Chapter 1878: The Advantages of Instruments
"Hey." A player followed suit and waved, then stared blankly as he put away his umbrella, and the rain stopped as well.
They had never felt so speechless in their lives.
"I thought the environment in Zone 010 was about to improve," someone couldn't help but say.
"No, seriously, how is this fair!" Juan Er let out a jealous roar. "He's a C-level player, okay? What does C-level mean? It means the highest reward a C-level player can get from clearing an instance is a B-level item!"
Just by looking at the effects of these two items, it was obvious they were probably A-level items. Since when did C-level players start getting A-level items as baseline rewards?!
He turned around and grabbed Deng Xiahei's clothes, demanding, "Did you know all along that he wasn't an ordinary C-level player?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Deng Xiahei slapped his hand away. "Otherwise, why don't you go find Melissa yourself?"
Juan Er's face went blank in an instant. "Jealousy makes me lose control."
"You'd better keep it under control," Xiao Hui said with a laugh beside him. "If your items suddenly stopped working, who do you think would have the advantage if you two fought?"
Juan Er quickly thought through the countermeasures. "Fine, I guess I'll have to buy two more jamming devices from now on."
No sooner had he spoken than a huge protective barrier, resembling glass, suddenly spread out from above a small building ahead, instantly covering several surrounding streets.
"This should be a spatial instrument," Brother Wu said. "Once a player reaches B-level, there's a certain chance that temporal-spatial instruments will appear in their rewards."
Compared to ordinary items, instruments have a clear advantage: ordinary people can also use them. In some better-conditioned districts, instruments are often used for urban defense, such as defense instruments and jamming instruments. These instruments can both defend against attacks and interfere with certain items. Especially temporal-spatial instruments—the temporal-spatial power they release can interfere with temporal-spatial rays. The spatial jamming instrument Xu Huo had bought earlier specifically to guard against powerful spatial rays like those of Xue Lang could, to a certain extent, dull highly lethal rays. This is very effective against invisible forces.
Moreover, instruments generally don't have strict time constraints. Unlike items that might be rigidly limited to a few seconds, instruments can be used continuously as long as they aren't inherently flawed.
Of course, instruments also have obvious drawbacks: they are easier to destroy than items. In fact, instruments are closer to ordinary weapons. Common instruments can be mass-produced, though they have a lifespan limit.
For instance, the S-level jamming device Black Crow K27 that Xu Huo had obtained earlier could seize control of robots and interfere with spatial items and instruments. It was a very powerful jamming instrument, but it could only be used three to four times, making it an expensive consumable.
In short, they are not as durable or resilient as items.
However, how long an instrument can last still depends on the materials it's made from and its quality. For example, "Cube Space" is already equivalent to a stable space and can even integrate spatial rays generated by other spatial items without being affected itself.
The spatial instrument "Glass House" is a defense item that can cover an area of two thousand meters. This is the instrument with the largest defense range Xu Huo has obtained so far, and it can also be used continuously.
There was also a single-use item.
Xu Huo had a very deep impression of single-use items, especially the "Precise Hit" used by members of the Holy Sword Society to kill people. By using ink mixed with a person's true name and blood, it could kill them through spatial rays.
Of course, not all single-use items are that powerful. The item in this gift pack was called "Disease Induction." Simply put, after using this item, it could worsen the illnesses of people within a certain range, especially those who already had diseases. It worked best on conditions like heart problems.
Looking at the effect alone, this item was a bit underwhelming, because most players become exceptionally robust under the influence of evolution agents and rarely suffer from such diseases. The target audience should be ordinary people.
Xu Huo glanced at it and put it down.
The activation document for pausing player status was used to leave the game. Generally, players who want to pause their player status and close their personal panel need to apply to the game. The most convenient method is to go through a district government recognized by the game. This activation document serves as a shortcut—once signed, the player channel can be closed immediately.
Of course, pausing player status is different from becoming a gray player. The latter requires approval from the game government, and the player can retain their personal panel and use items. After pausing player status and closing the personal panel, items can no longer be used. Players usually only exit the game when they have no other choice.
As for the Stellar Pharmaceuticals Group Mall Access, it essentially opened a mall channel. However, the items sold there were limited and might not have been publicly released. Xu Huo opened it to take a look. Some potions had names, but their images were grayed out, with listing and sale rules marked below.
For example, some very effective self-healing potions and pain-relief potions could even instantly allow someone with severed limbs to ignore pain and fully recover. Although such potions are used for emergencies, their effects are still significant in critical situations.
There were also some gene potions that could stimulate a player's body for secondary evolution, auxiliary potions to help players quickly digest evolution agents and increase their evolution rate, as well as things like appearance restoration and a certain degree of youth restoration.
Of course, there were also many potions for treating various diseases. Some diseases considered terminal in more backward districts could be cured with just one pill. There were also custom prosthetic services...
These were all conventional items. There were also some things people wouldn't think of, such as artificial wombs, which could satisfy anyone's desire for pregnancy and childbirth through a simple surgery; xenomorph corpses specially raised with various drugs for use as medicine; experimental drugs that could cause genetic mutations in people, and so on.
All the listed items had only one word to describe them: expensive. And the quantities were small, requiring players to snap them up, except for the experimental drugs.
If a player wanted to purchase experimental drugs, they could apply through the channel. If Stellar Pharmaceuticals deemed the conditions suitable and approved the application, the player testing the drug would receive a decent fee after the trial was complete. As for what consequences the experimental drug might bring, that was anyone's guess.
This medical channel, opened for B-level and above players, felt more like using high-level players as test subjects. After all, most players who reach B-level have been in the game for quite some time. By then, some might already be experiencing post-evolution side effects. Even if not, their evolution rate increase should have hit a bottleneck, and their item traits might seem stagnant. They would be more eager for super evolution than others.
Of course, it wasn't entirely without benefits. At least some disease-treating potions were valuable. However, this channel only provided treatment drugs for existing diseases with available data. Custom orders were generally not accepted. In other words, if someone suddenly underwent a genetic change and developed a brand-new disease, Stellar Pharmaceuticals would not take the order.
(End of Chapter)