BXBX NOVEL Chapter 40 - The People’s Goddess (3)
Chapter 40: Chapter 40 – The People’s Goddess (3)
Ren Suo was perplexed.
Although he knew that the video was a real-life portrayal of the events that happened in the game, but…the disparity between the quality of the graphics in the game and in the video was simply too huge!
In the game [The Hitman], while the avatars and buildings were unbelievably lifelike, it was still obvious that it was a game. When Ren Suo watched the video [The Hitman: The Bloody Banquet], he was sure that it was a real-life portrayal of the events which took place when he played the game. Even though the avatars were shown at a different angle in the real-life video, but…at the least, they still donned the same clothes as they had in the game itself.
But what about [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters]?
The characters in the game were all matchstick-like figures! Matchstick figures!
Matchstick figures and real-life humans were simply worlds apart!
Furthermore, the differences did not stop at just the characters. The gameplay was similar to a ‘jumping’ game, where Ren Suo had to control his strength and respond sufficiently quick for the character to be able to jump successfully from one platform to the next.
He had not been able to figure out how the game could be translated into reality—could the matchstick-like characters be made to jump a step at a time up to 10,000 meters above sea level?
However, the Mini Worlds Gaming Console had just slapped him right in his face—your low intellect has limited your imagination!
In the three-hour-long highlights clip, the first hour showed the Seeker moving swiftly through the trees on relatively flat ground, as if an eagle swooping over the forests. It could be assumed at that point that she was merely an expert in navigating through forests. However, as she entered the area on Mount Hyjal which was blanketed by layers of white snow, Ren Suo finally understood what the ‘jumping’ process signified.
Climbing!
The Seeker was climbing directly onto the edges of cliffs without any supporting equipment!
Even if there were already unpaved roads ahead, the Seeker would not take the route if it was not the shortest one. Instead, she opened her palms and gripped onto the rocks with her fingers which anchored perfectly into the gaps between the rocks as she aptly adjusted the strength and flexibility of her fingers to be like a whip when flexible and metal when firm. She did not stop for a moment throughout the entire process, and it was as if her hands were layered with 502 adhesives.
Occasionally, the Seeker would meet other people along the shortest route she took. When they saw her hiking up the mountain in just a thin layer of clothing, they would all stop to ask if she needed any help, to which she would reply in a hoarse voice, “No need, no, thanks.”
It was exactly the same as it had been in the game!
The same process continued all the way until the Seeker arrived at the Hyjal basecamp situated 5,896 meters above sea level. Her whole body was glowing faintly in a shade of red in the extreme cold, covered only by a thin layer of clothes. At that point, she had not eaten or slept for a few days, and her appearance confused the other people who were also at the basecamp. They blinked and rubbed their eyes subconsciously—was she real or were they hallucinating?
It was 20°C below freezing! If anyone appeared there wearing such little clothing, they would be better off being landmarks!
Some people stopped the Seeker from proceeding further, while some people brought clothes over for her. Nonetheless, the Seeker waved her hand to reject them, and after resting at the basecamp for a short while, she continued her journey towards the peak!
Ren Suo still remembered that when he reached a certain height in the game, the bottom left corner of the screen would show that the Seeker had received a “cold buff”, which meant that the more energy she used to jump, the longer she took to recover the expended energy.
Ren Suo had thought that it was merely a difficulty setting in the game. He had not imagined that it was real—if one were to be at a place more than 6,000 meters above sea level, wearing nothing more than just a thin set of fitness attire and without using an oxygen tank, it was natural to regain energy at a much slower rate.
Previously, Ren Suo had thought that the “cold buff” was a wicked setting in the game, but now he knew that it was actually easier than it would have been in real life!
The first campsite 7,200 meters above sea level!
The second campsite 7,900 meters above sea level!
The third campsite 8,400 meters above sea level!
The fourth campsite 9,000 meters above sea level!
Throughout much of the journey, the Seeker was climbing directly onto the cliffs with her bare hands. A 70° incline was considered a gentle slope and the most common ones were inclined at an 80° angle. There were even some 90° precipices which proved to be a major challenge even for the Seeker.
The sight of the penetrating bitter cold wind in the mountains was enough to make anyone watching it shiver. When night came or when storm clouds covered the sky, it was so dark that one would not be able to see one’s fingers when stretched out in front, and yet, the Seeker continued to brave through the darkness jumping from cliff to cliff. When an unavoidable ice storm blew, the Seeker continued climbing directly into the heart of the storm, forming white clouds of mist as her palms came into contact with the icy cold hail. In an environment with a temperature close to 40°C below freezing, the Seeker’s skin was akin to burning hot metal.
Furthermore, at more than 7,000 meters above sea level, the Seeker’s ascent became even more dangerous. The Seeker would frequently propel herself upwards by holding onto icicles, but even though the Seeker moved steadily in the video, above 7,000 meters above sea level the Seeker would grab onto fragile icicles that would break due to the applied weight and pressure at least 5 times every minute. Amidst the bullet comments flying across the screen, the beautiful and mesmerizing Seeker would always be able to reach out for another stable piece of icicle or rock and continue her climb upwards!
On one occasion, the three consecutive icicles that the Seeker held onto broke into pieces and it was nerve-wracking!
“That can’t be real…she almost fell to her death!”
“If you don’t believe it’s real, go back to see 54P, this really is the Hyjal mountain, not a green screen effect from a Hollywood movie!”
“Just wait a bit more and you will find out if this is real or fake…”
“With each new video from Naisser_Ren, it only gets scarier and scarier…I thought that the Heavenly Hitman was already horrifying. I can’t believe there’s now a worse one—without any rest or sleep, without any food or water, she climbed 10,000 meters in just five days. Can humans possibly achieve this?!”
At this juncture, Ren Suo also felt a sense of pride and satisfaction—what other people could see was only the numerous close encounters the Seeker had with death, but in reality, Ren Suo spent days reviving the character countless times to successfully complete the game with his own accumulated experience!
Ren Suo had figured out that the broken icicles were the ice platforms in the game which would shatter upon landing on them. The pitch-black night and white fog which clouded his vision of the platforms in the game was an imitation of the natural phenomenon of the weather on the mountain. Additionally, the segmented cliffs which were a distance away from each other in real life were the more distant platforms that required Ren Suo to use all his strength to control the Seeker to leap onto in the game!
This was the result of the numerous days he spent on the game!
The Seeker was reenacting his journey to completing the game!
…Although a number of narrow escapes from death were the result of the female Seeker’s special ability of ‘faster response time when faced with danger’, but Ren Suo’s efforts were still significant without a doubt!
When the Seeker arrived at the fourth campsite, she took a short detour instead, walking over to the wind shelter and collected an oxygen tank, an oxygen mask, a regulator and a bundle of climbing rope which the Kamiyan people had left there.
“She finally needs some equipment?”
“That can’t be, why would a goddess need all these…”
“Is this the limit of humans?”
Amidst the confusion in the bullet comments, the Seeker continued on her journey without using the equipment. Instead, she simply held on to the equipment with one hand, and began climbing again with just her other hand!
Ren Suo was stunned.
But Ren Suo naturally recalled what was going on—he had purchased an oxygen tank and a bundle of rope with 2 merit points in the in-game store.
In actual fact, he had spent 4 merit points—he had not achieved a desirable score the first time he completed the game with the purchased oxygen tank and rope; hence, he tried once more and spent another 2 merit points on another oxygen tank and another bundle of rope.
Ren Suo had previously thought about where the oxygen tank and rope he had purchased would come from. After all, the Seeker was only wearing a single layer of clothing and could not possibly have taken the equipment out of nowhere from beneath her armpits, could she? Ren Suo would not have been surprised if that were to happen, but he would never have thought that the Seeker would actually acquire the equipment by collecting them at the fourth campsite.
This was a detail that did not appear in the game.
After which, it was time for the Seeker to make her way to the fifth campsite at 9,600 meters above sea level, and head towards the 10000-meter-tall summit!
The climb after the 9600-meter checkpoint was even more challenging, especially since the Seeker was still holding onto the equipment with one hand and propelling herself up the cliffs with her other hand and her two legs. Although the difficulty at this point in the game had not increased, in reality, every movement the Seeker took was equally nerve-wracking for the audience behind the screens.
It was as if watching someone partake in extreme sports in a first-person perspective video, where the person would be dangling dangerously on the parapet of a tall building, looking down at the streets hundreds of meters below. The extreme height at which the video was filmed was sufficient to make the viewers behind the screen feel fearful and anxious.
Soon, the Seeker met yet another person in the video—in front of her, there appeared to be another group of mountaineers who chose to make their final climb towards the 10000-meter-tall summit at the same time in the early hours of the morning.
In the video, a man was seen clearly being left behind, using his thick gloves as support to rest beside a face of the cliff. The Seeker walked directly towards him. She opened the valve of the oxygen tank as she removed the oxygen mask the man had been wearing and replaced it with the one she had been carrying.
At this juncture, Ren Suo saw hundreds of bullet comments appearing suddenly:
“Thank you for saving my husband!”
“Thank you for saving my son!”
“Thank you for saving my husband!”
“Thank you for saving my son!”
“So she took the oxygen tank to save people!”
“Amazing, truly amazing! How did she even know that there would be someone who would run out of oxygen?”
“That is why she’s a goddess!”
…
Eh? Did the family of the man whom the Seeker had saved also watch the video on GiliGili?
Ren Suo had long expected the Seeker to have saved someone along the way—because that was exactly what Ren Suo had done in the game.
In the game, when the Seeker passed by the group of mountaineers at this point, one of the matchstick characters had a countdown timer floating above his head which showed barely a few minutes remaining. With each passing second, the character was getting closer to his death.
On his first attempt to complete the game, Ren Suo had not cared about the countdown timer. It was only when he was reattempting the game to achieve a better score that he found out that he had to give the character a new oxygen tank for the character to be able to continue his journey towards the summit.
After the Seeker saved the life of the man in the video, the man thanked her and proceeded onward towards the summit with the new oxygen tank. The Seeker also continued her climb towards the peak.
The viewers of the video could see that the Seeker was nearing the peak of the mountain. Her climbing speed was much faster than the walking speed of the other mountaineers, and although the loose rocks and fragile icicles were extremely dangerous, it posed no major challenge to the Seeker who had almost inhuman abilities.
However, for some unknown reason, when the Seeker was just a short distance away from the peak, she stopped on a safe mountain route and untied the climbing rope she had bundled around her waist.
In the previous 54P, the Seeker had waited for a whole hour—and in the fast-forwarded highlights clip it was just a mere 10 seconds—before the group of mountaineers caught up with the Seeker.
At this moment, one of the mountaineers lost his footing and was about to fall like a drunkard towards the side of the cliff!
His teammate who was in front of him could not react in time and just as it seemed like he was about to fall and succumb to fate right in the face of success, the Seeker threw out one end of the rope she had already prepared and looped nicely around the man who was about to fall over!
With a strong tug, she pulled the man, along with all his equipment which totaled to more than 80 kg of load, back up to the ground beside her!
“This amount of strength is also incomparable.”
“With such massive strength, she brings an even greater miracle!”
“She’s truly a goddess!”
Thereafter, the awe-struck mountaineers followed the Seeker to climb up onto the peak of the Hyjal mountain!
The time was 11:40 in the morning, on the 8th of April!
Under the eyes of the twelve mountaineers, a golden-haired girl successfully climbed the 10230-meter-tall Hyjal mountain, without any warm protective clothing, without any oxygen tanks, without food, and without rest! She climbed the whole journey and it was as if she was challenging death!
The Seeker stood at the very top of the mountain, looking down at the many mountains and clouds all around. The entire world was under her feet!
The glaring sunlight shone like a glorifying light onto the Seeker. Although she had not eaten nor showered in days and her thin face was covered in dust, the moment was extraordinarily majestic. Her eyes shone with confidence as a brilliant exuberance radiated from her, filling the onlookers with awe. Even the audience from behind the screens could feel the splendor and magnificence of the moment!
At that moment, the screen became filled with bullet comments repeating the same sentence:
“A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters!”
The two mountaineers who had received help from the Seeker was about to come forward to thank her when a bright glow of light radiated from the Seeker as if a miracle was about to happen.
The scene which unfolded before them was so unbelievable that even though they saw it with their own eyes, they could not help but think it was just a movie.
Under the sunlight, the cuts and bruises on the Seeker’s body began to fade, the dust on her face disappeared, and her perfect skin and thin face began to glow. Her eyes remained equally striking.
She stretched out her hands in front of her as if she was about to hug the sky.
Then, her entire body, along with her clothes, turned into a brilliant golden glow. Under the astonished gaze of the mountaineers, the Seeker seemed to become a breeze of wind, a jolt of electricity, a ray of light, turning into an exquisite, unique mystical story. The Seeker had vanished, right out of their sight.