“So, my illness has been turned into a skill?”
Jiang Shang was a little dumbfounded.
“So, the reason I’m like this is because I hadn’t gotten around to activating the skill after it transformed?”
Only after he finished speaking did he realize he had made an expression he would never have made before, but this feeling… it wasn’t so bad after all?
No longer overthinking, Jiang Shang noticed that the Pocket Space had gone silent after giving him a beginner’s tutorial.
“Hey, Pocket, didn’t you say there was some kind of adventure? Why aren’t you urging me on?”
According to the beginner’s tutorial, the owner of that voice was this Pocket Space, so Jiang Shang just called it Pocket directly.
Jiang Shang was a little puzzled. Although he had stayed inside for all these years with almost no contact with the outside world, he didn’t know that the novels outside already had a large number of themes involving strange spaces and main god spaces.
However, in the past decade, quite a few young people had entered for various strange reasons, and occasionally Jiang Shang had heard them talk about some things. He didn’t know the specific plots, but he did know that those main gods liked to force people to clear stages.
Yet, the Pocket Space, which functioned much like those main god spaces, only made those two sounds from beginning to end, which truly stumped Jiang Shang.
“I’ve told you how to operate it, do you still need me to urge you? If you want to go, go. If you don’t, then don’t. If you really can’t handle it, you can even throw me away.”
This Pocket was silent until it spoke, and when it did, it was astonishing, a direct output that completely bewildered Jiang Shang.
“No need, no need.” Jiang Shang gave two dry laughs, then flipped through the beginner’s tutorial again. Jiang Shang quietly called out, “I want to buy a Pocket.”
Subsequently, a large Pocket descended from above, inverted, and directly swallowed Jiang Shang.
“One gold coin.”
The voice echoed in Jiang Shang’s head. Jiang Shang knew that the gold coin here did not refer to real gold coins, but rather mission points. To be precise, one mission point could be exchanged for one gold coin, of course, a gold coin specifically for buying Pockets.
Inside the large Pocket, it was not dark at all; on the contrary, it was filled with a warm orange light that made one feel comfortable all over.
The beginner’s tutorial mentioned that the way to enter other worlds was to use the large Pocket to travel through space, and the Pocket holder just needed to wait for a moment, so Jiang Shang was not worried about being trapped inside.
“By the way, the beginner’s tutorial seemed to say that a random number of random small Pockets would be provided before each dungeon.” Looking around, Jiang Shang indeed found three small bags. He walked over, picked them up, and saw that they were identical to the bag he had found earlier in his luggage.
He opened the first one.
“Skill: Full Level Hands.”
“Description: After using this skill, all functions of your hands will reach the world’s peak, and you will be able to perform various masterful operations with ease.”
“Note: With this, you have taken a big step on the path to becoming a full-level human. Keep it up, young man!”
“This skill… seems pretty good, huh?”
Jiang Shang fell into silence, looking at his hands.
Since this skill had no time limit, Jiang Shang directly activated it. Instantly, Jiang Shang felt his hands change, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly how they changed; he just felt they had changed.
Without further thought, Jiang Shang decided to open the second Pocket.
Then, Jiang Shang’s hand opened the bag before he even realized what he was doing.
“Item: Random translation helmet.”
“Description: It can translate your words or translate others’ words for you in a random order.”
“Note: How do you determine if a sentence composed of the same character has been randomized?”
Before Jiang Shang could be surprised, something resembling a motorcycle helmet appeared in his hand.
Then, after reading the instructions for this helmet, Jiang Shang fell silent. “You want me to wear this helmet all day and talk to people? That’s quite something! Though I don’t usually talk to people much anyway…”
Although it felt very bizarre, Jiang Shang still tried putting it on his head. The sensation of wearing it was strange, as if he wasn’t wearing anything at all. Jiang Shang even had to concentrate to confirm he was wearing a helmet.
Then Jiang Shang discovered that this helmet had a black technology function.
“Open 【Penetration Mode】.” Jiang Shang tried to activate this new, unfamiliar button. Subsequently, the entire helmet disappeared. Now Jiang Shang completely couldn’t feel that he was wearing a helmet. If he hadn’t been able to see it equipped in his attribute panel, Jiang Shang would have thought it had genuinely vanished into thin air.
“Holy cow, what kind of black technology is this? I can’t even touch it?!” Jiang Shang couldn’t sit still now. The main reason was that this helmet had truly shocked him. This time, he didn’t even need to think to know that current technology in the outside world could not reach this level.
After playing with it back and forth for a while, Jiang Shang reluctantly switched it back to 【Penetration Mode】.
“Target world reached.”
The Pocket’s voice sounded, and Jiang Shang hurriedly opened the last Pocket.
“Skill: I see darkness in your fortune palace; you will surely suffer a bloody disaster today.”
“Description: If a person is going to die today, then you can see that their fortune palace is black.”
“Note: Hey, hey, hey, I told you there would be a bloody disaster, don’t you believe it.”
“Is this telling me to be a fortune teller?”
Jiang Shang casually complained, and then he was teleported out of the Pocket.
“Current target world: Squid Game.”
“Mission: Survive all six games.”
“Mission failure results in death; mission success results in return.”
The scene shifted, and Jiang Shang opened his eyes from a bed.
“Squid Game? What’s that?” Jiang Shang was a little puzzled. “Could it be some real-world film or TV show? Based on the stories Xiao Wu used to tell me about Main God Spaces, it’s very possible.” Jiang Shang pondered to himself.
Xiao Wu was a fellow inmate Jiang Shang had once operated sewing machines with inside. Occasionally, when they were tired from sewing, they would chat, and over time, Jiang Shang heard many miscellaneous things.
“Memory transmission…”
The Pocket’s voice sounded again, startling Jiang Shang, who quickly snapped back to attention.
Subsequently, a Third-Person Perspective memory appeared in Jiang Shang’s mind.
It no longer mattered what this person’s original name was; now he was called Jiang Shang. His experiences were largely similar to Jiang Shang’s, the only difference being that his father had abandoned his mother and left him with her. His mother brought him from China to South Korea.
Afterward, his mother found him a stepfather, but he still couldn’t escape the fate of being abused. His mother took out her hatred for her ex-husband on him, and his father would occasionally hit him a few times when he was annoyed.
His subsequent experiences were identical to his own. Just released from prison and feeling lost, he received a business card telling him to come play a game for a certain amount of money.
And then he appeared in this place, which was the participants’ dormitory. However, calling it a dormitory was just a few hundred beds piled together, with hundreds of people, one bed each, and not even a place to shower.