Alan quickly glanced at his stats and felt rewarded that he had gained another level.

[Alan D Angello, Male, 25 years]

[Level 10: 4040/5000]

[HP: 160/160]

[Stamina: 88%]

[Survival Points: 2300]

After reaching a milestone of level 10, the next level doubled the experience requirements, which meant Alan needed to obtain a staggering 1,000 exp points in order to level up and grow further.

Now that he had leveled up, Alan now possessed two extra attributes to allocate. Still, he refrained from using them yet again, especially with a quest prospect standing right in front of him.

"Thank you for saving me," said the woman in her late 30's before she started to introduce herself.

Kate was the name of the woman Alan rescued, the Ambassador from Great Britain. Apparently, she had spent the past few hours screaming, banging at the doors, and tried every means possible. Alas, nothing seemed to work on guards.

As they never allowed her to step outside the cage they had trapped her in, now that she had been set free, Kate was strangely, overly grateful to Alan.

Logically, when you were saved by a cold-blooded murderer whose blade is still wet from the blood of multiple government soldiers and guards, you didn't thank them profusely as if they were saviors, ...You ran.

But fortunately, the game mechanic manipulates the NPC, especially the one that was related to the quest as if they were following a script.

Therefore as Alan was the one aboard on the quest, the game made her highly dependent on him.

Either way, this made things much easier for Alan, so he simply played his part according to the script.

"Don't worry, mam, I was ordered to rescue and subsequently escort you from this place to safety."

"You will? Oo, you truly are a lifesaver, Love."

As Alan finished his setup, another notification arrived as he expected, with an updated mission.

[Quest updated: A helicopter sent to retrieve you and the Ambassador, get her out to safety]

[Escort VIP out of the city - Rank E Quest]

The [gamelink] swiftly showed him the location of the extraction point. A mile and a half south of the building he was currently in, a helipad in the harbor located on the coast of the city's East River.

From this point onwards, Alan had no guidance from his future knowledge as although Kenny managed to secure a VIP, he actually never completed this chain quest.

However, Alan had memorized almost all significant places around the establishment; and luckily, the helipad the [gamelink] showed him was one of those places.

"Rushing down the helipad should take 10 to 15 minutes,"muttered Alan after calculating the distance. He then turned to the woman and said, "Mam, we have to leave now if we want to make it."

Kate, the Ambassador, agreed to his instruction with no questions asked and followed him toward the lobby. He swiftly walked down the stairs and felt glad to see Nims had finished his objective in a breeze. The man had stood waiting in the lobby with the other male ambassador who was from Japan.

"Good job, Nims. Let's go."

With two ambassadors rescued instead of only one, Alan really hoped that they would get some extra points. However, he held his horses down so as to let the chicken hatch before he started counting them. Right at this moment, a remainder came into his game link.

[30 minutes left to survive]

[Updating current players]

[Players still in the game - 41,890]

This number was actually almost double compared to when he played the game last time. Alan was sure that everyone must be cheering that more than 40% players managed to survive till the last 30 minutes of the game.

However, only Alan knew what came next would be the real test of the game.

And just as he expected the notification came.

[Warning: The cataclysmic climate shift brought a storm pulling super-cooled air all the way down from the upper troposphere. The air will descend rapidly in the next 30 minutes]

In the next 30 minutes, there would be 3 more changes in the Cold status, bringing the debuff to level 7. When someone received the level 7 Cold status, it was basically an instant death of freeze.

Level 6 would only give about one minute before one would have to face the same fate, while level 5 would add the Hypothermia debuff which will reduce one's health per second and kill most players in 10 minutes.

This meant that to really survive this round, one needed to have 3-level resistance to Cold debuff, or level 2 resistance coupled with consumables that would help restore their health and survive for at least those 10 minutes.

As for Alan, he already had his [Winter Jacket] and [Beast Cloak] that gave + 4 cold resistance. Coupled with high endurance stats, he possessed +5 resistance against Cold. Meanwhile, Nims' monstrous endurance and winter jacket provided him with +4 resistance.

The two of them were in the best possible condition to face the drastic change compared to a whole lot of players. They were confident to face it head-on; however, the cold status would still hinder their movements and stamina against whatever challenge the game prepared for them along the one mile and a half journey.

Fortunately, the Ambassador, as a quest NPC, would not get affected by the cold status. Otherwise, this quest would be impossible to complete. Alan just had to make sure they arrived at the predetermined place before the temperature dropped too much.

"Let's go," said Alan to Nims.

Without further ado, the four of them headed out of the lobby into the plaza and made their way toward the gate.

As they ran next to the frozen pond in the middle of the plaza. Alan's hard-to-lose habit that he had cultivated for the past three years drove his eyes to dart towards every nook and corner to shield himself from any potential ambush.

Most of the time, it just ended up being him overthinking stuff, but unfortunately, this time around, his vigilance paid off. He spotted a figure hiding in the corner of his eyes and quickly shouted.

"Take cover!!"

As soon as Alan finished shouting the words and was jumping away to find cover, the loud sounds of gunshots echoed through the air.

Tar! Tar! Tar!

There were only three shots but even though Alan has tried his best to dodge, one still managed to hit his shoulder.  A groan escaped his mouth as a sharp pain coursed through his body.

"Ugggghh!!"

[Shooting: Received 38 damage]

"Who the hell is shooting!?"