Extraordinary Player

Chapter 14: Laid Off

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

While Qin Guan watched many of his classmates cry in anguish in his Friends’ circle, he found that he did not share their feelings.

One, his intellect when it came to games had always been higher than that of most people, and he had both determination and talent. Two, he had the ‘standard answers’. He could compare with them to know what he lacked, so he was never completely at a loss.

Even if he had to fail dozens of times before he reached the next platform, he did not feel defeated.

But it was different for the others.

In truth, there was once this sort of discussion: if the students who were good at studies played games seriously, would they become gaming experts?

There was no conclusion to this matter, but it was truth that a high intellect was required for both studying and gaming. Some aspects between them overlapped, but they were not completely the same.

For example, games required great reaction and control, but these two things were not important when it came to studies.

Besides, right then, none of them were playing on computers or their phones. They were using real bodies.

If a student with good grades had bad athletic abilities and coordination, it was obvious that they would not be able to clear the game.

They were all students in National Key University in China and victors of the National College Entrance Examination. At that moment, most of the students lamented their fates. They could not accept their sudden fall from the pedestal of success.

Qin Guan felt his stomach grumble, and he suddenly remembered that he had not finished the fried chicken from yesterday. He quickly brought it out from the fridge and heated in the microwave, intending to use it to fill his stomach.

Suddenly, the phone he had tossed on the couch rang.

Qin Guan picked it up and looked at it. The caller was the parent of the child he was supposed to tutor.

“Hello, Young Qin? Ah, yes, I’m just calling to tell you that we’re cancelling the tutoring session tonight. You don’t have to come anymore. Change to another date? Er… we’re not changing. My child doesn’t need to be tutored during his free time anymore. He already completed Easy Mode and is prepared to use the extra time to clear Medium Mode. Ah, thank you for your contribution this far. I do hope that we will have a chance to work together in the future.”

Even after he hung up, Qin Guan was still in a dumbfounded state.

‘This is…’

“I can understand that you’d want to sacrifice tuition time to train your body, but you’re still a damn fifth grader…”

Qin Guan was speechless. ‘Did you think it was easy for me to find a chance to tutor an elementary school student on language? And now I lost this extra income just like that…’

It could only be said that the world had gone mad. Parents actually wanted their children to start early when it came to games?

‘A fifth grader is now attempting to clear Medium Mode. His starting point is really early. Fortunately, this is a single-player game, so I don’t have to worry about elementary school students causing me to suffer any sort of losses.’

When he thought about it, he found that it was all logical. The parents’ action was actually reasonable.

After all, the character’s age in the trial was based on the player’s age in reality. If a fifth grader could clear Easy Mode, it meant that he was talented.

If he had such a talent, he should really develop it, because he had a bright future ahead of him.

At that moment, Qin Guan suddenly realized something even more important—home tutors had become useless…

Every person in the world had a mobile AI system. Fifth graders could get through their studies as if they had activated cheats in a game. Why should they hire home tutors then?

Qin Guan wondered what would happen to next year’s Senior High School Entrance Examination and National College Entrance Examination. The top third year students were probably the group who suffered the most with this change, weren’t they?

Oh, no, translators should be the ones who suffered the most, especially interpreters.

When he thought about it, even Qin Guan felt his head throb. Just a day ago, such people were professionals who earned tons of money, and while they sat peacefully in their houses, a tragedy arrived from the sky. In one night, all of them had lost their jobs…

Glasses manufacturers were also affected. They might have already declared bankruptcy.

Qin Guan wondered whether this rapid change from great happiness to great sadness would provide people with a stimulus that would help them work hard with a fierce resolve to complete the trial.

Once he finished his lunch, he entered the world in his mind again and looked through the standard answers before attempting to complete the trial.

When night arrived, Qin Guan reached the 71st platform. From his point of view, he was progressing at lightspeed.

He might be reproducing the moves based on the standard answers, but the key was that he could not even copy many of them…

In truth, the difficulty of the trial increased step by step, just like a flight of stairs. The further he went, the harder the trial became. This was obvious when he scrolled through his Friends’ circle. Many players were stuck at the last forty platforms.

Plenty of the people in the world only spent a few hours to clear the first fifty platforms, but they needed around a day to clear platforms fifty to eighty.

However, Qin Guan was different from them, because he did not need to fail multiple times before he finally figured out the way to accomplish the jump.

Many of the high difficulty platforms required the player to jump in a certain manner, and since the other players did not have Qin Guan’s standard answers, they could only keep trying.

Qin Guan was not like them. He might also need to fail dozens of times, but every single time he failed, he got a step closer to success. His efforts were not in vain.

Besides, the more difficult the platform was, the more beneficial it was for him.

Hence, while the others stumbled and he made progress, Qin Guan noticed that he slowly surpassed some of the players who had started off quick. The best part thought was that he could maintain his rather high percentage of success during the later stages of the trial.

“Hmm, I wonder why, but now that I got used to my body here, when I return to reality, I suddenly feel like my own skin is not mine. I feel so weak.”

Qin Guan discovered something: the feeling he had when he used the body in the trial was gradually transferred to reality.

During the trial, Qin Guan completed many jumps requiring him to perform various tricks. With the multiple failures and successes, he developed muscle memory that was deeply etched in his mind.

And the memories and skills were brought back to reality.

“I suddenly feel like I’m a gymnast. I really feel like trying it out. Hmm… let’s do the simplest backflip!”

Qin Guan stood in the living room, itching to give it a try.

Backflips were originally an action that only people who had gone through a certain amount of training could do, but Qin Guan had already performed it multiple times during the trial.

He could even remember how he was to supply power to each of his muscles when he did the backflip.

“Come on!”

Qin Guan stomped on the ground with his feet, and strength exploded in his waist and stomach. He moved his arms, using his waist as an axis…

And crashed to the floor.

“Ack, my neck…”

Qin Guan’s mind went blank from the fall. He lay on the floor with his head swimming for a long time before he stood up using the couch as support. He tilted his head slightly to the side—his neck hurt.

“Knew it. I’m too fat… This body of mine in reality is several times worse than that of the useless person. This is just…”

Qin Guan decided to lie down on the couch. He did not want to cause anymore trouble for himself. If he got himself tetraplegia [1] because of a fall, that would be too embarrassing…

At that time, if he were to be hospitalized, he would ask the person to his left on why he was hospitalized, and he would learn that he got there because of a car accident. If he asked the person on the right, he would learn that he broke his leg while he played soccer. Then, he would reflect on his actions: he would have become paralyzed from performing a backflip at home because he was too bored.

While Qin Guan laboriously moved to the couch, he heard the door of his house being opened.

Su Xiaoyu entered and looked at Qin Guan as he laboriously sat down on the couch. She was shocked.

“Qin Guan, you’re getting worse and worse. Yesterday, you forgot to eat your dinner, and what happened today? You actually fell on even ground in the house? Are you eighty this year?”

Qin Guan had nothing to say, because this was one of those situations where things would get even more complicated if he tried to explain himself.

Thus, Qin Guan gave up on explaining himself, as if he had given up on himself. He sat on the couch and massaged his neck before he looked at his watch. “Why did you come back so early today? Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to make braised pork ribs today? Where are the pork ribs?”

Su Xiaoyu tossed her bag on the couch, changed into her slippers, and said, “We got off work early today.”

“That’s a good thing. Why do you look unhappy?”

“Our manager told us interns today that we don’t need to come to work tomorrow…” Su Xiaoyu said in resignation.

Qin Guan’s mind filled with questions.

Translator’s Note:

[1] Tetraplegia: a spinal cord injury above the first thoracic vertebra, or within the cervical sections of C1-C8. The result is some degree of paralysis in all four limbs—the legs and arms.