Exorcising demons in a single-player horror game?

Are you out of your mind, buddy?

If that were the case, then I could run the Heavenly Dao Program in the background, play a single-player zombie game all night, and become a saint of merit the next day, right?

No way!

Ever since "Cultivation Fantasy" came out, players have discovered many ways to earn merit, and they know what to expect.

Want to earn merit?

One way is to exorcise demons in the "Cultivation Fantasy" game and complete various merit-related tasks.

The second way is to use the cross-platform monitoring feature of the Heavenly Dao Program to do good deeds outside of games to earn merit.

But there’s a hidden threshold for the second method, which is that the targets of your good deeds must be real people, not NPCs or bosses and creatures in single-player games.

In other words, only "online games" can earn you merit; single-player games cannot.

Based on this logic, Chen Ba believes that Ice Cola’s idea doesn’t hold up. Earning merit by exorcising demons in "Mountain Village Memories" is impossible.

The comments think the same.

However, in the video, Ice Cola has yet to realize this and naively believes that dealing with demons in "Mountain Village Memories" will earn him merit rewards!

Back in the game.

With the arrival of the auspicious time and under the "Great Luck" buff, Ice Cola’s confidence soared. All the terrifying monsters could just roll aside.

With the help of the Great Luck buff, he quickly collected clues, solved puzzles, and got a new task...

But at the same time, the time in the game changed again!

Dawn was approaching. The in-game time shifted from 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM, with the next time being 5:00 AM, when it would be light.

The switch in time meant that Ice Cola’s "Great Luck" metaphysical buff had ended, and he needed to perform another divination to decide on his next move based on the trigram.

"Ba, help me, great luck and prosperity!"

Chanting a strange spell, Ice Cola opened the divination page to conduct a new divination.

As the copper coins fell, a new trigram appeared—Great Luck!

"Whoa!!"

Ice Cola couldn’t believe it, and neither could the viewers, including Chen Ba and Lu, who were all stunned by this Great Luck.

What’s going on?

In the previous time, at 1:00 AM, Ice Cola had already gotten the [Great Luck: Everything Goes Well] trigram, and now, even though the time changed to 3:00 AM, he still had Great Luck?

Could "Mountain Village Memories," known for its most challenging trigrams, show Great Luck twice in a row?

Chen Ba thought something was off.

"Mountain Village Memories" is a horror game, and the Great Luck trigram is strictly guarded to maintain the terrifying atmosphere and shock factor.

Under the [Great Luck] trigram, players hardly feel any intense horror, which is basically a cheat.

Great Luck is meant to give players stuck on levels a chance to move forward, not to allow speed-running the game effortlessly.

"That’s impossible, absolutely impossible!"

Chen Ba denied, "Having Great Luck for two consecutive times is impossible. Either there’s a display error, or it’s a game bug."

Just as he was about to get up to test whether the divination system was capable of "double Great Luck," the overwhelming [High Energy Ahead] comments caught his attention.

High Energy Ahead?

The appearance of these comments made Chen Ba pause and continue looking at the computer screen curiously.

"Ha-ha, I’m invincible now!"

"What a scary game, what kind of demons, under my immense luck, bow down before me..."

Ice Cola was quite proud, and he had reason to be. After all, he had just experienced how useful the Great Luck buff was.

It was truly invincible; all demons retreated! 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Normally playing a horror game like "Mountain Village Memories" would scare you half to death with the sudden appearances of creepy things.

Under a minor ill trigram, you’d be so scared you’d drop the mouse and not dare look at the screen, with a fifty percent chance your character would die once.

Under a major ill trigram, every move you make would make your heart race and sweat all over, and the chance of dying almost reaches one hundred percent. Most people are tortured under a major ill trigram.

With a minor good trigram, the difficulty decreases slightly in the horror game; the terrifying atmosphere remains, but it’s at least not as tense.

As for the Great Luck trigram, just like what Ice Cola just experienced, the game’s style even changed!

The previously dim and flickering lights suddenly became as bright as daylight, and even the candles on the incense altar took on the shape of "I love you."

What kind of horror game is this?

Under the influence of the Great Luck trigram, even Lu could become a demon exterminator, kissing monsters fearlessly!

Great Luck ends, and it’s still Great Luck!

It’s the most magnificent start ever. Cheer for me, applaud for me! Ice Cola, feeling proud, headed unpreparedly for the next task location.

To him, it seemed trivial; with such immense luck, what could be scary?

All it could be was... ah!

The comments had it right: fleeting moments! Acting cocky? Heard you’re the child of luck?

How does the child of luck die right after stepping out?

"This can’t be right, can it?"

Reviving, Ice Cola remembered the terrifying moment, barely holding his mouse steady, "Wasn’t I in Great Luck? Why, why did this happen?"

Worried he saw it wrong, Ice Cola opened the divination page again, and surely, it still showed Great Luck!

"That’s right, it’s Great Luck!"

Not trusting fate, Ice Cola, filled with doubt and fear, cautiously continued onward.

Then, he died again...

His divination result seemed fake, the previously nearly one hundred percent accurate divination function appeared to fail at that moment.

Though it showed Great Luck, there wasn’t a trace of Great Luck feedback, it felt as terrifying as a major ill trigram.

"Was it an accident?"

Lu blinked, "Though there might be errors in the divination function, Great Luck turning into Great Ill... that shouldn’t happen, right?"

"Indeed!"

Chen Ba also furrowed his brow.

Under the Iron Fool System’s divination system, while it may not be perfect, the error rate is extremely low.

But when errors occur, it’s usually minor goof-ups, like minor good being shown as [neither good nor ill], Great Luck being shown as minor good, or major ill showing as minor ill...

Simply put, such cases are rare and don’t lead to major inaccuracies, so there’s usually no issue.

But Ice Cola’s case was a bit absurd.

The divination showed Great Luck, yet the game experience was horror-like with major ill. A standard divination system would never have this error.

"Damn it! Are you kidding me?"

After dying five or six times, Ice Cola caved in. Scared out of his mind, he immediately hit Alt + F4 to exit the game, collapsing onto his chair in fright.

"I’m done, no more!"

Be it staged or not, either way, Ice Cola expressed that he couldn’t continue this episode; his fragile soul had suffered tremendous trauma.

He’d probably dream of that hideous monster that killed him countless times at night.

To ease his mind, he decided to play a round of "Happy Landlord Poker"!

Chen Ba, Lu, and the viewers of this episode had no idea what was in Ice Cola’s gourd, so they continued to watch.

"Calling landlord, bidding for landlord..."

"Haha, you play cards so well!"

"Call landlord, won’t call..."

"Plane, King Bomb!"

Then everyone witnessed a bizarre event; Ice Cola, usually lauded as a "charitable gambling god" by his followers, surprisingly had good luck, winning three straight games and earning over 7 million beans.

"???"

A flurry of question marks flew across the comments.

It’s not that everyone was inexperienced; it’s just that when did the charitable gambling god change his luck and win beans instead of charging bean purchases?

Was this rigged?