Chapter 111-2: Version Update, Alien Recruitment (2) |
Since the advent of the Starnet era, the two races could learn about the outside world through the Starnet, were greatly impacted culturally, learned how to use internet slang, and also began trying to earn extra income via the Starnet.
Live content such as beachcombing, undersea adventures, and sea farming became popular options for the new generation to make money.
But compared with livestreaming, the income from games was more substantial.
By gold-farming in games and providing services to other races, they earned foreign currency income.
There was no internal currency within the two races. The scarcity of population and land made it difficult for them to form a complete internal supply-and-demand market, and they frequently needed to import resources from outside. Thus very early on they adopted the Earth credit as their main currency.
Two months ago, the official launch of Dark Land made the two races realize that a new era had appeared.
For this, both races prepared in advance, planning to snap up slots on the day the game was distributed and enter the game early to develop.
But reality dealt them a heavy blow.
First was the pricing. Each game qualification cost 100 Earth credits to purchase, which, converted into the currency of Earth’s main force, the Human race, was 100,000 credit coins.
This was a price ordinary members of the two races could hardly bear.
More importantly, in the first round of game qualification distribution, the Lunar Eclipse race only gave them to the top ten powerful races of the Earth Alliance.
The Gill-Fish people and Abyssal Mermen did not even have the qualification to apply for the game.
This led to wails throughout the races.
Many of the new generation had been waiting for the start of the era, yet did not expect the Lunar Eclipse race to deny them even the basic qualification to enter the game. This was simply racial discrimination.
But they had no way to solve this problem.
Diplomatic communication with the Lunar Eclipse race was useless. The entire Lunar Eclipse race operated strictly according to the requirements set by the Starnet.
In the eyes of the Starnet, the importance of the Gill-Fish people and Abyssal Mermen was far inferior to the Human race and other alien forces, and the support they received was likewise far inferior to those races.
If they wanted to wait for qualifications to be distributed, perhaps only after satisfying the needs of other races would there be a possibility.
This filled the hearts of the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen with indignation, yet they were powerless.
Their racial strength was feeble, unable even to raise a strong voice to fight for interests.
At this time, on the Starnet forum of Fishing Harbor City:
Awooo Big Shark: Brothers, selling a set of Sin Land Berserk gear at thirty percent off. Those in need, private message me. Lately this crappy game’s daily active users keep dropping. I just do not get it. How many qualifications has Dark Land even distributed, and how has it already caused this game’s popularity to plunge so badly.
Deep Blue Explorer: The top tycoons of other races are all waiting to snap up Dark Land slots, so their enthusiasm for Sin Land naturally drops. The in-game currency has recently depreciated badly. Equipment prices generally have to be cut to about seventy percent. The situation will only get worse. When the time comes, everyone will be living on sea breezes.
Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: Income is plummeting in a straight line. If it keeps dropping like this I am going to start livestreaming undersea adventures. My whole family is waiting for me to support them (wiping tears.jpg).
Sea Monster Hunter: I originally planned to save some money to go to the Lunar Eclipse race to treat my mom’s illness. At this rate, never mind saving money, I will have to start dipping into my savings next. Brothers, does anyone have a money-making avenue to recommend.
Coral Guardian: My cousin was arranged by the race to go work for the Human race, in charge of managing a section of a fish farm. The income is decent, but the slots are very few, obtained by the race elders through diplomatic efforts with the Human race. I want to go too, but I want to go to the Lunar Eclipse race even more. I hear medical care there is fully free and there is no worry about food and drink. I am so envious.
Undersea Encounter Big Sea Monster: Eh, what can we do, we were born in this era. The elders say the Gill-Fish people once possessed a vast sea region with inexhaustible resources, food so plentiful you would take one bite and throw the rest away. Then look at our lives now, tragic.
Sea Overlord: Are we Abyssal Mermen any different. The gap between the glory in the history books and our current situation is too great to accept. Now I only hope Sin Land and Conquest can hold on a while longer. Best would be if they last until Dark Land access slots are fully distributed, then we can smoothly switch over to Dark Land.
Undersea Great Ferocious Beast: Lower income from the Starnet is one thing, but the catch is also hard to sell. Our races’ external trade surplus keeps falling. The only thing to be thankful for is that game pods are a support project from the Lunar Eclipse race. Every racial member who turns 15 can apply to get one, so that expense is saved. But other expenses like buying nutrient solution, medical services, underwater city infrastructure projects, and purification circulation systems are getting higher and higher. If this keeps up I suspect Fishing Harbor City will roll out a population optimization policy, so people have fewer but better births to avoid excessive resource consumption.
—
On Fishing Harbor City’s Starnet forum, the two races launched heated discussions about economic and environmental changes.
Just then, a message with a link popped up and auto-pinned.
Welfare Officer: I have a cracked version download link for Dark Land here. It can connect to the official game network. Friends in need, download directly here to get it: (link address: *****).
Guide responsible for sending the link, after completing the task, directly turned back to Emperor’s Mound Village.
But the forum chat channel erupted into heated discussion about this link.
Undersea Great Ferocious Beast: Damn, a cracked link, we are rich. I am going to downlo… download a sea shark. This link is a fake at a glance. I suspect it was a scam link posted by those beasts from the Breakers race. Everyone must not click.
Deep Blue Explorer: Already finished downloading. I have experienced the game content. It is real. The game is very fun. Once you play you want to keep playing (Human race decadent smoking.jpg).
Sea Monster Hunter: Brother who posted the link, can you not mess around. Do you not see everyone’s mood is very low. If this link can download Dark Land, I will kneel on the ground and kowtow to you three times with loud cracks, then call you dad.
Coral Guardian: Hahaha, if it really can download the cracked version, add me to the kowtowing. I will kowtow four times.
Sea Overlord: Then I will kowtow five times. So is there any bored idiot who will click the link and see what is actually inside.
Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: I happen to be bored. I will download and try. I do not believe fraud would dare operate under the Starnet’s surveillance. There has to be some kind of transfer process. In this era there is no such thing as clicking a link and your money is transferred. People who get scammed are the ones who actively transfer money in later exchanges with the scammers, so trying it will have no risk.
—
One hour later.
Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: Damn, I actually downloaded Dark Land from this link.
Raging Little Fish Ting replied to Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: Sure, sure, sure. I see you are truly bored, posting junk to farm points. Forum experience +3. Get lost.
Sea God Abyssal Merman replied to Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: We all know no screenshots or video of Dark Land can leak out, so next you will tell us you cannot take screenshots or record video, so you cannot provide solid evidence, and tell us to click the link and download it ourselves, then accompany you to watch the Human race’s ancient cartoon SpongeBob, right.
Fishing Harbor Racer No.1: Believe it or not. I am just kindly reminding you. I am going into the game to struggle and strive. Dark Land, here I come.
Coral Guardian: Fine, I will download and try too. SpongeBob is actually pretty good. It counts as the first Human race cartoon we imported. I watched 20 episodes before, then those hateful Humans forced ads to continue watching, so I decisively gave up. If this is the complete SpongeBob for free, that would not be bad.
—
From the initial firm doubt to more and more racial members speaking up afterward,
the Gill-Fish people and Abyssal Mermen in the forum chat channel began to waver a bit in their thinking. Quite a few clicked the link with doubts and downloaded the content.
They then discovered that the link could actually download Dark Land.
Very soon, the 5,000 slots distributed by Qi Sheng were all snapped up.
Afterward, all kinds of wails rose one after another on the forum. Everyone regretted not acting first to download game access.
This was a free Dark Land that saved downloaders a large expense and also gave them a channel to stand at the era’s forefront and earn income.
This benefit had been something money could not buy before.
But when forum users tried to look for the ‘Welfare Officer’ who had distributed the access, they found the Welfare Officer had long vanished.
After the two races’ forum administrators learned of the situation, they used their permissions to search, only to be shocked to discover there was no registered Welfare Officer account in the forum that had posted the link.
This meant they had completely lost the possibility of obtaining access by further communicating with Welfare Officer.
The only hope was the prompt that popped up after clicking the link:
[Notice: This round of access has been fully distributed. The next round of access distribution has not been opened.]
But exactly when the next round of access would be distributed was entirely unknown.
The sudden welfare made the players who had not grabbed the game download access fall into despair. One after another they wailed and cried in the chat channel, hoping the Welfare Officer stepdad would come back and give a hand to the poor brothers crying for milk.