Chapter 40: Chapter 040 Rank: D
“No, no… I don’t know her, I just confused her with soone else,” Chen Ke waved his hand dismissively.
He had truly thought he had traveled through ti and space, facing the ordeal of reliving the events of the last ten-plus hours. If that were the case, it would have been a bit painful.
Fortunately, it was just a false alarm, and the universe hadn’t made things too difficult for him.
Chen Ke didn’t want to have too much contact with other investigators, since he lacked an official status. In the Black Box Space, it was best to avoid trouble whenever possible.
He pulled out his gun, pushed open the glass door, and poked his head into the pitch-black hallway.
“Hey, hey buddy, you looked so fierce and competent just now, turns out you’re a noob too?” Yang Xiao’s voice ca from behind.
...
Chen Ke ignored Yang Xiao, still alert and hugging the wall, slowly inching forward.
During his first trip here, the dog that could call an elevator had given him quite a psychological shock. He wondered if he would encounter a similar situation this ti.
“Bro, this is the Campfire area, stop pretending,” Yang Xiao’s laughter grew even more exaggerated, followed by hearty laughter.
“Campfire area?” Chen Ke turned around, looked at Yang Xiao quizzically.
At the mont, Yang Xiao was standing with hands on his hips, looking utterly carefree and unguarded. Thinking back to his sprightly footsteps earlier…
Chen Ke put his gun away—damn, what a waste of an expression. He was in unfamiliar territory.
“Is it your first ti here? It’s my second ti. I think you’re more skilled than I am, but I can still be your senior,” Yang Xiao slapped his stomach, which was not exactly fat but a bit chubby, making him look quite rotund.
Chen Ke pursed his lips, shook his head, and headed straight for the elevator, planning to go down and take a look.
“Hey, wait up~ buddy, I think we could form a team,” Yang Xiao chased after him.
“Give the rundown; what’s the deal with this Black Box Space?” Chen Ke stopped and asked.
“Hehe, you clearly didn’t read the investigator’s handbook properly. Look at you… What did you do before, buddy?” Yang Xiao curiously sized up Chen Ke.
“I was a professional killer!” Chen Ke was getting fed up with this guy.
“Hey! It’s just the two of us here, what’s there to hide? I bet you’re from the underworld! With your killer look and those smooth moves just now… Hmm… Did you get into trouble with the gangsters? Used connections to beco an investigator and lay low, huh?” Yang Xiao stroked his chin, analyzing away.
“Fuck, are you insane? Stop fucking bothering !” Chen Ke frowned.
He hated fat guys who babbled on about nothing; interacting with them was a complete waste of ti. Yang Xiao reminded Chen Ke of a fat classmate from his school days who was all talk and no substance, never able to stay on a serious topic, drifting from one thing to the next, from prehistory to the future.
Chen Ke turned to leave.
“Hey, wait, wait!” Yang Xiao stuck to him again, grabbing Chen Ke’s left hand.
But before he could react, Chen Ke had already twisted his wrist, forcing him to kneel on one knee from the joint lock.
“Ow! Ow! It hurts! It’s going to break!” Yang Xiao yelped in pain.
“Keep spouting nonsense and I will break it,” Chen Ke said, loosening his grip.
“Dude, you’re badass, good moves…” Yang Xiao said while rubbing his wrist, but upon seeing Chen Ke’s expression, he changed the subject to explain about the Black Box Space.
The Black Box Space, being a controlled Spirit Explosion Space, was largely devoid of danger due to the Administration Bureau’s use of a “zoning” technology, which tricked the monsters’ senses and made them overlook certain areas within the space.
These areas were called “Campfires.”
No matter how many monsters are chasing you, as long as you run back to the Campfire, you can escape danger. Moreover, there are specialized ammunition supply stations and communication devices for external contact at the Campfire. Investigators just need to swipe their licenses to deduct investigation points and exchange for various supplies.
The floor where Chen Ke and Yang Xiao were actually fell within the range of the Campfire. Of course, this didn’t an you could set up a Campfire wherever you liked; the areas where this technology could be utilized were limited in different Spirit Explosion Spaces, so each Black Box Space’s distribution and number of Campfires varied.
Chen Ke, lacking an investigator’s license, naturally couldn’t use the supply station, but the special nature of the campfire was still sowhat helpful to him.
“Then can I lure the monsters to the edge of the campfire and shoot them from inside?” Chen Ke asked.
“You’re thinking too much, buddy! That ghostly technique is actually quite forced, after all, it’s an eye-blocking skill. If you attack from inside the campfire, then the whole campfire will temporarily fail and let the monsters in,” Yang Xiao said.
The Administration Bureau feared that the monsters would learn the campfire technique and cause Black Box Spaces to beco uncontrollable. So they would rather sacrifice the safety of the investigators than allow the campfire system to be shut down when an investigator breaks the rules.
“I get it, our lives aren’t as valuable as that crappy technique,” Chen Ke shook his head.
“Easy to say, but actually speaking, it’s very safe overall. A D-ranked Black Box Space, it’s practically like child’s play~” Yang Xiao laughed.
Chen Ke suddenly rembered sothing Parker had said.
“…The human-faced dog isn’t a very powerful monster, but it belongs to the C-ranked monsters that can affect the minds of normal people…”
Parker had said that the human-faced dog was a C-ranked monster…
Why was this Black Box Space only rated as D?
“I heard there are human-faced dogs here, aren’t those C-ranked monsters?” Chen Ke asked.
Yang Xiao looked at Chen Ke with an incredulous expression and said, “One look at you, buddy, and it’s clear you either didn’t study English well or you got through investigator training by pulling so strings…”
“Cut the crap…” Chen Ke said impatiently.
Yang Xiao pulled out a booklet from his back pocket that was quite creased and waved it in front of Chen Ke.
Chen Ke grabbed the booklet to see a cover with an attractive Black Person holding a modified handgun, facing off against an exaggerated cartoon monster. The book was titled “Jack yer’s Investigator Guide: The Path of Promotion from D to S!”
The booklet was sowhat thick, possibly over a hundred pages. He flipped through it casually, finding detailed illustrations and large blocks of text.
“Page 19, take a look,” Yang Xiao prompted.
Chen Ke flipped to page 19, where the title read “100 Questions for Rookie Investigators.” Yang Xiao’s aty finger pointed to a boxed section on the page called “Classification of Monsters and Black Box Spaces.”
“In general terms, we have conducted a detailed classification of monsters and Black Box Spaces—your workplace. But because the Administration Bureau’s almighty didn’t stress precision in the classification, it’s tough to differentiate between the two ratings, leading many newbie investigators to fail to properly distinguish between monster ranks and Black Box Space ranks.”
Chen Ke nodded, continuing to read.
“The Administration Bureau has ticulously classified all monsters that appeared in the Spirit Explosion Spaces, based on PWAT and Administration Bureau agent combat data, into six levels from E to S. But when looking at the classification information, newbies must first understand that in fact, the Administration Bureau has three sets of classification information.”
Three sets?
“Among them, Black Box Space has a unique level notation, which is the well-known Rank series. This level indication ans a D-ranked Black Box Space where monster power levels fall within the D range. It must be clear that it’s within that range, not absolutely D-ranked. That’s sothing the Administration Bureau has never emphasized.”
This ans that a D-ranked Black Box could have monsters of both lower and higher ranks, Chen Ke pondered.
“Next, there are two more levels that the Administration Bureau uses to classify monsters. A skilled investigator would know this, and if you don’t, then learn it now!”
Chen Ke focused on reading further.
“The monster ranks are divided into the Level series and Type series. Level D ans the monster is of D-level danger, but this is only a general category of threat level. The most important is the Type classification, which uses nearly all 26 letters of the alphabet and differs from Rank and Level in that each Type letter is usually followed by nuric suffixes, like D1, D2, D3, depicting which markings under category D the monster possesses…”
This is fucking complicated…
“Because Type itself doesn’t mark the danger level of a monster but indicates which special attributes this kind of monster carries. Take a tea cup worth 5 union coins, for example. If it’s sold in a standard supermarket, that’s the equivalent of different Rank levels of Black Box Spaces. And 5 union coins represents the Level of danger of the cup. Whether the cup is made of stainless steel or glass, whether it’s retro styled or industrially carved, whether it’s heat-resistant or handmade by a renowned craftsman entirely depends on what Type attributes it has. Isn’t it a very simple example?”
“So, before you officially beco an investigator, you need to understand the differences between Rank, Level, and Type, as well as morize the appendix of Type table in this book to grasp the various monster classification indicators and Administration Bureau numbering rules. Because all the nas the Administration Bureau has for monsters are made up of various codes. For example, the well-known human-faced dog, officially coded as DD3Z20059. D for Level rank, D3 and Z2 are the Type, and 0059 is the specific number in the Administration Bureau’s C category of monsters. Yes, a monster may have many Types…”
Chen Ke’s head throbbed. He flipped to the last few pages of the booklet and found that the last thirty or so pages were all Administration Bureau’s Type code tables, listed densely in a tiny no. 6.5 font, bringing to mind his fear when dominated by the periodic table of the elents.
And this monster Type code table was even more complicated than the periodic table, probably designed without any consideration for the difficulty of morization because, after all, they weren’t the ones who had to morize it.
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