Chapter 13: Empty body game

After the black unknown hero rescued the damsel in distress, they put on a show of being coerced and fled, their cloaks waving without leaving a trace. Reasonably, Chu Cheng felt extremely cool during this entire ordeal.

In the past, he enjoyed playing open-world games with a superhero theme, such as DC's Batman and Marvel's Spider-Man. These games allowed the player to freely explore the city as the superhero protagonist, completing the main storyline or engaging in side activities, such as rescuing people and thwarting crimes, offering a realistic superhero simulator.

Of course, no matter how realistic those games were, they could not compare to what he was experiencing now, which was so real that it was surreal.

Chu Cheng had witnessed many injustices in his previous life. Whenever he surfed the internet and came across stories of injustice, like everyone else, he would feel indignant but never took any action.

To be honest, if something happened in front of his eyes, Chu Cheng would probably have ignored it and pretended that he didn't see anything, like most people. They all want to be heroes, but at best, they only criticize online. Only a few have the courage to stand up for what is right.

But everything was different now. He had power.

As the saying goes, in reality, he was submissive, but on the internet, he fought hard. When faced with difficulties, he only needed to press a button, click, and execute a set of justice across the screen.

In addition, as we all know, some words and actions have completely different effects when said or done by different people.

For example, a simple word like "don't" might have different effects on different people depending on the context and the way it's said. To some people, it may sound like "Jiege doesn't want to" (a Chinese phrase that roughly translates to "elder brother doesn't want to"), while to others, it may sound like a reference to a specific card game called "Doudi Zhu", where "one pair and three left in his hand" is a specific combination of cards.

The same goes for punishing evil and promoting good, which requires specialized skills and techniques.

If Chu Cheng were to acquire the physical strength and skills of Batman and beat up a street thug, even if he were to get beaten up in return, the thug might still be trembling in fear, wondering where this powerful hero came from. Upon returning home, the thug may even check if his household registration has been raised.

But Batman is different. Standing at 1.88 meters tall, with fangs and claws, and a menacing demeanor, he beats up, smashes, loots, burns, and fights with almost everyone except killing people. The mere sight of him sends chills down the spines of villains, who are more likely to have nightmares about bats than wet dreams from their childhood.

The most significant advantage is that Chu Cheng can stay out of trouble while Batman takes care of the villains.

After all, Batman is the one causing trouble, not Chu.

Moreover, Chu Cheng will receive benefits for beating up the thugs, such as 12 hero points, seven of which are awarded for defeating seven enemies in total, and the remaining five points for not being spotted by Batman while performing these actions. These additional points are quite rewarding.

After a smoke bomb fell, Chu Cheng instinctively pressed the left mouse button. Batman's combo moves knocked down all the enemies without a single counterattack that could have hit Batman. This was normal, as Batman was forcibly labeled as an "ordinary human being" by the screenwriter. However, audiences who knew a little bit more knew that Batman had already surpassed the limitations of an average human being. It was impossible for ordinary gangsters to compete with him.

In this way, Chu Cheng roughly understood the mechanism of the game. Essentially, it involved manipulating superheroes to fight monsters and earn points. With these points, you could unlock new heroes or obtain hero equipment.

However, Chu Cheng wondered how he could earn points efficiently if he had to rely on fighting crime every night like Chaoying from the anime to upgrade. The reality was that there weren't as many violations of law and discipline everywhere as in Gotham.

The original Batman could level up so quickly partly because of Gotham's unique location and geomantic energy. Lunatics wanted to blow up City Hall on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the city was either being poisoned or neutralized. On Sundays, Batman could go on a business trip with Zhenglian and fight aliens and little monsters for a change of pace. Then he would return the next week to continue fighting crime in Gotham.

Batman's life is so dull and uneventful. Spending all day in high-intensity activities, unable to level up, it's a nightmare. But Chu Cheng wondered, if he wasn't in Gotham, what would he do to level up when there were no lunatics or criminals to control? Help an old lady cross the road or save a cat from a tree? No, that sounds like Superman's job.

At first, Chu Cheng thought this way, but he soon realized that the situation was different from what he thought. He controlled Batman to roam the city for a night and encountered many incidents that required him to take action. For instance, robbing a jewelry store with a mask, following a JK girl late at night, and stopping someone caught stealing a battery car who is currently competing with real people on the spot.

It was only then that Chu Cheng realized that this other world was not as peaceful as he had initially assumed. It seems that the emotions of the people here are particularly easy to inflame, and even minor friction can lead to conflicts.

It wasn't until after 1 am that Chu Cheng felt so sleepy and exhausted that he couldn't bear it any longer. He turned off the game and collapsed onto his bed. Strangely, after playing the game for the past two days, he felt as though his body had been hollowed out. He was only sitting in front of the computer and typing on the keyboard, but he was exhausted.

He threw himself onto the soft bed, without even bothering to take off his clothes after turning off his phone, and fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as he closed his eyelids.

. . .

This time, I slept soundly and when I woke up, the sun was shining brightly. In a daze, I stretched out my arms from the bed and grabbed my phone. To my surprise, it was already 11:30, and I had missed all the morning classes automatically.

It was only then that Chu Cheng realized he had devoted himself to the game when he came back yesterday. He was even more physically and mentally exhausted after playing the game, and he didn't check his phone all night.

It turned out that my classmates had already discussed the accident that happened yesterday, and various groups had exploded. Wei Futong had even sent several messages asking if I was still there and whether I was affected.

I responded to the message and told my good brother that I was fine. Then, I stretched and got up to wash up. However, as soon as my feet touched the ground, I immediately felt sore all over and almost lost my footing.

My muscles were so sore, as if I had been in a high-intensity workout with a muscular man yesterday, and it almost sent me off the bed.

But the strange thing was that although there was no conclusive evidence, after a good night's sleep, I felt that I had more energy than before. My physical condition was unprecedentedly excellent, even my waist was stronger than before.

However, yesterday, I obviously didn't do any strenuous exercise. So, I immediately thought of the game I played all night yesterday.

Is it possible that when I manipulated Batman to fly outside, it consumed my physical energy to a certain extent?

No, it felt like it was not just consuming physical energy. Even my body seemed to have been strengthened by exercise to a certain extent.

Of course, it was definitely impossible to restore all the exercise consumption one by one. There was still an unknown variable in Chu Cheng's heart. If Batman's exercise consumption was really fed back to the player on a one-to-one basis, with his standard otaku physical fitness suddenly exercising at such a high intensity all night, he wouldn't be able to handle it directly.

He quickly realized that this consumption feedback had both advantages and disadvantages. The downside was that he couldn't manipulate Batman from morning to night without restriction because he risked getting sucked dry. And he had reason to speculate that as the superhero abilities unlocked later became more powerful, the burden of controlling those heroes might be even greater.

The good thing was that in just one night, he had vaguely felt a significant improvement in his physical fitness. This counterproductive effect was unimaginable by any conventional exercise method. Relying on this mechanism, as long as he sat in front of the computer without leaving home every day, his physical fitness would improve rapidly, and it would also lay a solid foundation for him to control stronger heroes in the future.

Gradually getting used to the sore muscles, Chu Cheng got up and went to the bathroom to wash up. As soon as he applied toothpaste, the melodious doorbell rang throughout the room.

Chu Cheng was taken aback for a moment, put down his toothpaste and toothbrush, and went to the door. He lay down outside the peephole to look out and saw a pair of long legs. No, it was a long chest. He couldn't quite tell.

He opened the door, and standing outside was the smiling sister of Secret Service agent Chen Meiyue, whom he had just met yesterday.

"Hi, little brother," she said, smiling and waving. "Nice to see you again."