Although the red and white candy cane was 1.2 meters long, it wasn't heavy. Mu Anqi could easily carry it and even wield it like a staff. The candy felt cold to the touch and showed no signs of melting no matter how long it was held. It wasn't sticky.
It felt… no different than holding a wooden or iron rod. When focusing her gaze on the candy cane, two prompts appeared beside it: "Shrink" / "Second Form." Mu Anqi first used her thoughts to select "Shrink," and the 1.2-meter candy cane turned into a palm-sized mini candy cane that could be slipped into her pocket without raising suspicion.
As for the second form… a black hole appeared on the longer end of the candy cane. Mu Anqi gripped the curved end with both hands and could control "fire" or switch "candy type" with her mind.
The fired candies were all about the size of a baby's fist: round pink cotton candy balls, bright red apple-shaped gummies, and golden bell-shaped hard candies. The candy cane could even be charged up. When using the golden bell hard candy as ammunition, if fully charged and fired, the damage was quite considerable.
Not bad?
Mu Anqi chewed on an apple gummy, walking away from the weapons shop with a relaxed stride. Next… she needed to study some proper staff techniques. As for firearms training, that could wait. After all, the candy cane had no recoil, no scope, and no complicated mechanisms—everything was controlled by thought. Mu Anqi didn't need to learn how to use guns for now.
Break time was limited, so study time had to be spent where it mattered most.
Still with a beginner-level instructor: 6 hours of staff training, 2 hours of physical strength/endurance training, and another 2 hours of parkour/movement technique training. Ten hours total, costing 80 points. Mu Anqi's points instantly dropped back to square one.
Player: Mu Anqi
Age at death: 20
Gender: Female
Ability: I Have Plenty of Money
Points: 263
Transaction ID: 64805368
After completing the training, Mu Anqi felt completely exhausted, her mind full of the technique points taught by the beginner instructor. She first went to the food shop to enjoy her VIP treatment, spending 4 points on a meal. Only then did she drag her full but weary body back to her room, take a shower, and lie down on the bed, opening her bedtime reading material—the [Shattered Mirror Handbook].
The handbook wasn't large, nor was it thick.
The Shattered Mirror Continent was roughly split in half down the middle. With Mount Bliss as the dividing line, the left side belonged to the "Taiyin," and the right side to the "Mingdu."
Taiyin was filled with ghosts and spirits, while Mingdu housed demons and monsters.
Beneath these few lines was a simple map that outlined the general topography of the Shattered Mirror Continent.
Mu Anqi turned the page. This one briefly introduced [Guansi]. Guan coins… was a crystal refined from condensed emotional energy. Ghosts could absorb it directly, though the enhancement effect was minimal. It was generally used as currency. Below the description, as usual, was a simple sketch of the Guan coins, with notes stating it was "semi-transparent" and a "round crystal chunk," exactly like the ones in Mu Anqi's backpack.
On the next page, Mu Anqi finally saw the level classification system of the Shattered Mirror Continent.
Here, regardless of whether it was ghost, demon, or monster, all were divided into three main levels: [Entry Path], [Barrier Break], and [Origin Opening].
There were no detailed subcategories for these stages, but judging from the names, one could roughly guess the bottlenecks they represented. As for [Origin Opening], it did have sub-levels—from Fourth Class Entry Level to First Class Peak.
What came after First Class Origin Opening wasn't written in the booklet, so Mu Anqi had no way of knowing.
Tsk, from the looks of it, that Ghost General is… pretty powerful? Well, of course—if she weren't strong, what ghost would be willing to follow her and call her their general?
The demons and spirits of the Shattered Mirror Continent mostly originate from the "Black Mirror Vortex."
And the Black Mirror Vortex is born from intense "resentment," extreme "emotion," and overwhelming "desire." The vortex can be intangible or real. It exists everywhere and can randomly appear anywhere on the continent.
As for the demons and spirits that emerge from the Black Mirror Vortex, some possess intelligence, while others have already become pure "malice." These types of malice, though they may take on humanoid forms in the vortex, no longer have individual consciousness.
Mu Anqi thought about it and felt that the term "zombies" could be used to describe these malice spirits.
When a Black Mirror Vortex appears, it must be dealt with. That kind of pure malice can be directly devoured by the continent's demons and spirits to strengthen themselves. But the ones with awareness must be absorbed into the continent, taught various common knowledge and rules, and made into part of the Shattered Mirror Continent.
Uh, if they refuse to be recruited, then either the ghost is unbelievably powerful and establishes itself as a king, or it's just temperamental but useless—and still ends up getting devoured.
If a Black Mirror Vortex isn't dealt with, the malice will radiate outward from the vortex, causing lower-level demons and spirits to gradually lose their "self-awareness" and become "pure malice" or "obsession."
The Black Mirror Vortex is essentially a source of pollution.
Mu Anqi recalled the terms she heard back at the hotel. So back then… the Ghost General had gone to handle something like this? Wait, ghosts working with players… could it be that the purpose of recruiting them is for dealing with the Black Mirror Vortex?
On the next page, the handbook mentioned that players could submit to powerful Shattered Mirror beings or cooperate with them.
This handbook, produced by Nirvana Space, actually outright stated that Nirvana Space collects the souls of unique humans from various real-world dimensions after death. These players are repeatedly sent into the Shattered Mirror Continent to begin survival games. During the games, both players and Shattered Mirror creatures generate various types of "emotional value," and what Nirvana Space needs is precisely this emotional energy.
The creatures of the Shattered Mirror Continent need the soul power and negative emotional energy of the players. Every time a player dies, they lose half of their soul power, which is then devoured by the ghosts. (Players who fail the game on their first attempt have their entire soul devoured.)
The more games one experiences, the stronger their soul becomes. Players continuously grow in power through repeated games, strengthening their souls. And at that point, the emotions they generate are extremely pure.
Nirvana Space was like a mechanical factory. It extracted players from the real world, placed them into survival worlds to generate emotional energy, trained them to become stronger, and then harvested them even more efficiently.
The demons and spirits of the Shattered Mirror Continent were clearly in a cooperative relationship with Nirvana Space.
—Only the players were the laborers.
Mu Anqi felt a little depressed by her own understanding. She still wasn't sure if getting dragged here after a car accident meant she was just unlucky, or the unluckiest ever. What was up with this booklet—was something like this really okay to write out explicitly? Couldn't they at least give players a beautiful illusion?
Grumbling in frustration, Mu Anqi flipped to the next page, and then froze at the line at the top:
"Players who complete more than eight games unlock a special shop. There, you can purchase revival tickets and various parallel world travel vouchers?!"
Mu Anqi was shamefully tempted. Alright then, fine. After making the players see the harsh truth, they immediately offer them new hope, giving them more motivation to challenge the instances.
This Nirvana Space… kind of had something going on. It definitely looked like a high-dimensional product…
Mu Anqi couldn't help but wonder—could it be that high-dimensional beings had a hard time experiencing emotions? Was that why they created such a paradise, drawing in all kinds of emotions from various sources?
Forget it, there's no way to figure all that out anyway. After skimming through the handbook, she realized it didn't mention anything at all about what kind of trial instance the bosses use to recruit players. Mu Anqi carefully copied down the more important pieces of information. Once everything was done, she put the handbook into her backpack and fell asleep peacefully.
Tomorrow, she still had to return the book.
Returned the book, did ten hours of 1-on-1 special training at the training ground. Bought another three crudely made smoke grenades—after all, Wu Sansheng had reported that they were quite useful.
As her break time was about to end, Mu Anqi bought a new set of workout clothes and sneakers, spending 12 points after activating a 20% discount. Seeing she had just one hour left, she headed to the food store and spent 4 points on her last meal of the day, took a deep breath, sipped on her carbonated happy juice, and stepped into her room with heavy steps, awaiting teleportation.
Player: Mu Anqi
Age at death: 20
Gender: Female
Ability: I Have Plenty of Money
Points: 129
Transaction ID: 64805368
With her backpack full of supplies and Guan coins slung over her shoulder, Mu Anqi's vision went black, and a system voice echoed in her mind—
[Drawing game scenario…]
[Ding! Trial token detected! Entering Black Mirror Vortex—]
[Beep! Instance activated: City of Seven-Day Samsara!]
[Entering… Please wait…]
What?
What the hell!
The trial task is actually inside a Black Mirror Vortex?!
—Pure malice with no self-awareness… would that even accept her bribes?! And she brought so much Guan coins with her! Damn it!
With no way to vent her frustration, Mu Anqi snapped back to awareness and found herself in an empty room. Only—this room… was packed with people.
[Beep! Passive skill · Chosen Girl activated!]
[Congratulations, player has received 856 Guan coins.]
[Find the pass to clear the stage~]
Pass? Black Mirror Vortex, City of Seven-Day Samsara*? Though—this vortex doesn't seem quite like what she imagined. Mu Anqi didn't bother counting the extra Guan coins that appeared in her backpack. Instead, she reached into her pocket and grasped the palm-sized candy cane.
[T/N: Samsara refers to the the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, also known as reincarnation. ]
City of Seven-Day Samsara… so she needs to find the pass within seven days? Mu Anqi looked around. There were around thirty people in the room. No idea what their identities were—were they all players? Uh… surely this whole crowd isn't all here for the trial, right?
Just as she was thinking, the sound of neat and forceful footsteps echoed through the room. Mu Anqi saw a squad of soldiers dressed like "tin soldiers"¹ straight out of a fairy tale book walking in. These "tin soldiers" had no facial features; instead, a white piece of paper was pasted over their faces, concealing everything. And on that paper, there weren't even hand-drawn features.
"Welcome, guests, to the City of Seven-Day Samsara!" Clack clack clack—the leading tin soldier stepped forward and gave a bow to the people in the room. "The Goddess of Beauty shall bless you all."
Mu Anqi studied this sudden appearance of NPCs… or perhaps ghosts? She noticed they really did look like tin soldier dolls because… every single one of them had the exact same build and height. No matter how hard you looked, you couldn't tell any of them apart. Even their skin tone was identical.
The lead tin soldier opened the door to the room, solemnly unfolded a white sheet of paper, and stuck it to the wall. Then he turned and left with the rest of the squad.
"Those who do not worship the City Lord—die."
"Those who do not meet the City Lord's preferences—die."