[Mission Type: Regular Mission]

[Mission Name: Secret Hunt]

[Mission Objective: Eliminate the hound roaming in Tai Ding Flower Garden]

[Mission Time Limit: 1 hour]

[Mission Reward 1: 500 Experience Points]

[Mission Reward 2: 500 Game Coins]

[Mission Reward 3: 1 random item of random quality]

[Mission Reward 4: 1 random scroll of random quality]

[Failure Penalty: None]

It’s been Triggered.

Without moving her feet, Wang Congshan took a deep breath and calmly reported all the information in the mission prompt over the comm channel.

"Secret Hunt..."

Li Ang frowned slightly, thoughts spinning fast. "The mission objective is to eliminate the hound roaming in Tai Ding Flower Garden, which means this unfinished building.

There’s no number marked in front of ’hound’, so it’s very likely there’s only one. Otherwise it would say ’all’.

Considering your current strength, ’hound’ won’t be referring to an ordinary dog, but some kind of monster.

As for the word ’roaming’,

it implies the hound habitually patrols the floors.

In other words, the hound didn’t suddenly appear when the mission popped up. It’s been here for a while already—the Energy fluctuation detected by the River Map Array is coming from it.

And the hound is also very likely being restricted in some way, unable to leave Tai Ding Flower Garden."

Li Ang paused and looked at Xing Hechou. "Had this unfinished building been flagged as abnormal before this?

For example, the Skynet System noticing part of the structure collapsing, or some pane of glass suddenly shattering, and so on."

"That..."

Xing Hechou hesitated for a moment and lowered his head to glance over the tablet.

After the residents in the township and rural areas responded to the call and relocated into urban high‑rises,

the original township and rural buildings weren’t completely abandoned; they still retain basic power supply,

and their surveillance systems have remained under Skynet’s watch.

"I don’t see any related records."

Scanning through Skynet’s surveillance logs, Xing Hechou said, "In the several months before we arrived, this building had been in a constant state of silence, with no one entering.

Only once, during a storm, the glass in the west corridor on the seventh floor was smashed by hail."

"I see."

Li Ang nodded and continued rapidly analyzing, "Giving a one‑hour time limit means the System believes you’re capable of clearing the mission within an hour.

You haven’t chosen a power system yet and don’t possess any supernatural strength.

At the pace of an ordinary person searching slowly, it’s definitely impossible to thoroughly search every corner of the entire building in just one hour.

Which means the hound won’t be too small in size, and it’s not a hiding‑type entity,

it’s not going to hide passively behind cramped, remote cabinets or such places, waiting for you to find it."

"Mm."

Wang Congshan said softly, "Will it take the initiative to attack?"

"That’s possible."

Li Ang said in a deep voice, "It might attack after smelling your scent,

or it might launch an attack after seeing you or hearing your voice.

In either case, its strength should be roughly on par with yours—the mission rewards don’t exceed your strength and level by too much."

Based on the Special Affairs Bureau’s experience, the difficulty of a regular mission depends on many factors,

such as the inherent mystery of the anomaly and the player’s own level and strength.

For the same mission, the mission objective a High-level Player receives might be to kill the monster,

while a low‑level player’s objective might be just to steal a feather or a tuft of fur from the monster.

From the mission objective, time limit, and rewards and penalties, one can reverse‑deduce the overall difficulty of the mission.

"Since it’s an extermination‑type mission and the rewards aren’t ridiculously high, it should still be within the scope of what you can handle alone."

After thinking for a moment, Li Ang said, "Where are you now?"

"West corridor on the first floor, about to head up."

Wang Congshan spoke softly, "The instant my foot stepped on the stairs, I heard the System notification.

But the watch hasn’t shown any enemy response yet."

The Special Affairs Bureau had issued her a number of standard‑issue pieces of equipment,

including a multifunctional wristwatch capable of detecting hostile intent and analyzing air and liquid components,

a high‑intensity flashlight that can pierce through low‑grade dark energy,

a multifunctional night‑vision device,

a signal flare gun,

an electric Hook Claw,

Tactical Boots that slightly enhance jumping and cushioning,

magazines loaded with some enchanted bullets (capable of hitting incorporeal souls),

bandages and hemostatic gel spray canisters (able to seal wounds and stop bleeding).

These modern pieces of equipment are fully functional without boosting her strength to an excessive degree.

At the same time, structural items like the electric Hook Claw and Tactical Boots were all things she assembled herself, following the coaching team’s guidance,

so they wouldn’t be seen as powerful external cheats that would draw System punishment.

"You stepped on the stairs and then heard the notification..."

Li Ang mused and said, "You should still be fine for now. The hound most likely hasn’t discovered you yet, or else the mission time limit would have been shortened to 30 or 20 minutes.

Continue advancing and searching upward. You don’t need to enter every room—just open the door and take a quick look to confirm there’s nothing unusual.

If there’s any hostile reaction, the watch will automatically send a signal, and I’ll see it on my end."

"Okay."

Rifle in her right hand, Wang Congshan picked up the full‑coverage breathing mask hanging at her waist with her left hand, put it on her face, then lifted her foot and lightly stepped onto the stairs.

The unfinished building was dimly lit,

with scattered chunks of brick and stone, splinters of wood, and exposed rebar everywhere,

and some semi‑transparent plastic sheets that hadn’t been removed still hung in the corridor, fluttering in the wind as if beckoning to the newcomer.

Walking through the dark corridor, the high‑intensity flashlight mounted on Wang Congshan’s assault rifle swayed left and right, illuminating the shadowy dead corners.

Once the regular mission began, the drones circling outside pulled back a bit farther—during the mission, external forces cannot actively interfere,

otherwise it would intensify the anomaly.

This was also why Li Ang did not use his Divine Sense to carefully sweep through the entire building.

"Unpainted concrete walls, bamboo scaffolding, plastic lunch boxes left behind—probably by the construction workers, lighters, cigarette butts..."

Wang Congshan’s breathing echoed inside the full‑coverage mask,

as she searched all the way forward, reporting in detail everything she saw to Li Ang and the others along the way, leaving nothing out.

"Second floor search complete. I’m heading up to the third floor now."

She slowly climbed the stairs, when suddenly—

"Drip."

A drop of transparent liquid seeped down from the ceiling and landed right on the visor of her breathing mask.

"Seepage from last night’s rain?"

Instinctively, Wang Congshan stepped back half a pace and looked up at the ceiling above the stairwell, which was full of cracks and gloomily discolored,

thinking of the many pothole‑like puddles she had seen outside the unfinished building,

and frowning as she used her finger, through her Tactical Glove, to gently wipe the liquid from the visor.

The visor and glove surfaces were made of waterproof material that, like lotus leaves, repelled water and were resistant to corrosion and high temperatures.

Buzz!

The wristwatch on her arm vibrated faintly. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Her heart tightened as she lowered her head to look at the watch.

There was no red light emanating from the watch’s edges, meaning no hostile target had been detected for the moment,

but a line of small text lit up on the watch face.

[Abnormal odor detected]

Odor?

Instinctively, Wang Congshan looked at the droplet of liquid that had gotten on her fingertip.

Transparent, faintly yellow, more viscous than water, with a kind of... highly putrid, nauseating stench.

It wasn’t rainwater...

As the distance closed, the multifunctional wristwatch on her hand finished analyzing the liquid’s composition.

On the luminous dial with a yellow background and black characters, words appeared.

Corpse oil.