17: The one favored by God!

On the first day of the apocalypse, there was only one type of monster in the entire world, and that was the Level 0 Dimensional Bug.

And there was a fixed rule for players to gain experience points by absorbing crystal cores—

Absorbing a crystal core of the same level: Experience Points +1.

Absorbing a crystal core 1 level higher than oneself: Experience Points +10!

Absorbing a crystal core 2 levels higher than oneself: Experience Points +100!

And so on.

It seemed that absorbing crystal cores above one's level granted a lot of experience, but in reality, leveling up was still not that easy.

First, as the level increased, the experience required to level up grew higher and higher.

Second, when facing Dimensional Monsters 5 levels above yourself, you would experience something called Level Suppression.

Not to mention having your own attributes halved, the power of all Talents, skills, items, and so on were also halved!

The greater the level gap, the more terrifying the Level Suppression became!

Therefore, even the strong would fight monsters at most 4 levels above them, rarely daring to jump 5 levels.

And on the first day of the apocalypse, the Level 0 Dimensional Bug was the only creature around.

In other words, most players could only obtain Level 0 crystal cores, which were the same level as themselves.

Although theoretically, one could kill a Level 1 player to obtain a Level 1 crystal core.

Even so, it was still not enough to reach Level 2.

First, at Level 0, absorbing 1 Level 1 crystal core gave +10 experience points, instantly promoting you to Level 1.

After that, absorbing another Level 1 crystal core would count as being the same level, yielding only +1 experience point!

Thus, with the restriction of only absorbing 10 crystal cores per day, players couldn't reach Level 2 purely by absorbing crystal cores!

Therefore, in the chat channel, everyone was curious and discussing how Bakanov had managed to reach Level 2!

However, the system's global announcement quickly provided a clue—

[Ding! Player Bakanov has slain a God Chosen. The Gods Punishment Task is now active!]

[All players globally will receive Bakanov's real-time location coordinates!]

[All players globally: anyone who kills Bakanov will receive the following rewards:]

[1. Experience Points +10000!]

[2. Orange Treasure Chest +1]

[3. Innate Skill +1]

This single announcement instantly triggered another frenzy of discussion.

[Holy crap! What on earth is a God Chosen?! This Gods Punishment Task is terrifying! The game simply refuses to let Bakanov live!]

[The rewards are insanely rich! If I weren't so far away, I'd freaking rush over to join the hunt for Bakanov in a heartbeat!]

[The government of the Beautiful Country has already deployed military forces, preparing to relentlessly hunt down Bakanov! By the way, Bakanov is a Black man who committed murder and arson before the apocalypse—he doesn't deserve to be called a "top player" at all!]

[This time, Bakanov is definitely dead!]

[Could it be that he killed too many people, and even the Killing Game couldn't stand it anymore?]

[Are you an idiot?! Didn't you see the game announcement saying that Bakanov triggered the Gods Punishment Task because he killed a God Chosen!]

[So what on earth is a God Chosen?]

What on earth was a God Chosen?

Up until now, perhaps Lin Chuan was the only one who knew.

When the Killing Game arrived, everyone awakened a Talent.

At the same time, a tiny minority of people became God Chosen!

As far as Lin Chuan knew, before the first world fusion, there were only 10 God Chosen in the whole world.

A God Chosen, as the name implied, was a person favored by the gods.

Dimensional creatures would instinctively stay away from a God Chosen to avoid accidental harm.

Therefore, in his previous life, many large safe zones used God Chosen as mascots.

With a God Chosen holding fort, a monster-free zone would automatically form in a certain area!

In his previous life, among the 10 God Chosen before the world fusion, only one unlucky bastard was arrogantly slain by Bakanov!

The resulting Gods Punishment Task let everyone in the world know—

God Chosen must not be killed!

After all, once you killed a God Chosen, you would become a Boss with an incredible drop rate, hunted down by everyone across the globe!

In this life, however, the good days of the God Chosen were likely coming to an end.

Because Lin Chuan was determined to kill all God Chosen!

By "determined to kill," it meant using every possible means to kill all ten God Chosen before the first world fusion!

Of course, one had already been killed by Bakanov.

Lin Chuan didn't panic. He immediately opened the trading system and listed an item:

[B-rank talent blood crystal (Flame Burst)] Trading requirement: [qing ling fruit + moon gods blessing]

Note: A talent blood crystal allows a person to directly obtain a Talent: B-rank Flame Burst!

Having done all this, Lin Chuan worried that Bakanov wouldn't be paying attention to the trading market, so he went to post on the world channel as well:

[Plugging an ad: The trading market is currently selling a talent blood crystal that can grant an extra Talent! Anyone who wants it, hurry up! First come, first served!]

He said "first come, first served," but Lin Chuan knew very well that at this stage, only Bakanov met the qualifications to satisfy his condition.

Or rather, from the very beginning, the target of his trade was Bakanov!

More accurately, it was the qing ling fruit Bakanov obtained after killing the God Chosen!

Although the God Chosen were favored by gods, items would still drop upon killing them.

They were guaranteed to drop a qing ling fruit and a god's blessing item, along with a small amount of experience.

That experience was the reason Bakanov had reached Level 2.

As soon as Lin Chuan sent his message, the world channel exploded with discussion—

[Holy crap! A talent blood crystal?!! It lets you gain an extra Talent! Oh my gosh! Does this mean even someone with an F-rank Talent like me can become strong?!]

[Stop dreaming, upstairs! Use your brain for a second—is something so precious something an F-rank like you can afford?!]

[What on earth are qing ling fruit and moon gods blessing? They sound awesome!]

Right at this moment, someone suddenly posted:

[Hello everyone, I am a God Chosen. Although I don't know what a qing ling fruit is either, when I became a God Chosen, I also received a god's blessing—a necklace called 'Blessing of the Thunder God,' which immunizes against all lightning-attribute attacks!]

[Holy shit! A God Chosen! Catch a wild God Chosen!]

[Can the God Chosen share more detailed information? What benefits are there to becoming a God Chosen? Child of fortune? Maxed-out luck?]

Lin Chuan also paid close attention quietly, hoping that the God Chosen would reveal more information.

However, that person didn't say anything more after that.

On the other hand, Lin Chuan's trade channel finally received a private message from Bakanov!

The trade channel, like the chat channel, was anonymous.

However, to facilitate communication between both trading parties, a separate chat window could be established.

Different languages were automatically translated.

The chat window used "Customer" and "Boss" to designate the two trading parties.

But Lin Chuan only needed to look at the first message sent by the "Customer" to know—the fish had taken the bait.

Customer: [Who are you? How do you know I have a qing ling fruit and moon gods blessing?]

With a thought, Lin Chuan immediately replied: [That is beyond the scope of our trade. You only need to tell me whether you are willing to trade.]

On the other end, after a moment, Bakanov asked again: [You must tell me the function of the qing ling fruit, or else I won't trade!]

The effect of moon gods blessing was to reduce one's presence and hide level information as well as curse information.

For instance, experts on the level ranking would have words like "Rank X on level ranking" blatantly written above their heads.

Even worse, even if you possessed the Invisibility Talent, the text above your head wouldn't turn invisible with you!

However, moon gods blessing could eliminate the level ranking text above one's head!

In fact, theoretically, moon gods blessing could even hide the real-time location information published by the game system to all global players during the Gods Punishment Task!

It sounded awesome, capable of helping Bakanov escape his current crisis.

However, moon gods blessing had a very tricky setting.

That was: the person who killed the Moon God Chosen could not use moon gods blessing!

In other words, this piece of equipment that could solve Bakanov's pressing crisis couldn't be used by him at all!

Therefore, it could only be traded away!

Since he couldn't use moon gods blessing himself anyway, Bakanov didn't feel a sting at all trading it away.

But as for the qing ling fruit, he didn't know its function yet and didn't dare to trade it easily.

After all, he ultimately became a God Punisher, a target that all players globally wanted to hunt down!

If the drops from that God Chosen weren't good enough, he would feel like he suffered a freaking huge loss!