Chapter 67

After the renovation was complete, Ma Le left the room and came to Miracle Square. No matter when, the square was always bustling with activity. The spherical large screen in the center of the square continued to broadcast news, and the buyers and sellers below were still haggling fiercely.

Ma Le still had 11,794 credit points left. For a beginner, this was a substantial amount, and he felt quite superior as he walked through the market. However, after a few rounds, he found there was nothing really worth buying. With over ten thousand credit points, he could only buy a black or a relatively poor silver weapon, which was not much better than the fish spear and the ghost blade. As for other items, Ma Le didn't need them, so after a few more rounds, he went to the vending machine at the edge of the square and bought 18 uncharged marker guns. Due to the 90% discount after buying a house, it only cost him 172 points.

Opening the map, Ma Le looked at it. Now that he was a citizen, he had access to more facilities, including the intermediate training ground. He decided to go there first.

The intermediate training ground building was much more beautiful than the beginner's, but the front desk was unchanged. It still required a 100-point deposit to get a key. Entering his room, he found a floating tablet in a pure white space.

Approaching the tablet, Ma Le finally understood what made the intermediate training ground better than the beginner's. First, the training proficiency limit was increased from 100 points to 300 points, allowing him to reach expert level. Second, the usage fee and time conversion had changed. The beginner's training ground cost 200 points per hour, with each hour magnified to five hours of training. The intermediate training ground cost 500 points per hour, with each hour magnified to ten hours of training. Additionally, the intensity and efficiency of the training were greatly improved.

Besides these two points, Ma Le discovered a new feature in the intermediate training ground: the simulated combat function! This feature was very practical, allowing adventurers to simulate different environments and create various types of enemies to practice with. During the combat, to facilitate skill testing, all special abilities and talents had no cooldown, and even if the adventurer's spirit and energy were depleted, they could request immediate restoration.

Ma Le decisively chose the simulated combat, not for any other reason but to figure out what was wrong with his body, which had no vital points! Since it was an intermediate facility, it did not enjoy any discounts, so Ma Le paid 500 credit points for ten hours of simulated combat.

To understand the characteristics of an adventurer's body, Ma Le conducted an experiment. He created two enemies, one with an adventurer's body and one with a regular human's body. Both were set to not counterattack, and Ma Le judged the differences by the damage he inflicted on them.

After countless kills and experiments, constantly changing the attributes of the two bodies, Ma Le finally summarized some findings, though he couldn't claim they were rigorous theories, at least they were practical experiences.

First, adventurers suffered fatal damage when their vital points were damaged, while regular humans did not. Regular humans' lives were lost due to a series of reactions caused by organ failure, a slow process but one that was harder to treat. Adventurers, on the other hand, suffered fatal damage directly, and this damage did not trigger instantly but rather as a life-draining abnormal state, deducting the damage over a few to several seconds.

Additionally, Ma Le found that low-attribute adventurers often did not fully suffer the fatal damage. For example, if the heart was severely damaged, it would typically result in about 200 points of fatal damage. If the adventurer had enough life, like Zhao Renfan, who had hundreds of base life points, the 200 points of damage would just be deducted. However, if it was a low-level adventurer with less than 200 life points, what would happen? For a regular human, if the heart was damaged, the cause of death would be the cessation of blood circulation leading to the failure of vital organs. With advanced medical treatment, there was still a chance of recovery. But if one evolved into an adventurer, did they have to die within a few seconds, making them even more vulnerable than regular humans?

This was clearly unreasonable. An adventurer's vitality should be stronger than a regular human's! In fact, this was true. Ma Le discovered that adventurers had a hidden death protection state. Once the fatal damage from organ damage depleted their life, they would not die immediately but would enter a state similar to a regular human, slowly losing life as organs failed. The life value would show as 0, but there would still be a faint breath, similar to a game's zero health state. At this point, the adventurer would be unconscious, unable to move, with slow or stopped breathing and heart rate, and zero life recovery speed, almost indistinguishable from death. If left alone, they would soon die, and there would be no chance of recovery without external help. However, if treated promptly, the adventurer's strong recovery ability would greatly increase their chances of survival, far exceeding those of a regular human!

Unfortunately, on the ever-changing battlefield, there was no time for immediate first aid. Although adventurers had various healing abilities, most of them only restored life, and organ damage would continue to cause life loss. The restored life would quickly drain again unless there was a special treatment that could regenerate limbs and organs to save them!

Of course, there were exceptions. If an adventurer's stamina attribute was high enough and their life recovery speed was fast enough, they could potentially offset the organ failure once out of the death protection state. They might even slowly recover from non-severe injuries! Of course, this was only if the injury was not severe. If the heart was removed, no matter how high the stamina, it would not regrow a new one without special abilities...

In summary, a regular human's body was more complex and fragile, while an adventurer's body was more straightforward and resilient. However, both shared a common weakness: the brain! Brain death meant the complete disappearance of a person's personality, soul, and spirit. Although an adventurer's brain cells could regenerate, once the brain was completely destroyed, they would die unless they had special abilities. This kind of death would not even trigger the death protection state!

Secondly, adventurers were originally regular humans. Although they had undergone permanent modifications, their body functions had changed, but many aspects were still similar to regular humans. During countless attacks on the two experimental bodies, Ma Le discovered another special type of damage, which he learned was called "false damage."

This false damage was not related to physical, magical, or mental damage types but was determined by the amount of damage per hit. After Ma Le's experiments, he concluded that any damage not exceeding 0.2% of the maximum base life value was considered false damage. For example, if someone was pricked by a needle, the damage, though small, would still be considered damage. Assuming this damage was 0.01 points, and a regular human's life was about 30 points, would 3,000 needle pricks kill the person? Clearly not. No matter how many needles, even if the skin was torn and bloody, it would not cause fundamental damage. This was too superficial. For an adventurer with strong recovery abilities, this damage would be instantly healed. Therefore, the effect of false damage on adventurers was:

The false damage an adventurer suffered would automatically recover within 10 seconds; the total false damage an adventurer suffered at any one time would not exceed 10% of their maximum base life value; false damage could not cause death!

With Ma Le's current 780 base life points, the false damage limit was 1.56 points. Since the Miracle Badge's damage measurement did not include decimals, any damage displayed as 1 point could be ignored, as it would naturally recover in ten seconds.

Additionally, Ma Le discovered a "non-vital point damage limit" issue, a term he coined himself. Specifically, no matter how high the attack, if it hit a non-critical body part, it could not cause death. For example, a laser cannon with 10,000 attack power, if it hit a regular human's right hand, would burn it to nothing, but this attack would not be fatal.

For adventurers, the destruction of a limb would deduct life, but the damage had a limit. Ma Le's experiments showed that the destruction of one arm would deduct about 10% of the maximum life, and one leg about 15%. Similar to false damage, non-vital point damage was hard to cause death. After all, cutting off the arm of a dying person would not necessarily kill them.

However, damage to the head and torso, which had more vital points, was more likely to be fatal.

Thinking about this, Ma Le wondered about himself. Since his talent was to have no vital points, did his head and torso also have a damage limit? Thus, Ma Le began his self-harm experiments...

Even in the training space, self-harm was very dangerous. Although life could be restored at any time, death was still irreversible, and there were precedents of adventurers dying during training in Miracle City.

However, Ma Le had a natural advantage. The final effect of his feigned death skill could immunize him to one fatal damage. Once this effect triggered, it meant the previous damage could have killed him. This effect had no cooldown in the training space, so in this place, Ma Le was practically invincible!

After several hours of cruel "killing" experiments and several more hours of self-harm, the intense pain almost drove Ma Le to mental collapse. Fortunately, the training space was well-prepared, and the comprehensive treatment methods could even restore mental trauma, allowing Ma Le to finally endure until the end.

Ma Le finally concluded that, although he had no vital points, he was not invincible. Even the strongest adventurer would die if their brain was completely destroyed, unless they had special talents, bloodlines, or other attributes. However, Ma Le's brain had a "non-vital point damage limit," but this limit was quite high, about 60%. Suffering such high damage would basically destroy the brain completely. In terms of fatality, Ma Le's head was similar to a regular adventurer's; if his head was severely damaged, he would die. However, Ma Le had a clear advantage. As he had previously deduced, even if a knife was stuck in his brain, it would not affect his thinking, making him a truly invulnerable monster.

As for the torso, this was more complex. Ma Le's current experimental results showed that his torso had no damage limit and could be beaten to death... However, this seemed unreasonable because the adventurer's body he created, with a high enough stamina, could survive even if only the head remained, which puzzled Ma Le.

After much thought and countless experiments, he hypothesized that regular adventurers also had a body damage limit. As the stamina attribute increased, damage to vital points other than the brain would only add a small amount of fatal damage, which was generally not enough to cause death. Even if the torso was abandoned, the adventurer could still survive, so regular adventurers also had a torso damage limit. This limit was not a simple percentage of life but a combination of percentage and a fixed value. Ma Le's experiments roughly calculated this limit to be about 40% of the maximum life plus 500 points. The data might not be precise, but it was close. In other words, to survive with a completely destroyed torso, one needed at least 1,000 life points.

Besides these, Ma Le also discovered some other small tricks, such as how penetration damage would be reduced, with most of the power consumed in passing through the body. Because the injured area was small, it was hard to cause high damage unless it hit a vital point. Similarly, pressing someone to the ground and hitting them was more effective than a single punch that sent them flying, as the former's power was entirely applied to the target, while the latter used a significant amount of energy to knock the target away...

The ten hours passed quickly. The 500 credit points spent did not increase Ma Le's strength, but it gave him a deeper understanding of the adventurer's body, how to kill enemies, and how to prevent being killed. This experience was more valuable than skills and techniques for future battles!

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