Chapter 12: Inheritance, but Not Entirely

Feeling the nine relics floating in his mind, Feng Xue's initial reaction was one of surprise, which quickly turned to disappointment as he sensed the conditions of the relics. After the ordeal, it was true that relics could be inherited, but only until the opening of a new session, and if he didn't enter the game within twenty-four hours, the effects would be lost.

Moreover, he could only benefit from the passive enhancements provided by the relics and couldn't materialize them as he could in combat nodes, not even with architectural techniques.

"Although I'm still unsure about the relics and dreams, given the situation with the relics, it seems more likely that they can't be fully inherited."

Sighing lightly, Feng Xue gathered his spirits. At least, the knowledge unlocked with the skill unlock tokens remained, albeit only in theory.

"If the game isn't reset, I should be able to enter anytime, but if it is reset, I have to wait until midnight to refresh. So, it seems impossible to keep resetting at the start to exploit any loopholes. They really don't leave any, do they?"

Though he spoke thus, Feng Xue, who had prepared himself psychologically, didn't feel too disheartened, even finding his previous notion of repeatedly grinding the first level a bit naïve.

As he was about to go to sleep, the lights in his room suddenly dimmed.

"What's going on?" Feng Xue didn't realize immediately, but as he saw the lights in the opposite cell and along the corridor also dim, he remembered he was in prison.

"Right, I entered the system as soon as I got back to my cell, so it must be lights-out time now?"

This realization brought a slight thrill, as it meant he had another chance to enter the game today.

"Too bad there's no clock in this cell, nor any way to precisely calculate the time difference between the game and the real world. Midnight is a reference point, but I don't even know the exact time I wake up in the morning; I can only guess it's around five or six. I'll have to estimate the time felt and maybe try to make a timing device later…"

Muttering to himself, Feng Xue dared not close his eyes, fearing he might sleep through to the next day. Fortunately, among the relics he acquired this time was a book, albeit one on financial management that didn't interest him much, but reading it would at least stave off boredom…

"Uh, what's going on? Wait, damn! I knew reading a finance book was unreliable!" After a brief moment of confusion, Feng Xue suddenly jolted awake, memories of previous events quickly assembling in his mind—the situation became clear.

He had fallen asleep.

Fortunately, the system seemed to operate within dreams, so even though he was asleep, it still functioned, transporting him to this space.

This time, however, instead of directly entering as before, he faced a long interface depicting himself sitting against the wall in a dimly lit cell, with a "Begin Exploration" button in the bottom right corner.

The artistic style of the interface was notably plain, except for the lack of a title.

Sending the "start" command, the screen blurred for a moment, and then the familiar two-row, nine-rectangle fish-shaped diagram appeared in his view.

His gaze immediately went to the top of the interface; his sanity points had reset to 100, while his relics and dreams had reset to zero, and his inventory was empty.

"Everything's reset, huh? Well, the good news is that sanity points also reset to 100, and after thinking it over, the deduction of sanity points below 50 seems safe, and they reset with each new session without affecting reality."

Feng Xue summarized in his mind before refocusing on the nodes.

Unlike last time, the initial node at the fish's mouth was a standard combat operation, and he could see the subtitle—Orphan of the Snowy Night.

"Can I see the content now because I've been through this level before? But…"

Feng Xue frowned at the standard combat node labeled "Orphan of the Snowy Night," wondering, "Does it, like last night's round, have both emergency and standard variations? What could be different? Colder weather? Shorter health bars? Weaker physical condition?"

With these questions spinning in his head, he shook it off. Why worry about the changes when he could just go in and see? It was an emergency turned standard; how could it be harder?

"Let's go!"

"Survival or death, that is the question."

"Huh, the prompt is the same as during the emergency operation; it seems related only to the method of passing…"

As he mused on these details, the next moment he was again standing in the cold wind, but to his surprise, the content of this standard combat was identical to the previous emergency operation.

"What's happening?"

Despite his confusion, Feng Xue didn't dwell on it, instead, drawing on his previous experience to begin constructing the details of a campfire in his mind.

This time, the process went unexpectedly smoothly.

Watching the flames begin to dance and smoke rise, Feng Xue incredulously observed his own juvenile hands, momentarily at a loss for words.

"Could it be that standard combat means the difficulty of constructing is lower?"

This thought surfaced and was immediately dismissed by Feng Xue, but then another speculation arose—

"Perhaps the difficulty isn't random but rather that I've grown stronger. The first time, because I had no knowledge of construction techniques, it was an emergency level operation, but this time, with the previous strategies and understanding of construction techniques, the difficulty has been downgraded."

As Feng Xue pondered this, the campfire finally drew attention, and as large hands lifted him, the same face as before entered his view, and the scene froze once more.

"Operation ended, perfect tactics."

"Node resolution: Dreams +2."

"Item drop in progress…"

"You have obtained an Unopened Assembly Toy (Blue)."

Name: Unopened Assembly Toy

Category: Object of Struggle

Quality: Excellent Blue

Effect: Every 5 dreams +5% attack speed

Note: It's hard to understand why some people spend a lot of money on assembly toys but never actually assemble them.

"Ah, why would a Gundam model be categorized as an 'Object of Struggle'?" As he looked at the sharply angled Gundam box in front of him, Feng Xue felt an endless stream of complaints bubbling up…