“A very high score, but I feel it necessary to remind you that having too high an Inspiration isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s the same principle as how art can easily drive people mad,” KP reminded.

He leaned on his cane, and the featureless face split into a curved line again:

“Please roll the dice.”

Shen Lin flicked the dice in front of him. The two black-and-white dice spun rapidly and finally stopped — one at 0, the other at 3.

“3 points,” Shen Lin was also surprised, “A critical success.”

KP twirled his cane and bowed to Shen Lin with gentlemanly grace: “Very fortunate. Now—”

The thick fog before them gradually dissipated, revealing the dense forest in vivid detail. The towering trees, the moss-covered roots, and the faint chirping of unknown insects in the air all became crystal clear.

The sky had already darkened. Unknowingly, they had spent nearly five hours exploring the forest.

By the fading light, Shen Lin clearly saw a cabin in the distance, deep within the forest.

The cabin was small and simply structured, but in the twilight hour when the fog hadn’t completely lifted, it looked particularly twisted and eerie.

It was clearly not a place to enter casually.

At that moment, the pocket watch in his pocket chimed softly. Shen Lin opened the lid and saw the black hands on the white dial pointing to 4 p.m. Estimating the time it would take to return, he turned off the alarm, put the watch back in his pocket, and said to Yan Xiuyi, “Let’s head back first and share today’s findings with the others.”

Yan Xiuyi nodded, and together they marked the cabin’s location for easier exploration the next day.

Following the markers they had left, the two quickly made their way back to the camp. It was almost 7 p.m., and the group assigned to the shrub area had already returned, trying to light a bonfire.

Freud waved at them excitedly, holding a dented metal basin as he ran over. “We found a small pool of freshwater on the island! It must have collected from rainfall. With water, we can survive!”

Shen Lin smiled in relief and took a sip from the basin Freud had filled with water from the pool. The dryness in his throat instantly vanished, and he sighed contentedly, “It’s good to be alive.”

Yan Xiuyi also took a sip. He then untucked his shirt, revealing a pile of wild fruits he had gathered. “From the forest. Not sure if they’re edible. It—that thing suggested we make a Biology check.”

The “thing” being referred to, KP: “…”

Shen Lin said, “Felton (Yan Xiuyi) and I don’t have high Biology scores. Does anyone here have points in Biology?”

“I do. Most of my points are in knowledge-based skills,” Freud said, his stomach growling. He eagerly added, “I’ll make the Biology check.”

65/55, success.

KP: “These are ordinary wild fruits, nothing special. They’re edible.”

Hearing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Having something to eat was better than starving. Yan Xiuyi distributed the fruits among the group.

Shen Lin took a bite and immediately grimaced. He had never eaten anything like this before—it was so bad that he couldn’t even find the right words to describe it.

—I’d rather starve.

The soul of a pampered young master cried out.

However, a few seconds later, he swallowed his complaints and forced down the fruits he had been given.

He needed to conserve his energy.

Before it got completely dark, they worked to make their camp as secure as possible. No one knew what might happen when night fell.

At 7 p.m., Yan Xiuyi lit the bonfire. Freud, nibbling on the sour wild fruits, asked worriedly, “Why aren’t Nana and Brian back yet? The coastline group should have returned first.”

The sound of the waves was always clearer at night than during the day. The horizon stretched infinitely, and the boundary between sky and earth blurred. The warm orange glow of the sunset faded, and stars began to rise. The earth was about to fall asleep. This ambiguous twilight hour was prone to making people’s imaginations run wild.

“I’ll go look for them,” Yan Xiuyi said, pulling a torch from the bonfire and standing up. But he quickly stopped and looked into the distance.

Two figures were being pushed forward by the dim, fading twilight. Freud exclaimed, “They’re back!”

“We found something! It took a while,” Brian panted as he collapsed by the bonfire. Shen Lin handed him two wild fruits, which Brian immediately stuffed into his mouth without thinking. His face twisted at the sourness.

Shen Lin burst out laughing.

Brian looked aggrieved but then remembered something. “I spent some time trying to figure out what it was, but I failed.”

“Who told you to try deciphering it on the spot and drag me into it?” Nana complained as she sat down. She pulled out a parchment scroll and spread it out in front of everyone. “This is it. It’s covered in patterns and text we can’t understand. KP said we need to make a difficult Occult check. Does anyone here have a high Occult score?”

Everyone looked at Freud, who shrugged regretfully. “I only have 20 points in Occult.”

“Same here, only 20.”

“What’s a difficult check?”

“Half your attribute score, then make the check.”

“So that’s 10.”

“Rolling below 10 is too hard, and the critical failure range has been expanded. Rolling above 80 counts as a critical failure.”

Everyone fell silent.

After this afternoon’s exploration, they had all come to understand the importance of these attribute checks.

“We all failed,” Brian said dejectedly. “The penalty for failure is that we have to spend five hours deciphering this thing, and it’s a complete waste of time.”

“Yeah, we spent the whole afternoon staring at this parchment,” Nana glared at Brian, “And even then, I didn’t remember a single word. It’s harder to understand than a doctor’s handwriting.”

“That’s a very apt comparison. Medicine knows no borders, that’s for sure.”

Everyone laughed.

“Where did you find this?” Shen Lin asked. It was now completely dark, and he could only examine the parchment by the light of the bonfire.

The parchment was covered in mysterious text. Although he couldn’t understand it, he could sense its ancient and enigmatic nature from the strokes. The fragmented, almost continuous text encircled a giant egg-like shape. At the top were three slightly larger characters. He wasn’t sure if they were three separate words or three individual characters.

…Completely incomprehensible. He couldn’t even tell what language it was.

“Our characters are college students, right?” Brian said with a straight face. “KP was right. Our character stats reflect our real-life experiences. It’s an accurate reflection of my college life—skipping classes, sleeping, and hanging out at internet cafes.”

“No relationships?”

“With whom? My roommate?”

The looks everyone gave Brian became very strange.

Brian coughed and said, “Anyway, we found this parchment on the beach on the other side of the island. It might have been accidentally dropped by its owner. The corner was caught on the edge of some shrubs. Besides this, we found bloodstains on a rock. Someone must have done some temporary bandaging there, as there were fragments of fabric left behind. We made a successful check and found that the fabric was made from ultra-fine wool and mixed with lapis lazuli powder. In this world, that’s an extremely expensive material! Even among nobles, only a rare few could afford to wear something like this.”

“It must be Dylan!” Nana said confidently. “He was wearing this exact outfit!”

“He’s alive!” Freud said excitedly but quickly calmed down. “But where could he have gone?”

Shen Lin asked, “Can we track him based on the bloodstains? Or can you describe the amount and pattern of the blood on the beach? Maybe we can determine the severity of his injury and figure out where he might be hiding.” He paused, then added, “If we want to survive here, we can’t stray too far from the beach.”

“I can’t. I don’t have Medicine,” Nana said.

So, everyone turned to Shawn, the medical student.

Shawn had remained silent the entire time. He seemed out of place, as if he believed his “noble” status meant he shouldn’t be mingling with these underage, internet-addicted, bookish, housewife, and dangerous silent types, even in a life-or-death game.

He had been thinking about how to escape this absurd game rather than following these clueless youngsters around. He still couldn’t believe he had gotten caught up in such an unbelievable situation.

Shen Lin could understand him. His parents were also the type who believed they had a complete worldview and were stubbornly convinced of their own beliefs. Unless the sky truly fell, their unshakable mental world might only crumble slightly, shedding a few insignificant flakes of plaster.

This tendency was particularly deeply rooted among so-called elite groups.

And Shen Lin had long been accustomed to dealing with such people.

In the silence, Shen Lin said, “Tonight, we’ll take turns keeping watch. Tomorrow, we’ll investigate further. Felton and I plan to check out the cabin in the forest. Shawn and Freud, since you have higher Medicine and Knowledge scores, pair up and try to track Dylan’s movements near the rock on the beach. Nana and Brian, explore the western beach. There are more rocks there, so see if you can find more remnants of the cruise ship. We need to figure out how to get more food and supplies. These wild fruits won’t stave off hunger, and we need to conserve our energy.”

His instructions were clear and well-organized. Everyone nodded in agreement. Shawn stood up and left the group, walking alone toward the rocks by the beach.

There, he drew a large SOS sign and used brightly colored fruit jam to turn his clothes into a makeshift distress flag, hanging it high.

In his mind, they had been kidnapped by a group of extremely bored “dangerous individuals” for some twisted game. He was convinced that someone was using drones to film their panicked reactions for entertainment. He hoped a passing plane or ship would spot them and rescue them.

“Shawn,” Shen Lin called out to him, “This game has given each of us different abilities. We all have our strengths, and teamwork is emphasized. As the one skilled in medicine, you’re an indispensable part of the team. I’ve understood the importance of facing reality since I was ten.”

Shawn growled in frustration, “I don’t need your lecture.”

“Tch,” Brian clicked his tongue in annoyance.

Shen Lin didn’t mind Shawn’s arrogant attitude. The importance of facing reality wasn’t something someone had taught him—it was something he had learned through brutal whippings from reality itself.

No one was anyone else’s life coach. Survival was the only teacher.

“Alright,” Shen Lin clapped his hands lightly to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s set up a watch schedule for tonight. We need to make sure someone is awake at all times. Who knows if the tide might flood our camp while we’re asleep?”

---