The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

Su Mu clenched his fist. Two consecutive waves of golden light propelled him from level six to more than half of level seven. He almost leveled up twice in a row.

He leaned against the rooftop railing, rummaged through his backpack, pulled out a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap, poured some into his palm, and carefully washed his hands. Water droplets dripped from between his fingers, forming a small puddle on the concrete floor.

sense of ceremony.

Then he took a deep breath and opened the talent selection interface.

Three gilded cards appeared before my eyes. On the second card, that familiar flame icon reappeared... Luck.

Su Mu's lips curled up slightly.

The cards were flipped over one by one, and three options were clearly displayed before them.

[Option 1 (Information): Aura Detection. Allows you to sense the aura of all living beings within a 200-meter radius, including humans, monsters, and hidden units. Passively activated; no active activation required. Effectiveness is reduced against targets ten levels or more higher than your own.]

[Option Two (Personal) Luck: Killing Curse. After killing three targets (humans) each day, gain a permanent bonus of +1% to all attributes. Resets daily at midnight. When the number of additional targets (humans) killed each day reaches a multiple of three, gain a temporary bonus of +1% to all attributes (lasts until the end of the day). Rule-based ability.]

[Option 3 (Building): Structural Reinforcement. When constructing cable car auxiliary buildings, the building's base armor is increased by 15%, and its durability is increased by 20%. Effective for both combat and functional buildings.]

Su Mu's gaze swept back and forth between the three options.

Option 1, Aura Sensing. The aura of all living beings within a 200-meter radius is passively activated; no active activation is required. This ability is extremely useful when exploring unknown areas, especially against enemies skilled in stealth... such as the woman who assassinated him before, the Hunter, and Lin Yuwei's environmental assimilation cloak.

Option 3, Structural Enhancement. Increases building armor by 15% and durability by 20%. This is purely a late-game talent; once he upgrades all the buildings on the cable car, the bonus will be very significant. But right now it's early game, and he hasn't even collected all the basic buildings yet, so this talent isn't useful for the time being.

Option two: Killing Curse.

Su Mu stared at the line of text for several seconds.

Kill three people each day to permanently increase all your attributes by 1%. The more people you kill, the higher the temporary bonus for that day.

Isn't this the hunter's ability?

Su Mu frowned. He recalled the hunters' bizarre method of temporarily increasing their power by killing... Ah Qi had analyzed it; it might be some kind of talent or professional skill.

Now that this talent is right in front of him, he is almost certain that the hunters possess the same type of ability, or even different variations of the same talent.

But he wasn't a hunter. He wasn't the kind of person who would kill to become stronger.

Moreover, this ability clearly incites its holder to kill... If you kill three today, you permanently gain 1%; if you kill three more tomorrow, you gain another 1%. The more people you kill, the stronger you become; the stronger you become, the more people you can kill. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle.

Su Mu's finger hovered over option two for a long time.

He didn't click it; his gaze fell on the flame icon.

Luck... This icon appears on the card corresponding to option two. Based on his previous experience, the flame icon represents a "lucky option," which often means that this option is much rarer or has much greater potential than the other two.

His gaze returned to the description of option two. "Kill three targets (humans) daily"... Targets don't necessarily have to be enemies. The system used "targets," not "enemies." Perhaps killing monsters counts? No, the parentheses say "humans," so they must be humans.

However, rule-based capabilities always have loopholes that can be exploited.

Su Mu recalled the rule-based talents he had previously chosen... any attack would lock onto the monster's weakness, an attack would trigger an extra attack upon hitting the target, and when facing unpredictable events like blind boxes, he would always obtain the best part of the outcome. Each one was "unreasonable," with an extremely high floor and an immeasurable ceiling.

If this talent belongs to the same category, then it must have some hidden use that isn't literally "kill three people." Perhaps it doesn't require actually killing anyone, or perhaps there are other ways to trigger the "kill" check.

Su Mu took a deep breath, no longer hesitated, and pointed to option two.

[Selection successful.]

The gilded card transformed into specks of light and merged into his body.

Su Mu closed his eyes and sensed it for a moment, but didn't feel anything special. He opened his eyes and glanced at the time... 7:00 AM. A new day had just begun, and if he really had to kill three people today to activate the permanent bonus... he didn't continue thinking about it.

Let's find other ways to trigger the judgment first.

At this moment, the sky over the dark area was completely bright.

It wasn't the bright, sunny kind of light, but a hazy, grayish light, like a layer of old gauze covering the surface. The vines that had grown wildly at night were withering at a visible rate; the leaves curled, yellowed, and fell off, the branches shriveled and shrank, peeling off the building's exterior walls and crumbling into powder, which would scatter with a gust of wind.

The strong smell of humus in the air was also quickly fading away, replaced by the dust and rust smell common in ordinary ruins.

The effect in this area only applies at night.

Su Mu glanced at his experience bar... He was more than halfway to level seven, just over a thousand points away from reaching level eight. Originally, he wanted to use up the last bit of experience before leaving, but the special effect of the Dark Zone had ended. Staying here now wouldn't make much difference to his monster-killing efficiency compared to outside, so there was no need to waste time.

He remembered what Bai Liuxi had said last night... "Everyone must evacuate the Dark Zone by this afternoon. This city won't last much longer." If this place really became a place even monsters didn't want to stay, then he had to leave the Dark Zone before the afternoon. Before that, he had to clear out the secret realm in the zoo, and kill as many monsters as he could along the way.

Su Mu opened the daily intelligence report.

A new day begins, and there is only one.

[Intelligence: There is a broken coin-operated machine near the south gate of Ash Zoo, approximately 7 kilometers from your current cable car. Please note that Lv10 and above mutated creatures are active in this area.]

Su Mu stared at the line of text for several seconds, his brows furrowing slightly.

A broken coin-operated machine? What's that? The previous information was either about treasure chests, spinning wheels, or rare and precious materials—all things he recognized. A coin-operated machine… He pictured those old-fashioned machines in amusement parks that dispense small toys by inserting a coin.