Cannon fodder in the Interstellar

Before the game launched, the promotional video for ‘War Realm’ mentioned that the skills players learned in the game were evaluated to be suitable for each individual player. The first skill given to Ruo Manni was “Psychic Power”, the ability to move objects using telekinesis, which was well-suited to her high mental strength.

Perhaps because of her immense mental power, Ruo Manni discovered that she had developed a photographic memory, something neither the original owner of her body nor Lin Kexin had.

Following the method taught in the jade slip, Ruo Manni attempted to use her psychic power. Surprisingly, on her very first try, she successfully condensed her mental strength into an invisible “hand.” Although it felt a bit weak, it still took form.

Less than ten seconds later, Ruo Manni heard a “ding” sound. The system announced, “Congratulations to player Lin Kexin for learning the basic “Telekinesis” skill of a Psychic Master within three seconds, setting a new record for this skill. The player is awarded 10 experience points and 2 gold coins.”

Ruo Manni then noticed a progress bar appearing under her ID.

– Player ID: Lin Kexin
– Player Level: Level 0
– Experience Bar: 10/100
– Mana Points: 54/54
– Health Points: 300/300
– Learned Skill: Telekinesis
– Skill Level: Level 0
– Skill Proficiency: 1/10
– Casting Range: 5 meters
– Damage: Indeterminable

Ruo Manni understood how to earn experience points—simply follow the quest instructions and kill monsters to gain them. Mana points seemed to be a composite score of all her attributes. However, she was confused about her health points, which, like her mental strength, were far above the norm. From the data, her health points were ten times her mental strength.

And what was going on with this skill progress bar? As for the indeterminable damage, Ruo Manni understood this was because the skill could only move objects and didn’t directly cause any damage, so the system couldn’t determine a damage value.

Regarding the skill’s proficiency, it seemed like gaining 10 points wasn’t much. She had just earned 1 point of proficiency from successfully condensing her mental “hand.”

When Ruo Manni was selecting her character class, she took a long time to decide and ended up entering the game more than 20 minutes later than most players. By the time she joined the game, the youth leaderboard had already opened, and three players had already reached Level 1—progressing at a remarkable speed.

Not wanting to fall too far behind, Ruo Manni checked her quest log and saw a line of red text: Kill ten Level 1 Beast Monsters.

Eager to level up, Ruo Manni clicked to accept the quest without hesitation. Immediately, her figure was teleported to a mountain peak. On the lush green hillside, a group of herbivorous grass monsters were leisurely grazing on the grass. The scenery was beautiful and pleasant.

Thanks to advanced technology, the Skynet system boasted a 99% simulation accuracy. To Ruo Manni, she couldn’t tell any difference between the virtual landscape before her and the real world. As the mountain wind gently brushed against her face and clothes, she could almost smell the fresh scent of grass. She felt completely at ease, as if she were truly standing on that hillside.

However, she wasn’t there to enjoy the scenery. Her real task was to kill the herd of grass monsters on the hillside, which looked a bit like sheep.

However, ‘War Realm’ didn’t provide Ruo Manni with any weapons, and even the most basic, attribute-less weapon in the game’s exchange shop cost 10 gold coins. There was no way she would spend that much. Besides, from the pricing, it was clear that ‘War Realm’ didn’t encourage players to use weapons right from the start.

Without a weapon and only the “Telekinesis” skill at her disposal, how could she possibly kill ten Level 1 grass monsters? While pondering this, Ruo Manni opened the game interface, and in the corner, information about the grass monsters popped up.

Grass monsters were usually very docile. If players had no intent to attack, they wouldn’t react, even if someone walked right up to them. But once disturbed, they would attack as a group.

Ruo Manni counted—there were fifty to sixty grass monsters in this herd. If they all attacked at once, they could easily trample her to death.

The death penalty in ‘War Realm’ was extremely harsh, almost unbearable. This forced players to be extra cautious to preserve their lives; otherwise, the consequence would be starting all over from scratch.

Ruo Manni tried walking next to the grass monsters, and sure enough, they didn’t pay any attention to her. Scanning her surroundings, she noticed that the grass monsters were grazing near the edge of a cliff. An idea instantly formed in her mind.

Ruo Manni carefully walked to the edge of the cliff, transforming her psychic power into an invisible “hand” and subtly pushed the grass monster closest to the cliff’s edge, inching it closer without it noticing. When the grass monster was about two to three meters from the edge and refused to move any further, Ruo Manni’s “hand” grabbed its neck and forcefully moved it to the cliff’s edge, pushing it over.

As she completed the action, Ruo Manni was ready to run in case the grass monsters panicked and attacked.

However, the scream of the grass monster as it fell off the cliff was faint, and only the nearby grass monsters looked around uneasily for a moment. Seeing nothing unusual, they quickly resumed grazing, undisturbed.

This made Ruo Manni breathe a sigh of relief; the grass monsters had very low alertness.

Five seconds after the grass monster fell off the cliff, Ruo Manni heard a “ding” sound. The system announced: “Player Lin Kexin successfully killed a Level 1 grass monster, earning 10 experience points, 1 skill proficiency point, and no skill cooldown.”

Ruo Manni recalled that in the novel, the female protagonist had a 10-second skill cooldown at the start. But she didn’t—why was that? Could it be that her high mental strength, which boosted both her mana and health points, allowed her to handle the skill without a cooldown?

Looking at her stats, Ruo Manni realized that killing a Level 1 grass monster had only consumed 1 mana point and 2 health points.

Seeing that she still had 53 mana points left, Ruo Manni thought happily, this meant she could kill 20 grass monsters in one go without any problem. If an average player had only about 10 to 20 mana points total, they would have to be much more cautious.

This was definitely her advantage. With this kind of “golden finger” boost, her monster-killing and leveling speed would certainly be faster than others, Ruo Manni thought cheerfully.

Having successfully completed it once, the second time went much smoother for her. Soon, Ruo Manni heard the system sounds of “ding… ding…” continuously as she killed more monsters.

In no time, despite two failures where the grass monsters unintentionally broke free from her mental control—causing her to lose 6 health points—Ruo Manni heard the system notification again in under five minutes:

“Congratulations to player Lin Kexin for reaching Level 1, placing 38th on the youth leaderboard. Player Lin Kexin is awarded 1 gold coin, 1 additional gold coin for being in the top 100, and an upgrade gift pack.”

In ‘War Realm’, 1 game gold coin could be exchanged for 1 credit point, and in the real world, 2 credit points could buy you a good meal.