Chapter 49 - Black Tower selection

Tang Mo had already guessed Fu Wenduo's identity, but when she heard it, she couldn't help but steal a few glances at the man beside her. Fu Wenduo's senses were keen and he caught Tang Mo's glance very quickly.

Tang Mo nodded without changing his face when he was caught peeking. Fu Wenduo pauses for a moment, looking at him with a slightly more meaningful gaze.

Luo Fengcheng continued, "Now that we know each other, I'll explain what 'The black tower selection' really is. But before that, Mr. Fu asked me to confirm that your identity as a stowaway is ..."

Fu Wenduo's voice was calm: "On November 16, I was on a secret mission at the border."

Tang Mo and Luo Fengcheng were the first to understand what he meant.

Anyone who kills to eliminate players and get into the game is a stowaway in the sense of The black tower. But there are many different reasons for killing. Some are real crimes, some are for other reasons. Tang Mo has long thought about why Fu Wenduo is a stowaway. Especially after they met in the Pinocchio copy, Tang Mo had even more questions in his mind.

Fu Wenduo does not behave like a vicious murderer in the Pinocchio copy. If the reason he became a stowaway was to complete a secret mission, that would make sense. It also explains why Tang Mo feels different from the other players in Pinocchio. There is a stone-cold military bearing, a deep, hidden edge, a sheath of blades.

"Although I've heard of Mr. Fu School for a long time, it's the first time we've met, so there are some things I have to ask in advance." Luo Fengcheng was not ashamed of his suspicion of Fu Wenduo when he got his answer, but he was honest: "In late November, after I left The black tower game on the ground floor, I met the Atak organisation. In some way I got their approval and joined them officially as a reservist. Then I found out about Nie Fei. Tang Mo, you've met Nie Fei, you should remember him."

Tang Mo recalls, "I did meet him when I left Mario's copy, he was young but quite calm."

"Nie Fei's ability is flight. To be precise, his ability is not ordinary flight. He can walk in the air with the help of some kind of medium." Luo Fengcheng took out a piece of white paper and drew something on it with a water pen: "Air we cannot see, and Nie Fei's supernatural ability does not allow him to walk on it. But apart from air, which is an ethereal gas, there are many other things he can walk on by force."

Luo Fengcheng draws a number of dense dots on white paper and writes two words next to them: sand.

"For example, if you scatter some sand into the air during a battle, Nie Fei can walk through the air on the basis of that sand." He drew a rough model on paper, "The fine sand becomes solid ground under his feet. And stepping on non-substantial ground, he can reach speeds of up to a hundred metres per second when he uses his psychic powers. And there is no limit to his psychic powers."

Fu Wenduo asked, "Can you only walk on something like sand?"

Luo Fengcheng shakes his head: "The sand is just an analogy. Apart from that, the most surprising thing about Nie Fei's powers is that they are constantly changing. When I first met him, he could only walk on relatively large objects, such as stones and planks of wood. But by the time he was killed by the stowaway group, he could already walk on sand. What does this mean? Perhaps when some more time passes, he will be able to walk on smaller substances without the help of sand. In the end, even walking directly anywhere at will. That's spatial displacement."

Tang Mo immediately thought of Little Fatty's ability: " Zhao Ziang's ability is also similar to spatial movement, but he can only move other things, not himself. When I first met him, all he could move was something relatively small, and now he can already move something big very quickly."

"He's not progressing as fast as Nie Fei." Luo Fengcheng said, "Zhao Ziang has not experienced such a change as a faster heart rate."

Tang Mo closes his mouth and continues to listen.

"On the night of 17 November, three hospitals in Shanghai received four patients, each with no obvious pathology, just a persistently rapid heartbeat and irritability. The slowest patient had a heart rate of 119 and the fastest one had a heart rate of 136," Luo Fengcheng said. "This was not noticed at the time and was thought to be an unidentified condition. One of the experimenters in Shanghai B ...", Luo Fengcheng says after a pause, "was a young girl who had just finished her PhD and she noticed the condition and reported it to the Institute."

Luo Fengcheng recounted what had happened: "When I learned of the situation, I immediately brought all four patients to the institute and the three teams worked together to investigate the mutations that had occurred in them. At the same time, I reported the situation to Beijing."

Fu Wenduo nods, "I saw this information in the Beijing Institute's database and decided to come to Shanghai to see what was going on." He paused for a moment and said, "There is no one alive at the Beijing Institute."

Luo Fengcheng: "Is that really the case ..."

All three were silent for a moment before Luo Fengcheng looked at Tang Mo: "Have you calculated your maximum heart rate?"

Tang Mo: "About 169, I didn't count it."

Fu Wenduo: "171."

The figures for the two were very close. Luo Fengcheng gave them a look and closed the folder on his desk. He looked solemnly at the two players in front of him, one an official player and the other a stowaway, and after a long moment he smiled, "Then all that follows is my guess."

Half an hour later, Tang Mo left Luo Fengcheng's office first. Fu Wenduo had travelled all the way from Beijing to Shanghai to find out more about the subject, and naturally had some questions for Luo Fengcheng. Tang Mo was not interested in eavesdropping on such conversations, so he left the office alone and leaned against the wall, pondering.

The black tower is a synonym for this phenomenon, given by Luo Fengcheng.

The black tower is a random selection of people whose common manifestation is a sustained increase in heart rate over a period of three days, which cannot be relieved by medication. They were also irritable, anxious and, in severe cases, had a desire to commit crimes. Of the four patients studied by Luo Fengcheng, the one with a heart rate of 136 was sent to hospital because he had injured someone in a restaurant.

Yet he did not kill the man.

At the end of three days, all four patients, without exception, had disappeared.

It is not a given that those who are selected for The black tower will make it into the game, and many of them do not make it through the three days. Many of them did not make it through the three days, but once they did, their powers were more powerful. Fu Wenduo was the first player in the world to clear the first level of The black tower, and Tang Mo was the first player in the world to clear the hard mode tower attack game.

As for Nie Fei, he was once the most powerful psychic in Atak (better than Jackass). Without that accident, he might have made it through the first level of The black tower.

Luo Fengcheng, confronted with this completely random selection, offers two speculations: "Firstly, this mutation is given by The black tower, which allows some humans to develop different traits, and this selection affects the strength of the player's powers in the process that follows. However, many of the humans who were selected didn't even make it into the game, and The black tower didn't exactly give these players the privilege, so why would they be given this mutation? So that possibility is only 40%."

In the darkness of the car park, Tang Mo whispers Luo Fengcheng's second guess.

"Nothing to do with The black tower, just with each person themselves? ..."

The fact that this variation is named The black tower selection does not mean that it is necessarily given by The black tower. It's like psychic powers. There were no real psychics in the world before Earth came online (Fu Wenduo and Luo Fengcheng both confirmed this with Tang Mo earlier), so the appearance of psychics must be related to The black tower. But everyone's powers are different, and their strengths and weaknesses vary, so whether they are given by The black tower, or whether they are something that the player possesses and is triggered by The black tower, is anyone's guess.

In all likelihood, The black tower acted as a catalyst to bring out the latent psychic powers that humans themselves possess.

Full players and stowaways receive a stronger catalytic effect from The black tower, so they are more likely to develop powers. Preppers have a weaker presence, The black tower gives less of a catalytic effect, and they have a harder time gaining powers.

This speculation is somewhat plausible.

So perhaps The black tower selection, like the powers, has nothing necessarily to do with The black tower; it's the players who get selected who are themselves qualified to be selected.

Tang Mo was standing against the wall when the door to the room beside him creaked open. He turned his head to look.

Fu Wenduo walked out of the room and looked at him as well.

They looked at each other for a moment before Fu Wenduo smiled and said, "You want to know more?" In the room, Fu Wenduo had stayed behind because he wanted to learn more about The black tower from Luo Fengcheng, and Luo Fengcheng also wanted more information from the outside world.

Tang Mo did not deny it. He looked at the tall, handsome man in front of him and his mind inexplicably recalled the slightly middle-aged codename.

... O Lords.

As if sensing Tang Mo's thoughts, Fu Wenduo closes the door behind him and they walk into the darkness together. Fu Wenduo said, "The Dragon is not my code name, it is the code name of the whole unit. Every secret unit in China does not have an official number, only a code name. The Southwest Military Region's Special A Team, codenamed Kingpin Dragon."

With this explanation, Tang Mo coughed: "Mr. Fu, I do want to know some information about other places. You've come from Beijing, you've travelled through three provinces and two cities, you should have seen more and know more about the outside world."

"I came from Beijing in a hurry, and it only took me about four days. The stay was so short that I didn't know the full extent of the information. But I do know a lot more than you do." After a pause, Fu Wenduo's voice trailed off, "Just call me Fu Wenduo."

Tang Mo didn't call out the name, he went straight to the point: "What is the price in exchange for the information?"

Tang Mo knew that Fu Wenduo must have gotten a lot of information from Luo Fengcheng just now. Luo Fengcheng knew basically everything he knew, and Fu Wenduo knew almost everything too. He didn't have a lot of information that would move Fu Wenduo, but he was desperate to know what was going on outside.

In particular, the news from Beijing.

Tang Mo's last best friend was in Beijing.

Tang Mo was ready to tell Fu Wenduo what he knew about the Underlander Kingdom and the Monster World. Tang Mo turned his head to look as he heard a low, slow laugh from the darkness. The light was too dim for him to make out the other man's face, but he could only make out a vague outline.

Fu Wenduo said, "No, just tell you straight away."

Tang Mo's footsteps were halted: " Mr. Fu?"

Fu Wenduo: "As you said in the Pinocchio copy, it's been a long time, Tang Mo, no need to be so rusty."

Tang Mo was silent for a moment: "... Why, Fu Wenduo ?"

Why not have to give anything to get valuable information. He didn't think he had a good enough relationship with this man to make the other man selfless.

Fu Wenduo's voice is calm, but with a sense of meaning: "Before I came to Shanghai, I went to Suzhou. There, I killed three stowaways."

Tang Mo suddenly understood what he was trying to say.

"Luo Fengcheng said that seven people from the group had come to Shanghai and killed many people. In Suzhou, they killed even more people. When I first arrived in Suzhou, it was almost an empty city. It wasn't that there were no players, it was that everyone was in hiding, and even in the daytime there was no one on the streets."

Tang Mo said, "You killed the last three men of that group?"

"Yes."

a long time, Tang Mo: "... Thanks, that's where I'm from."

Fu Wenduo smiled: "No need to say thank you, it's all the same. Some things may seem important, but in fact they are not as precious as one might think when compared to other things. If I know what you want to know and it doesn't touch my bottom line, perhaps I can tell you a little. After all, you are the other owner of MOMO."

Tang Mo didn't hesitate to say, "How's Beijing?"

The capital and political centre of China before the Earth came online, Beijing.

Beijing How's it going?

Fu Wenduo stopped in his tracks and in the darkness Tang Mo noticed that the man seemed to be looking at himself.

"It's similar to Shanghai. It's not going to get better, it's only going to get worse."

--------------------

The author has something to say.

Tangtang: Alas, there is nothing left in me to make his heart flutter, how can I trade for information!

All readers & the lovely author: ... You're the one who can make Mr. Fu's heart flutter!!! [Hate face

Mr. Fu: [silent nod of approval face