though they had UR characters.
Unless…
Xiaomao narrowed his eyes, ‘Compatibility and synchronization rate. I saw the articles somewhere, but I can’t remember.’
He sighed. He regretted that he didn’t research or study enough in his previous life as he was too busy farming items in-game to make money.
Xiaomao left the bathroom and went back into his room. He opened his laptop to find related articles about VRMMO game consoles and player compatibility, including the first game from the company.
There were plenty of articles. However, they only researched how they could improve the control efficiency of their in-game characters. Even the old articles about in-game character integration and synchronization were outdated as all of them were debunked by scientists.
They believed that nobody could import game systems to reality or mutate human DNA and genes. They thought that players were used to the physical prowess in the game that their minds ingrained the muscle memory into their real bodies.
Of course, the scientists didn’t know anything. It was a mistake on their part since they didn’t know the dark hands of Pangu Incorporation.
It was obvious – No one had found out about the system integration yet. Most players played the game to either earn money or improve their real body’s physicality by increasing their in-game status attributes as how they did in the first game a decade ago.
Xiaomao closed his laptop. He pondered for a moment, analyzing how he mutated so fast.
‘Oh, right. Isn’t dad working for Pangu Incorporate? He should know something.’
Xiaomao smacked his forehead. He put on his clothes and rushed to the kitchen.
“Mom! Dad!”
Xiaomao entered the kitchen. However, his parents were not there.
He looked at the kitchen table as the prepared food caught his eyes. Several sealed plastic-sealed plates of food were on the kitchen table. Under one of the plates, Xiaomao’s parents left two pieces of notes for him.
[Mom and Dad have to go to L.A. for a month. Breakfast is on the table. As for dinner and the following days’ food, you’re on your own. You still have money, right? If you run out of cash, you’re on your own, too! Be an adult and manage your money well. Don’t invest everything into the game and starve yourself.]
Next note. This one had the handwriting of Xiaomao’s mother.
[Don’t call us unless you’re in a coma or a dead bed. If you call me while you’re alive, I’ll disown you.]
“… How the hell can I call you after I’m dead, mom?!”
Xiaomao was disappointed and excited at the same time.
He was disappointed because he didn’t get to consult with his parents face to face. His mother also threatened him not to call them.
However, Xiaomao was excited that his parents weren’t here to monitor him.
Without the nosy guardians, Xiaomao was free to skip school and play games all day!
But as Xiaomao was unsealing the plastic wraps to eat his food, he noticed that the note had five pages.
He flipped to the third page. There was the handwriting of his father.
[PS. If I catch you playing hooky, I’ll disown you.]
“…”
Next Page…
[PS2. I already told your homeroom teacher that you’re not sick. They will tell me if you skip school!]
“…”
Last Page…
[PS3. As one of Pangu Incorporate’s workers, I have my ways to check your online time. I know what you’re thinking, and I can see what you did. Although we’re glad that you’ve picked the right game to play, manage your freaking time, alright?]
Xiaomao facepalmed. His father read him like a book.
‘Alright. Fine. I’ll go to school.’
Xiaomao ate the food and restocked the cats’ food bowls. Then, he went to school in a dejected mood.
…
After walking out of the house, Xiaomao felt strange today. He wasn’t as sleepy as yesterday.
In addition, he felt like his body was more flexible. He was confident that he could do the split without getting hurt.
Testing his limits and the current state of the game status integration, Xiaomao sprinted to school.
Xiaomao ran at a human speed at first. But after two seconds, he discovered that his legs and feet were like a machine. The wind him his face harder than usual, and he could sense the wind resistance.
He was fast.
“I am speed, munya!”
There were obstacles, and Xiaomao swiftly dodged and leaped over them like a parkour master.
Running for five minutes, Xiaomao reached the school.
Unfortunately, Xiaomao wasn’t used to the newfound speed. He failed to control his legs and decelerate. As a result, he entered the school’s premises at a speed of 50km per hour.
“Crap!”
At this rate, he would crash onto something and get injured.
Xiaomao relaxed his legs and steered the direction from the school building toward the school’s soccer field, which was surrounded by a track field.
It worked. He managed to steer himself to the track and field. He controlled his upper body and let his legs guide him to the running track.
It was early morning. Many sports clubs were using the track for their morning activities. Some of them were jogging in groups and didn’t notice Xiaomao’s arrival.
Xiaomao paced his breath and relaxed his legs, trying to relieve the tension and decelerate.
The speed slightly decreased, but his legs still auto-moved like a locomotive, not listening to Xiaomao’s commands.
“Crap! Crap! Crap!”
Xiaomao gritted his teeth and kept breathing, worrying that he might be out of breath soon.
Betraying his expectation, Xiaomao wasn’t tired. He felt like he could run several kilometers at his full speed.
The full sprint began to attract the attention of students. They looked at him while some of the club managers took out their phones to record a clip.
Xiaomao sprinted a whole lap. However, he could not stop his legs yet.
At that moment, one of the club managers pressed her stopwatch to time Xiaomao. She was a 2nd-year sophomore senior and the track club’s manager.
As soon as the girl began timing Xiaomao, the other runners walked toward her and looked at the watch.
They looked at each other with wide eyes as if they had witnessed the birth of a monster.
While the managers and the track and field athletes were in shock, the passer-by students found Xiaomao funny as the guy had been running while wearing a regular student uniform.
One of them suddenly cheered for him.
“RUN, FOREST! RUN!”
Xiaomao overheard that. He inwardly cried.
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