Insufficient balance

  Some people have money, investing in "Shen Mo" is a kind of sacrifice. Some people have time, and spending time is also a kind of sacrifice. Zhou Jian has invested both, selling all his assets to fight with his back against the water, shouldn't he get some return?

  Zhou Jian won the gamble, of course, there is also a large component of luck in it. The so-called ghost killer is a thief with spiritual abilities, in other words, it's a combination of the controller profession and the thief profession.

  Ordinary thieves' spiritual power attributes do not exceed twenty, while the ghost killer's spiritual power attribute will be greatly improved every time they upgrade. With spiritual energy, you can take objects remotely, control monsters, use spiritual attacks and so on.

  Thieves are originally skilled in assassination, and if they can also control from a distance, be well-versed in spiritual heterodox abilities, reach the realm of being untraceable, and make all things in the world into weapons, then their assassination techniques will reach a terrifying level, and the name "Ghost Killer" comes from this.

  Zhou Jian originally wanted to upgrade quietly, but the opening of new copies and the high rewards after passing the copies soon moved him. However, he couldn't conquer the copy alone, so he showed off his skills in the Tianzun Guild and eventually joined the Tianzun team.

  Although Zhou Jian is a hidden professional assassin, his future achievements will definitely not be small, but he has not had time to upgrade yet, and has only learned the most basic skill of a controller, "isolated object capture", in terms of combat power, he is not worth mentioning in the Tian Zun team.

  However, this time the copy is special. Fifteen people enter the copy, fourteen of whom are combat personnel, and the last one is a "messenger". The messenger's task is to place the NPC-given quest item - Pandora's Seal on the altar of the Dark Lord while the other fourteen people fight against the ultimate boss, the Dark Lord's minions.

  In this game instance, the devil's servant is in charge of guarding the devil's heart, and its power also comes from the devil's heart. As long as the heart is sealed, the devil's servant's power will be greatly reduced, making it much easier to kill.

  However, the altar where the Demon King's heart was placed was actually a magma furnace. The heart floated above it, and no matter what level you were at, jumping into the magma would be certain death. Therefore, only a controller could serve as a messenger, using their abilities to place Pandora's seal on the Demon King's heart from afar.

  But a new problem has emerged, with a circle of strange creatures surrounding the altar. The fragile and slow-moving controller wants to slowly walk into the pile of monsters, set up a pose, and then cast a spell to arrange Pandora's seal, which is simply impossible.

  Hundreds of teams around the world tried various methods but all ended in failure, so they chose to give up on sending messengers and instead fought the ultimate boss head-on, resulting in a complete wipeout...

  And Zhou Jian, although his equipment is either trash obtained from doing tasks or street goods bought from shops, in terms of physique, he is not even comparable to a high-level Controller. A monster's touch would be fatal to him, but he has two skills: the Thief's Stealth and the Controller's Remote Retrieval. He is perfectly suited for this task.

  Sneaking through the monster group, a remote pick-up threw the seal away, this world was harmonious, and then he didn't need to care about anything, just waiting for the boss to die, getting a huge amount of experience, a system reward of purple epic equipment, six assignable attribute points, 1000 honor value, in addition to this, there is also unknown equipment dropped by the boss.

  It's worth mentioning that the treasure in "Shen Mo" is divided among players, each player can only see their own equipment, gold coins and potions, and they can pick them up at leisure. Moreover, all the bound equipment picked up belongs to one's own profession, so there's no need to worry about getting something that can't be used or traded.

  This eliminates the problem of looting war spoils and unfair distribution of spoils. If someone still can't get equipment in this setting, they can only blame their own bad luck. They might as well go help old ladies cross the street. So Zhou Jian isn't worried that he won't get any spoils due to his low level.

  Zhou Jian was having such a beautiful dream, logging into the game, but after he put on his helmet, he received a message that made him fall from heaven to hell. System prompt: Ghost Killer "Dark Sword" role does not exist, system data lost, reason for loss: unknown.

  Whoa!

  What a joke!

  Zhou Jian didn't believe it and logged in again, but the prompt was still the same.

  Damn it!

  Zhou Jian went crazy, three months of hard work, paid so much heart and soul, just waiting to play this game income a little silver, and even bought a helmet with external debt, how could it be such a result?

  For the past three months, Zhou Jian has hardly attended any classes. Although it's possible to skip classes in college, that doesn't mean there are no consequences for doing so. Zhou Jian has already been recorded in many teachers' little black books and is just waiting for the exams to come and collect him. It can be said that Zhou Jian's retaking of courses is already a done deal.

  At Lingnan University, retaking a course requires paying a retake fee! Each credit costs 100 yuan, and Zhou Jian conservatively estimates that this retake will cost around 1,800 yuan. If he doesn't have an income, should he ask his poor family for money?

  Apart from this, Zhou Jian was generally disliked by the girls in his class due to his "not doing a proper job". After all, in the eyes of most people, playing online games well can earn a lot of money, but it's not a legitimate profession. So even if Zhou Jian had the good fortune to be in a class with many beautiful girls, he basically had no chance of having a small romance in college.

  If he loses his game account again, he'll really lose everything and be left with nothing.

  Zhou Jian tried logging in again and again, but all he got was the system's cold prompt. He felt a bit depressed and took off his gaming headset. Just then, the dormitory door was pushed open and a tall guy, about 1.85 meters high, walked in. This guy had a high nose bridge, thick eyebrows, and big eyes, looking quite handsome at first glance. At this moment, he was spinning a basketball with his right hand, holding a boxed lunch with his left hand, wearing a red basketball vest, yellow sports shorts, and his exposed calves were covered with fluffy leg hair.

  His name is Luo Haiman, nicknamed "Mule". He and Zhou Jian have been inseparable since primary school to university. They both applied for the Chinese Department of Lingnan University during the college entrance examination and were later assigned to the same dormitory by "coincidence", but in fact, there were only three boys in their class, all of whom were assigned to the same dormitory which was not even full...

  "It's amazing, you haven't played 'Shen Mo' yet, aren't you supposed to be farming instances today? I didn't even play basketball, just to come back and watch you." Luo Hai Shan casually put down the boxed meal, which was Zhou Jian's dinner. For the past few months, he had been completely absorbed in the game, and his dinners were always bought by someone else.

  Zhou Jian helplessly shook his head and recounted what had happened.

  "Isn't this going too far? Isn't 'Shen Mo' supposed to have the world's most powerful servers? How could such an error occur?"

  "I don't know, I'll report to the official website and send an email to see if I can get it back." Although he said so, Zhou Jian had no bottom line in his heart. "Shenmo" is a world-class game with too many players, and the customer service has to deal with countless emails every day. Zhou Jian invested zero funds in "Shenmo", also known as a non-RMB player, with a very low priority level. It's hard to say when the problem can be solved, and by that time, even if the account is recovered, its value will be far less than it is now. Moreover, even if the email is seen by the "Shenmo" customer service, can the lost system data really be restored?

  "It's alright, we've got a long way to go together, let's eat first." Lu gave him the boxed lunch.

  Zhou Jian opened his lunchbox with a gloomy expression, eating while writing an email to the official website. "Sigh, I originally wanted to make some money from 'Shen Mo', but now it seems that the 8,000 yuan helmet debt will be enough for this year."

  Zhou Jian borrowed money from Luo Zi to buy a helmet, totaling 8,200 yuan. If he plays well in the online game, he can earn several thousand yuan per month without any problem. Zhou Jian originally planned to pay off his debt to Luo Zi this semester, but now it seems like a distant hope.

  Lu's family was well-off, his parents had a small company, in this era, the monthly income of high-rise white-collar workers in big cities has generally exceeded 10,000 yuan, of course, consumption has also risen accordingly. However, 8,000 yuan is still a huge sum for a student like him, especially since Zhou Jian's family was not well-off and his annual living expenses were only around 5,000 yuan.

  The mule pulled out two cans of beer from under the bed, opened one and handed it to Zhou Jian: "Don't mention it again, I can handle this little money, brother. I'm not unaware of your strength, when borrowing money, I was prepared for you to lose, didn't expect you to repay, although later on, you got lucky with a hidden career, even the system losing data such extreme things happened to you, purely because of your looks, who can blame?"

  Zhou Jian knew that Ma Zi was teasing him just to lighten the mood, and normally he would definitely tease back. But today, he didn't have the heart for it. "Alright, I'm already so miserable, and you're still teasing me? No big deal, I can take it. Even if we really can't find it again, I'll start over from scratch. At least my helmet is still here."

  "Haha, well said! Come on, let's have a drink."

  Just then, Zhou Jian's phone rang.

  He didn't want to answer it at first, but when he saw his mom's number, he adjusted his mood and picked up the phone, calling out in as calm a tone as possible, "Mom."

  "Xiao Jian, how come I received a call from your homeroom teacher saying you've been skipping class?"

  Zhou Jian was shocked, this beautiful female teacher was really overbearing, not even the counselor would bother with such trivial matters, she actually called his home phone, wasn't that hitting him where it hurts?

  No way, this beautiful female teacher is a newly graduated graduate student, working so diligently that it's beyond explanation.

  "Mom, don't worry about it. I wasn't feeling well for a few days and didn't miss many classes." Although Zhou Jian was filial, lying to his parents came easily to him, which he called "good-natured lies".

  "Don't think I'm a fool, I heard from your teacher that you bought a gaming headset and play online games every day. The cheapest gaming headset costs over 8,000 yuan, where did you get so much money?"

  Zhou Jian had nothing to say, his relationship with Lu Zi was solid, but borrowing money was absolutely not something he could tell his mom about. If she found out that he borrowed money to play games, she would be furious. After all, his tuition fees at Lingnan University were still paid by a student loan.

  Moreover, online games are something that can't be explained to her clearly. Zhou Jian indeed likes playing online games, but his purpose of playing online games is also to make money and alleviate the burden on his family. The profit from online games is too high now. Just think about a platform with over 100 million players, not to mention other things, just the media advertising revenue would be a huge amount of money! This can completely form its own virtual world, where the influential figures have unimaginable influence. A world with over 100 million people may sound like nothing, but in fact, it's more than the population of the UK and France combined, equivalent to a large country!

  Zhou Jian believed that continuing to play "Shen Mo" could change his life, although it was full of hardships. But thinking about it in reverse, if he were to struggle in society, in an era where college students are not as good as pigs and dogs, it would be even harder to make a name for himself than playing "Shen Mo".

  Afterwards, Zhou Jian continuously responded with "uh-huhs" and "ahs" as he accepted his mother's ideological education for over ten minutes before finally hanging up the phone.

  The donkey smiled and said to Zhou Jian: "Haha, it seems that our beautiful female teacher is quite concerned about you. The kindness of a beauty is hard to bear, you are lucky."

  "You're dizzy, your cattle mouth has some virtue."

  The young man smiled and took a sip of wine, his expression slightly serious, "What's the plan? Are you still deciding to play online games all the time?"

  Zhou Jian nodded, "I'm not like you who still has a bit of family foundation. I have no special skills, my major is hard to find a job, and after four years, I'll have to survive in the city where housing prices are over 10,000 yuan per square meter. I must start now, otherwise, I won't even be able to pay back my student loan, and...my dad's health isn't good either."

  Zhou Jian lives in the countryside, his parents opened a village clinic, but his father's body has always been poor, and the medicine is sold on one side and eaten on the other. The life is very tight, and the money for building a new house at home is still borrowed.

  Zhou Jian's burden is heavy, and the pressure in today's society is too great. Even if Zhou Jian graduated with excellent grades in all subjects, he would not be able to find a high-paying job in Huadu without any work experience. Even if he did find one, the family's debts, including student loans, would take him two or three years to repay. At that time, getting married and falling in love would be too luxurious for him.

  So when others were still talking about romance and fantasizing about the future in their freshman year, he had already started working hard.

  The mule patted Zhou Jian's shoulder and said, "Nothing more to say, brother supports you, come on, let's have a drink."

  The two of them drank for an hour, finishing half a case of beer. Zhou was a heavy drinker, while Jian's capacity was average; he got drunk and went to bed at 10 o'clock.

  As for Lu Zi, he rented a house outside and lived with his girlfriend. After Zhou Jian fell asleep, he went out to accompany his girlfriend. He made an appointment with his girlfriend to go shopping tomorrow.

  The girlfriend of Lu Zai is his neighbor, and they have been together since childhood. One major reason why Lu Zai applied to the Chinese Department at Lingnan University was for her. The girl's family background is also good, and both sets of parents have met each other and agreed that they will get married after graduation.

  As for Zhou Jian's other roommate, his name is Wang Xiaoyin, and like Zhou Jian, he is also a single man. He is a local of Huadu City, and since tomorrow is the weekend, he skipped class in the afternoon to go home.

  So today, there was only Zhou Jian in the dormitory.

  In a daze, Zhou Jian had a dream in which he became a great thief who could fly through the sky and escape into the earth, punishing evil and taking treasures, avenging past grievances, with countless wealth and winning the hearts of numerous beauties...

  Zhou Jian was so awesome in his dream that even he himself realized he was dreaming. Later, Zhou Jian got woken up by the urge to pee because he drank too much, and this beautiful dream was ruined halfway through.

  What a strange dream, Zhou Jian vaguely got up, but suddenly saw someone standing in front of his desk, with a dark and unclear face...

  Zhou Jian was startled and his sleepiness instantly disappeared. "Damn it, what's wrong with you? You're scaring me to death in the middle of the night!"

  No response...

  Wait a minute, that person looks about the same height as Xiaoyin, but upon closer inspection, the outline doesn't quite match. Besides, Xiaoyin went home today, no reason to come back to the dorm in the middle of the night.

  Zhou Jian's heart skipped a beat as he thought about it - who was this person? What did they want to do by coming in?

  Thief? Robber? Murderer?

  Zhou Jian's back felt a chill run down his spine. Subconsciously, he stretched out his hand to grab something nearby, but all he could find was his phone.

  "Who are you?"

  Zhou Jian turned on the backlight and took a look under the light. He almost shouted out loud, for the person standing in front of the desk was... himself?

  How is this possible?!

  But looking at that face, it's clearly identical to one's own, if that's oneself, then what is this "mass" lying in bed?

  Are you still dreaming?

  Have you had too much to drink and your eyes are blurry?

  Absolutely not, this real and clear feeling is definitely not fake.

  Did I die from a car accident while sleepwalking and then my soul left my body?

  The soul is on the bed, and the body is in front of the desk?

  What the heck!

  Zhou Jian's heart was burning with anger, he flipped over and rolled out of bed, "Bang!" He turned on the light!

  The distant fluorescent light flickered, as if it was having trouble starting up. The figure also flickered in the flashing light, sometimes bright and sometimes dark. These few short seconds seemed unusually long...

  Zhou Jian subconsciously tightened his grip on the phone, this antique brick-like phone was not light in weight. He thought that if the figure pounced over, he would throw the phone with all his might and it should be able to crack his head open.

  Finally, the whole room lit up, and Zhou Jian's mouth was wide enough to hold an egg after he saw the scene in front of him clearly. He stared at "himself" in front of the table, speechless for a long time.

  That person was indeed identical to himself, except that his eyes lacked a hint of spirit. However, this wasn't the reason why Zhou Jian was shocked. After all, he had already mentally prepared himself for it. What shocked him was that the person was wearing the Tomb Raider Cloak from the "Divine Demon" game, with a pair of blood-colored Attack Claws tied to his hands, Windproof Leggings on his legs, and Speed Boots on his feet. Looking further at his neck and hands, he even had an Assassin's Ring and a Wind Chime Necklace.

  Isn't this... isn't this the equipment I wore in "Gods and Demons"?

  Zhou Jian felt that his brain was not enough, what does this mean? Is it saying that...this person is the "self" in the game?

  In the online game "Gods and Demons", a player's character appearance reflects their real-life appearance. However, if a player does not want to reveal their appearance, they can choose to wear a mask or disguise themselves. Zhou Jian had always used his original appearance. In other words, Zhou Jian's in-game appearance was identical to the guy sitting at the desk.

  It can't be... that I, as a player's character "Ghost Assassin", have "jumped" out of the game and into the real world?

  So the system would lose data, and all explanations seemed quite "reasonable", but... could such a thing really happen?

  Zhou Jian touched "his" face, and the texture was exactly the same as a real person's, but that person seemed to be unconscious, like a robot.

  Zhou Jian suddenly realized a absurd possibility, he picked up the gaming helmet, put it on, and started the game.

  "Beep—" System Prompt: Character "Dark Sword" Ghost Killer does not exist. System data lost. Reason for loss: Unknown.

  However, although the system prompted this, Zhou Jian still entered the "game". His vision was first blurry and then cleared up. The character switch was successful, but the scene in front of him was not Pangu City in the game, but his extremely familiar 522 dormitory. Moreover, he was sitting in front of himself wearing a game headset.

  In other words, his consciousness switched from his original self to that of Kiriya Kokoro, and yet both of them were in the same room.

  Good grief, this joke has gone too far!

  Zhou Jian exercised his "new body" a bit and checked his attributes. Strength: 40, Agility: 120, Vitality: 40, Magic: 20, Spirit: 20.

  He casually jumped up and directly from in front of the desk jumped to the doorway, striding over a distance of five or six meters.

  Zhou Jian took a deep breath, pulled out the Thief's Key from his body, activated the lock-picking skill, and fiddled with the door for two seconds. Click! The door opened.

  The abilities are exactly the same as in the game!

  He felt a bit dizzy and came to the balcony, looking down from the balcony at two o'clock in the morning, it was quiet outside, not a single person, and behind the dormitory building was the school's back mountain, even during the day, there were rarely any signs of people.

  Zhou Jianxin took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and jumped down.

  This is a five-story building. Although he had done similar actions many times in the game, when he tried it once in real life, his scalp still felt numb.

  The whistling wind came straight at him, and Zhou Jian felt like a big bird, his body very light.

  "Bang!"

  Landed safely, Zhou Jian rolled on the ground with a bit of numbness in his legs, but it was no big deal. This felt even more realistic than the game.

  Looking up at his own dormitory, it has almost disappeared in the darkness. Although the scene is extremely realistic, he still feels a sense of being in a dream.

  Jump!

  Zhou Jian jumped out about 4 or 5 meters high, directly clinging to the balcony on the second floor. Then he used his arm strength and jumped again, like a gecko climbing on the wall of the dormitory building. In just half a minute, he climbed from the ground floor to the fifth floor and returned to the balcony of his own dormitory!

  It's just like the ability of the ghost killer in the game!

  Zhou Jian took a deep breath, and a surge of excitement and joy mixed emotions gradually emerged in his heart.

  Now that Zhou Jian is short of money, very short of money, after getting such a controllable ghost killer, the first thing he thinks of is how to use it to make money.

  Assassins are just thieves and killers. However, in the real world, stealing and killing are both against the law, so this is not something that can be done.

  Unfortunately, there is no Olympic Games now. If I take advantage of my physical strength to participate in the Olympic Games, I will definitely get a lot of gold medals and bonuses.

  The Olympics were cancelled fifteen years ago, mainly due to the rise of ancient martial arts. The disciples of the Guwu family easily broke world records, and for them, participating in the Olympics was simply a matter of whose martial arts skills were higher.

  After the disaster in the middle of last century, Guwu gradually began to penetrate into real society. In Huaxia, there are seven major Guwu families. For ordinary people, they are all high and above figures. If it were a normal situation, Zhou Jian would not have any intersection with them.

  Go to an ancient martial arts family as a instructor or elder and receive high salary?

  It doesn't seem to work either, after all, I'm still in school. Moreover, the ancient martial arts family has some connection with the government. Once my possession of the Ghost Killer's secret is discovered, the government will likely intervene, using the pretext of exploring unknown science or maintaining national security to put me under soft detention and research, and I might even become a lab rat.

  Making money...... Making money...... What makes the most money?

  It seems like starting a company, but what can be done by opening a company with Ghost Killer? Opening a martial arts school is more reliable...

  Wait, start a company. Zhou Jian suddenly had an epiphany and decided to open a bounty hunter company! Specializing in taking on high-difficulty, high-risk jobs.

  However, starting a company is not a simple matter, it requires a venue and registered capital.

  Moreover, the bounty hunter company doesn't seem to be a legitimate one at first glance, and the government probably won't approve it either. They can only make contact with people secretly, but then another problem arises: how to build up their reputation and how to get in touch with clients?

  Is it possible that posting small ads on utility poles? It's likely that the city management team will beat them up, and even if they do post them, who would believe them?

  It's easy to imagine, but it's still a lot of trouble when you actually operate it.

  Zhou Jian felt that the effects of last night's drinking had not yet worn off, and thinking about these things made his head spin, so he decided to just go to sleep instead.

  He quit the game and took off his helmet. As soon as he took off his helmet, the ghost killer standing in the house suddenly disappeared out of thin air.

  Huh?

  Where did this guy go? Won't he just disappear like that? Heaven, don't play with me.

  Zhou Jian put on his helmet again, and he, who had never believed in gods, couldn't help but recite a few sentences of "Amitabha". After logging into the game, his consciousness switched again, and Zhou Jian became a ghost killer once more.

  Looking at his own self sitting on the stool, Zhou Jian let out a mouthful of air, good guy, scared him to death.

  The game is over, and the ghost killer disappears once again.

  Zhou Jian repeatedly experimented several times and finally confirmed that as long as he wore the helmet, the ghost killer would appear, and when he took off the helmet, the ghost killer would hide.

  From now on, let's call this puppet "Ming Jian". Thinking of this, Zhou Jian crawled onto the bed and fell asleep.

  This sleep, Zhou Jian slept very sweetly.

  When he woke up, it was already 10 o'clock in the morning. If it were usual times, he would never sleep so late, because there are fewer people on the server in the morning, and whether leveling up or doing quests, everything goes much faster.

  This weekend, the donkey accompanied his girlfriend home, and Zhou Jian was alone in the dormitory. He got used to wearing a headset as soon as he got up and entered the game. Now, suddenly having nothing to do, Zhou Jian felt empty and thought about how to make money with Ghost Killer.

  Zhou Jian thought of searching online for those ancient martial arts families' masters, wondering how they made a living, when his phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number.

  After connecting, a sweet and gentle voice came on, "Hello, may I ask if you are Mr. Zhou Jian?"

  "It's me, who are you?"

  "Mr. Zhou Jian, I am a customer service staff of 'Shen Mo'. We have received your email, in which you mentioned that the system data of your game character 'Dark Sword' was lost, is that correct?"

  Zhou Jian was taken aback. The staff of "Shen Mo" couldn't possibly, with their priority level, have sent an email that could be seen by customer service so quickly, especially on a weekend when the number of on-duty customer service personnel would definitely be fewer than usual.

  But still in doubt, able to receive a call from the customer service staff, Zhou Jian was overjoyed, "Really, have you recovered my account?"