Chapter 149-2: New Black Tide Unit Players (2) |
Colorful Mist Coast, Myriad Forest Territory Node.
The consciousness projection of the Earthmind Evil Spirit hovered over the tower platform, its back connected to the phantom tendrils extended by the Evil Eye, as it observed the situation of the player race members in the scene.
Every time a player killed a Black Tide Evil Entity, he would conveniently steal a portion of energy, so those generated within the Black Tide were all the death-catastrophe series and frenzy tide series units that were easy to kill.
Throughout this process, the blue-skinned Evil Eye floated nearby watching, but did not discover any problems.
The success of the Psychological Interference Tactic put the Earthmind Evil Spirit in a good mood.
It also gave him the idea to test other tactics.
Here he did not need to worry about resource consumption, since he was using someone else’s grain. It was simply the perfect test scenario.
While controlling Evil Entities to battle the players, the Earthmind Evil Spirit thought of a new tactic.
He had wanted to try this tactic a long time ago, but had never implemented it due to the pressure of resource consumption.
Before this, he had tried coercion and interrogation to extract intelligence from the mouths of the player race.
But the communication process did not go smoothly. Attempts to read the players’ memories also failed, and subsequent torture and interrogation yielded no useful information.
He had also thought about going to the lands of the player race to investigate.
But the player race came from beyond the world barrier, so how could an investigation be easy.
Thus, he came up with the idea of creating a player and infiltrating to learn the inside story of the player race.
But implementing this plan was also difficult.
It would require consuming a massive amount of Black Tide energy resources to simulate a player, then use this created player to contact other players.
He called this plan the Infiltration Tactic.
But the situation now was different.
In the stand-in mode, he did not need to worry about resource consumption, so this was the perfect place to test whether the plan was feasible.
“Evil Eye, assist me in generating a player template.”
Hearing this, the Evil Eye floating behind him could not help but blink.
“The collected data is not very complete. Are you sure you want to try it here?”
“Try first. If there are problems, we can improve step by step.”
“Understood.”
As the words fell, countless wavering phantom tendrils extended from behind the Evil Eye and dragged the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s consciousness into the Temples of Destruction.
This was the preselection ground for Black Tide units. Within the 28 palaces were stored templates for all Evil Entity unit types.
Under the Evil Eye’s pull, they arrived at the first subterranean level.
This was the unit creation ground, where one could attempt to create entirely new unit types.
But the first subterranean level was not open to ordinary Evil Eyes, because research and development of the unit system was handled by a specialized Black Tide team, and there was no need for ordinary Evil Eyes to attempt creating new units.
Thick black energy gathered under the Evil Eye’s control.
Records related to the player race collected in the information database were continuously input.
The first step was body shaping.
Four selectable templates appeared before the Earthmind Evil Spirit.
They were, respectively, the human player form, the Gill-Fish race player form, the Abyssal Mermen player form, and the Skyfeather race player form.
As for the choice, the Earthmind Evil Spirit decisively chose the human player.
This was also the largest main body within the player race, and the type of player he had most contact with and understood the most.
After making the choice, Black Tide energy quickly converged.
Height, weight, facial features, eyebrows… a player template fused with the details of 500 players was generated.
The first step was the simplest. The second step, generating the life structure, immediately gave the Earthmind Evil Spirit a headache.
Despite this long contact, he had never learned the detailed bodily structure of the player race.
The player race was very similar to the Black Tide Evil Entities he controlled. After death they would turn into black mist and dissipate, making it impossible to obtain the player race’s internal life characteristics.
All he could do was simulate based on the collected data.
With the common bodily structures of intelligent life as reference, he generated cells as the basic units of the human body structure and began weaving the player’s internal composition.
Since this was an Infiltration Tactic, the Earthmind Evil Spirit had only one idea.
Strive for perfection, do not miss any detail.
Digestive system, respiratory system, circulatory system, nervous system… all kinds of organs were generated inside the player template’s body, only the arrangement was utterly careless.
After completing life shaping, the Earthmind Evil Spirit tried to activate it, only to find that the template player could not be activated at all.
Sensing that there was a problem preventing the life structure from circulating, the Earthmind Evil Spirit decisively returned the permissions to the Evil Eye, and the Evil Eye began repeated tests on life activation.
They kept modifying how bodily organs and life tissues were combined inside the template body, and after 73 tests, the life circulation system entered normal operation.
Next came the third step, which in the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s eyes was the most difficult.
The generation of racial talents.
Although the player race has four unit systems, their own abilities are unrelated to the unit types.
His impression was that the player race’s unit system was a complete jumble, with nothing at all to use as reference.
More importantly, he could state clearly that players had mastered rule-type abilities.
To generate a perfect member of the player race, rule power had to be implanted, which he simply could not do.
Therefore, this step could only be replicated through imitation, creating an ability with similar effects and then overlaying a layer of special-effect rendering on that ability to achieve a lifelike result.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit selected four abilities more commonly used by members of the player race.
First was Inkflame, a jet-black fireball simulated with Black Tide energy, generated after plating it with a layer of dark green flame special effects.
In preliminary tests, although the effect could not meet the standard, its visual presentation was very realistic.
After many rounds of detailed adjustments, the Inkflame ability template was generated and branded onto the player template via a spirit-pattern pathway.
The second ability was Qi Eater.
This ability is arguably the most frequently used by members of the player race. Its manifested effect is that during breathing, white airflow surges into the mouth from outside. Based on the Evil Eye’s perception checks, it can basically be concluded that this is a form of spirit gathering.
It absorbs external energy through breathing and integrates it into the body, with additional energy conversion and adaptation.
There were two options for creating this ability.
One was to generate a spirit pattern inside the player to construct a Gathering Spirit Array, then simulate a white mist special effect to achieve the presentation of white mist converging while absorbing energy.
But it could not achieve the players’ effect of instantly converting absorbed energy into usable energy, unless another energy conversion program was set inside the body. The steps were overly cumbersome, and implanting too much content might also cause operational errors in the template lifeform.
Therefore, the Earthmind Evil Spirit chose to use special effects directly to present white mist converging into the mouth, removing the specific functional effect.
The third ability was Light Shield.
Just as the Earthmind Evil Spirit was preparing to create the fourth ability, ‘Petrification,’ the Evil Eye spoke.
“Earthmind, the fourth ability is wrong.”
“Wrong how? Is this not a commonly used ability of the player race?” the Earthmind Evil Spirit asked in confusion.
“This ability does not match the previous three. According to battle record data, members of the player race who have mastered the green fireball ability generally do not use the black plating ability that increases defense.”
Realizing there was an error in the details, the Earthmind Evil Spirit decisively followed the Evil Eye’s suggestion and replaced the fourth ability with Flowing Shadow clone.
After testing the abilities’ release and visual performance and confirming that the template’s abilities had no problems, the Earthmind Evil Spirit returned permissions to the Evil Eye and began more refined behavioral expression tests.
This test was equally complex.
Unlike Black Tide Evil Entity units, the player race are intelligent beings with emotions.
So every action needed a corresponding expression.
Based on information from the database, the Evil Eye began implanting related detailed expressive content.
First were basic expressions.
For smiling, by adjusting the degree of upward curl of the player template’s mouth corners and the curvature of the eyes, expressions ranging from a subtle smile to hearty laughter were generated.
Next were frowns in an unhappy mood. By adjusting the shape and height of the eyebrows and the angle of the eyes, expressions of confusion and worry were generated.
Then came surprise, curiosity, and so on.
After completing the facial expression details, next came eye details.
On the framework of basic expressions, the shapes of the eyes and the dilation of the pupils were implanted, generating sharp, gentle, bewildered, or resolute gazes.
Lastly came the facial muscles and textures.
Wrinkles, dimples, skin texture, and the tilt and rotation angles of the head.
For attachable features, the Evil Eye generated scars and tattoos, but did not apply them to the player template. Instead, they were stored in the player template library for later use.
Lastly were choices of hairstyle and hair color.
The players initially encountered were all black-haired, but later the hair colors suddenly became multicolored, with all sorts of strange hairstyles.
However, filtering by big data, the Evil Eye still chose the most common black hair color among players.
With continuous trials, the player template’s expressions became increasingly vivid.
Happiness, sorrow, anger, surprise, and other emotions were no different from those of normal players.
“Earthmind, do you think there is anything else that needs improvement?”
“No problem. I cannot see any flaws.” After speaking, the Evil Eye asked.
“Earthmind, confirm generation?”
“Generate.”
Hearing the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s affirmative answer, the player template rapidly condensed in the creation space on the first subterranean level.
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