Chapter 73: Soul Contract

Three days ago, in the Carnivore instance, by the banks of the golden river of blood, Qi Si asked what weights God could place upon the balance of their transaction.

God told him silently: “I shall, within the scope permitted by the rules, tacitly allow you to exercise the authority of the Contract. You shall travel through infinite worlds, leading lambs astray with deception, standing shoulder to shoulder with divinity through sin and malice.”

A blood-colored Contract and a gilded quill pen hovered amidst floating light and shadows, as half-bright, half-dark mists conjured phantoms of rules upon them.

With words set as a bond, every condition could be written upon the paper.

Reasonable or unreasonable, fair or unfair… as long as both parties agreed, anything could be traded, and it would be strictly enforced under the guarantee of the rules.

Qi Si contemplated the details, saying with a half-smile, “It sounds like it just adds another layer of security to cooperation and transactions. Even without a Contract, as long as the situation is right, I can still induce others to follow my orders and willingly let me extract value from them.”

God looked down indifferently and said: “You once signed a Contract with the Eerie Game, betting your soul to cast yourself onto the stage of death. You shall also set words as bonds with all living beings, using their souls as Chips to be wagered upon the final gambling table.”

Qi Si said, “This authority seems quite entangled with the Eerie Game. Will the Eerie Game really allow a player like me to poach its territory?”

God asked: “Are you afraid?”

“I’m not,” Qi Si laughed. “On the contrary, I find it quite interesting. It’s just that I’m not a devil; what use would I have for so many souls?”

God said: “You shall transform from a pawn into a player, and you shall eventually dominate the eerie.”

…【Dialectical Game evaluation grade: S, reward points: 3000】

【Dialectical Game True End line te clearance, reward points: 3000】

【Worldview decryption: 100%, reward points: 3000】

【Achievement unlocked: ‘Intern Designer’ (Design a functional instance), reward points: 500】

【Achievement unlocked: ‘I Kill Myself’ (Kill an existence with an appearance similar to your own), reward points: 500】

【Total reward points: 10,000, deposited into points account】

In Qi Si’s account, the total points became 【23,000】.

According to statistics, after clearing their third instance, novice players accumulate an average of about ten thousand points. Twenty-three thousand points was already a very high starting point.

Of course, compared to the small goal of one million points, it was still a long way off.

New settlement text refreshed:

【Congratulations on your perfect clearance of the Dialectical Game instance. You have received the reward skill: Soul Contract】

Facing the “Soul Contract,” a skill that sounded anything but simple, Qi Si did not show much surprise.

This was one of the most important Chips in his deal with God, namely the “authority of the Contract.”

Since it was happening right under the nose of the Eerie Game, the transfer of authority had to go through the instance reward process to be considered legal and compliant.

A small, shimmering golden sphere flew toward Qi Si and merged into his body.

Disjointed information was organized into text and became directly known to him.

【Name: Soul Contract】

【Effect: You may propose to enter into a Contract with any existence. Once the Contract is successfully established, no existence may refuse to fulfill their contractual obligations.】

【Description: The origin of Contracts is older than recorded history; in those times, people were accustomed to requesting gods to act as witnesses. Rights and obligations seemed fair and just, until someone mortgaged their soul for a piece of bread.】

【Success Rate: 20%】

【Note: The result of rolling two ten-sided dice with values from 1 to 10. The single digits are taken as the tens and units place respectively to obtain a value between 1 and 100 (if the result is “0”, it counts as “100”). A roll greater than 80 is determined as a success.】

Qi Si asked, “Why make it so complicated? Wouldn’t rolling a single ten-sided dice and needing a number greater than eight work?”

Eerie Game: 【Skill success rates are not static; they will increase under specific circumstances.】

“What are those specific circumstances?”

【When the time is right, you will naturally know.】

Qi Si feigned dissatisfaction: “This skill looks like it has a trap; it’s only a one-fifth success rate. Even if I don’t use this skill and just trick someone into an agreement, the failure rate wouldn’t be this high.”

Eerie Game: 【After you and the other party reach an agreement on the Contract terms, the dice-rolling phase will not be triggered; instead, the skill will be directly determined as effective. The rolling phase only occurs when the other party’s expression of intent is unclear or when they are unable to express their intent.】

Qi Si asked, “In other words, if the other party doesn’t explicitly refuse, as long as I roll successfully, even the most outrageous Contract will take effect? Even if the other party is a fool, a lunatic, or an existence like a Cthulhu evil god that cannot communicate with humans, I can sign a Contract through a roll?”

【Yes.】

In just a few seconds, Qi Si thought of no fewer than ten ways to trick people into agreeing to a Contract, and no fewer than a hundred ways to make outrageous requests that people wouldn’t directly refuse.

Humans, as a species, actually have very poor awareness of fraud if they haven’t experienced a heart-wrenching scam.

Greed for small advantages, laziness, vanity… various psychological traits allow scammers to succeed time and again, leaving victims with nothing.

Qi Si pondered for a moment and asked again, “How exactly is this success rate defined?”

He considered his luck to be quite poor; he always hit the pity in gacha games and never guessed correctly on multiple-choice questions. A 20% success rate was basically equivalent to no chance for him.

On the system interface, an annotation appeared next to the success rate column:

【Out of one hundred rolls, twenty will definitely be determined as successes.】

“So it’s this kind of algorithm?”

A very cheaty way to play popped into Qi Si’s mind. If it could really work, it would be far too broken.

However, as for the specific operation, he would probably have to find opportunities to test various situations one by one.

After closing the skill description, Qi Si rubbed his chin and said, “The reward for my perfect clearance can’t be just this skill, right? This was clearly something God promised me privately; how can it count as a reward? Counting it this way, including the time in the Carnivore instance, that God has already swallowed two of my reward items…”

Perhaps even the Eerie Game couldn’t stand his attitude anymore, as a line of silver-white text slammed into his face at the right moment:

【Points Mall is now open. Would you like to view it?】

An icon resembling a store appeared in the corner of the system interface.

Qi Si stopped his act of complaining despite getting a good deal and said, “View.”

A modern mall interface spread out before his eyes, its layout and design visibly plagiarized from a certain shopping app on the market.

He could see that the mall was divided into three sections.

The first section consisted of various players’ clearance videos, from S-rank to A-rank; anything lower was not qualified to be put up.

The Eerie Game’s model followed that of video websites; players could upload clearance recordings for other players to pay to watch, and the points earned would be split 50/50 with the Eerie Game.

From what Qi Si understood, there were still many players willing to spend on recordings. They always thought that by watching more, they could learn some strategies and pull off brilliant plays at critical moments.

clearance recordings from the Novice Pool were uniformly unable to be uploaded. As for future ones… Qi Si still maintained a contemptuous attitude toward the act of uploading recordings.

Exposing one’s logic and behavioral patterns meant being studied by others, which in turn meant they could find ways to counter you. Placing oneself in continuous danger for a few points was definitely a losing bargain.

“However, I can watch other players’ recordings to gather some information.”

Although the information on the Game Forum was abundant, it was very disorganized. The more Qi Si read, the more doubts he had.

Rather than waiting for others to summarize, it was better to personally study the behavior of other players in instances.

With any luck, he might be able to figure out what was going on with his bracelet—who knew?

Qi Si had a faint premonition that the matter of the bracelet involved many things, because when he saw God just now, he actually hadn’t thought at all about asking this question that had troubled him for so long.

—It wasn’t simple forgetting, but more like his cognition was being suppressed by some kind of power.

The more he thought about it, the more suspicious it became.

The second section of the mall contained items and supplies provided by the game. Towels and handkerchiefs, burgers and cola, swords and daggers… spanning across various fields.

The useful ones were unaffordable, and the useless ones were a waste of money. Their cost-effectiveness was far inferior to reward items obtained in the game, and they were numerous, messy, and of varying quality.

Qi Si even saw several sets of mock exams for high school and college entrance exams, and a few recently published novels—the kind you could buy on the market.

Would anyone really buy this kind of thing?

He looked at the prices and remaining stock displayed below the products, feeling somewhat skeptical.

The third section was for items sold by players, with the game charging a 5% service fee.

Qi Si glanced at it; even the cheapest item cost twenty thousand points, which was extremely predatory.

There was no shortage of items like the 【Pocket Watch of Fate】, also priced in the twenty-thousand range. Not many people were buying them; the most pathetic one had been sitting unsold for a week and was about to be delisted.

After all, basically no one knew that this item could evolve.

Qi Si actually tried to purchase one, but the game told him that this was a special item and each player could only own one… boring.

Qi Si exited the mall interface with little interest.

An electronic voice sounded at the right time:

【Returning to Game Space】

After becoming an official player, every player receives a Game Space for resting and transit.

Having a moment of quiet alone after clearing an instance before returning to reality could effectively prevent the physical body in reality from suffering a sudden heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage due to intense emotional fluctuations.

The darkness dissipated, and Qi Si found himself sitting on a tattered high-backed chair. The Rose Heart and Pocket Watch of Fate had both returned to him.

Before him was a magnificent palace, the lighting dim, with dust floating and drifting in the air.

Through the thick layers of ash, he could see mythological paintings covering the ceiling and all four walls. Unfortunately, the gilded and red-painted strokes had long been mottled by time, making it impossible to tell what stories they were telling.

The heavy bronze palace doors were tightly closed. After his gaze swept over them, the words 【You may enter the Ruins of the Sunset from here】 appeared in the distance.

A string of text popped up accordingly:

【Would you like to set a display nickname now?】

【Once set, the nickname will be displayed on leaderboards, first-clear records, and public announcements (you currently have two first-clear records).】

Qi Si said, “Chang Xu.”

【Sorry, that nickname is already taken.】

“Then never mind.”

Qi Si did not intend to set a display nickname for the time being.

Right now, no matter how players on the Forum speculated, there was no evidence to prove that the one who achieved te clearance in Rose Manor and Carnivore was the same person.

Once a nickname was set and two records showed the same name, a mindful person could easily piece together bits of information to deduce Qi Si’s actions.

At the very least, Chang Xu himself would definitely know that it was he who had stirred up trouble in the Carnivore instance.

Qi Si moved his gaze and continued to observe his surroundings.

The palace he was in, no matter which angle he looked from, was very similar to the main hall of the temple in the Dialectical Game instance.

Just as dilapidated, just as… dirty.

In fact, because it was a virtual space, he couldn’t even clean it.

After Qi Si expressed his disgust, the Eerie Game told him that the Game Space’s scenery was randomly generated and changing it would cost a large amount of points… fine, then never mind.

Qi Si’s eyelid twitched as he painfully corrected himself: “Although it looks dilapidated, it really is dilapidated.”