Still, the same saying held true: an illusion was not a game.
In an illusion that so closely mirrored the rules of reality, what existed would always exist; it wouldn't vanish into thin air just because some condition hadn't been met.
As long as one knew where the treasures were hidden, they could go straight there and retrieve the concealed equipment and items, even without rescuing those NPC survivors.
The only difference was that these items, not obtained as quest rewards, would be in an unauthenticated state and would require additional points to certify ownership.
In fact, before Luo Jie's rebirth, many players who knew the locations of these stashes would skip the tedious prerequisite quests and head directly to their targets, leading to frequent skirmishes over the loot.
At this moment, however, there was clearly no one around to compete with him for these hidden treasures.
"Let me think… I believe there's one in the souvenir shop…"
Luo Jie crossed his arms, tapping his chin with his fingers.
After all this time, many memories were hazy and indistinct; he needed to concentrate to recall them properly.
The souvenir shop specialized in local handicrafts, its interior decorated in a strong Native American style.
Without a hint, no one would ever suspect that such a small shop, selling nothing but tourist trinkets, concealed one of the only few purple-rarity weapons in the entire illusion.
Entering through the shop's door, Luo Jie paid no attention to the seemingly imposing but actually wooden toy tomahawks and spears hanging on the walls. Instead, he went straight to a plastic mannequin in the center of the shop, dressed as a Native American hunter.
He took down the stringless shortbow from the mannequin's hand, and a prompt immediately appeared in his visual projection.
[Stringless Indian Hunting Bow]
Type: Item
Rarity: F (White)
Description: A shortbow painted with mysterious totems. The bow itself is intact and can be strung for use.
Upon seeing this seemingly unremarkable shortbow, the corners of Luo Jie's mouth curled upward slightly, almost imperceptibly.
This bow was, without a doubt, the biggest trap in this illusion.
If one followed the implication and replaced the string with any bowstring available in the shop, the bow would only reveal its F-rarity green quality. Little did they know, the true bowstring was the guitar string from a wooden guitar by the counter.
Merely rescuing the shop owner wouldn't prompt him to reveal this secret. Only if the owner was bitten by a zombie, and the player happened to possess the [Z-Virus Antidote] and used it to extort him, would this miserly NPC have a chance of disclosing the secret of this hidden purple weapon.
With practiced ease, Luo Jie found the wooden guitar by the counter, plucked the thickest string, and strung it onto the shortbow. Immediately, the bow revealed its true form.
[Quetzalcoatl's Indian Hunting Bow]
Type: Shortbow
Rarity: F (Purple)
Level: Lv1
Power: 40
Skill 1: Concealed String (Passive) – Automatically hides and accumulates killing intent when drawn.
Skill 2: Killing Intent Arrow (Passive) – Converts accumulated killing intent into true damage up to 200% of weapon power.
Description: A warrior's bow blessed by Quetzalcoatl, reserved only for the finest hunters of the tribe.
Certification Cost: 5000 points.
As the information he'd known before rebirth had indicated, the [Quetzalcoatl's Indian Hunting Bow] was clearly a weapon with extremely polarized characteristics.
On one hand, its base attack was abysmally low, even inferior to a green-rarity pistol.
On the other hand, its skill effects were astonishing: a normal attack plus a killing intent attack could deal up to 300% power damage, which was almost a guaranteed kill if it hit a vital spot.
In short, it was an ambush bow. Without teammates to cover him, he'd likely only get one shot off in a fight.
But for Luo Jie, one shot was more than enough to change the outcome of many things.
Aside from this purple shortbow in the souvenir shop, most of the other hidden treasures in the surrounding stores were green-rarity equipment and items. Luo Jie didn't even bother checking their attributes, just stuffed them into his storage space.
His lack of interest didn't mean others would feel the same; affordable green-rarity gear was always a hot commodity in the player market, never lacking buyers.
He glanced at the time on his phone; exactly fifty minutes had passed.
On the surveillance screen, the six members of the USS team had reached the third floor of the building.
"Time's about right. Time to go give them a little surprise…"
…
A few minutes later.
Second Floor, Central Business District, Fortune City.
A USS team member, wielding a combat knife, carefully examined several corpses on the ground, then stood up and shook his head at the others.
"These bodies are like the ones before, all killed by the same bladed weapon. From the way they're lying, it looks like whoever did this started from the bottom floor and worked their way up."
"Ninja, are you saying one person killed all the zombies in this building? There must be over ten thousand! With just a knife? You're shitting me, right? Could you pull that off?"
A burly team member removed his gas mask, revealing a white face with burn scars at his temple.
The member codenamed "Ninja" actually considered the question, which was clearly meant as a joke, then shook his head. "Given enough time and supplies, maybe. But judging by how fresh these zombie wounds are, the kills can't be more than 72 hours old…"
"So, besides clearing out the survivors here, we've also got to deal with some kind of monster that can take out ten thousand zombies by itself?"
"Not necessarily a monster. Could be an evolved human," interjected "Four Eyes," the team's virus expert. Despite the unglamorous callsign, she was a rather attractive mixed-race woman.
"Oh? Like Subject One back at HQ, Alice?" The burly demolitions expert, "Roadblock," let out a low whistle, his tone suggestive.
"I've seen the combat data on Subject One. She's pretty much perfect, except for her lack of field experience… But this unknown individual is really strange. I even wonder if they've evolved some kind of biological energy core inside their body. Otherwise, it's hard to explain the extreme contrast between their inhuman stamina and their relatively weak physical strength."
As "Ninja" spoke, he couldn't help but feel a flicker of relief. After all, stamina didn't directly translate to combat power. If the roles were reversed, and it was raw strength that allowed them to slaughter ten thousand zombies in a short time, that would be truly terrifying.
After methodically searching all the rooms on the second floor, the USS team members covered each other as they moved down the stairwell into the first floor.
"Wait a minute. Something feels off."
Upon entering the first floor, the team leader, "Wolf Mother," seemed to notice something and raised her hand, signaling everyone to halt.