It took some time for Xiao to tell her part of what they experienced to Tian and he explained his own, he even looked at George apologeticaly, he really didn't have the intention of cockblocking him. To begin with he just returned from his own reality and broken up with Xiao, making it even more awkward for them. Of course the reason why he did so was because he would die in this next mission, it's a game where only the strongest survived and the two strongest teams are on vacation for at least a few more missions, causing him to use his own points to buy a weeklong leave, Skipping 7 missions, seven deadly trials where his death was hunging on the balance of the new players being good or horrible like Nick.

"Nick and Lady are the two players that have survived the longest, Lady is really strong and Nick is probably the richest player I know, if someone will leave this place for good, it will probably be him"

Tian explained and the others looked towards his house with a different gaze now.

"There are two teams that come and go, one is Lady's team and the other is Boss, he's a fine guy if you know him, but both are really selective in who becomes part of their team and both value Nick really highly, since he's the oldest player alive"

With these words another lie was seen through, since Nick had lied to them about how many missions he had survived, he had lied repeatedly and for a shitload of stuff.

For example how you should buy stats, truth be told, the logic behind Cell Vitality is solid, in practice however anything beyond 150 is a waste of points, since you don't have enough time to use more than 50 points to raise your physical condition before a mission, Nick just doesn't want them to become uncontrollable players that will act like Lady and Boss, forming their own teams and going only for a few missions until everyone gets enough points for a vacation, the extra they use on stats and items.

He however isn't part of those groups, but if he survives for long enough Lady has promised to take him into her group, it was similar to saying that he would survive every mission from then on.

He also told them the 3 rules.

-Don't derail the plot

-Don't take the secret piece

-Don't break the Human Limits

The two first they had experienced, but what was the Human Limits thing?

"Once one of your stats reaches 200, it's stuck at what we call Human Limit, the only way for it to go further is if you buy enchancements from the store, they can be mutations or just accessories, once however you earn that 201 points, you've done it, you've broken the Human limit and can begin to invest in that stat again, of course you become inhuman as a result and will either get extra powers or grow a second pair of hands or something along those lines, the crux however is that all three raise the difficulty of the Mission, that being that you will get more objectives to complete"

Tian then looked at Chris and continued while facing him.

"If you are thinking of bringing a relic into the next mission, you should forget it, because that will also raise the difficulty, but it will depend on the mission, some relics can make even the most difficult mission easy, Lady and Boss have such Relics, even Nick has some, but don't expect him to use them to save you"

Tian said honestly and then looked at the others.

"Honestly I don't understand how you survived the last mission, why the NPCs would go so far for you, but don't think that it will alway go so well, chances are that next time they will throw you at the danger or use you as bait to survive, NPCs are even more dangerous than players like Nick, he at least weights the pros and cons before betraying you, NPCs act entirely based on emotion and that emotion will be fear 80% of the time"

"What about the pistols are they any good?"

Jonas asked showing him the guns Nick told them to buy.

"These are standard, everyone gets to carry one at first, later you replace it with something worthwhile but mostly because of the new players, you will need the gun"

Tian's answer made them remember how they had thought of disarming him, but chickened due to the gun, afterwards they became buddies and forgot all about it.

"What do you normaly do with new players?"

George asked, catching Tian by surprise.

"Normaly we let Nick handle them, at times he creates his doomed to fail survival groups, ending with him being the lone survivor at the end and passing the mission, I heard from one of Bosses' men that once he killed his whole group in order to end a mission prematurely, because he was unsure of survival, he knew it because one of the people was a friend of his and a good player, there are many rumors about Nick floating around, some say he's not even human, that he's broken the human limits long ago and now is trying to escape, posing as a common person"

Tian talked for too long and was elbowed by Xiao for being boring and for going off topic too much. It was then that Nick decided to join the fun himself as he and the two women came out of the house to greet "an old friend".

"I thought you'd be away for longer, I see you've made your pick, nice"

"Not everyone's an animal like you!"

Xiao stood up to defend Tian, but he dragged her back down, since they've been sitting all along.

"What do you want Nick?"

Tian asked somewhat angrily.

"I just came to thank you and ask Xiao if she still wishes to be part of my group, but her outburst already answered my question"

Xiao was lost for words, she had completely forgotten that she wanted to be part of his survivor group, just hours ago.

"Why bother didn't Lady tell you to stop making survivor groups and just..."

He suddenly stopped, as he thought about what he was about to say, it would be harsher than what Nick had done. Let them fend for themselves was what he was about to say, because not everyone had the same talent as him. Nick survived on Cell Vitality alone, it was incredible, and all his stats were capped at 150, only his Cell Vitality was 200. Before the mission he would do exercise in order to raise his stats to as close to 200 as he could and it worked to his favor since the mission difficulty didn't rise as a result and the system would register him as a regular survivor.

"Don't bring her up, who do you think trained her to be what she's today, she too came from my survival group, only she decided to take another path, some bloom, others wither is what I say"

Nick didn't stay longer after throwing down this bombshell at him, even Tian wasn't sure if he was telling the truth, but seeing the two gorgeous ladies by his side and remembering how pretty Lady was, it wouldn't be difficult to make the connection now, but normaly your mind wouldn't go to it, especialy since she is an advocate against pushing Cell Vitality beyond a healthy 150, which is the max you can train in the 8 hours given to you, in reality even less than 150 points will be enough for training, unless you will train during the mission as well, which no sane person would do.

-What's up Tian?

-Do you believe him?

-About what?

-Lady being part of his survivors

-Who knows, maybe at some point, but isn't she some sort of bigshot now?

-It's not bigshot, they are veterans or vets

He seemed really insistent on them calling them that way, making them think that they did something wrong by calling them anything other than that.

"Let me explain to you, Veterans are like gods, when they are not on break, you will survive just by breathing and they have huge bases, that look like luxury hotels and NPC followers to boast, they are nothing like Nick the stingy bastard, who lives in a noobie house that anyone can afford eventualy, I wouldn't be surprised if he eventualy dies because of his own decision to Hoard Points in order to escape this place"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

His words did little to dispell their newfound worries, as he indirectly called them all idiots for thinking they could escape this hell.

-You know Chrysa died

-Who's that?

-The silent girl that sat at the front desk most of the time

-Oh, that weirdo was here as well, whatever, it's not as if we can't see her or anything, in some reality she probably won't be returning, but not in yours or mine, you can go see her and even befriend her in the future, a weekly vacation won't be too far, trust me on that, 50K might sound a lot of points right now, but when the vets return, you'll be earning points without doing a thing, just by surviving you get 1000p and another 1000p on killing a few easy monsters or NPCs, whichever you fancy, the second is better

For a moment he had them and he lost them, killing innocent people to earn points, sounded like something a villain would do, in the previous mission they felt like the heroes as they stood alongside Alice and saved lives or so they thought.

"Wait, lets talk more in my house, he can come as well"

Tian said as he summoned his own house, he didn't seem to care much about Chris having a "Relic" as they called the Secret Piece. He even considered him as a potential ally.

"Thank you, but I'm fine by myself"

Chris said, causing quite a stir in the group.

"If this were a Novel, he would be the first person to die"

George said and then looked towards the second most likely, it was non other than Nick, who was inside his house sitting next to the two beauties.

"I'll tell you honestly now, I cannot guarantee that I won't kill you if it comes to it, but you won't die unless the others decide to fail the mission"

He said as he looked at them, his face apologetic with puppy eyes that asked to be petted and loved.

The two were confused from his transformation, from a cool guy to "this" weird pest, but decided to play along, saying they understood and not to worry as they went together to bed.

After a swift session of love, they begun to bombard him with questions, like asking about the guy outside and who else they should know about, who was Lady and other stuff they knew nothing about.

Nick stood up opened a drawer full to brim with alarm clocks similar to the one he threw to George and the others and begun to wind it up.

"We have 4 hours before we go so you should go to sleep"

Nick said as he put the alarm down.

"Liar we've 5 hours"

Hera said disatisfied, pouting a little as if insulted.

"I'll be packing in 4 hours, so get some sleep if you wish to be alive during the next mission, I know I'll sleep well, you'll learn everything you need to know as long as you survive long enough"

Nick said and then lay down and fell asleep as if he turned off or something, instant sleep mode.

Chris now sat alone, the Red Empress sent him messages like a teenage girl texting to you, she did her best to appear as naive and helpful as she could. As her reality was that she could be given away or worse be sold to the store, although Chris had no intention of selling this trophy of his. He was a hoarder of the worst kind, his house was full of crates with useless items he viewed as having sentimental value.

"So what should I do to increase my survival possibilities?"

Chris asked back now that everyone had left.

"Ally with those guys and get more information"

The Red Empress replied back, but after the leave me alone he staged, he was too proud of himself, it was simply out of the question. He then looked at the alarm clock left behind by Nick, the others left it lying there forgotten and another trash was added into his collection.

The Red Empress was amazed by how the clock had no electronic part at all, it was all gears and moving parts, with a small key behind to wind it up, it told him that he had 5 hours of sleep.

"So what do you think of my house?"

Tian said, his home looked exactly like Nick's on the outside, but the inside was better decorated and one could tell he spent some points decorating it.

"Look out that's expensive"

George said as Xiao almost pushed a vase over.

"Expensive my ass, everything in here is worth only 1-5 points, you can find even the most famous paintings and statues in the store for no more than 10 points"

Tian explained, making Xiao really angry with George, although that wasn't Tian's intention at all, he just wanted to put them at ease.

"There's drinks in the freezer, lets talk over some drinks"

Tian said in order to defuse the small lovers quarrel between Xiao and George, truth be told he still felt weird about Xiao. Just the other day he broke up with her, because he thought he would die, because Nick had killed everyone, but he found a rather roudy party who had some experience, even a wanna-be commando camping ouside by himself. They could see through the window how Chris lit a fire and then went to sleep by the fire next to the alarm clock Nick had thrown at them.

"You know his actions might seem funny to you, but if I didn't know he's a noob I would have mistaken him for a veteran, they all go to sleep the moment after they buy their stuff, because this is the safest place to be, you can't die here even if you wanted to"

Tian said, causing them to wonder, George was still carrying with him the encyclopedias, but the moment Tian saw them, he begun to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

George asked, he felt humilliated by his laughter.

"It's nothing, I just remembered a guy that thought he could predict the next mission, through calculations and mental workout, he died in the preparation stage, overworked himself to death, we didn't know how to save him, the veterans didn't care, thinking about it now, it's funny"

Tian said, causing them to wanna cry, thinking that they could be the ones in that description.

-By the way, why did you bring these out?

-I was about to ask why Nick doesn't carry any such things around?

-He might look timid and stingy, but that guy's a veteran, whatever the mission may be he will survive, even over the corpses of everyone else, he might even help the monster to get you in order to survive

-Is that even possible?

-I believe he did so once already, during the Mummy, he sided with the Mummy and killed everyone else, who were hidding all around the world, like himself, It's rumored that one of the artifacts he got there was the Book of Life

-Wait he can bring people back from the dead with it!

-Only if he knew ancient egyptian and no surprise there he doesn't

-Isn't he just wasting it then?

-Not really, he can sell it if he needs points and it can be used to negotiate with the mummy if he faces it again

-That's cheating!

-Nope, Relics are used exactly like that, for example if you enter another resident evil movie, that guy outside will have an unfair advantage, but if it's a ghost story or murder case in old london, he will have none

-What about the book of Life?

-If there's no magic in the world, it's unusable, kind of like in Resident Evil

-Wait, there's magic?

-Of course there is, but studying it is insanely difficult, first I had to learn this weird runic language and then buy a spellbook, both are cheap, but both are useless unless the world has magic in it

-What do you mean?

-The mission we are going to have 3 restrictions, Technology, Magic and Time

-What do you mean, exactly?

-The technology you can bring into the mission cannot be over the top, even if you have a mecha suit, you won't be allowed to bring it into a 300 movie as it will destroy all the balance, the same goes for relics, it's probable that he won't even be able to take his relic with him to the next mission and it will be stuck in his inventory and lost when he dies

-What about time?

-Wait magic first, there's paths of magic, even if a world allows for magic, you might still be unable to cast spells, because you don't have the right mana to cast it, mana comes in colors and not elements, for example you can turn yellow mana into fire or sand

-What about time?

-There's time periods, similar to technology, we might end in a prehistoric movie with dinosaurs, our clothes will disappear and we won't be able to bring anything with us, all three are the subcategories of the store

-All this was rather useless then

-Nope, this is just the beginning!

"There are three paths in front of you, one is Nick's path, which all of you have turned down as it's a fool's path to begin with, the second nad third paths you've yet to experience"

Tian said as if he was going to announce the solution to a mystery.

"The Lady represents order and strength, they believe that as long as we're strong we will survive and we will survive with military discipline and by collecting talentd people, the Boss represents fun and joy in death, they believe that life is fleeting either way, here is your sandbox and if you're to die, you'll die a happy man or woman, sort of like no regrets in death"

These two paths caused even more questions, how on earth would the second group even be alive, are they so strong?

"The Boss and his boys are people that gave up on discipline and strength, disillusioned by that path and became daredevils that care for nothing, they're really not people you want to associate with and they probably won't even look at you, until you prove yourself and are sellected and fully trained by Lady"

Tian said causing them to be even more confused.

"Why don't they just gather enough to leave?"

Xiao asked and Tian wanted to cry tears of despair