The moment the coffee touched Wen Furui's tongue, he felt the wondrous taste bloom.
It was as if the coffee held an endless magic, pulling his thoughts into an abyss. As he continued to savor it, the bitterness gradually faded, revealing something hidden behind the veil of flavor.
He seemed to taste the elegance, gentleness, and sweetness of a real foxian girl.
He'd only meant to take a sip to clear his head, but this euphoric sensation, like beholding a real foxian, caused him to gulp down a huge mouthful. The entire bottle Pei Guang had given him went straight to his stomach.
He felt like he was being shaken by the head by a foxian girl.
In reality, though, there was no beautiful girl shaking his head, and certainly not a foxian either. His head was simply lolling because he was getting sleepy.
He lay down—and in that moment, he saw a foxian girl waving at him.
As for the foxian girl on his phone? He'd long since forgotten her. All he wanted now was to get a work assignment to Luofu, so that…
He drifted off into sleep, but the sight of him falling asleep left Pei Guang silently observing. As expected of someone whose name includes "Furui": even in his dreams, he was thinking about foxian girls?
But Pei Guang didn't care what he was dreaming of. What he cared about now was whether he could fish out a more valuable special effect from him.
Compared to simply completing the task, Wen Furui's process was already a bit more complicated. If the theory from earlier was valid, then...
Pei Guang slipped his hand into Wen Furui's pocket and felt around. His expression gradually turned serious: he really had found something. And compared to the usual fireworks effects he'd pulled before, this one really was a little better.
Just a little.
[Firework Sound Effect: When equipped to a weapon, replaces its sound with a firework sound effect.]
Looking at this sound effect, then back at the basic fireworks effects he had stored, Pei Guang's expression turned grim.
"Huh?"
Before, what he could fish out were just ordinary fireworks effects—when equipped, weapons would shoot out fireworks. And the more of those effects he equipped, the more fireworks would go off.
But now, this one had sound… it changed the sound of the attacks?
"This is… awesome! It's a whole set!"
Staring at the sound effect, Pei Guang lit up with excitement.
After a month of effort, he was finally seeing the possibility of mass-producing sound effects. Until now, since he started looting bodies, only Sampo had ever yielded a sound effect—and he'd already given that one to Dan Heng to mess around with.
He'd later managed to synthesize another sound effect, but the cost was way too high.
According to that method, one run through a domain was only enough to equip a few people with the same effect. And as someone who believed each member of a party should have a unique aesthetic, Pei Guang felt it was better to stick with their original gear than for everyone to look the same.
But now things were different. Even though what he pulled from Wen Furui was just a basic sound effect, lacking the nuance of something like the "meow" effect that changed with intensity and mode, it was a start.
With one, there could be two. With two, mass production becomes possible. And once you can mass-produce them, you can fuse junk sound effects into better ones.
Based on past synthesis tests, visual effects were easier to synthesize from visual-themed gear. Likewise, sound effects would likely come easier from sound-themed equipment.
That meant one day, everyone might have their own personalized sound effect: it was no longer just a dream.
Imagine this: when others are fighting, their weapons clash with normal metallic clangs. But your team? They're swinging around cute bunny bats, fairy wands, toilet plungers, and giant salted fish, all while producing cat meows, gasps, flushing sounds, or SpongeBob's screams.
What a beautiful scene that would be!
As a player, your weapons shouldn't just be powerful: they need top-tier effects too. Back when he was a newbie baby, Pei Guang had to make do with default gear. But now that he was stronger, a player must have a unique aesthetic.
And right now, Pei Guang felt like he was going further and further down the path of his own distinct taste~
Pei Guang didn't keep his excitement to himself: he immediately told Stelle and March 7th. And no sooner had he finished speaking than Stelle pulled out her baseball bat and fire lance.
"Ah Guang! Enough talking, hurry and apply the effect to my weapon. Even if it's just the most basic set effect, being able to complete the set is perfect."
Since waking up, Stelle had secretly played quite a few games. Because of that, she understood a lot about game mechanics. Even though the special effect she got now was just a basic set effect, she figured she could easily build a set on par with Dan Heng's in the future.
Pei Guang replied, "No problem! I'll apply it to your bat first. It looks and sounds good. But now I'm curious whether the remaining four will drop any effects. If they do, it would prove that the complexity of how we take someone down actually affects our loot."
Thinking back carefully, the enemies who had dropped effects along the way were mostly ones that got one-shotted. The ones who weren't, aside from bosses and elite enemies, seemed to drop more effects the harder they were to deal with.
But that was just a hunch: Wen Furui's case was only a single example. If he wanted to test it thoroughly, he'd need…
Pei Guang turned his attention to his custom map. When those four happily entered his custom world just now, he had quietly switched them over to a Dead by Daylight-style map, and was also preparing to bring out Tutu.
As for what Tutu was doing at that moment? She was, of course, fleeing in terror. At this point, she had run into a dead end, and the masked figure was getting closer. As a Heliobus, she was now truly experiencing what it meant to be drenched in sweat.
Just as she thought she was done for, the environment around her suddenly changed. She realized she was back in reality, standing in front of Pei Guang.
Looking around frantically and confirming it was just Pei Guang and not that terrifying mask, Tutu, the Heliobus, nearly burst into tears.
"That was way too scary!"
Tutu's trembling voice left Pei Guang momentarily stunned. "Too scary? Aren't you a Heliobus? And you're afraid of dark environments?"
"No! You don't get it. There was some insanely terrifying guy in there. I—I almost died!!!"
Pei Guang muttered, "Die? What are you talking about? I didn't put anything in that map that could kill a Heliobus. Heck, even normal people shouldn't be able to die in there. I added special traits, okay? There's no way anyone could die. You probably just scared yourself.
Still, I didn't expect those basic things I added could frighten a Heliobus. I guess my previous decision was right. If I'd stitched in too much horror, it'd have been an unbeatable dungeon. That would've been pointless."