Chapter 152: This Is a Fake Beginner Village

"Game settlement complete. You have successfully advanced to the next round. The first round of the repechage will begin on October 3rd. Specific time and location details will be sent to you via mobile text message, so please keep an eye out for them."

Chen Fan let out a long sigh of relief and immediately removed his VR glasses, bracing his hands against his thighs as he panted heavily. The sweat on his back had wet and dried, leaving it wrinkled as if it had just been wrung out and air-dried in a washing machine.

"Chen Fan... What on earth happened to you? Did you go race against cavemen..." Han Youyi looked at Chen Fan's disheveled appearance in astonishment. He then checked the indoor air conditioning temperature, which was set to 26 degrees Celsius, cool enough to feel slightly chilly even while sitting still.

"It's nothing. Winning wasn't easy, I'm just a bit excited." Chen Fan touched the back of his neck, stood up unsteadily to express his gratitude, and then walked out of the activity room.

Outside the door, Li Peijun, who had been waiting for him, waved and called out, "Kid, did you win?"

"Mm... Won. Three straight wins, waiting for the repechage notification." Chen Fan looked a bit dazed; when he first turned his head, he turned in the wrong direction and didn't see anyone, only correcting himself a moment later.

"Good grief, judging by your miserable state, your mental load must have been massive. Tsk tsk tsk, I need to eat another Snickers bar." Li Peijun pulled three Snickers bars from his pocket, tore open the packaging of one, and chewed on it voraciously.

"If you get randomized into the Dungeon & Fighter instance, remember, absolutely do not take the MVP. You must keep that firmly in mind." Chen Fan pressed his hand onto the other's shoulder, leaning forward powerlessly until his whole body was almost resting against him.

"Holy shit, looking like this, don't tell me you were drained dry by an NPC." Li Peijun was so startled that he bit into empty air.

Chen Fan took a deep breath and spoke in intermittent gasps, "It's not the kind of draining you're thinking of. Have you ever wrung out a towel? It's that kind of draining. I feel like the fat on my body was squeezed right out into oil."

"All the vicissitudes of life, yet I experienced every single one of them in that short span of three minutes—fear, helplessness, worry, dread, despair. Do you understand? It was simply terrifying."

Li Peijun was so shocked that he dropped the Snickers bar in his hand, leaving him no choice but to tear open another one resignedly. "This must be some kind of joke the designers are playing on us."

"Yes, exactly, that's what I thought too. Happy April Fools' Day, and good luck." Chen Fan gave the other's shoulder a labored pat before heading down the path toward the dormitory.

"My head hurts, my whole body hurts. But the sensory experience in that VR setting is so realistic. Even though it was only physical exhaustion in a virtual scenario, how come I'm still feeling weak all over now that I'm back in the real world?"

There was no one alive in the dorm; the other two roommates had probably gone out to hang out together. Chen Fan abandoned all restraint, spreading his limbs out lazily and comfortably on his bed to enjoy the cool breeze from the big fan.

"The Elder has gone on vacation to reset his biological clock. I might as well take this opportunity to slack off and rest properly. I never knew playing a game could be this tiring; now it looks like I'm probably just lacking in exercise."

Chen Fan was used to muttering to himself like this. He turned onto his side and continued, "Still, watching Xu Changhui make such a huge fuss every other day, he doesn't seem to be built much stronger either... No, no, what am I even thinking? Time to sleep, time to sleep."

Chen Fan's bed curtain was pitch black. He had bought it specifically to prevent his roommates from discovering the bizarre shifting lights in the middle of the night, so he had deliberately chosen a thick, opaque material.

It was fine in the winter since it came with built-in warmth, but right now it was the sweltering heat of summer, making it terribly stuffy like a giant steamer. Halfway through his sleep, Chen Fan tossed and turned like a salted fish.

"Oh mother... I can't sleep soundly. What time is it, let me check..."

Chen Fan thrashed and writhed, and after all that tossing, whether he had actually fallen back asleep or remained in a semi-conscious daze, the moment he finally sat up, his head was heavy and groggy with a dull ache, and his chest felt slightly oppressed.

"Good grief, it's already 7 o'clock. I've slept for a full 6 hours. Am I even going to be able to sleep tonight..."

Chen Fan turned off the glaring screen, threw off the blanket, and jumped out of bed. The dorm was pitch black, and while groping for the light switch, Chen Fan ended up smudging his hands with wall dust.

"Li Peijun should have his results by now." Chen Fan pondered. By now, it was about time; whether he made it or not should yield a definitive answer.

[Did you pass the preliminary rounds? (crying-laughter)]
[Passed. Did you know I even got MVP in the Dungeon & Fighter instance...]
[How was it, felt great, right? That twisting-rag sensation?]
[No, wait... Did you miss some plot or something?]

"Huh? Plot? That old sow has hidden plot too?! Plot?!" Chen Fan tried to recall carefully. In the memories of those brief three minutes, besides pain and humiliation, it seemed there were no other feelings at all.

If he really had to say there was one, perhaps when he was being tortured to the point of wishing he were dead, a morbid sense of pleasure would actually well up in Chen Fan's heart.

"What on earth am I thinking? How could such thoughts exist in my head? Stop, stop right there. I am a healthy, whole-limbed, mentally upright sunshine youth! Just now must have been an illusion, yes, definitely an illusion."

Chen Fan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and replied with conviction: [Definitely not. Tell me, did you top up money?]
[(crying-laughter) This game doesn't even have a top-up function open yet. You have no idea what the difference is between Seria in the daytime and Seria at night. It's like heaven and earth, she's the goddess of my dreams!]
[Too bad, it stopped right there, and she even handed me a good guy card, and then the game settled (shrugs)]
[Hey, say something. Where'd you go?]
[(space)]

Chen Fan popped his head out just to prove his existence, then shoved his phone back into his pocket.
Truly, comparing yourself to others only makes you want to die...

To alleviate his festering frustration, Chen Fan began browsing the related news of the Wolf King Championship. The official website interface featured real-time updates of the preliminary match data, which was undoubtedly good news for the vast number of data-driven players.

The Yuanyu University Town division, historically dismissed as the novice village, unexpectedly dominated the top spots of the vast majority of leaderboards, outperforming even the overall strength of the club division.

"An average win rate of 55.78%. I dragged the division down again." Chen Fan calculated. Merely dragging it down wasn't enough; he practically had to haul several severed prosthetic limbs tucked under his arm just to barely scrape by.

Scrolling further down the interface, Chen Fan made an unexpected discovery. He had actually managed to make it onto the official website's homepage, even though...

"Weak Defeats Strong Leaderboard (Updated in Real-Time), Rank 1: Chen Fan, Win Rate: 12.98%, ID: 031027."

"Oh come on, they don't even mosaic the face? I'm going to complain to the organizers."

Fortunately, not many people were paying attention to the preliminary rounds yet, and Chen Fan wasn't any kind of celebrity. In the official website's discussion forum, apart from a few sharp-eyed netizens noticing that a guy with a win rate under 15% had actually made it into the repechage, most people were either complaining about the unfairness of the match format or despising the unbalanced matchmaking mechanism.

[I have a 70% win rate, and it matches me with a bunch of people who've only played a dozen matches, rushing me right off the bat. How am I supposed to play?]
[I've never even played the bear template, can the organizers please change to some commonly used ones?]
[Strongly demand a rematch!]
[Return my win rate!]
[Watch blockbuster movies + WeChat luoliao123]
[50 RMB = Werewolf 1000 wins + 70% win rate, free name change card, help climb any leaderboard. Price in private, those in need + QQ 7281999]

In the blink of an eye, it seemed like some random spam had sneaked into the comment section. Compared to the hostility felt on the official website, the gaming atmosphere in the University Town division was better by more than just a star or two.

Fake. This novice village is fake.