Chapter 22: The Path of Samsara

He locked the door, logged out of the game, and checked himself over — nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Since he was already offline, Liu Kongkong grabbed a quick bite to eat. While doing so, he glanced at his bank account. The money had already arrived. He stared with satisfaction at the nearly 200,000 yuan in savings, feeling as though he were dreaming. Back in the day, it would have taken him a long time to scrape together that much.

He logged back into the game and checked on his place first thing.

Since he had Wang Xiuqin's house key, he wasn't sure whether Liu Dameng had handed over the key to this side as well. If worst came to worst, he'd just change the lock — but that could wait. Right now, the most important thing was to get the dungeon built before tomorrow's opening hours.

He clicked "Begin Construction," and the scenery before him shifted in an instant!

"Hmm, the steps are pretty clear." Looking at the options in front of him — Forest, Grassland, Snowy Mountain, Village, and Cave — Liu Kongkong casually selected Grassland first. He needed to get a feel for which monsters were available and how their attack patterns worked.

He opened the monster list.

Wild Rabbit Monster, Wild Boar Monster…

"Nothing particularly interesting here." Liu Kongkong was a little disappointed by the selection. He summoned a wild rabbit anyway — after all, he'd told Lonely as a Song that he'd once fought thirty thousand wild rabbits, so the monster fit his persona.

The thing was actually quite large, nearly a meter tall, and its attack power wasn't bad — but its attack pattern was painfully simple. The rabbit just stood there motionless, its only move being a rear-leg kick. On top of that, a single wild rabbit monster cost 20 monster points, meaning even if the dungeon were filled entirely with rabbits, he could only place 25 of them. Even with the monsters bumped up to level 7, an experienced player would find it laughably easy.

Wild Boar: Attack pattern equally simple — just charging straight ahead. Its speed could even be slowed by an Archer's Crippling Arrow, and once slowed, a boar became a sitting duck. Still, in large numbers they had their uses — a party of five players getting rammed around by 25 boars would be a nightmare for anyone. Monster point cost: 20, same as the rabbit.

Stone Wolf: Well-rounded across the board. Higher defense than the previous two, slightly lower attack but faster attack speed, with a chance to trigger Bleed.

Poison Spider: Equipped with two ranged attacks — venom and webbing. Venom dealt damage over time, while webbing slowed players. Notably, stacking ten layers of webbing would completely immobilize a player — but since the attack rate was low, it was rare for anyone to actually hit ten stacks. Each one also cost 40 monster points.

Next came the bosses.

Liu Kongkong had heard players mention the Stone Wolf King and the Ten-Eyed Spider before, and sure enough, both appeared in the list. Bosses all cost the same: 300 points. Beyond those two, Liu Kongkong was surprised to find a third boss available for selection.

"Now this one's interesting…" Liu Kongkong studied the enormous "mosquito" before him.

Blood-Feeding Worm King: Massive in size but extremely fast. Has wings but cannot fly. Its needle-like proboscis is retractable and it dwells deep underground. Attack method: proboscis lash. Skill 1 — Feast of Blood: Upon hitting a target, drags them away and drains 40 HP per second; the skill ends if the target takes 50 or more damage. Skill 2 — Virus Injection: Injects a unique toxin, dealing 20 damage per second for 10 seconds. Note: When the Blood-Feeding Worm King's HP drops below 30%, it enters Phase 2 and randomly marks one player. The marked player must pass the debuff to another player within five seconds, or they will be instantly killed.

It marks players? Liu Kongkong raised an eyebrow. Was it really a good idea to put a mechanic like this in the early game? Given how popular this game was, many players were experiencing their first MMO. The mark mechanic wasn't exactly hard, but it wasn't trivial either — especially while being chased around by something like this…

"I'd bet most of the NPCs will pick this one, or the Ten-Eyed Spider. After all, they should all know by now that the Stone Wolf King has already been killed…"

Next came the various traps. There were many types, but they were all more or less what Liu Kongkong had expected — arrow launchers, fire jets, poison sprayers, various switches. The point costs weren't cheap either, at 5 points each.

Having gotten a solid grasp of the available materials, he checked the time. He had nearly twelve hours left to build the dungeon.

"That should be enough." Liu Kongkong already had a plan in mind. He selected Cave as the setting.

He familiarized himself with the controls, then got to work.

He worked for nine straight hours. For Liu Kongkong, though, that was nothing — back when he used to grind accounts for clients, going thirty hours without sleep was routine.

Done! Liu Kongkong checked the time: it was already past 4 a.m. He did a quick run-through of the dungeon, made a few minor adjustments to the monster placements, and only then stepped back out, satisfied.

"Name… I'll call it 'Path of Samsara.'"

As for the rewards, Liu Kongkong wasn't a stingy person — he maxed out the EXP drop. For equipment drops, he selected a few pieces of jewelry, since he didn't know how to make jewelry yet and it wouldn't cut into his business.

"Almost forgot about this."

These rewards would draw a wave of players in to run the dungeon, but most of them would probably only come once — or even quit halfway through. He knew exactly what kind of dungeon this was. So if he wanted players to run it repeatedly, he'd need to offer something special.

He set up a custom drop, and only then saved with satisfaction.

He configured the dungeon entrance, wrapped everything up, exited the dungeon builder, and selected "Construction Complete" from the interface.

"Your dungeon 'Path of Samsara' has been successfully published."

No review process?

Come to think of it, that made sense — dungeons were all built by NPCs, so there was nothing to review.

He turned to look out the window. Even through the paper panes, the outside world was visible. It was the middle of the night, and stars dotted the sky. The Starter Village was still bustling with players coming and going, and some had gathered in groups on the benches in the public area, chatting away.

"If I hadn't become an NPC, I'd probably be grinding levels right now too."

Liu Kongkong felt a pang of nostalgia. He glanced over at the shop manager — he'd sent the manager out before logging in, and more than half of tomorrow's weapons were already finished.

Time to log off.

Liu Kongkong logged out of the game, sat up, and stretched lazily. His body still felt no fatigue whatsoever. He picked up his phone and checked the time.

"Only three hours until opening. Looks like I'm not sleeping tonight."

With that, he opened his computer and logged into the forum.

The very first post that caught his eye read: "SHOCKING! A godlike player in Starter Village No. 0113 has already reached Level 10 — suspected to be an official Hunt Heaven staff member!"

He clicked in casually. The poster was also a player from Starter Village No. 0113. The post was full of analysis and data, and the conclusion it reached was: there was simply no way to reach Level 10 that quickly through normal leveling.

The top comment in the replies:

Lonely as a Song: "Pure idiot. Not explaining myself."

Liu Kongkong looked at the timestamps of the post and the reply — they were only a few seconds apart. He couldn't help but mutter to himself: does this guy spend every day obsessively searching his own name?

The rest of the replies were all along the lines of:

"The man himself has appeared!"

"Where'd you buy the cheat? Drop the link?"

"Hunt Heaven's golden boy — big bro, carry me!"

Liu Kongkong read a few and was about to close the tab out of boredom, but one comment further down caught his attention.

"What's the big deal? Plenty of Starter Villages have Level 10 players. The highest level I know of is already Level 13."

Under that comment, many people were asking for details — but no one answered.

Level 13?

That didn't particularly surprise Liu Kongkong. Any NPC, if they were willing, could easily raise a high-level player. But he was curious what this Level 13 player had done to earn that much EXP from an NPC. And if there really were players who'd already hit Level 10, why was Lonely as a Song the only one being called out on the forum?