Chapter 112-1: Player Boom, Rule Node (1) |
Colorful Mist Coast.
Sunlight poured down from the azure sky, threading through gauzy clouds like fine strands and glazing the sea with a faint golden sheen.
The sand along the coastline was white as jade. Behind the shore stood a stretch of tall, straight, broad-leaved emerald forest, its foliage swaying in the sea breeze.
The air was infused with energy particles. Every breath brought a pleasant feedback to the body.
The scene before them intoxicated the Gill-Fish people and Abyssal Mermen who had just entered the game.
In the regional voice channel:
“Hahaha, the game’s realism is incredible. Is this the energy-particle air the elders talked about? This is too awesome!”
“I feel like my whole body has been activated. So this is the Lunar Eclipse race’s pinnacle technology. I need to hurry into the sea and experience the world beneath the waves.”
“Hey, you idiot in front, move it. Do not block the road. Everyone behind is getting squeezed to death.”
“These seem to be Gill-Fish people and Abyssal Mermen. Their two races have relatively few players. They must have been merged into our Human race territory. Looks like they just got game access and are all newbie players.”
“Any brothers want to team up and head into the sea. Time to make money. Do not waste time clogging the road. The kids at home are still crying for milk.”
“Huh, it seems we were merged into the Human race’s game territory. Not sure where the Lunar Eclipse race’s territory is, but Humans are fine too. I am going to earn their foreign currency hard. I am the king of gold-farming.”
—
The sudden influx of five thousand alien players made the Colorful Mist Coast node incredibly congested.
The road leading to the shore was packed to the brim.
Human players were also stunned by the scene before them, all wondering how so many alien players had appeared.
At this moment, Qi Sheng, from behind the scenes, was also watching the movements of the alien players.
Suspended before him were the game parsing infos of two alien players.
[Challenger Name: Deep Sea Top Dog]
Primary form: Gill-Fish race
Racial talents: Underwater Breathing, Water Eye.
Water Eye: Innately capable of catching light and recognizing objects in turbid waters, greatly increasing underwater visual range, able to efficiently collect, focus, and convert faint underwater light.
Body tempering level 0 (Inherited soul attributes: 0)
Star vein embedment (Level 1):
Slot 1: Black-Scaled Serpent Inherited soul Lv1 (Trait: Venomous)
[Challenger Name: The Ocean Is All Water]
Primary form: Abyssal Merman
Racial talents: Underwater Breathing, Deep Sea Adaptation
Deep Sea Adaptation: Muscle and skeletal structures change adaptively with diving depth, allowing free movement in deep-water high-pressure environments.
Body tempering level 0 (Inherited soul attributes: 0)
Star vein embedment (Level 1):
Slot 1: Owl-Headed Fiend Inherited soul Lv1 (Trait: Dirge)
—
Compared to Human players, both the Gill-Fish race and the Abyssal Mermen possessed innate racial talent abilities.
These talents were evolved by their ancestors under the special environments of their home worlds.
They granted them stronger combat capability in the ocean.
This was also the reason Qi Sheng chose them.
Before obtaining underwater-combat-type Inherited souls, the innate talents of these two races had higher expandability for sea-region development.
With the addition of the alien newbies, the first to suffer were the crab swarms near the shore.
In a short time, large numbers of crabs were listed on the Trading House, forcibly driving the price of the hunt level 0 Gold-Claw Crab down to 2 sacrificial power, provoking Human players who sold crabs for sacrificial power into swearing fits.
Qi Sheng’s gaze then shifted to Emperor’s Mound Village.
Five thousand Human newbie players also came online at this moment.
Unlike the Gill-Fish people and the Abyssal Mermen, the first target of Human newbies was the mines of Emperor’s Mound Village.
They wanted to obtain starting funds by mining spiritual ore.
This round of recruitment consumed ten million sacrificial power. Adding the 6.39 million sacrificial power spent on partitioning Emperor’s Mound Village, the total consumption was 16.39 million sacrificial power.
Plus the end of the Skyfire campaign, rewards of 5.23 million were issued according to contribution. The total expenditures over these two days reached 21.62 million sacrificial power.
The gains from the Skyfire campaign were basically exhausted (the sum of killing Skyfire warriors and energy crystal gains). The 2.89 million sacrificial power remaining in inventory was something Qi Sheng did not plan to use further, reserving it to cover newbie player revival costs.
This portion of sacrificial power was like an interest-free loan. After all, newbie players inevitably die during early exploration and cannot pay the revival fee.
Before recruiting new players, Qi Sheng had discovered that most Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen players were gold-farming types.
Their addition would inevitably produce large amounts of sacrificial power for trade, and the problem of severe sacrificial power shortage in the eyes of spenders would evidently be somewhat alleviated.
But overall it still could not solve the problem of sacrificial power scarcity.
In this process, the Human side would also need to continually pay real-world foreign currency to the two gold-farming races.
Yet from Qi Sheng’s perspective, this deal was an absolute win for the Humans.
Buying sacrificial power with real-world currency was precisely what the Lunar Eclipse race wanted to do recently but had no channel to achieve.
Without dwelling on this issue, his view switched back to the alien players’ perspective at the Colorful Mist Coast.
—
By the shore.
The scattered alien players swept through like a swarm of locusts.
Gnawing trees, grabbing crabs, diving to catch fish… all sorts of bizarre behaviors could be seen here.
The clever alien players had already logged onto the forum, searching through guides for shortcuts to growth, but the vast majority still learned the game functions through free exploration.
During this time, the regional voice channel was taken over by the alien players.
Exclamations, curses, team invites, newbie questions… the only common thread was that players of both alien races were stunned by the perfect environmental presentation.
No matter how they tested, they could not find any virtual flaws.
Only then did they realize that the races who had obtained early access had eaten this well.
Recalling how their request to the Lunar Eclipse race for early game access had been rejected before, they felt immensely grateful in their hearts for the generous help of Welfare Officer stepdad.
This act was comparable to Prometheus stealing fire in the Human race’s mythic tales.
It brought hope of survival to the poor.
Calling him stepdad and kowtowing a few times was too light; they ought to erect a statue of him in Fishing Harbor City to worship.
But this secret was something the two alien races did not dare to state openly in the chat channel.
With a selling price of 100 Earth credits, plus the early access to the game, these benefits might disappear if the truth were exposed, and they would be banned by the Lunar Eclipse race and kicked out of the game.
The losses then would be huge, and it would also implicate Welfare Officer, landing him in prison.
Faced with their own interests, they tacitly chose to keep the secret.
But what they did not know was that Welfare Officer who had brought game access did not care at all about the game being exposed, nor did the possibility of being imprisoned by the Lunar Eclipse race exist.
At this moment, four kilometers northwest of the Colorful Mist Coast spatial node, underwater.
Colorful coral clusters spread and grew upon the seabed rocks, resembling a tropical rainforest beneath the sea at a glance. Schools of fish of all sizes darted among them, forming a splendid ecological spectacle.
Just then, a dark shadow pounced toward a red fish about 30 centimeters long.
Sensing danger, the red fish flicked its tail and fled.
The oncoming figure suddenly accelerated its swimming speed. Its graceful, lithe form was like the ocean’s most agile melody, each movement of its limbs easily adjusting its direction.
It followed the red fish at astonishing speed, weaving between coral reefs and seaweed.
‘Got you.’
With a cheer in his heart, the figure suddenly opened its mouth wide, shot forward several meters, and bit the red fish in a single gulp.
As he chewed, an intoxicated expression surfaced on Jiao Chen’s face, and the Challenger Notification sounded in his mind:
[Challenger Notification: Killed Redberry Fish, gained 12 evolution points, gained 3 sacrificial power.]
[Challenger Notification: Ate Redberry Fish meat, gained +9 body tempering experience.]
“So delicious.” The fresh, sweet taste spilled across his mouth, and he could not help but praise it inwardly.
He finally understood what kind of flavor the elders meant by Spiritual Food.
After swallowing the Redberry Fish, Jiao Chen’s form twisted and switched to the Owl-Headed Fiend form. A suffocating sensation struck at once. He decisively held his breath and activated perception mode to search for low hunt-level underwater life nearby.
Perception mode rapidly scanned the nearby coral sea and quickly locked onto a shelled lifeform.
Switching back to his primary form, he passed through a patch of blue coral and approached the aquatic life whose parsing info showed hunt level 1 and the name Black King Clam.
He reached his hand into a rock crevice and groped around, feeling the Black King Clam from his perception view.
Pulling it out of the crevice, he bit down, using sharp teeth to break the shell, then tore out the tender clam meat in one bite and hooked it into his mouth with his tongue.
Delicious.
With another successful hunt, Jiao Chen’s Owl-Headed Fiend Inherited soul reached level 2 and he gained 12 points of body tempering experience.
But since his body tempering level had not reached level 1, the rise in Inherited soul level could not be inherited by the primary form.
Chewing and swallowing the delicacy, Jiao Chen continued to search for underwater monsters he could hunt.
He enjoyed this process immensely. What food brought was not only an ultimate taste sensation but also clear feedback on the physical level.
Once the food entered his stomach, an indescribably wondrous feeling instantly surged through his whole body, as if hundreds and thousands of fine, warm lights were moving beneath his skin, gently penetrating every cell and bringing unprecedented comfort and vitality.
He even felt that this ocean was his true home, that he was meant to belong here.