Chapter 1

"Shit."

I angrily threw the mouse across the room, watching as my level 65 character was killed by a level 52 player who was dressed in shiny gold armor. The player then strutted around my character's corpse, showing off his victory. I was so frustrated that I almost spat blood. What a piece of garbage this game is, relying entirely on money to dominate, and without it, even the most skilled players are useless.

My name is Wu Fan, I am 23 years old, and I just graduated from a third-rate university. I am currently unemployed, a healthy male, unmarried, and looking for a girlfriend...

I finally managed to get a graduation certificate from that damned school, thinking I could find a decent job and live out the rest of my life peacefully. However, I ended up joining the ranks of the unemployed graduates, always hoping to find a satisfactory job. Unfortunately, I either didn't meet the requirements or the companies didn't want me. This has dragged on for months, and I have been idle ever since graduation. Fortunately, my parents left me a large sum of money before they passed away, allowing me to live comfortably through college. They also left me a 150-square-meter apartment in a prime location in GZ City. Since I live alone, I rent out half of it, and the rent is enough to support me for the rest of my life.

But who am I, Wu Fan? Although my passion for entrepreneurship has been largely crushed by harsh reality, I am still a young man of my time. How can I just sit around and wait to die? So, over the past few months, I have been mainly sending out resumes on job websites and visiting job fairs, hoping some blind multinational company might take a liking to my third-rate university degree. In my free time, I play some of the worst online games, which are even worse than my school. I have a rather introverted personality, so I didn't make many friends in school. After graduation, my only average-looking girlfriend also ended our thin relationship and said goodbye to me. I don't go to bars or parties; my main entertainment is surfing the internet, watching TV, and occasionally playing basketball.

The game I am currently playing, "Overlord," is one of the games that started its public beta test about a month ago. I was initially attracted by its unique dungeon system, but I soon realized that this so-called free, top-tier game with over 50,000 concurrent players was a complete mess. I thought my years of gaming experience would help me do well, but after being killed by a rich player for the nth time, I understood that this game is even worse than the other garbage games that exploit players for money. It's a world dominated by rich players, and without money, even the most skilled players are useless.

I forcefully suppressed the urge to spend thousands of dollars to kill these garbage players—wouldn't that just make the game company happy? Although I am not short of money, I won't fall for their tricks. If you want to take my money, I won't play.

Without hesitation, I dragged the game to the recycle bin and emptied it. "Shit, go to hell."

I lit a cigarette, the red tip glowing brightly in the dim room. It was around 9 PM. As a seasoned internet user, I have the discipline to stay up until midnight. What should I do? I buried myself in the recliner, staring blankly at the desktop icons on my computer screen. My eyes drifted to a corner.

There was a menacing demon icon, labeled "Diab2" in English. Yes, it was the icon for "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction," a game that had accompanied me for years and had been forgotten for just as long. I hadn't realized I had kept it all this time. My eyes lit up as I remembered the days when I controlled brave Paladins, destructive Sorcerers, eerie Necromancers, and cunning Assassins, sweeping across the entire Diablo continent.

My inner passion was reignited by these buried memories. I eagerly opened the game and entered the familiar screen.

Wait, didn't Diablo have some cheats? Thinking of my earlier frustration, I suddenly felt a strong urge to vent. I vaguely remembered the cheats from the past. Back then, I used them to dominate Hell, repeatedly defeating the three prime evils. In the single-player version of Diablo, if you play alone, you must be prepared to be thoroughly beaten in Hell, with all resistances reduced by 100 and many monsters having attack immunity and extreme stats, which can drive even the most skilled players crazy.

I knew I wasn't that hardcore, so I always used cheats from Nightmare onwards until I completed the game.

"Cheats, cheats," I muttered, searching through my hard drive for the hidden cheats. I had forgotten the names, so I had to try them one by one, better to be safe than sorry.

This one should be it. A familiar yet strange interface popped up. From memory, I skillfully entered the cheat mode.

First, I created a character. There was no need to go back into the game; I could do it all in the cheat menu. I just needed to save it to the "a" folder. The character's name? I didn't care much about that.

Next, I chose a class. Diablo II offers seven classes: Paladin, Sorcerer, Necromancer, Amazon, Druid, Assassin, and Barbarian. Since I hadn't played in a long time, I didn't care which one I chose; they all interested me equally. I closed my eyes and picked one at random. When I opened my eyes, it was a Druid. In my years of playing Diablo, I had played Druid and Amazon the least. The Amazon was too complicated to control, so I ignored it. The Druid was less flashy in elemental skills and I preferred Necromancers for summoning, so I played them less often.

Fine, a Druid it is.

Next came the crucial part: the equipment. I dragged a six-socketed Blade of the Stolen Sun and added various attributes. Although the attributes were in English, my mediocre English skills and past memories allowed me to guess most of them.

Then came the bug charm, the one that gives you "One Charm to Rule Them All," with +7 skills and 155% better chance to get magic items (8% per level). These three attributes were enough.

After completing the setup, I thought I should check the game to see if the character worked. Using cheats often causes character corruption, so I saved the character file and double-clicked to enter Diablo.

There it was.

The first character on the list was the one I had just created with the cheat. I double-clicked to enter.

Holding my breath, I nervously watched the loading screen. Success or failure, this was it. If it failed, the screen would freeze during loading, and a message about character corruption would appear.

Uh... The screen froze halfway through loading. I felt disappointed; it seemed to have failed. But it didn't matter; I could just create another one, which wouldn't take long.

Suddenly, the screen changed. I knew something was happening.

But instead of the expected "Character Corrupted..." message, the screen was completely black and eerie, with only two large buttons.

"Y"

"N"

I rubbed my eyes in surprise. This had never happened before. Could it be a virus?

I stared at the two large buttons, hesitating, unsure if this was a virus.

After a long time, the mysterious "Y" button seemed to have a strange allure, constantly tugging at my curiosity. Without thinking, I chose "Y."

The screen went black, and my body suddenly disappeared from in front of the computer...

In another place, a massive black vortex swallowed my consciousness. The terrifying suction was so strong that I couldn't even struggle. My consciousness gradually faded.

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