Chapter 70-2: Seriously? You’re Just Hating Now? (2) |
In the attached demonstration video.
A five-player team had dug a two-meter-deep, ten-meter-long tunnel in the Ancient Battlefield area. Inside the tunnel, they placed store-bought spike traps, torches, and other ordinary tools, transforming the passage into a deadly corridor where any forward movement would continuously trigger damage.
The end of the tunnel was a pool of liquid secreted by the player after transforming into the Mud Fiend.
The hunting process was very simple. One member of the squad would act as live bait to lure several Blood Corpses into the tunnel.
Standing at the far end of the tunnel, the player would then become the Blood Corpses’ target.
What followed resembled a round of Plants vs. Zombies.
With every step forward, the Blood Corpses would take continuous damage. Meanwhile, the four other players at the back of the tunnel kept hurling fireballs from their Bonefire forms, further worsening the Blood Corpses’ injuries.
Eventually, the Blood Corpses would fall into a pit dug just before the player’s standing zone, where they would soak in the dissolving pool and meet their end.
This tactic received many likes on the forum, finally giving the previously ridiculed Dissolve soul a practical use. The trap build also became the first hunting strategy since the game’s launch that didn’t rely on direct combat, sparking widespread interest in trap-based gameplay among many players.
The creativity of the players was gradually unfolding within Monster World.
Each Monster Soul option could find practical applications through imaginative combinations.
—
Tianfeng City, slums.
Logging out of the game, his vision shifted from the virtual desktop back to reality.
The overwhelming sense of weakness made Li Zheng somewhat uncomfortable, even stirring up the urge to log back into Dark Land again.
The contrast between game and reality became particularly stark after leveling up.
In the game, his primary human form perfectly inherited the attributes of his level 24 Black-Scaled Serpent and level 11 Force Savage Axe, making his overall stats 15 times greater than his original Primary Form. In real life, that was practically superhuman.
The attribute boosts didn’t just alter the numbers on his panel.
His senses had also undergone a transformation as his level rose, making the world feel far more vivid.
For example, his vision had grown much sharper with every level-up. Previously blurry distant landscapes were now crystal clear; even tiny dust particles glittered under the light, and the world’s color spectrum appeared richer.
His hearing had become detailed and multidimensional: the rustling wind through tree leaves, the distant growls of monsters, even the faint sound of falling leaves touching the ground were all crystal clear.
In terms of touch, in-game he could feel increasingly subtle differences in texture through touch.
The same was true for smell and taste. Fragrances and odors in the air were easily detected, and food flavors became far more layered and distinct.
Importantly, this sensory sharpness wasn’t merely physical but also accompanied by a mental awakening, synchronously enhancing his perception and comprehension.
It felt as if his body was one with nature, reaching a level of harmony between man and nature that only existed in movies and novels, an exquisite experience that reality could never match.
This was the source of his immense sense of loss whenever he returned to reality.
His body now felt like it carried a heavy shackle. Though he had long been accustomed to it before, in the game that shackle had been lifted, completely freeing his senses and sharpening both movement and thought.
But upon logging out, the heavy shackle returned.
His vision dimmed, his senses dulled, and every bit of feedback became miserable, leaving him highly uncomfortable.
As the game pod lid opened, Li Zheng stood up.
After washing the nutrient solution off his body in the bathroom, he returned to his desk and began reviewing his recent transaction records.
He cross-checked them one by one, confirming that all sacrificial power sales had been paid. Starving, he immediately ordered a luxury meal to reward himself.
Even before Dark Land launched, people online had predicted that this game would create a new wave of wealth, giving rise to a new generation of rich elites.
Just like the internet boom, the AI revolution, the digital transformation, and the birth of virtual worlds throughout history, Dark Land was expected to produce countless pioneers of the new era.
Those predictions had now become reality inside the game.
The early success of Dark Land was already creating a trend of wealth redistribution. Whales were willing to pay high prices to buy the labor output of gold-farming players, allowing those players to convert their in-game labor into real-world income, all tax-free.
More importantly, Dark Land had significantly improved his quality of life.
He had already decided to rely on Dark Land to make a living for the rest of his life.
With his first-mover advantage, he might even build a career inside the game.
When his delivery arrived, Li Zheng ate while browsing Humanity Rising, the largest Starnet forum of the Human Federation.
After finding the Dark Land section, he noticed that most threads were recruitment posts, with few discussions about the game itself.
Li Zheng wasn’t surprised.
Every game developed by the Lunar Eclipse race came with a built-in forum, including Dark Land, which had comprehensive internal forums, making external forums unnecessary for most players.
While browsing, one thread title caught his attention.
[Dark Land: The Greatest Marketing Scam in History. While worth 128,888, it falls far short of the revolutionary game it was advertised to be.]
Poster: Birth Certificate (IP: Yelan City)
Curious, Li Zheng clicked on the thread.
What he read made his eyes widen.
The poster first criticized the game’s realism.
They claimed the advertised 100% realism was impossible, at most, it reached 90%. On close inspection, the game environment and modeling still had many flaws.
Next, the poster complained about Starnet feedback delays.
They said the game would occasionally lag when loading new areas, players might see a pixelated mosaic scene for a few seconds before the models loaded.
They also mentioned physics bugs, like players glitching into the sky, or getting stuck in the map after repeated logins and logouts.
Other complaints included interaction response rates, data processing speeds, and more.
In summary, the poster argued that while the game far outperformed the virtual game Sin Land released five years earlier, it didn’t reach the level of a revolutionary breakthrough. It was excellent, but far from what the advertisements claimed.
The poster hoped the Lunar Eclipse race would optimize the game quickly, stating that the game still had huge development potential and shouldn’t be ruined by optimization issues.
After reading the post, Li Zheng had only one thought.
The poster was clearly triggered by something and spouting complete nonsense.
Their criticisms were absurd, pure slander and defamation of Dark Land.
Having played for nearly a month since launch, he knew better than anyone how incredible Dark Land was.
He had never encountered any of the issues mentioned. In his experience, Dark Land had reached a level of perfection indistinguishable from reality, not a single flaw could be found.
This point had also been widely discussed on the internal game forum, where every player agreed that Dark Land had surpassed modern technology and essentially created an entirely new world.
Clicking into the poster’s profile, he found the account had a verified purchase receipt, confirming they had indeed bought and played the game.
But that only made Li Zheng angrier, convinced this was deliberate slander.
Seriously? You’re just hating now?
He immediately took screenshots of the post and shared them to the Grind Kings chat group.
The group, who had just been discussing their dinner meetup for the next day, erupted with outrage after seeing Li Zheng’s screenshots, cursing the poster and pledging to storm Humanity Rising’s forum to defend Dark Land and roast the player who was spreading lies and smearing the game.
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