Apocalypse: Everyone Levels Up, I Return to the Time Before the Server Opened

Chapter 29: Ye Qiu’s Character Sheet

“Who are you?” Ning Qianjun and Ning Qingyue looked at the middle-aged man in front of them, cautiously asking.

They remembered him. He was one of the officials among the group.

The middle-aged man thought for a moment before answering, “National Security.”

Ning Qianjun and Ning Qingyue exchanged glances.

“…?”

Goodness. Even the National Security Bureau had come into the game to investigate?!

Recovering from his shock, Ning Qianjun quickly explained, “We accepted a quest from an NPC to guard the entrance to Tiger Mountain.”

“An NPC quest?” The middle-aged man paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you know the cause of the explosion?”

The siblings didn’t even need to think. They shook their heads immediately.

They were just as baffled!

What exactly happened up there?

How did such a massive explosion occur?!

Seeing that they had no answers, the middle-aged man was about to ask something else when his earpiece buzzed with an incoming message.

It was a voice transmission from the team that had gone up Tiger Mountain, along with a video.

“Captain, there was indeed a huge explosion up here. There are also many burned monster corpses!” the team member reported.

The middle-aged man played the video.

On the screen, the peak of Tiger Mountain was in ruins. Not a single patch of ground remained intact.

The middle-aged man asked through the voice channel, “Did you find anyone? NPCs or players?”

The team member replied, “No one. Even the unique Level 10 monsters of Tiger Mountain, the Green-Eyed Tigers, seem to have fled due to the explosion.”

The middle-aged man frowned.

No one?

But there is only one way up Tiger Mountain.

Could there be another path?

Just as he was lost in thought, another message came through.

“Captain, we also found some blue and white equipment scattered around!”

Hearing this, the middle-aged man’s eyes lit up before his expression turned pensive.

After a while, he looked at Ning Qianjun and Ning Qingyue again and asked, “Do NPCs drop equipment when they kill monsters?”

Ning Qianjun thought about it before answering, “Not sure. I’ve only ever partied with NPCs before, but during that time, no equipment ever dropped.”

The middle-aged man nodded slowly. “Got it.”

With that, he turned to leave, issuing a new order over the voice channel,

“Pick up all the unclaimed blue and white equipment and store it in your inventory. We’re pulling out. We will meet offline.”

—

Meanwhile, Ye Qiu had already logged off.

He opened his character panel:

[Character: One Leaf Knows Autumn]

[Class: Swordsman

[Subclass: None

[Level: 11

[HP: 6500

[MP: 6500

[Attack: 130

[Defense: 130

[Movement Speed: 170

Attributes

[Strength: 65

[Constitution: 65

[Agility: 170

[Spirit: 65

[Luck: 60 (Special Attribute)

[Fame: 425

Equipment

[Steel Sword

[Steel Chestplate

[Steel Pants

[Steel Boots

[Lynx Bone Ring

[Coward’s Cloak

Inventory

[Lynx Kingdom Ruins

[Herbalist Shopkeeper’s Prescription (Quest Item)

[Blacksmith Zhang Tie’s Lost Black Iron

[Secret Realm Treasure Map

[Ancient Horn

[Wolf Fang Crescent Staff (Purple Rare Weapon)

[Silver Moon — Tiger Demon Hairpin (Pink Spirit Artifact)

[Lighter

[Gas Mask

[Lightning Rod

[Various Materials

Active Skills

[Slash (Level 1): 176/500 EXP – Increases attack by 10 upon use.

[Nine Styles of Slash (Level 2): 322/5000 EXP – Each form increases attack by 30 upon use.

Heavenly Eye (Level 1): 355/5000 EXP – Allows the user to analyze all objects within their field of vision, detect hidden traps, uncover unknown mysteries, and reveal concealed figures.

Special Skills

[Apprentice’s Will: Allows the user to copy one skill from another person. Gains one additional copy chance per level. (Current Charges: 11/11)]

[Pets: None]

[Guild: None]

Stat Points

[Fixed Stat Points: 120]

[Free Stat Points: 50]

Ye Qiu had yet to allocate his earned stat points.

“Strength, Constitution, Agility, and Spirit each gets 30 points,” he decided.

Fixed attribute points could only be distributed among the four core stats.

With the new allocations, his stats updated:

[Strength: 95]

[Constitution: 95]

[Agility: 200]

[Spirit: 95]

[HP: 9500]

[MP: 9500]

[Attack: 190]

[Defense: 190]

[Movement Speed: 200]

Ye Qiu immediately felt an unprecedented sense of power.

In his past life, when the game merged with reality, he had only been Level 5.

He barely survived for over a year, constantly hiding and struggling before he could finally complete his job advancement.

But now? He was leagues ahead of schedule.

Looking outside, it was already evening in the real world.

Two days had passed in the game.

Yet in reality, only half a day had gone by.

He picked up his phone.

Su Xintong, his class president, hadn’t sent any new messages.

But in his group chats, the once-quiet atmosphere had turned rowdy again.

Every group had “99+” unread messages.

He casually clicked into one of them.

“I finally hit Level 3!”

“Nice!”

“Carry me, please!”

“I’m still stuck in line waiting for a quest!”

“Don’t take quests! Total waste of time!”

“Huh? Why?”

“The damn village chief gives out quests that are nightmare difficulty!”

“Yeah, my quest requires me to collect 20 tiger whips! I checked and tiger whips drop from Green-Eyed Tigers. But those things are Level 10!!!”

“Same here!”

“Same +1!”

“My quest is a bit easier, just killing 20 Black Wolves…”

“Pfft! Black Wolves are Level 7!”

“Level 3 dude here, looking for a girl to carry~”

“Thirsty much? Get lost!”

“Bruh, are people really this desperate? Since when can Level 3s carry others?”

“Easy for you to say. Bet you don’t even play much.”

“Too busy working 996, no time for games!”

“My boss is hiding in his office playing, while we workers have to slave away!”

“Our company was supposed to give us a day off, but because of that damn countdown in our heads, everyone freaked out thinking it was the end of the world. When they found out it was just a game, they called us right back in.”

“Damn capitalists!”

“By the way, what’s the highest level right now?”

“Since only half a day has passed in real life, and two days in-game, the highest should be around Level 7.”

“Holy crap, someone’s already Level 7?!”

“Must be whales (TL note: big game spenders)!”

“You can spend money in this game?”

“Duh! Rich players hire others to be cannon fodder, then land the finishing blow for free XP. That’s one way.”

“There’s an even better way, recruiting NPCs! But it’s super expensive.”

“I saw on the forums that something exploded in Novice Village 0001. Even the real-world government is involved. What happened?”

“Not sure.”

“Wait, why is the real-world government getting involved with a game? That’s never happened before!”

“Could it be that this game… isn’t just a game?”

“Obviously! Something appearing in your head isn’t normal!”

“But… it’s still just a game, right…?”