Chapter 73: Virus Infection

“Old Feng, what do you think of this helmet?” Big Pineapple asked as he happily changed into his new helmet.

The shape of this helmet was a bit weird. On top of it was a greenish-brown python head that was covered with scales when inspected carefully. It looked like the scepter head of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. However, Big Pineapple did not seem to mind since the stats of the helmet were certainly quite nice. Not only was the defense coefficient as high as C−, but it also had a 2 percent increase in energy defense for all stats.

“Not bad!” Feng Luo answered.

But as he said that, he thought that he sounded off. His body seemed to feel a bit warmer than usual.

“Huh?” Big Pineapple also noticed that Feng Luo seemed a bit off. He got closer to him and said, “Old Feng, you don’t look too good. You’re not sick, are you?”

The game had a “sick” condition. If players continued to stay in an extreme environment for a long time, there was the possibility of decreased stamina, dizziness, feeling faint, and other symptoms associated with being sick. And Doctor players could not solve these sorts of conditions. It was necessary for a sick player to return to the city and seek the help of an NPC Doctor. The alternative would be to endure the suffering until the sick condition disappeared.

Feng Luo looked pale, and his voice became hoarse. At the same time, his body started burning up, which were all symptoms of being sick.

“Examine body status!” After thinking for a while, Feng Luo used his voice to command the personal terminal.

All personal terminals issued by the Federal Government to adventurers had tiny nano-needles on them that could examine the body’s status. It could even coordinate with the biochip inside their bodies to check the status of the blood and cells in the body. Later, after the program ran for around a minute, a red warning sign suddenly started flashing on the personal terminal.

Warning. You have been infected by an unidentified virus. Virus species… Unable to identify. For your health, please treat it as soon as possible. Recommended hospital: Storm City General Hospital. Grade: First-class A-grade. Has 37 specialists…

Infected by an unidentified virus? What the hell?

Feng Luo was shocked and immediately began going through the system logs.

You were attacked by the Infected Giant Python Mutant and was infected by the mutant virus. Infected Time Remaining: Six hours. Predicted result of infection: 50% chance to permanently increase all attributes by two points; 50% chance to permanently lose two points on all attributes!

As he read that, Feng Luo’s heart sank. Generally, players could only increase their basic stats in the game through level-ups and equipment. However, apart from those, there were other special circumstances.

Half a month after War opened its server, a player declared on the forum that he had managed to permanently gain a “Strength +3” stats increase after using a potion he had obtained through a story mission. The thread had gone viral. It became a hot topic, and in the replies were various methods used by players to permanently increase their stats.

By then, the players knew that basic stats could be permanently increased under certain circumstances, and it was not limited solely to only level-ups and equipping equipment.

Of course, there were those that increased stats—as well as those that decreased them. Players were also commonly seen complaining angrily that their stats had been permanently reduced due to different reasons on the forum, asking the game company to recover their stats.

However, Star Company never agreed to such requests. Customer service would always reply with a standard answer: “War is a game with extremely high degrees of freedom, and all stats-related problems created in the game will require the players to explore and find the solutions for themselves!”

Feng Luo had once read those posts with the mindset of an onlooker. To the people who had managed to increase their stats naturally, he felt admiration and jealousy. As for those who lost stats, he even took pleasure in their misfortune; he never would have thought that this time, it would be his turn.

A 50 percent chance. Half and half. It seemed quite favorable.

However, with Feng Luo’s personality, even if there had been a 90 percent chance for a stats increase with only a 10 percent chance of stats reduction, he would have been unwilling to try it. He preferred to maintain control of his character’s development. However, right now, the situation was out of his hands.

At that moment, the middle-aged scientist suddenly exclaimed excitedly to his young female assistant, “Ah, found it! Indeed. The Evolution Virus exists in the blood of this Giant Python! But it must be a form of a virus that mutated multiple times. The blood of this Giant Python has high research value. We should collect some!”

“Is the virus in the veins of the Giant Python the same as the virus in my body?” Feng Luo asked before his mind sparked an idea.

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He immediately remembered from Red Queen’s briefing that the scientist was called Aike, and he was a geneticist and virologist. Moreover, based on what Feng Luo had heard just now, his mission here was related to the Evolution Virus!

Evolution Virus, thought Feng Luo. Based on its name, logically speaking, it should increase stats, no? Why would it be possible for stats to decrease as a result? However, the word “virus” itself never has any positive meaning, so it is reasonable for there to be side effects. It looks like this NPC virologist called Aike knows something about this Evolution Virus. Will he be able to solve the problem with my body? Hold on. Is this actually a hidden mission?

Feng Luo’s mind raced as he suddenly thought of a possibility.

Could it be that being infected by the virus is actually a kind of hidden mission? Maybe interacting with the NPC after the player is infected will trigger the hidden mission?

The more Feng Luo thought about it, the more he felt it was possible.

Geneticist and virologist. Evolution Virus. No matter how he looked at it, they were related.

Moreover, it was two points of basic stats!

One should know that in War, every level up only afforded one stat point that could be allocated freely by the player, and every two level-ups would increase one basic stat for all attributes, namely Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Vitality.

As he came to a conclusion in his mind, Feng Luo immediately spoke up.

“Mr. Aike, what do you mean by Evolution Virus? The terminal found that my body has been infected by an unidentified virus. Could this be the Evolution Virus you were talking about?”

“What?” Aike was stunned after hearing this.

As for the young girl called Lin, a light flashed in her bespectacled eyes. It seemed like the reason she had looked at Feng Luo with a strange stare was that she had already discovered the problem.

“How do you feel right now?” Aike got up and quickly walked toward him from beside the Giant Python.

“A sore throat, and I’m burning all over!” Now, Feng Luo was even more certain that this was a hidden mission!

“I need to take some of your blood to check!” Aike looked serious and immediately opened his box, grabbing a small syringe from within it.

“F*ck. Old Feng, what’s wrong? It looks like a hidden mission,” Big Pineapple said enviously in the party channel. “You’ve hit the jackpot!”

Feng Luo smiled. “Yeah, I’ve hit it, all right. The system notification said that there’s a 50 percent chance of a plus-two increase for all basic stats once infected by this virus!”

He intentionally only revealed the first half of the notification.

After hearing about this, everyone had happy looks on their faces and turned to stare at the Giant Python blood splattered all over the ground, eager to try it out.

“And there’s also a 50 percent chance of a minus-two to all stats!” Feng Luo said, only now revealing the latter half of the notification.

Everyone looked stunned.

50/50 was not too bad, but if it were up to them, they would rather not take that risk.

The key was that an increase of eight points in basic stats would not strengthen a player by all that much, but if a player lost eight points of basic stats, he or she would look a lot weaker than the average player.

“Let’s see what the NPC says. I’m sorry, Mr. Feng!” Red Queen said.

After all, although Feng Luo had triggered a hidden mission, in the game of War, triggering a mission did not necessarily mean that it was going to be completed. If Feng Luo lost stat points from this, she would also feel bad about it; for a player of their level, even one stat point was very important. As such, she apologized first.