Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A series of blue fluorescent lights flashed.
Shadows continued to appear one after another from the summoning circle, each changing from illusory to solid figures before the last two figures slowly walked out of the summoning circle.
“We’re finally in!”
Sun Shuai looked at the familiar scenery in front of him and could not help but yell out.
After playing various games, he was now a veteran of all genres and no longer had a burning desire for any of them. However, the moment he entered this game, he could feel an almost trembling excitement spreading inside his body.
It was like it was the first time he had been exposed to arcade machines and those computer games as a child, whereby the fantasy world slowly unfolded before his eyes, making him infinitely addicted.
“Lil Shuai, where are we?”
Just as Sun Shuai was shrieking out loud, an old voice was heard behind him.
The older man stared blankly at the entirely different set of buildings around him, and he did not seem to have come back to his senses until now. From what he remembered, he was still in his grandson’s room a moment ago. The grandson fiddled around with him and told him it was some sort of virtual gaming device. In the next moment, he had touched down on a completely unfamiliar world.
“Grandpa, this is the City of Despair. We’re now in a survivor camp,” Sun Shuai explained with a smile. “Did you see a simple introduction when you entered? It should explain how people in this world were besieged by monsters, and that they’re currently living tough lives. So, our job is to help them out.”
“Well, I heard a few words,” The older man nodded slightly. He looked at some of the devastating scenes and architectural styles that were completely different from modern society and frowned again. “This is quite a mess.”
Needless to say, the buildings that lay in front of the older man were, of course, dilapidated. Many of them had been temporarily reinforced with various wooden boards and other materials, and they looked even worse off than typical slums.
In addition to that, a large group of people was making a ruckus as they ran about. There were all kinds of hustling and bustling, such that it could give anyone a headache.
“Grandpa, let me take you on tour now.” Sun Shuai looked at the older man that had failed to state that he wanted to log out of the game immediately and smiled as he pulled the old man’s hand. He wanted him to better experience the 100% real simulation.
“No need,” To Sun Shuai’s surprise, the old man paid no heed to his invitation. Instead, he waved his hand and pointed toward the noisy crowd outside. “Go ahead and do your own things. I’ll take a look for myself.”
“That… That won’t do.” Sun Shuai glanced at the simple hall not far from the summoning circle. A bunch of players built it before they went offline. It looked a little different now, and what intrigued him the most was the sign that was hung above the building—[Mission Hall]
It was getting more interesting now. The development of this game seemed to advance as time passed.
“Go, go,” The old man watched Sun Shuai’s swayed movements, and it would be impossible not to tell what he was thinking. He waved his hand and said, “I’ve never seen this place before, so it’s perfectly satisfying for me to just wander around.”
“That sounds good too,” Sun Shuai thought for a while and nodded. Then, he continued, “You’ll have to be careful, Grandpa. There are many monsters around here. So, don’t get scared when you see one; they can’t physically hurt you. Oh, and turn your pain scale down beforehand.”
“Alright, I get it. Since when were you a bigger nagger than your father?” The older man waved his hand once more as the expression on his face grew impatient.
He was somewhat interested in this, not because of this game’s attractiveness, but because he had been bored for far too long. Although the surroundings were chaotic, and there seemed to be traces of repair work everywhere, the older man did not care. What he liked was the noisy crowd, which made him feel like he could walk around freely.
Standing not far away from the summoning circle, Meng Yang was slightly startled when he saw the older man walking out with Sun Shuai.
“The… the age of this player is a bit beyond my imagination. He seems to be the elder of that player’s family. So… we’re allowing this too!”
Meng Yang did not expect an older adult to log in, and he would be surprised if a child were to walk in as well. After all, he did not set an age restriction.
He simply went through the Summoning Pixie and checked it out. Hmm, his name was Sun Dashou, which was only one character different from The Great Sage. 1
However, Meng Yang was only slightly curious about the player’s age. He merely glanced at it and did not care too much afterward. The third beta testing without deletion of files only started ten minutes ago, but the player quota was basically almost full.
The whole camp was akin to a market now, and all the new players appeared inquisitive. This time around, without Phoenix’s immediate yelling to order them into place, the area was obviously much more chaotic.
The number of players Meng Yang had set this time was two hundred, and adding them to the previous batch of fifty players meant that there was now a total of two hundred and fifty players.
The number of people had to be controlled. One of the main reasons for this was the capacity of the survivor’s camp. After all, the camp was only so large, and he couldn’t allow the people to pile up and squeeze with one another.
From Meng Yang’s perspective, the camp’s capacity should already be at its limit. Unless he expanded the camp by a couple of folds or opened up a few new sub-bases everywhere, the players’ influx alone would be sufficient to burst this place.
If that kind of situation happened, it would lead to bedlam.
After all, this was not a game. A single NPC could converse with a bunch of players, with three to five people already being quite tiring for one person to handle.
With 200 new players, Meng Yang was actually a little worried about the lack of NPCs. He was considering letting the Summoning Pixie make a pop-up window, but the proficiency of this batch of player went far beyond his imagination.
The word-of-mouth spread much faster than he had expected. After Sun Shuai and his family elder entered, the quota of 200 new players was almost completely filled. Consequently, the Summoning Pixie stated that there were many more people still queuing on the other side.
‘Should I increase the limit?’
Meng Yang pondered and hesitated slightly. Before the players entered this time around, he had wrapped up writing a much more detailed summoning contract that included malicious attacks, malicious harassment, etc. Basically, if the players committed any of these offenses, there was no need for him to check on them deliberately. The Summoning Pixie would automatically judge and punish them according to the contract.
‘Forget it, let’s bear with it for now and wait until I upgrade the base further. For now, I should go and see how Phoenix is holding up. I still need to awaken the Extraordinary Seed.’
Meng Yang looked at the shabby and simple mission hall and prestige mall as he sighed to himself. The players here were playing an otherworldly adventure game. He was the strategic management team, but his talent was limited. The only thing he could do was hammer one nail at a time and patch it if something went wrong.
…
“F*ck, Sun Shuai, my handsome lad. How much prestige do you have now?”
Standing at the mission hall door, Zhuang Dafa spotted Sun Shuai’s sudden appearance and immediately shouted with excitement.
“We can trade them with potions now! The prestige we have is tradeable for potions!” Zhuang Dafa grabbed Sun Shuai by the arm and dragged him toward a hall on the other side of the mission center that was not much different from the shantytown.
This was the prestige mall. Some players who had participated in the construction could not figure out what they were building here, but after logging in today, they noticed the sign for the prestige mall.
A few female NPCs were standing in the mall, which some of the people recognized. Yesterday, when they were fighting against the gnolls and saw-toothed tiger, these NPCs had applauded them and handed them some water.
Now, all these people had become merchant NPCs. It was just that the goods sold at the counter were somewhat shabby. There were a few iron swords and spears that seemed to emit a faint blue light, a few bow and arrow sets that looked unappealing, and some dark-looking leather armor. Of course, there were all sorts of food such as potatoes and barbequed saw-toothed tiger meat, which could also be redeemed.
However, the most attractive item in there was the potion. There was an introductory text in front of a magic crystal panel— First-order potion. It was made of the brain, bone marrow, and heart of the saw-toothed tiger, which would allow one a shot at awakening the Extraordinary Seed. It would require 500 prestige points.
“500 prestige points?” “Sun Shuai looked at the numbers on the panel and was a little puzzled. He could understand the reason why they needed to exchange it with prestige as this world was in an apocalyptic state, and there was no monetary system. Hence, it made sense as to why prestige was a currency.
However, Sun Shuai was a little unclear as he asked, “How do we see the prestige? The last time they mentioned giving out prestige as rewards, but we can’t see them!”
“It’s stated on your own character panel,” Zhuang Dafa said casually, and then pointed to the magic crystal panel in front of one of the NPCs. “Or, you can put your hand on the magic crystal slab and display them there. Sigh, I died before and logged out, so I don’t have enough prestige. I only have 320 prestige points right now.”
“Where did you gain so much prestige from? Why do I only have 247 points?” A voice from the side interrupted them, which turned out to belong to Li Yuncheng. He had been following Zhuang Dafa ever since he entered the game.
“Holy, you actually have 200 prestige points?” After Zhuang Dafa heard Li Yuncheng’s words, an incredulous expression flashed across his face, “I checked earlier, and the task I did the first time to save the protagonist gave me 200 points, then I earned 100 points for the task of defeating the gnolls. Afterward, I gained 20 points from contributing to the hunting of the saw-toothed tiger.”
“You’re lucky to be in the first beta and gained 200 extra prestige points. I gained 100 points from the [Steel Line of Defense] mission, and 127 points from the [Energy Crisis] mission. Then, the contribution in hunting the saw-toothed tiger gave me another 20 points,” Li Yuncheng replied.
“Then, we still can’t afford this potion!” Zhuang Dafa sighed helplessly. Since prestige was not a currency, and there was no other way to trade, he could only stare at the numbers insipidly.
“Wait, where is this character panel you speak of?” Sun Shuai listened to the conversation between the two. He felt that he was only about ten minutes late as a result of helping his grandpa enter the game. However, it also seemed that a lot of information had not yet reached him.
Zhuang Dafa waved his hand and replied casually, “You can just pat your head or mouth out the character query. Every time we enter the game, the update speed is breakneck!”
“Is that so?”
Sun Shuai quietly mouthed out the words character panel in his heart, and soon a virtual frame appeared before his eyes.
[Sun Shuai]
[Level: Ordinary]
[City of Despair’s Prestige: 0]
[Mission: None]
It consisted of a few lines of text, no light, no individual thumbnails, and no equipment. It was just simple and crude.
When Sun Shuai saw that his prestige was zero, his face instantly darkened.
“How is it? Did you see how many prestige points you have?” Zhuang Dafa asked. He had not seen Sun Shuai since he was attacked and killed by the saw-toothed tiger. He thought about the fact that Sun Shuai was the same batch as him and gathered that he should have accumulated just enough prestige to exchange for a potion now.
“My prestige points had been cleared to zero earlier on,” Sun Shuai spread his hands grudgingly.
“F*ck, what a waste of time! Go and do some missions, go!”