Chapter 127: Punishment

Chen Xiaolian was left speechless!

In the eyes of all Awakened ones, this topic was likely the most sensitive one to them.

The person that will be refreshed after death… would that person still be the same person?

Just like what had happened to Nicole. Her father was refreshed after his death. However, more than 10 years’ worth of memories was reset… as such, would that person still be the same person?

The reason you are you is because of your memories, emotions, personality etc. … all of them come together to form one whole identity. If all those were to be replaced…

Will you still be you?

Or… just a re-created identical replacement?

“When I was very young, I had this experience,” Nicole spoke in a low tone. “When I was still young, my father had given me a doll as a present. I loved it to the extreme, and I would hold it regardless of eating time or sleeping time. Finally, one day, I dropped the doll and it became broken. I was devastated. So, my father bought a new doll that was identical for me. However… I did not like the new one.”

The topic was too disheartening and the heaviness of the atmosphere caused everyone in the vehicle to fall silent.

After a while, Chen Xiaolian slowly asked. “Then… you must really hate that Angel Killer, right? Back then, why…”

“Why not take the opportunity to kill him?” Nicole laughed out bitterly as her face turned resentful. She took a deep breath and her eyes turned peculiar. “Because… I am unable to!”

Pausing, she then stared at Chen Xiaolian. “Did you think I never tried to? After my father was killed, his comrade-in-arms and the other members of the Floating Angels had attempted to avenge my father. But every attempt ended in failure.

“I still remember, when father was killed in that instance dungeon, he entrusted his dying words for me to a Floating Angel who returned alive.”

The nasal sound within Nicole’s voice grew heavier. After sniffing lightly, she slowly said. “My father said he knows my personality enough to know that I would never give up on revenge. So, he will not dissuade me. He will simply tell me two things: First, there is only one life. As such, there will only be one opportunity for revenge! Second, until my strength has grown to the point where I can fight against that fellow, I should bear with it patiently until the day I have enough assurance.

“At first, I was very impulsive. Until one time, a good friend of my father, an expert who is also one of the Twelve Angels brought some men with him to participate in an instance dungeon and encountered the Angel Killer. That expert attempted to avenge my father and fought against the enemy. In the end… he returned suffering from serious injuries.

“From that day forth, I temporarily gave up on the notion of revenge.

“My father is right, I only have one chance. If I were to impulsively rush out and fail, I will die and there will be no more chances.

“Thus, I shall wait until the day I have enough strength and assurance, only then will I act! Otherwise, even if we came face to face, the first thing I will choose to do is run away! Even if you say I am cowardly, I do not care.”

Chen Xiaolian did not say anything. However, Roddy who was seated in the back row spoke out.

“This act of yours is not cowardly; this act is one that requires the greatest amount of courage!”

Nicole glanced at Roddy through the rear view mirror. “Thank you.”

“All right, let’s talk about that fellow, the Angel Killer,” Chen Xiaolian frowned. “We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

Nicole nodded.

“A top expert from Thorned Flower, nicknamed ‘Angel Killer’. En, I know his name. In Thorned Flower Guild, he is called… Tian Lie.

“His skill is of the technological type… additionally, it appears that his ability allows him to exercise control over almost all technological objects!

“The Floating Angels hostile to him conducted a great deal of information gathering. At present, it appears that he possesses a special skill, giving him a near immortal body. This ability allows his body to transform into fine liquid metal, which could even transform into data! In other words, he can transform into a virtual stream of data that could act separately.

“His skill comes with two functions, Assimilation and Devour. In other words, killing him is extremely difficult.

“Even if you succeed in killing him, as long as a liquid metal cell escapes his body, the data stream hidden within that liquid metal would be able to flow into and blend with the surrounding metallic objects. It will devour and assimilate them… finally, it will perfectly resurrect him!

“Amongst all known abilities, this ability is the one closest to an ‘immortal body’!

“Naturally, it is not impossible to kill him. The biggest weakness of this ability is the specific dependence towards metallic materials.

“In order to utterly kill him, you must first bring him to an area without any metallic materials. Then, kill him and annihilate every last metal cell in his body so that the data stream has no way of escaping!”

Hearing this, the expression on Chen Xiaolian and the others in the vehicles twitched!

What a Heavenly defying skill!

An area without any metallic materials?

In this world, where could they find such a place?

Even in the wilderness of the mountains and forests, there would still be many metal elements hidden within the rocks!

In order to find a place devoid of any metal elements… unless they were to artificially create such a place.

To kill that fellow, how could they even do it…

“Naturally, if your strength is much higher than him, for example, if you attained [S] Class or higher… then you can use overwhelming strength to crush him and instant kill him. Then, use an ability of the control type to stop his metal cells from escaping. However, this is too difficult. Unless your ability is one class higher than his, you would be unable to accomplish it.

Nicole smiled grudgingly and continued. “That was why, back in the street earlier, I had advised you not to waste time against him. In the city, concrete steel is everywhere and there are too many metal objects in the surroundings. Considering that our strength is already below his, trying to kill him in that environment is simply impossible.”

Chen Xiaolian was silent… if that is the case, trying to kill that fellow known as Tian Lie… under the present circumstances; it is indeed an impossible task.

“We can only choose to flee,” Nicole shook her head. “According to our gathered information, this Tian Lie has a very high position within Thorned Flower Guild. He will not directly participate in an instance dungeon. Additionally, based on our earlier encounter with the Thorned Flower Guild team, I surmise that this has to do with the Thorned Flower Guild’s conventional conduct of allocating quests.

“The team would be responsible for participating in the instance dungeon while an expert like Tian Lie would act as someone known as ‘Inspector’ and enter the instance dungeon as an extra. He will then escort them or go about evaluating and supervising the performance of the team that was sent in.”

“Inspector? What does that mean? Could it be he does not have to participate in the instance dungeon? And yet he could still enter an instance dungeon area at random? Is that not a huge BUG?” Roddy was shocked.

“No, it is not a BUG,” Nicole explained. “Theoretically speaking, Tian Lie should have entered as an instance dungeon participant. In other words, the instance dungeon will also issue the first phase of the quest to him. But, he will not care about it. He will only act as the supervisor and inspector for his side. After entering the instance dungeon, he will conduct supervision and control the overall situation of the team members from his side.

“This is the conventional procedure of Thorned Flower Guild. Normally, when they are sending in a rather new team or one that has weaker strength into an instance dungeon, the guild will also send an expert to escort and control the situation. The expert will not  participate in the instance dungeon and will leave at a certain time.

“Using this deduction, that would mean the team we encountered earlier is a weaker team. That is why an expert like Tian Lie would be dispatched out to control the situation.

“Thorned Flower Guild has always placed importance in the nurturing of their own members. Thus, an expert will always be there to control the situation for them and monitor the weak teams. That way, they can ensure that the weak can have a period of growth.”

“But… if Tian Lie is only within the instance dungeon to sit by the side-lines and not complete the quest… would he not receive the system punishment for failing the quest?” Roddy asked.

“Punishment will certainly be received,” Nicole frowned. “But a top guild like Thorned Flower Guild will surely have their own special capabilities. Perhaps their guild has a special privilege that would allow them to avoid system punishment – that is our speculation. They might actually have this kind of privilege. As you all know, any system will have loopholes and bugs.

“Take Zero City for example. Those who hide in Zero City would be able to shield themselves from the system’s quest notifications. This is also a special privilege, or perhaps a form of exploitable BUG.

“As for Thorned Flower Guild, we have always suspected that they too, possess such similar capabilities.

“Let us take a step back and assume that they do not…

“For an expert like Tian Lie, the system punishment is something that would not threaten him at all.”

“What kind of system punishment is there for those who failed the quest?” Chen Xiaolian asked.

“There are a lot,” Nicole knitted her eyebrows. “It is too hard to say as well. The system punishment is never fixed. It will depend on the instance dungeon’s class of difficulty and the participant or team’s class. Putting those into consideration, the system will automatically make an assessment.

“For example, a high class instance dungeon and a low class participant. Under such circumstances, the system will recognize that the probability of you completing the quest was very small to begin with. So, even if you fail, the punishment will not be too severe.

“If the instance dungeon has a low class difficulty and the participant is of a high class, the system will determine that the participant has a high chance of completing the quest… if the participant fails, the punishment would be very severe.

“All in all, it will depend on the comprehensive evaluation.

“Generally speaking, there are two types of punishment. The first is instant death!”

Hearing that, everyone within the vehicle turned silent. Chen Xiaolian turned around to look at Qiao Qiao, Roddy and Soo Soo.

“No need to panic. Instant death punishment is extremely rare within instance dungeons. If all the participants who fail to complete the quest were killed off, then there would not be many people left in this game.

“Most of the punishment would involve being forced to participate in a ‘punishment type instance dungeon’.

Punishment type instance dungeon?

Just listening to the name gave them a foreboding feeling…

…

“I can answer this question.”

Lun Tai who had been sitting behind the pickup opened his mouth.

After taking the Healing Beast Blood, he appeared to have been slightly rejuvenated.

The back window of the pickup truck had already been dismantled and Lun Tai moved close, speaking slowly. “There are many punishment type instance dungeons, from easy to difficult.

“Generally speaking, the system will allocate an area to become an instance dungeon area at a specific time and place, and then force those who received punishment for failing to participate in the instance dungeon.

“These types of instance dungeons generally do not have any main storyline quests.

“Most of them belong to the survival type of instance dungeon.

“In other words, it is possible for a hundred participants to be thrown in for a set period of time. Then, as long as they could survive until the end of the instance dungeon, they will make it.

“Of course, some instance dungeons are more outrageous than others and would encourage the participants to kill one another. For example, not only do the participants have to survive, the system will use rewards as a method to drive participants to hunt and kill others. Although most of these are not mandatory… if the system were to give out rewards, such as by killing a participant, you will gain a certain amount of points… by doing so, the structure of the instance dungeon will be utterly changed.

“At any rate, survival type instance dungeons are the most common form of system punishment.

“Some have a high rate of survival while others have such a low rate of survival, it is simply terrifying.

“Of course, the latter is part of the minority.”

…

Tian Lie: Raw: ‘天烈’, pinyin: ‘tiān liè’. Tian (天) means Heaven or sky, Lie (烈) means strong.