Thriller Paradise
Chapter 99: Intermission (24)

After Feng Bujue returned to his log-in lobby, he left the team so that his presence would not influence Xiao Tan and the rest when they queued up for their games. He had already assigned Passing Rain the role of the vice guild leader, thus handing her the responsibility of designing the guild badge. Even though she had disconnected on him once, with her personality, she had shown herself to be someone trustworthy. She would not disappoint with the stuff that she volunteered for.

Feng Bujue did not queue for a scenario. After spending 100,000 Game Coins, he still had 379,000 left, and that was enough for him to dress himself. First, he went to the market zone ten and sold the Children’s Baseball Bat to the system shop. It had to be said that the price was very fair. It sold for one thousand Game Coins or five RMB. It matched this weapon that had a zero offense point perfectly.

Ammo, potions, and lighting devices were consumables that Feng Bujue needed to restock; however, he did not hurry to buy them. Instead, he went to check out the apparel on sale. Those were the expensive items that would improve his status, and they were something that he had to purchase eventually. Therefore, he decided to see what he could buy with 380,000 Game Coins.

Feng Bujue did not really care that much about how he looked in-game, but that did not mean that he did not care at all. It was fine to wear the default outfit. After all, everyone had to wear it once, and it was free. But since he was going to spend money to buy new apparel, he was not going to buy a random outfit for the sake of improving his status. He did not think that he had the confidence to pull off some postmodern, mismatched outfit.

With the amount of apparel on sale, if he looked through them one by one, he would be at the market until morning. Therefore, Feng Bujue came up with his own system. Initially, he had the ’brilliant’ idea of cosplaying as a comic book character, but he soon realized that such apparel was all incredibly expensive. For example, the set for Doctor Doom would cost 900,000 Game Coins. The set was split into three parts—the mask, the armor, and the cape. In other words, one could have three separate buffs to their status. However, this set could not be purchased separately, and the buyer had to pay 900,000 Game Coins to buy the whole thing.

Feng Bujue did not seem to possess as many Game Coins as he thought.

Compared to Xiao Tan and Laughing Soul, who could spend 1,000,000 Game Coins or about five hundred RMB to expand their inventory by five slots, Feng Bujue’s 380,000 Game Coins were about 190 RMB. The man’s plan was to earn enough money to cover what he had spent on the gaming hub; that goal seemed to move further and further away. After all, the gaming hub was the standard, single-person gaming model NL2055. It cost up to five digits, and two of these hubs would be enough to purchase a car minus the license.

"Hmm... Actually, this set does not appear too comfortable. The cape is green, and the armor along with the cape will hinder one’s mobility." Feng Bujue tried to convince himself.

Then he searched for another character that he was more interested in, Deadpool. That red and black bodysuit was more skin-tight, and it did not come with anything like a cape; one’s movement would be smoother in it. Furthermore, the many belts on the apparel could be attached with guns and swords to save on the inventory space. There were only two parts to this set—the body suit and the face mask. In other words, two status buffs.

However, even the Deadpool outfit went on sale for 700,000 Game Coins.

Feng Bujue once again lied to himself. "Hmm... This is too showy and too despicable for a noble person like myself."

If someone else overheard his comment, they would definitely fire back, "Then, why did you search for it in the first place? And secondly, what kind of person did you say you were again?"

After that, he searched for many other characters. In conclusion, as long as it was an outfit that mimicked a famous character, the selling price would be higher than 500,000 Game Coins. The biggest offender was the Batman suit; it sold for the hefty price of 2,000,000 Game Coins. Based on this week’s exchange rate, that was about one thousand RMB. Of course, there were five different parts—the mask, upper body armor, lower body armor, belt, and cape—to justify that price. In other words, it came with five additional buffs, and the apparel had enough space to store many items, thus saving inventory space.

Note that the apparel slot could be separated into five empty slots, the head, feet, upper body, lower body, and accessory. No matter how many parts the fixed apparel set had, even if there was just one part, it would take up the entire five empty slots

Feng Bujue gave up after a while; the fashion game was not one that he could afford. He decided to buy some isolated parts to make up his apparel, the most common method being just purchasing the upper body plus lower body. If he had some excess Game Coins left after that, maybe he would get an accessory.

Right then, Feng Bujue was struck with inspiration. He filtered his selection based on color and style and managed to find a set up that he was greatly satisfied with. He showed a pleased smile.

If Batman was a career, then the threshold to start this career was more important than the immense natural talent, and that was a family fortune of over seven billion USD. However, to be his nemesis, it would cost much less. For example, his mortal enemy’s attitude toward money and life was filled with mockery and condescension.

Feng Bujue first spent 120,000 Game Coins to buy the upper body. The apparel was a purplish suit jacket, the tail of the jacket reached down to his knees, and the inner shirt was a deep-blue shirt with a dark green vest and tie. He then spent anther 80,000 Game Coins to buy a pair of slacks whose color was slightly darker than the green of the top. Then he used 40,000 Game Coins to buy a pair of dark leather glove.

Using just 240,000 Game Coins, Feng Bujue completed his Joker-esque look. Of course, he did not go so far as to dye his hair green, paint his face white, cut the corners of his lips to his ears, and apply lipstick. He was not that big a fan.

After purchasing the apparel, then came the time to select the randomized buff. The three buffs offered by the upper body were ’Slight buff to recovery speed of Stamina Points’, ’Slight decrease to the exhaustion of Stamina Points when moving heavy objects’, and ’Slight buff to the recovery speed of Life Points’. Theoretically speaking, the Body Enhancement Spell would be useful at the later stages of the game, so the buff that might compliment it would be preferable.

The buffs provided by the lower body was less than satisfactory. They were ’The recovery speed of Stamina Points improve greatly when you are standing on your hands’, ’A slight buff to the height of your jump’, and ’A large buff to the recovery speed of Mana, but in return, the recovery speed of the Life Points will decrease the same amount’. Of these three, Feng Bujue first gave up the last option. The more he studied the first option, the more he felt like he was cheated. Even though it came with a ’great improvement’, one’s Stamina Points should be dropping when one was doing a handstand, right? After everything balanced out, would there even be an increase to his Stamina Points’ recovery speed? It felt like it was playing the player. Therefore, Feng Bujue chose the second option, the one that looked relatively normal.

The gloves were considered an accessory, and the options that Feng Bujue was given were ’Slight decrease to the exhaustion of Stamina Points when moving heavy objects’, ’Slightly decrease the effect of the bleeding status’, and ’Slight increase to the damage of punches’. Of these three choices, the first was more neutral, the second defensive, and the third offensive.

After a brief consideration, Feng Bujue chose the second option. He already had three weapons—the wrench, dagger, and pistol. Under most circumstances, he would be using those weapons instead of his bare hands, so the buff to the punches was not that valuable. Furthermore, Feng Bujue remembered how pitiable a state Passing Rain had been in due to the bleeding status in the Ye Jie Elite Academy scenario. Currently, there was no one in the guild who had a focus in medic mastery, and he did not see himself carrying items like bandages, antidotes, and burn medicine in his inventory. He did not have the money, nor did he have the inventory space. Therefore, picking this buff was for emergencies. Furthermore, the gloves cost the least. When he had the money, he could spend another 40,000 Game Coins to buy another pair of gloves to reroll the buffs.

At this point, Feng Bujue suddenly slapped himself on his head.

Oh! I forgot to ask Xiao Tan to return the Winchester. The dude has probably forgotten all about it.

However, he soon shrugged, thinking, But that weapon is quite useful. It’s beneficial for him to keep it. It should provide more aid to him than it would to me.

After Feng Bujue selected all the buffs of the apparel, the recovery speed of his Life Points improved, he could jump higher, and if he was bleeding, the rate at which he lost Life Points would decrease. Plus... he had created a style for himself in-game.

There were two empty slots left for his apparel—the head and the feet. However, Feng Bujue only had 140,000 Game Coins left. If he bought one, he would not be able to afford another. Furthermore, he needed some money to purchase the consumables, so he stopped looking through the apparel.

The stuff was equipped in the apparel slots, but the change to his appearance would only occur after he entered the log-in lobby. This was to prevent the player’s appearance from changing constantly in public areas.

Feng Bujue went on to purchase five potions. He did not go for the large ones. In terms of pricing, the potions were priced according to their size. The small potion that recovered thirty percent of one’s Life Points cost two thousand Game Coins, the medium potion that recovered fifty percent of one’s Life Points cost six thousand Game Coins, and the large potion that recovered one hundred percent of one’s Life Points cost twelve thousand Game Coins. This pricing was due to the remark that potions in Thriller Paradise had.

’The biggest stack is five, and continuous usage of said item will lower its efficiency.’

Even though it might appear that the smallest potion was the most cost effective, three small potions would recover fewer Life Points compared to one medium potion, and more importantly, it would save more inventory space.

Therefore, the bigger potions were the most effective and most space efficient, so they naturally cost the most.

Finally, Feng Bujue bought a flashlight and ammo for his pistol. Each magazine had seven bullets, and since there was one last bullet in his pistol, the two magazines took up two inventory spaces. Thankfully, he had already bought his apparel. Even though the coat jacket did not have a specific lined pocket like professional apparel for the storage of small blades and ammo, at least the jacket had several pockets on the outside and inside of the coat, where he could still store the ammo.

After finishing his shopping, Feng Bujue left the market. When he returned to the log-in lobby and the elevator doors closed, the system said, "Your apparel has been activated."