Chapter 36: XB's Career Introduction
The information from the diary ended abruptly. The second piece of evidence was a video, just a few minutes long, showing a small, dimly lit room where several figures were discussing a plan.
Unexpectedly, in addition to members of the Life Alchemy Society, there were also black-robed figures from the Curse Cult among them.
As the camera panned across the room, the player learned that the alchemical bomb plot was a joint conspiracy between the Curse Cult and the Life Alchemy Society. To ensure the plan's success, a council member from the Life Alchemy Society was traveling from the Kingdom of Luins to provide support.
This, including the alchemical bomb itself, had never happened in the previous game. It was obvious that Zhou Ning's appearance had completely altered a part of the plot.
But just as they were about to reveal the council member's identity and discuss the details of their plan, the video clip ended.
Just like that? Gone?
Zhou Ning was shaking with anger. Nowadays, even an A.I. knows how to create a good cliffhanger.
Would it kill them to reveal a little more of the plan?
Then again, after watching that clip, even he was starting to believe he was the protagonist. Putting everything else aside, the major events happening in the game right now—the Curse Cult's sacrifice, the Alchemical Ghost, and the upcoming alchemical bomb—all revolved around one central figure: him.
It now seemed that he had completely changed the game's early-stage plot. But he had no choice. What else could he do? He could only take it one step at a time.
Zhou Ning shook his head and started browsing the game's official forum.
He had to admit, the game really had the potential to go viral. It had only been a few days since he last checked, and the number of registered users on the forum had already climbed to twenty million. And this was before the closed beta had even started.
It was just like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077—already a phenomenon before it was even released.
Currently, most of the posts on the forum were related to him. After all, he was the man at the center of both promotional videos.
Zhou Ning narrowed his eyes and scrolled through the posts for a while. Most of them were useless. After searching for a long time, he finally found an analysis post with some value: "Teaching You How to Get Started with Apocalypse in Five Minutes (Part 1) - A Brief Analysis of Career Choices".
The poster's handle was XB, an old acquaintance of Zhou Ning's from his past life.
Besides Apocalypse, there was another extremely popular MOBA on Blue Star, and XB had been a professional player in that game. During a crucial teamfight in a major tournament, XB was playing a crowd-control hero. The team's shot-caller told him to take down the most vulnerable enemy. XB's team executed the call with full force, flawlessly taking down the most vulnerable enemy on the screen—a single ranged creep.
Their team ultimately lost the match, and XB was vilified by fans as a "clueless Muggle." He left the professional scene and devoted himself to Apocalypse. In his previous life, he and Zhou Ning had even been arena teammates for a while.
Although the guy had slow reflexes and was the butt of many jokes, his game analysis was actually quite professional. It was fascinating to read a post from an old acquaintance from the perspective of an NPC.
Zhou Ning clicked on the post without hesitation.
XB: "Hey viewers, it's your old friend XB. I'm so happy to be meeting you all in Apocalypse. From today on, I'm saying goodbye to my identity as a pro player and joining you all on this new adventure. I'm sure you've all seen the second promo video. Our boy Wayne continued his strong performance from the last episode and took down that invisible supernatural weirdo. Throughout the clip, he vividly demonstrated the power of the Ranged Gunslinger class."
Zhou Ning stared at the screen. Brother, please act normal. You're scaring me.
He continued to read.
XB: "Without further ado, I'll now analyze the pros and cons of each class in Apocalypse based on the information we have so far."
He had uploaded a video with the post and began to analyze the class strengths frame by frame.
video.mp4
After watching the video, even Zhou Ning, the person at the center of it all, was almost convinced.
XB: "There are at least three classes in the first promo: Wayne Stewell's Ranged Gunslinger, the cultists' Warrior class, and the spellcasting cultist, who I suspect is a Mage. Did you notice that at the seventeen-minute mark, the Warrior cultists all try to stun Wayne with a charge? You can see their hands raise, but their charge seems to have a range of about 25 yards. Notice how Wayne is always kiting them at the edge of this range, leaving the two Warriors with no way to touch him. And look here—Wayne's target priority is always monster, then Mage, then Warrior. This proves that in his mind, the Warrior is the least threatening, which turns out to be true. Therefore, in my opinion, the Warrior class has no mobility, is too bulky, can't close the distance, and is a completely braindead class. Unless you have a diehard warrior dream, I wouldn't recommend it for newbies."
XB: "As for the Mage, it seems to have some decent burst damage. It looks like it can deal damage from a distance and has some crowd control. The only problem is the long cast times, so its effectiveness in PvP is questionable."
XB: "There are also three classes in the second promo: Wayne's Ranged Gunslinger, Sherlock's Meteorologist, and the monster Holvig Guy's Psychic. As you can see, the Meteorologist seems to be more of a support class, combining support and damage, which I'd highly recommend for female players. As for the Psychic, we don't have much information yet, but judging by the introduction, it should be pretty strong. Overall, Wayne's Ranged Gunslinger is the hero class of the early game—strong damage, high mobility, and most importantly, huge potential for development. How could the protagonist's class, the developer's favorite son, be weak? My advice to everyone is don't fight the meta; pick a strong class. But for those who want to choose other classes, don't worry. Every new patch anoints a new god-tier class. Maybe yours will be awesome next version?"
Well damn. The analysis is well-reasoned and logical.
Zhou Ning was truly amazed. As expected of you, XB.
The content of the analysis couldn't be described as wrong; it could only be described as completely and utterly wrong.
The Warrior class that XB had trashed was actually the strongest class in the early stages of the game. It was, after all, the class of Leonardo, the protagonist of the previous timeline. In that life, everyone, including XB himself, ran around swinging a big sword.
Meanwhile, the Ranged Gunslinger class he so highly recommended hadn't even been fully implemented yet and was still in its infancy.
It would be better if he changed the title of his article to "Teach You How to Meet Your Apocalypse in 5 Minutes"...
What was truly funny was that a considerable number of players actually agreed with this nonsensical post, and the official forum administrator had even marked it as a featured post.
Zhou Ning sighed. Why do I get the feeling this game is going to bomb?
However, XB's post did remind Zhou Ning of something important: he really needed to create his own unique class system as soon as possible. Given the game's current popularity, if he could come up with a perfect new class, the benefits would be countless.
According to the in-game standards, a complete class system needed:
More than 6 professional specialties.
2 core buff skills.
More than 10 active skills.
His own skills—Wave Breathing, Precision Mechanics, Mystic Arts, and Marksmanship—could barely be considered professional specialties. Swift Pursuit, which passively boosted his combat power, could serve as a core buff skill. The only thing he was really lacking was active skills.
From that perspective, he wasn't actually too far from his goal.
After closing the control panel and washing up, Zhou Ning headed to the Alchemy Building to start his daily routine as usual.
Overnight, the atmosphere at Wake University was a world away from the day before.
Early this morning, after Sherlock had left, a group of police officers arrived, took away Holweg Guy's body, and announced that the Alchemical Ghost case had been solved.
Because of the involvement of supernatural powers, the students were buzzing with excitement and still discussing it. One of the key figures, Maggie's ex-boyfriend, was terrified and was even overheard thanking Holweg for not killing him. The faculty and staff, however, breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Discovering that a supernatural monster had been hiding among the students was a good thing, in a way. Although a few people had died, at least more students had been saved from harm.
---
⭐ $5 Tier – Early Access!
Stay 50 chapters ahead of public releases on RoyalRoad and Scribble Hub.
Latest available chapter: 88.
Chapters are uploaded as soon as they're completed, so you'll always be ahead of the curve.
By joining, you'll be directly supporting the story while enjoying exclusive early access.
🔗 Patreon link is in My Profile/About.
⚠️ Please select your membership carefully, as I have multiple novels ongoing.
🍎 If you're on Apple, consider subscribing through your browser instead — it's cheaper for you, and I'll receive payments faster.