At that moment, a panicked scream rang out beside Ma Jun's ear.
"How can this be a Fierce-tier dungeon?! How is that even possible?!"
"We're clearly newbies, still under newbie protection! Why were we sent straight into a Fierce-tier instance?!"
The voice trembled violently, filled with uncontrollable fear.
Ma Jun turned his head and looked over.
Beside him stood several other figures.
These people were likely the other "lucky ones" chosen to enter this round of the game with him.
The Shock Horror Game had been active for ten years now.
After the initial few batches, everyone entering the game for the first time was a sixteen-year-old boy or girl.
At this moment, most of them were pale-faced, clearly terrified.
After ten years of dissemination, although the actual content of the Shock Horror Game was strictly prohibited from spreading, its basic rules were common knowledge.
Everyone knew that dungeon instances were divided into five tiers.
From lowest to highest:
Dread, Fierce, Ghost, Evil, and Extreme.
As for tiers beyond that—
no one had ever experienced them.
Or rather, no one had survived long enough to talk about them.
Generally speaking, newcomers entering the game would receive newbie protection.
Their first three instances were almost always Dread-tier.
The difficulty was relatively low, and as long as they didn't act recklessly, the death rate wouldn't be very high.
But none of them had expected—
That the very first horror instance they ever experienced would be Fierce-tier!
"There's only one possibility."
A calm voice suddenly rose from within the crowd.
Everyone subconsciously turned to look.
The speaker was a black-haired teenage boy with sharp features and a resolute aura.
At first glance, he gave off a strong sense of reliability.
Ma Jun had already taken note of them earlier.
Among this group, only three people were relatively calm.
Himself, this black-haired boy, and a cold, aloof girl with long black hair.
The black-haired boy continued,
"There's a genius among us!"
His gaze sharpened.
"Only if someone's panel attributes exceed the upper limit of what a Dread-tier dungeon can handle would the instance be forcibly upgraded to Fierce-tier!"
As he spoke, his eyes shifted to the cold, long-haired girl.
"Jiang Han—it's you, isn't it?"
"I noticed long ago that you were hiding your strength."
"In the last military district competition, you clearly held back!"
Jiang Han raised her head and glanced at him, her expression unchanged as she replied coldly,
"Mu Chen, don't talk nonsense."
The onlookers immediately erupted into excited chatter.
"Military district? You're from the military?!"
"Were you chosen as elite seeds?"
"Big shots, please take us with you!"
"Hahaha, with military elites here, we're safe this time!"
Ma Jun glanced at the two dazzling figures.
So they were from the military.
This world had never been fair.
And in front of the Shock Horror Game, that was no different.
Some powerful families, in order to increase their children's survival chances, had established military-style training camps and sent their kids into them.
They had professional instructors—
some even seasoned veterans of the Shock Horror Game.
These youths possessed adaptability far beyond that of ordinary people.
Their understanding of the Shock Horror Game was likewise leagues ahead.
However—
Ma Jun clearly wasn't an ordinary person.
He had no money, no power, no background, and had never entered a military camp.
But when it came to understanding dungeon instances—
Even if all the world's veterans were put together, they couldn't compare to him.
From Mu Chen's words, Ma Jun quickly caught onto a key piece of information.
Panel attributes.
Someone in this group had attributes exceeding the Dread-tier limit.
Ma Jun immediately opened his own status panel.
The panel consisted of five major attributes:
Strength, Agility, Constitution, Spirit, and Charm.
For an average adult male, the base value of each was 5.
Ma Jun's panel displayed:
[Name: Ma Jun]
[Level: LV1]
[Strength: 6]
(Tempered through training; roughly the level of a regular gym-goer.)
[Agility: 5]
(Standard human level.)
[Constitution: 6]
(No different from an average person in most areas—except for one crucial male organ that was clearly overdeveloped!)
[Spirit: 5]
(Genius to the left, lunatic to the right—you stand right in the middle.)
[Charm: ???]
(…)
The moment he saw his panel, Ma Jun froze.
What the hell?
What was going on with his Charm stat?!
Unable to determine it?
Did it even crash the system?!
He quickly calmed himself down.
This wasn't unexpected.
No wonder…
He had noticed his abnormality since childhood.
From the time he was a toddler, he had been especially popular with older women.
As long as his mother took him outside, within five minutes he'd be completely surrounded.
Later on, he figured out a pattern.
The older they were compared to him, the stronger their affection became.
At first, it wasn't too bad—
he was just a kid, after all.
But once he hit puberty, and a certain part of his body began developing at breakneck speed—
Things started going very wrong.
The feelings those older sisters and aunties had toward him began to change in nature.
Plenty of them would take advantage of moments when no one was paying attention to sneak in a few touches.
It left teenage Ma Jun completely overwhelmed.
Of course, he wasn't exactly innocent either.
If someone touched him, he'd naturally touch back.
As a result, despite his young age, he had already become a qualified veteran driver.
A big-truck driver, at that.
He never expected that this bizarre innate talent of his—
Could actually be brought into the Shock Horror Game!