Chapter 147 Drawing Blood

[Affected by this sudden emergency, the system's operational capacity has fallen below the baseline. To better maintain the system's basic functions, a new round of adjustments will be carried out...]

[To alleviate the pressure of insufficient computing power, the system will charge a ninety-five percent service fee on the Filthy Blood provided by deployed personnel to ensure that core sectors receive secure protection...]

Ninety-five percent?!

Upon seeing this message, Colin couldn't help but blurt out a profanity.

"Can you even call this a service fee? This is fucking draining blood straight from the main artery..."

Colin finally understood why the Mourning Watcher, standing over five meters tall, only yielded a dozen or so milliliters of blood—it was all being sucked away by this bastard...

Moreover, this ratio was utterly outrageous.

However, considering that this was also a compromise made by the system for their safety, he ultimately had no choice but to let it go.

[The system will shuffle all existing personnel serial numbers and generate random ones to ensure that the numbers have no correlation with the survivors, preventing unknown infections from spreading to survivors via their serial numbers...]

"And so I randomly rolled 123456..."

Colin muttered in self-deprecation...

He had always wondered why the serial numbers were so casual, never expecting there to be such an arrangement behind them.

[Drawing from the previous generation's system logs, the system has decided to correct "Mist Survival" to "Global Mist Survival Game," introducing the game concept into the minds of all survivors...]

[Remarks: This measure reduced the despair and depressive emotions of all survivors by forty percent and prevented the vast majority from falling into "absolute despair" at the critical moment. This initiative has proven to be a great success...]

So this was why... Russell never mentioned that this was a game?

Colin had nothing to say to this and silently read on.

[Detected that the "Sanction" has restarted and is about to attempt destruction...]

[Attempt failed...]

[Will invest 0.1 to confront it when necessary...]

"This 'Sanction' was targeting us, right? Is it because of this 0.1 protection that the 'Sanction' was delayed by seven days?"

Colin came to a sudden realization. The system's text rarely appeared in red; whenever it was red, it meant it was utilizing the "Filthy Blood"...

Turns out, back then, the system had already begun its resistance...

"It seems that 'Filthy Blood' has some other functions we haven't discovered yet, capable of protecting our sanity in front of high-ranking entities..."

Next, the system seemed to have fewer reservations, cascading massive amounts of new information before his eyes.

Looking at the system's task log entries scrolling past one after another, aside from how miserable it was, he didn't even know what to say.

A multitude of abnormal behaviors were now answered, and those contradictory actions were all explained...

Especially the reason for the random sanctions....

Nowadays, the "Sanction" function has been snatched away by that big eyeball, or rather, seized by that thing that looked somewhat like a dog...

It utilized the "Sanction" system to hunt down individuals with high inspiration.

The matter of the hurricane lamp was most likely related to it as well.

Overall, the "system" had received "critical condition notices" countless times, probably piling up as high as a basket.

Then, there were "entities" who took advantage of him lying in a hospital bed to stealthily cut off his fingers to unlock intrusions, secretly snip his oxygen tube, inject him with viral cancer cells, beat him black and blue, pour cement dust into his oxygen tank, and forge his handwriting to alter his will...

By comparison, Colin actually felt a sense of guilt...

He had only just "entered" the ICU...

Two good buddies—one was a frequent flyer in the ICU, and the other had just emerged from the ICU, now lying in the same hospital bed comparing who had it worse...

"You definitely have it worse..."

Colin sighed.

It was right at this moment that the system's task logs finally reached recent events, and Colin spotted information concerning himself in the "logs."

[Detected that a survivor has triggered a special task created through special means by a previous generation system. Accepting...]

[Special task... "Twisted Soul"... A task from the previous generation system?]

Colin was surprised once again.

[Hint: You realize that the current system lacks the capacity to issue high-value tasks, and some tasks are not necessarily issued by it...]

"So it works like that? No wonder the rewards for 'triggering tasks' and 'dispatching tasks' were so high..."

"It turns out it had nothing to do with you at all..."

"Well, the tasks from previous generations must have suffered some kind of special contamination, causing us to inevitably encounter 'Lord-tier Aberrations' whenever we undertake them..."

Then how to distinguish whether a task was issued by the current system?

Colin felt a brief moment of confusion, but without needing a prompt, he guessed the answer...

"Sour and hard black bread"...

This current generation system was only capable of handing out such pathetic junk.

[Hint: You realize that not only is this the case, but the system can also stuff black bread into the task rewards after accepting a task, disguising it as its own issued task...]

"What a clever little rascal..." Colin couldn't help but吐槽 (complain).

[Attempting to retract the reward contents of previous generation system tasks...]

[Attempt failed, version incompatibility, can only be acquired through normal channels...]

Must be because your configuration is too low; people can run your black bread, but you can't run other people's content... Colin muttered under his breath.

At this moment... another system task log concerning him appeared...

[Detected that survivor serial number 654321 has completed the trigger task, evaluating system trigger...]

[Task under evaluation, rated SS-tier (failed to kill the "Mourning Watcher" before completing the task)...]

SS?

I remember it being S, right?

Colin was slightly stunned. He clearly remembered that when his first trigger task was completed, the task evaluation gave an "S" tier.

The most crucial item was a "Recovery Card"...

Without that Recovery Card, he might not have survived the subsequent explorations.

However, soon enough, looking at the newly emerged system information, Colin's expression turned bizarre, and the lingering warmth in his heart vanished completely upon the appearance of this system task log.

[About to distribute rewards...]

[Distribution failed...]

[Massive data loss in the system storage database, unable to distribute corresponding rewards...]

[Adjusting the "evaluation" criteria...]

[Detected that survivor serial number 654321 has completed the trigger task. Task under evaluation, rated S-tier (failed to kill the "Mourning Watcher" before completing the task)...]

[About to distribute rewards...]

[Reward distributed successfully...]

Ah, this...

Colin hadn't expected the current generation system to have so many shady tricks.

As long as the standards were raised and the evaluation grade lowered, there would be no need to worry about failing to pay out rewards...

[The system no longer has the computing power to issue additional "evaluation bonus rewards." Attempting to uninstall "evaluation"...]

[Attempt failed...]

[Survivors capable of completing contaminated "tasks" from previous generations all possess high value...]

[This attempt has been canceled.]

"That still sounds somewhat conscientious..."

Colin muttered, and then he saw the system information refresh once again.

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ps: Thanks to everyone for your subscriptions, monthly votes, and recommendation votes, and thanks to "The Other Shore's Solitary Grass" for the tip...
Tomorrow should roughly conclude the first volume...
The mysteries of the system have been laid out.