Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Zhao Yao watched as Diana’s body expanded in a bright flash of white light. As the white light faded, a brand new Diana appeared before him.

Diana still retained most of the features of a Ragdoll cat but her ears became much larger. Her tail also became bushier, almost as long as her body, making it look like a big scarf.

At the same time, Diana had a magical aura around her as pink-colored smoke wafted around her body. She could even float with a slight movement like a balloon that gently descended from the sky, she landed on the floor with the same grace.

Diana stared in astonishment at her physical change. “What happened to me?”

Zhao Yao, on the other hand, was fixated on the Book, as he saw Diana’s level change to Level 11 (0%).

There was no addition to her ability tree, instead, she received a physical transformation directly.

In her transformed state, her physical immunity increased by 30%. Each of her superpowers were boosted by another 100%.

Looking at Diana’s panel, Zhao Yao thought, “Does this mean that the so-called evolution is to strengthen all the skills gained from Level 1 to Level 10 as a whole?”

Zhao Yao felt the Book in his heart. An unexplainable and inexorable comprehension of his own abilities instantly dawned on him.

“The skill points earned from Level 1 to Level 10 form the foundation to select the direction path of the supercats’ evolution.

After evolution starts in Level 10, it builds on this foundation and continuously strengthens it, digging deeper into the potential of these abilities.”

Zhao Yao glanced at the progress bar and ‘ ’ sign behind Diana as he thought, “I can’t use experience points to level up anymore?”

He tapped the level up button to try it out. However, he realized that after Diana had evolved and reached Level 11, she could directly absorb the energy from the Awareness Dimension to continue evolving and leveling up.

Of course, experience points were still useful. However, 10 000 experience points could only be exchanged for 1% evolution progress.

Zhao Yao understood from this that using experience points to exchange for evolution progress was a very taxing and inefficient method.

“Looks like I have to absorb energy from the Awareness Dimension to continuously fill up the evolution progress bar to level up Diana.”

“The most effective way to use experience points would be to level up the supercats between Levels 1 to 10.”

Diana began experimenting with her evolved body as well. She could float into the air like a balloon just with a jump, and after kicking off the walls a few times, she began flying across the room, giggling with delight as she did so.

Arthas stared at her in astonishment. A Ragdoll cat had actually evolved right before his eyes. Her physical evolution was enough to fascinate him, not to mention the evolution in her superpowers.

Zhao Yao grabbed Diana in midair and stroked her for a bit before his eyes lit up in surprise.

“This feeling is surprisingly nice. So light and so soft.” Nodding his head approvingly, Zhao Yao stared at Diana and asked, “Can you transform back to your original self?”

“Ah? I can still transform back to my original self?” Before Diana finished her sentence, the physical changes on her body had diminished and she turned back into her original form as a Ragdoll cat.

“Eh? I can really change back into my old form?”

It was as if Diana had discovered a new toy to play with. She kept changing back and forth between her evolved form and her original form, squealing in delight occasionally.

“Okay, enough,” Zhao Yao said. “Stop playing around if you still want to continue evolving.”

Diana’s eyes lit up immediately as she turned to Zhao Yao and asked, “I can still evolve?”

“Of course you can.” Zhao Yao smiled confidently. “Matcha and the rest are playing this game too right? Call them over. Let’s go on a rampage in Closers World.”

…

United States.

Tom, the British Shorthair, sat up from his bed in anger. He took off the game console and threw it hard on the floor.

Giggle, the American Shorthair stared at him in surprise and asked, “What’s the matter, Tom? Why did you throw the game console on the floor?”

“Blame it on the stupid game you created!” Tom got more infuriated when he heard Giggle’s voice. He flared his fur as he stared at Giggle and shouted, “What kind of trashy game is this! I died right after I got into the Beginner’s College!”

Giggle asked curiously, “You died? How did you die?”

“I was killed by an old grandpa!” Tom replied agitatedly. “An old grandpa dressed in an Iron Man suit! Why don’t you just let him wear an Infinity Gauntlet and just kill off all the players!”

“Oh! You mean that mutant old grandpa,” Giggle said with delight. “This is a bonus scene which I specially created. The old grandpa that dies changes into a different form. I know you like The Avengers and Iron Man, so I specially created this bonus scene with Iron Man in it.”

“I do like The Avengers and Iron Man! But that does not mean I like being killed by Iron Man!” Tom was furious. “And what exactly were you thinking? Why did you include the ability to kill players in the functions of NPCs?! A normal game can’t be played like this!!”

“It can’t be that bad, right? This is an ingenious configuration I came up with. Not only can NPCs be killed, they can be captured too. You probably didn’t know this, but the old grandpa that guides beginners, the lady boss of the pharmacy, and the college security guard are the strongest beginner suits in the whole Beginner’s Village. These can be used all the way till Level 30.

The first person to capture all of them will earn a secret reward too.”

Giggle wondered, “I wonder who will discover this hidden configuration.”

Tom clutched his head as he shook his head crazily. “Who would want to discover such a dumbass configuration!”

“You’re wrong, Tom. You can say that my superpowers are lacklustre but you can’t say my games are not good,” Giggle said confidently. “I combined all the good elements from the top 20 trending online games and made it into my Closers World.”

“For example, many players seek a certain degree of reality in gameplay so I configured the NPCs such that they could be killed as well. A lot of players like surprises so I configured the NPCs with a mutant ability. Even a player who is walking harmlessly on the streets can be killed. When the player comes back online, they might find that there are less monsters in the game, and all sorts of interesting situations will occur spontaneously.”

Tom covered his face in anguish and said, “Doomed, this game is doomed. This game will crash after at most one month. Our company will go bankrupt and we’ll probably not even be able to afford salmon then.”

“How is that possible?” Giggle said happily. “Don’t you think this makes the game world more realistic? Doesn’t that make the sensory substitution in the players even better? These are only the minor details. I have created richer and more complex missions, soul-stirring plots, exciting power systems and all sorts of fun instance dungeons.

Heh heh, the humans on this planet will definitely like this game and become addicted to it.”

Tom muttered, “Who knows, someone might just bomb our game company…”

“When more and more people become addicted to our game, Closers World will become stronger and stronger. Everything will run in a healthy cycle.”

Tom was speechless. He turned to walk away as he uttered, “I’m not playing this game anymore.”

Giggle frowned. He said coldly, “Tom, stop being willful. I’m not asking you to really play the game. What I want is for you to absorb the energy of the Awareness through Closers World to improve your ability. This is what we’re really aiming for. Playing the game is only a matter of convenience.”

Tom replied indignantly, “This is so troublesome. Can we change to a different training method? You’re really not cut out for creating games. Why don’t we hire some professionals…”

Giggle cut him off angrily and immediately said, “No. You better go and play that game right now. Remember to be a good person and do good, so that they will remember your name in the game, be grateful to you and focus their attention on you. Do you understand?”

As he said that, Giggle pressed his paw on Tom’s head and said, Or I’ll transfer your Awareness to a pile of **.”

Tom stared at the game console on the floor in despair and cried out, “What must I do for you to let me go? I don’t want to play this game!”

Giggle dragged Tom step by step towards the game console and consoled him patiently, “Stop making a fuss. Just focus on playing the game. It will become more fun the more you play it. Think about it, you can happily play the game and become stronger at the same time, what’s not to love?”

…