Chapter 119 USB Drive and Bullets

After opening his eyes again, Xia Qi found himself back on the platform of the central space.

"Normal game clearance: cleared the high-level dungeon within the normal time limit, reward time 100%."

"Reward Time: 10 days of survival time in the real world, 20 days of survival time in the central area."

"Total Time: 33 days of real-world survival time, 20 days of central survival time."

This time, he had accumulated 33 days of real-world survival time, enough to do many things outside.

Xia Qi continued listening carefully.

[Xia Qi's reward for killing the "Tianxing Mountain" dungeon boss: 20,000 sin coins, shaman staff.]

"Current sin coins: 79,100."

As before, the rewarded sin coins did not increase, and Xia Qi continued to listen as the system introduced the item.

"Item name: Shaman Staff of the Shaman Priest (bound)."

"Effect: Can convert your mental power into witch power, enabling you to control corpses using witch power."

"Level: LV1."

"Other details: This is proof of your sacrifice, and even more, a memento of your first sexual act."

Xia Qi: "..."

What on earth is this shaman staff description?!

Can this game system get any worse than this?!

Xia Qi took a deep breath, resisting the urge to erase the item description, and proceeded to check the shaman staff's function.

After leaving the Tianxing Mountain dungeon, the shaman staff's power diminished significantly, changing from reviving corpses to controlling them, which did seem a bit like necromancer-type spells.

Nevertheless, Xia Qi wasn’t disappointed. The ability to control corpses was already very powerful. If it could revive the dead, that would be excessively overpowered.

Xia Qi took the shaman staff from mid-air, and as soon as he grasped it, he found that the skin on his fingers had regained sensation.

He moved his leg and found that it also had feeling.

Was the zombification effect of the true love curse over?!

After placing the shaman staff in the front slot of his backpack, Xia Qi reached up to touch his face, finding that his facial skin not only had warmth but had also regained normal sensation.

He felt a surge of joy. Although becoming a zombie king gave him powerful physical damage capabilities, the aftereffects were truly unbearable. He couldn’t eat, drink, or even make facial expressions. By the seventh day, he felt as though he had genuinely become a numb corpse.

Fortunately, after exiting the dungeon, the system automatically eliminated the curse's effects.

"Reward settlement complete!"

"Now, based on your own abilities, we will begin calculating your overall strength..."

Ding dong! The system issued a particularly joyful notification, and then, the system gleefully announced—

"Congratulations on becoming an overpowered player!"

The female voice cheerfully concluded the announcement, and the system played a brief applause sound effect.

Xia Qi was immediately shocked when he heard the new identity level assigned by the system.

He had thought that the game only had categories like primary players, intermediate players, and advanced players. He hadn’t expected that overpowered players were also a category.

Initially, he had thought the title of overpowered player was self-proclaimed, but he now realized that it was actually a real identity.

Xia Qi had previously asked Xiao Ou about overpowered players. Xiao Ou didn’t have much information either, only knowing that overpowered players could modify dungeons, but how they did so was completely unknown to him.

Why was there deliberately so little information about overpowered players? Were they deliberately hiding relevant information?

Xia Qi furrowed his brow and couldn’t help thinking more deeply.

If overpowered players could establish a unified control over information, then… could they be a group?

"How do overpowered players alter dungeons?" Xia Qi asked the system again.

"Dear player, overpowered players can change the status of NPCs and the environment of dungeons, and implement new rules within the dungeon. However, the specific implementation of new rules depends on the actual situation at that time..."

Listening to the system's introduction, Xia Qi roughly understood the methods used for modifying dungeons by overpowered players.

In short, overpowered players could freely modify dungeons through various means, establishing a whole new set of rules within the dungeon.

In the previous "Tianxing Mountain" dungeon, Zhang Yun had assassinated the old emperor, installed a new emperor NPC who was hostile towards minority groups, and then controlled the new emperor to suppress the minority, forcing the remaining minority up Tianxing Mountain. For another example, in the "Dungeon" dungeon, Mr. Plague created panic among the people, changed their beliefs, and created a new god NPC...

From the influence overpowered players had, they had transformed from ordinary participants into players who could affect the game and other players, even gaining abilities equivalent to half a creator.

After the rewards were settled, Xia Qi said to the system, "Customer service, could you please summon the small train for me?"

"Dear player, the train on floor 17 is about to arrive."

Xia Qi waited for 3 minutes, and the small train chugged along at its normal speed, its chimney puffing out large clouds of smoke, looking very cheerful.

As soon as the door of the small train was pulled open, Xiao Ou ran to the door with a smile and greeted him, "Brother Xia, come in quickly!"

Xia Qi stepped forward and walked into the train. Xiao Ou, seeing that he could walk normally, couldn’t help showing a strange expression. "Brother Xia, how are you completely fine this time..."

Xiao Ou had deliberately returned earlier to meet Xia Qi, just in case he would be incapacitated again like last time.

Unexpectedly, this time in the dungeon, Xia Qi came out unscathed and even looked rosy-cheeked and refreshed. More unbelievably, he walked with his waist held straight, as if he had drawn power from the Witch God.

"Don't talk nonsense." Xia Qi knew what Xiao Ou was thinking and gave him a sideways look, full of warning.

"Sigh." Xiao Ou rubbed his hands and sighed regretfully, "You're not giving me any chance to help?"

Now that Xia Qi was becoming stronger, Xiao Ou felt that apart from being kidnapped by overpowered players, he had no value left.

How had employment become so tough that being a maidservant next to the Empress was no longer a job option for him?

After blaming himself, Xiao Ou started to complain about the Witch God and muttered softly, "Sigh, is he truly capable?"

Xia Qi: "..."

At that time, they had only indulged for 3 minutes. Whether the Witch God was truly capable remained an unsolved mystery.

Xia Qi sat down on the small train and quickly changed the subject, "By the way, I used your phoenix flower band. If you still want it, I can compensate you with sin coins."

"You can use the phoenix flower band however you want; I don’t want it anyhow." Xiao Ou hated his cruel mother and naturally disliked the flower band.

"Also, this time, I need to trouble you to do something for me in the real world. But don’t worry, I won’t ask you to do anything illegal or dangerous." Xia Qi, with his right hand propped on the seat, looked at Xiao Ou seriously, "I’ll settle with you in sin coins, is that okay?"

"Sure, sure, of course!" Xiao Ou quickly nodded and smiled again.

After his failure to become Xia Qi's maid, he had once again found his role—as Xia Qi's errand runner.

"Alright." Xia Qi nodded slightly and composed himself before continuing, "I need you to go back to the real world and help me buy a light screen laptop which has changed hands multiple times and now has no owner. The light computer's address must be a virtual one, and it should be equipped with anti-surveillance firewalls and automatic incognito browsing..."

After listing all the requirements all at once, Xia Qi carefully asked, "I might have quite a few demands for the light computer. You'll need to be patient and check everything. Can you handle it?"

"Yes, of course! I can even go through fire and steel!" Xiao Ou patted his thin chest, his face serious, and assured him, "Brother Xia, don't worry. Leave this task to me! I'll buy the light computer you need and leave it at our designated spot. Once I'm transmitted back, you can go and get the light computer!"

"Good!" Xia Qi was very satisfied. He patted Xiao Ou's shoulder and said generously, "I'll add 1000 sin coins as a red envelope for you."

"OK!" Xiao Ou grinned and clenched his fist.

This was his first order as an errand runner!

He couldn't wait to rush out of the train and head to the black market to fetch the light computer for Xia Qi.

After arriving at the 17th floor, Xia Qi went back to rest while Xiao Ou transmitted himself back to the real world.

Xia Qi waited at home for about three days before Xiao Ou finally came back.

"Brother Xia, I've already placed the flag. You can go there now." Xiao Ou took off his dirty jacket and changed into a pair of slippers, "It's the type of light computer you wanted, the Z999 model. The model might be a bit old, and it's a touch screen, so don't find it difficult to use."

"It's fine, it's enough." Xia Qi took the transmission flag handed over by Xiao Ou, put on his raincoat, and used the transmission flag to return to the real world.

The place he and Xiao Ou had designated was an abandoned junkyard. The area had been checked by Xiao Ou, with no connections to the sky net cameras, and very few floating cameras appeared in the sky here.

After lifting the green trash bin lid over his head, Xia Qi found himself surrounded by industrial waste. After climbing out of the trash bin, he kicked away a robotic hand that was hopping around near his feet.

Following the route Xiao Ou had given, Xia Qi came to an old air conditioner. He moved the air conditioner and dug up the ground, retrieving the light computer from the pit.

Holding the light computer with a transparent glass screen, Xia Qi entered a small shed prepared by Xiao Ou, which could accommodate him for some time.

Leaning on the shed's broken chair, Xia Qi opened the light computer, checked all its contents, and after finding nothing unusual, disconnected from the net and plugged in the USB drive.

"USB Name: A Secret Not to Be Told to Him"

"Memory: 999G"

Looking at the strange name of the USB, Xia Qi's eyelid twitched, a flood of questions flooding his mind. Was this really his USB?

Could it be that Cha Gong was deceiving him?

Given that the bullets Cha Gong gave him were real—military-prohibited Aleta 98F—Xia Qi suppressed his strong suspicions and pressed his finger, clicking into the "A Secret Not to Be Told to Him" USB drive.

As soon as he entered, a snow-white prompt box and several lines of red bold text popped up on the screen.

"Warning: This drive has been locked due to a virus attack and now requires the administrator to manually unlock it."

"Remaining password attempts: 1/6."

"If the password is incorrectly entered and all attempts are exhausted, all data on this drive will be destroyed."

"Please enter the password:"

Looking at the prompt box on the screen, Xia Qi frowned. So Cha Gong had tried to crack the USB drive, triggering its self-lock.

However, what puzzled Xia Qi was that Cha Gong, being the program director of the Lin Group, a top expert in the industry, couldn't crack it? What kind of capability did this USB drive possess that even he couldn't break it?

After Cha Gong failed to crack it, he tried entering the password five more times, but all attempts failed, leaving him with only one attempt left.

What 7 digits could they be?

Xia Qi analyzed the situation seriously. If this USB drive was his, all clues related to it should be on his person.

Cha Gong had always been cunning, and he must have tried to figure it out from him, including his birthday, his favorite numbers, and any number-related information about him...

Xia Qi bit his lip and stared intently at the password input box, slowly clenching his fist.

Cha Gong had already tested these numbers for him; all the numbers related to him were useless.

So, the password for this USB drive had nothing to do with him personally.

Moreover, judging by the name of the USB drive, even if he had lost his memory, he would never have given it such a name.

Therefore, this USB drive didn’t belong to him but to someone connected to him...

Based on the quirky habits of the person, a sudden epiphany flashed in Xia Qi’s mind, and he guessed the password.

Xia Qi took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and used his index finger to tap open the input box, entering the numbers one by one.

"5, 2, 0, 1, 3, 1, 4."

After entering the password, Xia Qi clicked the "confirm" button with a trembling hand.

With a "ding," the confirmation was complete, and a small loading icon slowly rotated in the prompt box.

Xia Qi stared without blinking as the icon spun briefly, then the prompt box gradually disappeared. Immediately after, the entire screen was suddenly filled with countless love icons, which jumped around the screen like flying snowflakes.

Xia Qi looked closely at those love icons and realized they were actually files.

Looking at the romantic-themed content of the USB drive, Xia Qi was speechless, confirming once again that this USB drive wasn’t his.

He clicked on the nearest love icon, and immediately, countless eye-catching videos popped up.

"Win a Man’s Heart Through His Stomach: 18 Home-style Dishes You Need to Learn!"

"Want to Look Handsome? Husbands, Make Some Meat Dishes: Learn to Cook the Best Braised Pork!"

"Husbands, Adding the Right Amount of Oil: How to Use Oil Properly for Delicious Dishes!"

...

Xia Qi (speechless): "..."

These videos were neither trade secrets nor were they anything impressive...

Xia Qi couldn’t help feeling deep sympathy for Cha Gong. If Cha Gong had cracked this USB drive and seen these videos, he would probably have gone mad immediately, right?

With a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Xia Qi clicked off the first love icon, feeling secretly relieved. Fortunately, having been through strange games before, he still had the courage to click on the second love icon after seeing those video titles.

The contents of the second love icon bewildered him again.

Author's Note: Author: Whose secrets were revealed?

Someone: I’ve never had the habit of storing data on a USB drive (serious tone).