Super Righteous Player
Chapter 981 - 39 Nightmare: Its Fragility Easily Dispersed

Chapter 981: Chapter 39 Nightmare: Its Fragility Easily Dispersed

[Falling into a nightmare, instance being generated...]

[Special nature of the current instance detected: Replay]

[Re-generating the instance...]

[Instance difficulty is Twisted, with unlimited entry times]

[Current purification rate: 0/30]

[Total team erosion rate is 0%, instance difficulty increase: 0%, probability of nightmare aberrations increase: 0%]

[This instance has 4 save points, death will not increase erosion rate, forced exit of the instance after 1 death]

[This instance offers an introductory storyline and decryption rewards]

[Instance clearance reward: Unknown]

[Instance decryption reward: Unknown]

[Instance loading complete]

By now, Annan was very adept at the process of purifying nightmares.

The moment he saw that the nightmare would provide an introductory storyline, Annan breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the introductory words to the nightmare and the information from the introductory story usually aren’t critical—those bits of information are something one can learn after completing a round, whether by successfully clearing it or dying and exiting.

As long as one doesn’t die too early... by that time, one will more or less be able to figure out what story the nightmare is telling and what its mechanics probably are.

Unless one is already well acquainted with the master of the nightmare, the "core information" required for world-view decryption is definitely obtained during the course of the nightmare. Even if you are distracted when first entering the nightmare, or you fail to remember the content of the introductory story, it will definitely not affect the follow-up decryption content.

It simply exists to enhance the sense of immersion and let people know what they should do.

However, although it does not play a decisive role,

It can effectively improve the "game experience" within the nightmare.

Knowing where you are, what difficulties you face, and what you should do from the very beginning is certainly different from stumbling around in exploration after having skipped the tutorial.

It’s like when a newcomer has just started playing and suddenly heaps of adventure logs are consumed or the character is directly leveled up; they often look at the sudden influx of various functions and dense skills, causing their brain to crash.

Typical MMORPG games are more friendly.

At least they provide you with a dummy to practice your moves and get a feel for the cycle...

—But nightmares directly send you into an instance you’ve never played before.

With Annan’s learning ability and acting skill, he could indeed force a purification... at least completing the main quest and clearing the instance, obtaining some basic intelligence. In the second cycle, he could then consider the decryption issues... but that way, he could not guarantee a decryption at first sight.

When purifying nightmares now, Annan mostly aimed for full purification at first sight...

The familiar sensation of falling dissipated the moment the nightmare loaded.

It was like an elevator abruptly reaching the ground floor—or even the basement.

The sudden feeling of extra weight made Annan instantly alert.

A young voice Annan had never heard before whispered in his ear:

"—Even if misfortune plagues me, I will not give up, even if I lack talent, I can work twice as hard, even if I am subjected to unwarranted malice from others, I can still endure.

"But it’s too late. Everything is too late..."

The introductory speech concluded at this point.

Without opening his eyes, Annan realized that his eyes seemed to be blindfolded by a black cloth.

The discomfort from his tightly bound legs also made Annan suddenly realize... he seemed to be in a tightly bound state.

Moreover, it wasn’t just a normal level of restraint.

He sensed that he was seated on a chair, but his tied legs were completely immobile. His hands too were bound at his sides... as if the sleeves were sewn to the clothes.

He was sitting in a chair, but his hands couldn’t rest on the armrests, nor on his lap. They just awkwardly hung by his sides.

—There was no doubt, it was a restraint jacket.

Annan immediately made that judgment.

And his body was also fixed by a wooden contraption similar to a baby stroller... making it absolutely impossible for him to stand up.

...Was this the start in a prison cell? Was he an escapee this time? Was he, the genius prison tester, about to perform an escape magic trick?

An idea like this briefly floated through Annan’s mind.

But he quickly realized—that something was terribly off.

What kind of prison would bind someone like this?

Even prisons holding Hannibal wouldn’t go this far...

But soon, Annan heard laughter from young boys around him.

"Look at his expression... as bewildered as if he just woke from a dream."

"Did that old man just fall asleep?"

"He must be so groggy..."

In this pitch-black surrounding, seemingly malicious youths, the "pitiful old man" shackled and completely unable to control his body—Annan noticed that this body didn’t even have a Mana Pool.

It meant that he surely wasn’t a Wizard... or rather, most probably not a Transcendent.

While stuck in a deadlock, the introduction to this nightmare scenario finally presented itself before Annan.

"You are Bernardino Treshaw, an orphan."

"Your father was a poor fisherman with no savings to speak of, living in a leaky wooden shack. Due to his laziness and alcoholism, your mother quietly abandoned you and left Gemstone Island when you were too young to remember."

"And your father—he only went fishing when he was completely out of money, returning home after catching just enough fish to last a few days. Precisely because of this, he didn’t realize that his boat had been damaged by a storm days before... and he lay to rest at the bottom of the sea in a not so violent tempest."

"You didn’t find anything peculiar about his death, but in the end, he left you nothing, not even a penny, and even owed a small debt for mending the fishing nets. It was the village’s only priest, the once famous sculptor Father Ludwig, who raised you."

"He believed you had a talent for sculpting and ultimately recommended that you attend Dennisiowa Theological Academy. However, you lost the tokens and tuition entrusted to you by Father Ludwig. Ashamed to return to the village, you had no choice but to make ends meet in Dennisiowa with your half-baked sculpting skills."

"It was at this point in your life that you encountered a turning point—The Great Wizard of the Tower of Black Radiance invited you to become an "unregistered apprentice" at the tower, which meant no salary, and no promise of any human rights, merely an assistant."

"The mortality rate for assistants couldn’t be too high, but it was different for "unregistered apprentices." Officially, you weren’t a member of the Tower of Black Radiance; even if you died, you would only be considered as "a vagrant who happened to die nearby." Instead of an apprentice, it was more accurate to call you an experimental subject."

"But you also knew that this was a rare opportunity—if you could learn even one Spell while serving as an "unregistered apprentice," you could become a formal Wizard’s apprentice... and then a Wizard, a Great Wizard, and ultimately start your own enterprise."

"There was just one small issue."

"That is... after spending more than twenty years in the Tower of Black Radiance, you finally realized in despair that perhaps you didn’t have such talent."

"Assistant colleagues from your time either became formal apprentices or had already given up and left the Tower of Black Radiance, or died amidst various dangerous experiments and teachings."

"Long wracked by Soul Snatching Spells, your hair had turned white, your face lined with wrinkles. You are now forty years old, have lived in the Wizard’s Tower for twenty-three years without having learned a single Spell, and to this day remain penniless. You acknowledge that most of your life has been wasted..."

"But you—Bernardino still refuse to give up."

"Not out of courage, but because of numbness."

"Bernardino refuses to admit that his life thus far had been utterly meaningless, which is why he voluntarily joined a dangerous experiment."

"The new device called ’Control Spirit Body Cauldron’ hasn’t reached human testing and was deemed ’extremely dangerous,’ with an over sixty percent fatality rate in experimental dogs; however, any surviving dogs automatically mastered the ability to ’Control Spirit Body,’ a capability belonging to silver-tier Wizards, and they could store multiple Spiritual Bodies within themselves."

"Bernardino knew that the capabilities acquired through this experiment weren’t Spells, and they might not necessarily make him an "apprentice." Moreover, already forty years old, even if he became an apprentice, he most likely wouldn’t be able to graduate."

"But he had no way out."

"He would never admit that his life was worthless."

"For this, he was willing to pay any price, even selling his soul to the devil..."

"—No matter whose soul that was."