A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

Ember hovered motionless in midair, gripping Cinderella in its gun form.

She lowered her head slightly, looking dazed. Her straight black hair danced in the evening breeze as the hem of her skirt whipped wildly.

The girl hesitated, then whispered, ”...Brother?”

”No, how could it be him?” She shook her head. No matter how hard she tried to draw the connection, she couldn’t picture White Jack and Ke Mingqing as the same person.

But for some reason... after watching that eccentric man speak up for her on his own, putting on such a theatrical show right under everyone’s noses, Ke Mingqing’s face had naturally come to mind.

But why did she think of him?

Perhaps it was because her silly older brother had scolded so many people for her in the past. He had said everything she had forced herself to hold back. Deep down, she subconsciously felt that if anyone in this world were going to treat her this well, it could only be him.

Ember tilted her head up to glance at the spire.

White Jack had vanished without a trace. Even his blood had evaporated into thin air, and the cane that had fallen into the square’s fountain was simply gone. He hadn’t left a single mark of his existence behind, dying like empty air.

The girl in the gothic dress remained completely baffled. It was a long while before she tore her gaze from the spire.

By now, the crowd in the square was frantically taking photos of her. An endless barrage of camera flashes lit up the pitch-black night, washing over her like a surging snow-white ocean and swallowing her silhouette.

Ember kept her head lowered, sweeping a brief, exhausted glance over the crowd.

She raised her black umbrella. Ripples of magic immediately unfurled through the darkness, lifting her into the air.

Carried by the moonlight and the howling gale, the girl flew toward the far reaches of the sky, vanishing deep into the clouds.

...

...

Meanwhile, in the Old Jingmai District, at the Xia-Ke family’s residential building.

[Prompt: Your ’Theater Puppet’ has died.]

Ke Mingqing slowly opened his eyes in his leather chair, his pupils immediately reflecting lines of blood-red text.

[Congratulations. You have successfully completed Main Quest 2 (Phase 1) — Use any secondary identity to make contact with Magical Girl Ember, attract her attention, and establish a connection.]

[Quest rewards obtained: 1,500 EXP, 2,000 Super Coins, 1 Attribute Point, 1 Low-Level Skill Enhancement Card.]

”The EXP and Super Coins increased?” Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow. ”I remember it was 1,000 EXP and 1,000 Super Coins last time. Do the rewards scale up with every main quest completed?”

[Prompt: EXP has reached the cap. Your player level has increased by 1.]

[Current Level: Lv.03 (1,000/1,500 EXP)]

[Main Quest 2 ’Phase 2’ has refreshed: Establish a friendly relationship with Ember, help her complete a quest issued by the company, and attempt to make contact with Xi Ziyue, one of the magical girls’ Three Giants.]

”That’s a bit tough. With Xia Zili’s personality, how am I supposed to build a friendly relationship with her?” Ke Mingqing pondered for a moment. ”Let alone get close to Xi Ziyue.”

[You currently have 1 free Attribute Point available for allocation. Would you like to use it now?]

True to form, Ke Mingqing reached out and tapped the plus sign next to his ’Agility’ stat without a second of hesitation.

A red-and-black prompt box immediately popped up in his vision.

[Congratulations. Your Agility attribute has officially been upgraded from ’E+ Rank’ to ’E++ Rank’.]

Ke Mingqing opened his inventory and glanced at his newly acquired ’Low-Level Skill Enhancement Card’.

[Item Name: Low-Level Skill Enhancement Card]

[Item Description: This card can be used to enhance a skill of D Rank or lower, either by appending a new skill effect or strengthening its original effect.]

’I can’t just waste something this valuable on Phantom Shift. That’s just a functional skill for swapping places. And Theater Puppet is a B Rank skill, so it doesn’t meet the requirements anyway,’ Ke Mingqing thought. ’Speaking of skills, today’s Skill Shop should have refreshed.’ With that in mind, he pulled up the Skill Shop.

The descriptions for today’s five skills popped up.

[Skill 1: Superhero Landing (E Rank) (1,000 Super Coins) — This skill can only be used in midair. Plunge from the sky in a stylish pose to unleash a shockwave of impact force at your landing point.]

[Note: The resulting impact force depends on your ’Strength’ attribute and the distance between you and the ground.]

Ke Mingqing gave it some thought. ”Feels a bit stupid. It doesn’t even say if the impact force will hurt the user.”

[Skill 2: Galgame System (E Rank) (1,000 Super Coins) — Allows you to see the real-time affection level of a member of the opposite sex. When their affection toward you reaches 100, you will be rewarded with 100 Super Coins.]

”Isn’t this an idiot tax?” Ke Mingqing stared blankly. ”Maxing out someone’s affection only gives 100 Super Coins? It costs 1,000 just to buy it! What kind of master could actually use this to break even?”

[Skill 3: Thief’s Hand (E Rank) — This skill can only be used on other ’players’. You have a set probability of stealing an item from the target, or a random amount of Super Coins.]

[Note: The higher your ’Agility’ attribute, the higher the success rate.]

”It’s not like I’m interacting with other players. I can’t exactly go around stealing from some Japanese girl, can I?” Ke Mingqing scratched his head.

[Skill 4: Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! (E Rank) (1,000 Super Coins) — Causes a specific part of your body to rapidly enlarge for a short duration.]

”You again? Must be fate,” Ke Mingqing muttered as his eyes skipped straight past it.

[Skill 5: I Am Lightning (D Rank) — Upon activation, the player will gain the power to manipulate ’Blue Electricity’ for 5 minutes. You can use this electricity to stimulate your own cellular activity, thereby boosting your physical attributes, or discharge it to harm others.]

[Note: The intensity of the electricity depends on your ’Agility’ attribute.]

”Right, aren’t I supposed to be playing a superhero anyway? With this, I could be a superhero who uses lightning. Plus, if I pick up more electricity-control skills later on, I can put together a whole build around it.”

Thinking of this, Ke Mingqing tapped the ’Confirm Purchase’ option without another word.

[Prompt: You have spent 2,000 Super Coins to successfully purchase the D Rank skill — ’I Am Lightning’.]

[Skill has automatically been equipped in your No. 3 Skill Slot.]

Ke Mingqing was in no rush to test out his new skill. After all, there was still an alien mother guarding the fort at home. If she noticed anything suspicious, he’d be done for.

With nothing better to do, he grabbed his phone from his pillow, lay back in bed, and started scrolling through Weibo.

Trending Topic 1: ”Magical Girl Ember arrives at Leijing Square just in time to save the crowd before the situation escalates. A mother’s tears.”

Trending Topic 2: ”Who is White Jack? A detailed breakdown of the warehouse bombing.”

Trending Topic 3: ”Judging from the White Jack incident, is the nature of Magical Girl Ember’s prior ’High-Rise Bloodbath’ still up for debate?”

He hardly even needed to read it. The third trending topic was obviously the Magical Girl Company’s PR team seizing the opportunity to push a narrative.

Ke Mingqing clicked on it. The PR team was mainly capitalizing on White Jack’s attack on a five-year-old child to push a specific talking point: [If a criminal isn’t killed at the critical moment, resulting in even more casualties, who should take responsibility for the outcome?]

Then he opened the first trending topic. The series of photos that popped up started with the eccentric man pinned to the iron tower. Next was the mother crying and giving thanks while holding her child, and only at the very end did Magical Girl Ember’s figure appear.

But no matter which trending topic he looked under, there was still a massive amount of skepticism.

Some people, for instance, argued that this was just a PR stunt by the Magical Girl Company, a staged act designed to whitewash Magical Girl Ember’s previous brutal killings.

These conspiracy-minded netizens pointed out that White Jack didn’t even look human to begin with. They speculated he might have been a puppet controlled by some magical girl.

However, others quickly fired back using the previous day’s warehouse bombing as proof. They argued that White Jack had detonated a warehouse and murdered an innocent civilian, proving he was a genuine, full-fledged criminal.

Regardless, once this incident blew over, Xia Zili’s public image was bound to see some recovery.

At the very least, it would shift from a merciless, one-sided crusade into a polarized debate between two camps. After that, it would slowly fade from the public eye, just like every other seemingly important—yet ultimately inconsequential—event from the past.

Of course, Ke Mingqing himself had benefited quite a bit from this, too. Otherwise, he never would have helped her in the first place.

Not only had he completed his main quest, but he had also piggybacked off Xia Zili’s popularity to jump from a nobody straight into the role of a universally despised villain. This would make it much easier to interact with others in the future.

While everyone might assume White Jack was dead for now, his popularity would only skyrocket once he popped back up alive and kicking in a few days.

’If I treat my little sister a bit better now, it’ll be easier to use her later. Who knows, maybe when she finds out I’m a player, she won’t even have the heart to kill me,’ Ke Mingqing thought as he pulled a sketchbook out from under his pillow.

He flipped it open to a specific page. What caught his eye was a half-finished superhero costume he had been designing the night before.

”I’m getting tired of being the villain. Time for a change of pace,” he muttered, staring at the blue, beak-like mask drawn on the paper.