Chapter 279: Pre-Exam Cramming (Part 3)
When they saw four spacious and luxurious desks with leather chairs appear in front of them, everyone fell silent.
When they first entered the university campus more than two years ago, they would never have imagined that one day in the future, their ordinary little dormitory would be upgraded to this size.
Guo Guo's first reaction was to immediately observe whether there was any shadow of the big stick figure - fortunately there wasn't any, she was almost PTSD from this scene.
But this was just right. When everyone was observing the new part of the dormitory, Guo Guo also shared his special experience in the copy.
Granted, the counselor had said that there were certain areas of the university town that weren't open to exploration during exams. She could guess that the three "big stick figures" she'd met, the history of the ghouls, and even the various illusions within the teaching building likely fell into that category.
But this isn't an exam, and she's just repeating the content, so it should be fine, right?
"Stickman? Chat group? University town?"
Zheng Wanqing's face was full of the words "I didn't understand".
Guo Guo quickly gave an example: "The God of Secrets also turned into a stick figure! Heart Secrets, Heart Secrets, you should be able to understand it."
Tang Xin Jue pondered for a moment. This was also the first time she had heard Guo Guo's complete story, but it just happened to fill in some gaps in her information sources.
Everything seemed to become clearer.
"You should remember that in the last dungeon, my identity was switched to become an NPC customer service representative, right?" she said.
The other three nodded.
Tang Xin Jue continued, "This is also the first time I truly understand that the game system, or certain departments of the university town, exist in a different way from the normal world we see."
When her cognition is distorted and she sincerely believes that she is one of them, coupled with her lack of mental strength, she is not only unable to realize the existence of "abnormality", but will automatically rationalize it in her brain.
This is also why, although she had clearly come into contact with these beings before, she completely lost her memory and only remembered that it was a part-time customer service job.
It was not until the middle of the copy that the backup plan she had left in advance took effect. She regained consciousness from her confusion and finally saw a "world" in another form.
"When you see a [stick figure], it means you've entered the operating range of the game system. It could be customer service or some other worker. We're not actually stick figures. Only when you see us do we take on this form, responding to external observation. Similarly, those giant eyeballs in the university town can probably be explained by the same reason."
Guo Guo: "...I originally thought I understood, but after listening to you, I feel like I didn't understand."
Tang Xin Jue smiled and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't understand. This feeling is hard to describe. However, those three people you saw in the teaching building are probably not from customer service, nor are they from any department in the current university town."
"To be precise, if I'm not mistaken, they should just be a residual consciousness."
"When you take a photo of someone with your phone, the photo is saved in an album. Even if the person is no longer in their original time and space, their image will still remain. So just think of the remaining consciousness as another form of photo or video."
Facing the three people who obviously didn't understand, Tang Xinjue explained it this way.
Theoretically, if the mental power is strong enough, this kind of "remnant of consciousness" can indeed form. They can still think and communicate, but they just stay in a fixed scene, repeating past actions meaninglessly, and most are unaware that they are not real.
"From their conversations and actions, we can tell it's most likely related to the construction of the university town, or [the beginning]. But in terms of specific information, they seem to know nothing about the current university town. So is it possible that what they said and what we saw were both true—just not the same university town?"
Following Tang Xin Jue's words, some special information that the ghoul had previously leaked suddenly flashed through Guo Guo's mind: "...The University Town has two different stages?!"
In the old stage, zombies were rampant, and in the new stage, "rules" were formulated to ban zombies, and at the same time, a large number of zombies were transformed into ghost students like Shi Qingqing and Li Zeya.
But if that's the case, where do the other ghosts come from?
"They're all ghosts, but some are NPCs trapped in dungeons, constantly reincarnating. Some are university students working in dungeons to complete quests. Some are local residents living in other communities in the university town. There are also teachers like counselors and invigilators, as well as special ghost types like elves, ghouls, spliced illusions, and chaos gods..."
After counting them, Guo Guo felt overwhelmed. "If the university town was really artificially created, then what was it used for? Where did the people who created it go? Why did they drag ordinary college students like us into it?"
After so many exams, their primary goal had always been to survive, then clear the game and return to reality. They never wanted to have any deep connection with the university town. Because they knew very well that even if they figured it out, they had no obligation or ability to change anything, not to mention that they didn't belong here.
But as the level and difficulty continue to increase, more and more information is revealed to them, and they cannot avoid it even if they try.
Zhang You frowned: "Why do I feel like there's something out there that wants us to know about this?"
Tang Xinjue nodded: "You're not wrong, someone did this on purpose."
"If they really didn't want us to understand the university town, there would be no need to set up one test after another and force us to evolve and be screened."
The most obvious evidence is the division among the student camp.
"Judging from the numbers, the good students are numerous and hold fast to their principles, while the bad students are few and have succumbed to the demons... But is it really that simple?" Tang Xinjue sneered, "Awan, Yueqiong... They've all experienced nightmares."
This is also what she saw from the vast list of candidates from a "customer service" perspective.
"——The candidate who experienced the nightmare, his name is red."
The red names only made up a small fraction of the list, and were difficult to spot without careful observation. The names of the vast majority of ordinary students who had not experienced nightmares were in normal white.
In other words, from the very beginning, the existence of nightmares divided all candidates into two categories: one group had faced darkness and was more likely to fall; the other group was not so much more able to stick to principles, but rather was not chosen as the main target by the ghost.
"Let's make a hypothesis ." Tang Xin Jue stopped Guo Guo, who was deep in thought. "Guo Guo, suppose a project is about to launch, a large amount of new resources will pour in, and you need to quickly select the right ones to incorporate into your own forces. What would you do?"
Guo Guo: "Uh, I will, choose carefully? No, I will..."
She scratched her head and was speechless for a moment.
But Zheng Wanqing answered quickly: "I will investigate in advance."
She said confidently, "Before the project officially begins, I will first investigate and screen all the resources, identify those that meet my requirements in advance, and preferably poach them directly."
"That's right."
Tang Xin Jue snapped his fingers.
"If you consider nightmares as a form of advance recruitment, then my confusion can basically be explained."
