Chapter 69: I Want All of It

“It’s up to me?”

Roland was startled for a moment. Now he thought the possibility that the other party was a fraud was low. However, he still found this strange. “I remember when I filled out the information, I didn’t leave my phone number, just my ID. How do you know my phone number?”

“Erm… About that, although it’s a little after the fact, I’ll still divulge some information to you.” The voice inside the phone had a peculiar sense of mysteriousness. “Actually, this game was already cooperating with the country. All the players already passed a round of investigation on their personal records. After ensuring that each player had no stains on their record, they then were allowed to purchase an immersive cabin. If even their personal records were investigated, your commonly used phone number would naturally be in our database.”

So that’s how!

However, Roland thought this was quite normal after giving it some thought. For such an advanced and time-surpassing technology, if the country wasn’t safeguarding from behind the stage, Penguin Corporation, even with its size, wouldn’t be able to defend against the mauling of wolves—not to mention there were corporate spies and things of that sort, as well as the pressures from certain large countries. Private corporations had extremely little power in a broad environment that involved industrial upgrading—leaning on a large backer was the correct way of handling this situation.

It was no wonder there were very few paid comments that tarnished this game. Even if there were, they would be suppressed quickly.

“Since it’s up to me…” Roland’s voice quivered. He then said resolutely, “Isn’t there a meme on the internet that says, only children make choices, adults want it all!”

“Hahahahaha!”

A candid laughter came through the phone first, then Ma Huajun said, “Sure enough, you’re a greedy adult. Unfortunately, I, Ma Huajun, love to say no to arrogant people the most—choose one over the other—you can only choose one. Besides, we have to take class balance into consideration. Mages are already quite impressive. If Meditation possessed both active and passive effects, that would be too ridiculous.”

Roland didn’t expect the head planner to go along with his joke. After some thought, Roland said, “What’s the full effect of the passive skill?”

“Don’t worry, it’s only slightly worse than the active skill, but it’s superior in that it has continuous effects.”

“Then, passive effect it is,” Roland said after a moment’s thought.

He didn’t choose this arbitrarily, but it was rather that he already sensed the fact that mages had slow mental power regeneration. It wasn’t the equipment or the number of spells that troubled mages, it was mental power.

The amount of mental power and its endurance decided a mage’s ability to last in a fight.

Moreover, this game was different from normal games. Equipment could be damaged and stolen. Even if you had a lot of magic power regeneration equipment, once you lose in a battle, if you didn’t have a friend to guard your corpse or retrieve your equipment, then you’d soon end up with nothing.

However, the passive mental power regeneration would forever be your own.

“Sure, the passive effect it is.” Ma Huajun’s voice came through from the phone. “Then I’ll hang up now. In a while, you’ll be able to see the bug fix announcement on the official website.”

“Wait!” Roland suddenly shouted.

“Is something else the matter?”

“I just wanted to ask, those NPCs, are they really just artificial intelligence?”

“What do you think?” A profound voice came from the phone. “If you think they’re NPCs, then they’re NPCs, if you think they’re real humans, then they’re real humans. This game is actually quite idealistic.”

After Ma Huajun finished speaking, he ended the call, giving Roland no chance to ask another question.

When Roland tried to call back, however, he discovered that the previous caller ID was displayed as eleven zeros, even though the caller ID had been perfectly normal just now. Could he have remembered wrong?

This number couldn’t be called.

Idealistic? What’s that supposed to mean?!

Roland couldn’t understand it, for it sounded mysterious and unusual. He shook his head helplessly, and hastily finished eating breakfast.

He had wanted to go to the boxing club again, but when he recalled that Jin Wenwen seemed to be rather interested in the immersive cabin inside his house, he gave up on the idea.

Although he paid a year’s worth of tuition, it was merely a few thousand yuan. However, in his bank account, there was already nearly 300,000 yuan in savings—wasting a little was harmless.

Why not go to another training club to learn a weapon of some sort? Roland remembered amongst the basic weapons mages were proficient with, swords were one of them.

How about fencing?

However, he might as well learn the basic military sword techniques from Betta.

Besides, the growth in agility of Mages was quite average, only slightly better than normal people, and he didn’t learn any buffs, so he wouldn’t have much use for it for the time being.

However, it was always better to be prepared, just in case! No matter what, he should just learn it first. He had nothing better to do in the daytime anyway.

He searched on the web and discovered that there actually weren’t any places in the city center that taught swordsmanship.

Yes… eighteenth-tier small cities had precisely this flaw. Although normal basic needs weren’t a problem, it was a difficult place to engage in any sort of advanced entertainment or learn any advanced skills—it was lacking in a lot of areas.

Just when he was disappointed, he actually found a miaodao training club on the map’s navigation. By the looks of the location, it should be in the eastern suburban districts.

Miaodao techniques!

This was south of Xinjiang where there were a lot of people of Miao ethnicity. And as a national minority, the Miao people had the prerogative to carry sabers.

However, this society was now safer and stabler, so it was rare for people of the Miao ethnic group to walk around carrying sabers. Apart from occasionally wearing their own ethnic clothing, they were already no different from the main ethnicities in terms of habits and customs.

Besides, even with superficial historical knowledge, Roland knew that the saber associated with the Miao ethnic group wasn’t the miaodao. Miaodao only appeared after the establishment of the Republic of China—it was merely the name of a type of saber.

It was said that miaodao techniques referenced Wajin’s[1] two-handed saber and its techniques, but the attack patterns were more suited toward the Chinese people’s habits of being bold and grand.

After all, the average height of the martial artists of China were greater than that of the Wajin martial artists.

Was this miaodao club a bait and switch, simply advertising itself as miaodao, or did it teach the orthodox Chinese miaodao techniques?

He would know once he went to check it out.

Roland used a public bike and arrived at the suburbs following the map’s navigation system. This took him nearly half an hour.

After leaving the city center, there were clearly a lot less people on the streets, and on the two sides of the roads, some farmlands that planted vegetables and fruits started to appear.

On a vacant land prepared to be opened up for development, Roland found the miaodao club.

The midaodao club occupied a lot of land, but it was quite simple and crude.

Two galvanized iron sheets combined to form a shed used to block the sun and rain, then there was a wide, flat, glossy cement floor which could even reflect light a little.

A red brick wall up to Roland’s chest surrounded this land.

A wooden signboard hung at the doorway. Unlike the simple and crude site itself, this signboard was quite refined.

It was a square base of brown lumber that had been polished to lustrousness, the two words “Miaodao Club” engraved one-third deep into the wood, then polished with black paint. It looked rather sharp and imposing.

His line of sight passing through the low perimeter wall, Roland saw four students in uniform, brandishing long wooden sabers high above them.

On the side, a young girl was carrying a bucket, spraying water on the cement ground, seemingly in order to lower the temperature.

There was another young man leaning on the load-bearing metal pillars of the large shed. He was watching the four young students train.

When Roland’s line of sight landed on the young man, the young man also turned to look at Roland.

The young man’s eyes were like that of a dead fish, a gaze without any luster or spirit.

However, inexplicably, Roland felt a bit of pressure.

[1] Ancient people in Japan, China, and Korea

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