Leap

After falling more than twenty times, William Carter sat down on the fifth platform, starting to question his life.

Although his jumps had clearly improved in the last few attempts, at best he only managed to land on the green bar. The friction here was much less than William Carter had imagined.

Borrowing force to jump the moment he landed—

The ideal is rich, but reality is harsh.

Counting carefully, from the moment he entered the trial until now, he had already fallen at least a hundred times. You could say he was either falling or on the verge of falling the entire time.

William Carter didn’t know how others were doing, but surely they weren’t as miserable as he was.

Just as William Carter was about to fall into despair, he suddenly noticed a new line of small text in the lower right corner of his vision.

History.

William Carter sneered inwardly: “Is this because I’ve died too many times, so the system is recording every single one of my deaths for me to reflect on? How thoughtful.”

William Carter opened the history, and a small page appeared on the right edge of his vision, showing exactly 100 history records, corresponding to each of William Carter’s jumps.

Chapter 8: So Good!

William Carter casually clicked one, and a progress bar appeared at the bottom of his vision, with a shadow of his character appearing on the platform.

William Carter tried dragging the progress bar, and the shadow began to run, jump, soar, and then fall.

“Oh, I can adjust the progress bar to watch as I like.”

William Carter found that he could freely drag the progress bar—dragging at a constant speed would replay the previous jump, but he could also drag it slowly, even rewind, or simply freeze it to check his movements at any moment.

Moreover, each jump had a score, displayed in the history.

“3 points? Are you freaking kidding me?”

Looking at the scores for his other jumps, William Carter very reluctantly admitted that the scores were out of 100.

Each page of history had 20 records. On the latest page, all he could see were red failures, with scores fluctuating between single digits and around 40, and his best attempt was only 46.

In other words, the time William Carter thought he was “so close” was actually still quite far from the passing score of 60.

The sudden blow left William Carter feeling hopeless.

He kept flipping back and found that every successful jump to the next platform scored at least 60, and on the earlier platforms, William Carter had managed a high of 76, but those were relatively easy platforms. Even after watching the replay, William Carter couldn’t find anything wrong with his moves.

“Heh, system, you’re really strict, aren’t you?”

William Carter thought to himself, logically, this game is just about jumping—if you make it across, shouldn’t that be 100 points? How can it only be 60?

Does the essence of this game require you to do a 360-degree Thomas spin, then a triple twist in midair, and land perfectly still to get 100 points?

Damn it, this isn’t a gymnastics game.

William Carter wanted to complain more, but suddenly realized that even though he’d already flipped to the first page, there was still a button to go further back.

Curious, William Carter clicked it and found that before the first page, there was another page—page number “5” appeared.

Not only that, the entire page of 20 records were all perfect scores of 100.

William Carter was stunned. What the hell is this?

He knew very well that since entering the trial, he’d only jumped 100 times. So who did these 100 records on the previous 5 pages belong to?

William Carter tried clicking the 100th record. There was a progress bar, but dragging it did nothing—nothing appeared.

William Carter thought for a moment and slapped his forehead: “I get it, it’s because I haven’t unlocked the later platforms yet.”

In this huge trial space, there were still many empty areas. Right now, William Carter had just reached the fifth platform. In his vision, the first five platforms were solid, the sixth was just an outline, and the seventh wasn’t visible at all.

In other words, the record he selected must be for a later platform, so he couldn’t see anything.

William Carter flipped back to the first page and found the fifth record.

“If my math teacher were still alive, this should be the record of jumping from the fifth to the sixth platform.”

William Carter clicked the record and was delighted to find that this time, something happened.

A shadow appeared in the center of the platform, also dressed in the rags of a useless man, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of shorts, but his face was different from William Carter’s.

“Damn, he’s even a bit more handsome than me. Unforgivable.”

Looking at the guy’s face, William Carter was momentarily consumed by jealousy, almost forgetting what he was doing.

“Hmph, I want to see if you really did a Thomas spin. I don’t believe you got 100 points.”

William Carter slowly dragged the progress bar. The shadow, as if in slow motion, slowly lifted his foot, jumped, soared, gently landed his left foot on the green area, then used the momentum to step steadily onto the platform.

William Carter felt his worldview shatter: “What the hell, can a useless man really jump that far? Are you cheating?”

William Carter dragged the progress bar back and watched it again, only to be struck by the guy’s handsomeness once more.