"Soul Reaping. The name itself sounds incredibly powerful. Is that the ability you have after your strength was suppressed?" Mo Bai asked.

"Of course not. This is my ability as a high-level player," Du Heng said, his face reddening. He had only wanted to show off a little.

Mo Bai's overwhelming presence had suppressed his aura so much that he'd tried to demonstrate his strength through his abilities instead. He didn't expect to be exposed so quickly.

Mo Bai could naturally see through the researcher's inner conflict. In this situation, she had no intention of poking at his pitiful pride. Instead, she asked gently, "Then what ability do you have right now? We're teammates. I need to understand everyone's combat strength so I can formulate reasonable plans."

Du Heng explained, "At the beginner level, my ability is called 'Weak Point Detection.' When I encounter a monster, I can see its weakness at a glance. At the intermediate stage, it's called 'Lethal Strike.' Every move I make will land on the opponent's fatal point. At the advanced level, it evolves into 'Soul Reaping,' where the ability becomes bound to a weapon and the attack range expands.

My true strength is this: with just one swing of my scythe, the souls of all B-rank and lower monsters within ten meters around me are completely harvested by the scythe. Even if they aren't directly struck by the blade, they will still die.

For A-rank monsters, if the scythe hits them directly, they will definitely die. If they aren't hit directly but remain within the attack range, a portion of their soul will still be harvested, causing them to lose control over a certain part of their body.

S-rank monsters are different. Even with a direct hit, I can only inflict minor damage to their soul, though it still counts as an effective attack."

"Very strong," Mo Bai complimented.

If Du Heng had been with her in the Count's Castle instance, he could have wiped out the maids and butler with a single swing of his scythe from inside his own room.

And if he'd just swung his scythe outside the Count's door, maintaining a distance within ten meters, a few strikes would have been enough to kill the Count.

High-level players were truly powerful. Their strength in B-rank instances was a fatal blow to monsters and a direct crushing blow to the rules.

Hearing Mo Bai's praise, Du Heng couldn't help but feel pleased. For some inexplicable reason, receiving Mo Bai's praise felt even better than eliminating an S-rank monster.

"Is your scythe an item card or something else?" Mo Bai asked. "Does it take up an item slot? And what card are you using to suppress your ability?"

Du Heng replied, "The scythe was originally an item card, so yes, it takes up an item slot. High-level players can choose a suitable item to attach their ability to. Doing so not only enhances the ability but also conserves energy. Beginner and intermediate players can only consume their own energy, but high-level players' abilities can simultaneously use energy from both the player and the item. Replenishing both sources is equivalent to having two energy bars.

The card I use to suppress my ability is called 'Survival of the Fittest.' This card grants players the ability to adapt to their environment, and instance difficulty levels are also a type of environment. Normally, high-level players are restricted by the rules and can't enter low-level instances. This card helps us adapt to the environment by lowering our level accordingly.

That said, I still have advantages over beginner players. I can still carry five item cards. One S-rank slot is already occupied by my soul weapon, the 'Scythe of Death,' but I can still carry two A-rank and two B-rank cards. However, I've already used Survival of the Fittest, which is an A-rank card."

Mo Bai quietly studied Du Heng.

He glanced at himself and asked with a confused expression. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Do you remember what my ability is?" Mo Bai asked. "It's Environmental Optimization."

"Right, it's a very suitable ability for the Observer group player. You can definitely use this ability to improve the aesthetics of the environment, which should increase the power of your title effects, right?" Du Heng asked. "What's your title? The Observer group's title abilities are much stronger than their base abilities."

Mo Bai said, "Titles aren't important, they're just aggro-attracting gimmicks. The ability I used earlier to seal the door was Environmental Optimization. I moved the door to a different position, relocating it to the wall behind the cabinet, creating the illusion that the door had disappeared to scare you."

As Mo Bai spoke, she waved her hand, and the door returned to its original position.

Du Heng turned back to look at the door. "You're really clever. Even such a seemingly useless Observer ability can be used by you to create this kind of effect."

Mo Bai continued, "Besides moving objects around, I can also change the physical and chemical properties of items, upgrade card ranks, and—"

Before Mo Bai could reveal her key ability, Du Heng interrupted in shock. "Upgrade card ranks?! Your ability is that overpowered?"

"My full capability only allows me to upgrade two B-rank cards to A-rank cards. It's not that strong," Mo Bai said in a rather Versailles manner. "Additionally, I have a small ability, which is optimizing unreasonable rule environments. I have a friend whose ability was sealed by the system for violating the Public Security Regulations, but he was framed. There was a loophole in the regulations that led to his punishment, so I can patch this loophole and restore his ability."

Du Heng blinked, and a thought flashed through his mind. One that he immediately tried to dismiss while simultaneously entertaining an idea that seemed impossible to realize.

"Could it be... that you might be able to help me recover my advanced-level strength?!" Du Heng asked cautiously.

"It's possible," Mo Bai nodded. "However, my ability range is only one cubic meter, and I can only use it once. After setting up the ability around you, you won't be able to move, so it's only effective for ranged abilities. It can only be used at a critical moment: it's our trump card."

"Being able to use it even once would be great," Du Heng said. "If this were just an A-rank instance, or even an S-rank instance, I'd still have hope of victory. But this is an Ultra-Star instance. Even if the Ultra-Star monster hasn't fully formed yet, it's still beyond what we can handle. Unless the elites of Mending Heaven all arrive, there's simply no way. I once tried approaching that monster, but I couldn't see any weaknesses."

"Where is it? What does it look like?" Mo Bai asked.

Du Heng said, "It's sleeping beneath the research base right under our feet. It currently has no fixed form and remains in a state of flux. It can shrink to the size of an ant or grow four to five times larger than a blue whale. It has no skeleton, and its body is soft and flexible, so its enormous size will not cause its bones to be crushed by gravity.

It has ten brains and five hearts. Even destroying one brain or heart won't deliver a fatal blow. These parts can move around freely within its body and aren't fixed in place, making them very difficult to hit.

It has extremely strong regenerative abilities. Even if you destroy one brain, it can recover within a minute.

It can also deploy a barrier around itself that can withstand impacts of up to one hundred tons.

Moreover, its body can endure temperatures of ten thousand degrees Celsius, so even nuclear weapons couldn't kill it.

But the most terrifying part is that, because it absorbed some players, it also possesses supernatural abilities. I don't know how many it has, but it has at least one called 'Mental Disarray.' This was the power of a player from the first batch who died. I also read about it in the research data. This ability can drive people who approach it into mental chaos, even making them regard it as a deity and object of faith, worship it, protect it, and willingly sacrifice their lives for it. Those five A-rank monsters guarding it are exactly like that."

"It's impressive that you were able to gather so much intelligence," Mo Bai said.

"That's thanks to my other A-rank card, 'Cloak of Invisibility,'" Du Heng said. "It allows me to infiltrate the research institute's secret base without being discovered. Moreover, researchers can already access many places, so this identity and these items are very suitable for infiltration."

"You also have the ability to change your appearance," Mo Bai said, pointing at Du Heng's face.

"That's a B-rank card called 'Optical Projection,'" Du Heng explained. "Using it to record someone's appearance allows me to project it onto myself, which is how I obtained this appearance. But it's ultimately just a projection, so when your Spatial Blade cut through the projection space, you were able to see my true face."

Mo Bai: "……"

Advanced-level players could carry five cards: one S-rank, two A-rank, and two B-rank. Du Heng's S-rank card was his ability item, the Scythe of Death. Of the remaining four cards, three were all prepared for infiltrating this instance, with basically no powerful attack cards.

"You never actually planned to defeat the Ultra-Star monster when you entered this mutated instance, did you?" Mo Bai asked.

Du Heng scratched his head. "My mission was only to gather intelligence. My beginner-level ability allows me to identify monster weaknesses and related information, making me well-suited to investigating Ultra-Star monster intel. I originally planned to stay hidden until the mission ended, and once the mission time limit passed, I could return to Neverland. But after I signed up, I discovered that this instance has a 0% survival rate. Without clearing it, there's simply no possibility of leaving alive, so I could only hide my identity. It wasn't until you all entered the institute that my instance information changed, and the survival rate became 25%."

Mo Bai smiled and asked, "How did you ensure you could enter this forced instance?"

"This is a mutated-level instance. The system will reserve a slot for Neverland, allowing us to enter as low-level players to gather intelligence on Ultra-Star monsters," Du Heng said. "But if the system won't send me out, how am I supposed to transmit the intelligence?"

"You've already completed your mission," Mo Bai said.

"That's impossible. My information wasn't transmitted at all," Du Heng said.

Mo Bai smiled faintly. "How could it not be? Your smart assistant can contact the main system at any time. All the intelligence you discovered in this instance has already been transmitted to the main system because it was never intended that you would send it back to Neverland. It was simply using your eyes to gather information about the Ultra-Star monster. The system basically used the lives of your second-batch investigators to create the serum capable of eliminating the Ultra-Star monster. Your mission has already been completed."

Du Heng: "……"

Before Mo Bai soberly pointed this out, he had never imagined that he, too, was a discarded pawn of the system.

He was no different from Mo Bai and the others who became the third batch of serum investigators: all things to be used and then discarded.

At this moment, he felt utterly isolated and helpless, as if only this intelligent girl before him could point him toward a way out.

"What should I do?" Du Heng asked.

Mo Bai replied calmly, "I currently have three courses of action. I've already begun working on the first. I've sent my teammates to question the other test subjects to gather intelligence from outside the research institute. Asking where they're from, where they received their test notifications, and why they chose to become test subjects."

"What use is that?" Du Heng said. "The only thing we need to deal with is the Ultra-Star monster. The test subjects are just NPCs about to die. They don't know anything."

"Who says they don't know anything? They're all people who survived in this instance, living here before players entered the instance. They know what this world truly looks like, including the story behind the instance. I want to learn their impressions of the research institute. I want to know why Biological Research Institute No. 7, originally under the system's jurisdiction, underwent mutation, and why the Ultra-Star monster appeared. I want to find the origin of the instance's creation and discover a method to destroy the Ultra-Star monster from within," Mo Bai said.

Du Heng was stunned.

From Peach Blossom Land to Neverland, from beginner players to advanced-level players, these players had always regarded themselves as mere passersby. Coming and going in haste, never caring about the instance itself.

Only Mo Bai treated the instance as a naturally functioning world and viewed NPCs as real, existing people with backgrounds and stories of their own.