Chapter 139 – Trade-in

There were three games in the discount event as Ren Suo had expected – previously in the Grain Rain discount event, there were only four games as well.

The semi-finished games included in the event were all free, although it would have been normal if they simply cost less than regular games too.

It was just that the names of the three game choices were so special that Ren Suo could not make a decision the previous night.

[Passing Hats]

[Everyone has a hat. Whose hat will you don tonight? Difficulty rating: 2 stars. Time left to complete: 7 days.]

[Aeroplane Chess]

[Luck determines your survival, luck determines your effort, and luck determines the outcome. Difficulty rating: 3+ stars. Time left to complete: 5 days.]

[Guess the Number]

[It is not easy to be extraordinary, but it is even more difficult to be completely ordinary. Difficulty rating: 3 stars. Time left to complete: 6 days.]

The description was utterly useless and it could well have been left out. On the other hand, the names of the games were similar to those that Ren Suo played when he was a kid. For some reason however, the games seemed extraordinarily horrifying now when combined with their descriptions.

It was like listening to the fairy tale of Snow White when the story suddenly turned into Snow White in the movies “Wrong Turn” or “Saw” who met seven cannibals…

Moreover, although the three games were free, they were also expensive.

Because there was no main character in any of the games.

If there was no main character, the player would not have a character to control, and it could not be played.

Hence, if Ren Suo wanted to play such games, he had to make a “sacrifice”.

To acquire temporary playing privileges to the semi-finished games in the Lesser Fullness of Grain event, Ren Suo would have to make a gamble using one of the games he owned and completed.

At the same time, Ren Suo would then be able to use the character from the game he betted with to play the semi-finished game!

That was somewhat similar to a trade-in, in more commonly understood terms.

If Ren Suo successfully completed the semi-finished game, nothing would happen to the game he betted with; but contrarily, if Ren Suo did not manage to complete the game by the closing time, the game he betted with would be lost.

Of course, the rewards Ren Suo earned from the previous games would not be lost if that happened. Ren Suo would still be able to continue playing the lost game by purchasing it again with the “Search” function. However, there would be no game completion result or any game rewards from completion, so the original game records would be lost forever.

For example, if Ren Suo sacrificed the first chapter of “Over My Dead Body” and failed to complete the semi-finished game, then repurchased the game and played the first chapter again, he would only unlock the second chapter and the past record of “Ren Woxing” would not be recovered.

Undoubtedly, there would be no impact on Ren Suo even if he sacrificed all of the games he owned as he had already cleared the games anyway.

However, when Ren Suo realized that the “completed games” was actually the currency for purchasing “semi-finished games”, he naturally thought of other problems:

Why would the characters from completed games be able to enter the semi-finished games?

Apart from semi-finished games, are there other uses of completed games?

When Ren Suo realized that “completed games” was also a resource, he naturally became more cautious and deliberated over his next choice, which was why he could not sleep the night before.

It would not have been such a difficult choice to make if the three semi-finished games could be purchased with merit points, since Ren Suo now had a lot of merit points and would not be pained from spending merit points.

However, now that Ren Suo had to use an unfamiliar resource, whose usefulness was not known, to place bets on a semi-finished game which only had “unknown specialized rewards”, he hesitated for a very long time.

He felt like a useless chief in ancient times, and was asked by a time traveller with a glass ball: “Are you willing to exchange a few tons of useless oil that can only catch fire for this revolutionary glass ball?”

Standing on the line between success and being conned of success, Ren Suo made his final decision – to only bet on one of the games.

All three games had a limited time remaining to complete, and Ren Suo would be lucky if he could complete a game before the time was up.

At the same time, since semi-finished games could not be “Searched” for and there would be no chance to play it in future after the current solar term event ended, Ren Suo had to try at least one of them.

The question was then, which of the games he owned should he sacrifice?

“The Killer”, “A Strong Warrior Ascends 10000 Meters”, “Over My Dead Body”, “Holy Priest: Survival Battle”, “The All-Devouring Soul”…

If the level of power required in the game was not high and he chose the main characters in “Over My Dead Body” or “The All-Devouring Soul”, would that not mean that he would win the game easily?

It was either the strongest Practitioner of the Ren family, or the Monkey King who surpassed the previously most powerful soul in the world.

However, Ren Suo quickly abandoned such an unrealistic dream. If there were special rules in the game, or if combat was not required to complete the game in the first place, he would have been tricked.

Furthermore, if game characters proved to be useful in the future, then Ren Suo would definitely not be willing to lose those two powerful characters from their respective games.

Disregarding the past when he did not know about the usefulness of game characters, now that Ren Suo discovered that game characters could cross into other games, he naturally ranked the games which he owned: at the top were “Over My Dead Body” and “The All-Devouring Soul”, followed by “Holy Priest: Survival Battle”, then “The Killer”, and finally “A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters”, which was the least useful.

With that ranking in place, Ren Suo chose the female Seeker and betted with “A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters” in exchange for a semi-finished game.

As for which game to choose, it was naturally “Passing Hats”, which had a 2-star difficulty rating.

There was nothing that Ren Suo expected to receive from the game as he merely wanted to see what the semi-finished game was like, so he naturally chose to play the easiest of the three games, which in turn had the highest hope of completing successfully.

After the purchase was completed, a new game appeared on the main page. The game icon had a totally dark background with only one candle and a hat in the foreground. Half of the hat was already burned by the flame and what kind of hat it was could not be determined.

“Put your hat on.”

When the game started, the voice of an old woman sounded, seemingly from a great distance.

Ren Suo swallowed his saliva. All of the lights in the living room, the washroom, and the bedroom were on, and all the doors were open. It was the middle of the day, but Ren Suo still felt a chill run down his spine.

At that moment, he thought of Li Dan’s words: “… those who did not make use of the opportunities and did not take risks would at least be able to survive.”

What nonsense, it’s logical to be risk averse in life, but why would you not take risks in a game?!

With the dignity of a strong keyboard warrior, Ren Suo pulled himself together and stared intently at the screen.

[Save files for this game would be created automatically.]

[This game can be connected to a mobile phone and thus it can be played on the mobile phone.]

Eh? It can even be turned into a mobile phone game?

The screen slowly lit up, and under the dim moonlight, a circular-shaped house could be seen amidst the dense forest.

The house was hovering above the ground and the door was wide open. The female Seeker walked in and found a round table inside, where more than ten fog-like figures were seated around.

There were more than ten hats on the table, each of different styles, including a straw hat, a cap, a bucket hat, and a cowboy hat.

Directly opposite the door was a figure of a girl who donned a hat and was sitting down. Although there were candles in the room, the girl’s appearance still could not be seen at all.

The girl said, “Welcome, welcome. I have not met other players for a very long time. We can start the game now… but wait, where is your hat?”

At that juncture, a small round hat suddenly appeared on the female Seeker’s hand. The item description was also shown:

[The Seeker’s Hat: Perception +20%.]

The girl said, “Please put your hat down.”

On the screen, the girl with a black mist surrounding her removed the beret from her head and placed it on the table. The Seeker followed suit.

The table began rotating at a speed that was still perceivable by the naked eye, and three consecutive messages popped up in the game:

[Press ○ to choose a hat]

[Goal: To don all hats and make them your own.]

[The Seeker’s Enlightenment: The Seeker can perceive which hats have not been worn by “her”.]