Chapter 151-3: Reckless Newbie, Power of Halting Updates (3) |
During this period, an interesting data point appeared.
According to Guide’s survey feedback, the average pain feedback for Giant Brute and Night Demon players was adjusted to 52.8 percent.
In other words, to obtain better combat feedback, they did not like the 10 percent pain feedback limit and preferred the realism brought by normal pain.
There were even many players of the two races who set it to 100 percent pain feedback.
One can see the two races’ passion for combat.
The only thing that gave Qi Sheng a bit of a headache was that the Giant Brute and Night Demon players hurried out of the territory spaces to start exploring and fighting before understanding the game settings.
Players of the two races assigned to the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range generally died in a short time.
They were simply no match for the Black Tide and the Swarm.
As for the Giant Brute and Night Demon players in the Rimewinter Snowfield, they could put up a fight against the Ecstasy race, but only barely.
Their blood ran hot from start to finish, howling nonstop, charging head-on against the Ecstasy Purple Tide.
This scene reminded Qi Sheng of how the veteran squad members performed after entering the Monster World back then.
The difference was that the veteran squad fought hot-bloodedly with skill, while the Giant Brute and Night Demon races were like two savages with only battle and charge on their minds.
This led to many Giant Brute and Night Demon players starting out with negative sacrificial power.
Qi Sheng had anticipated this.
This extra expenditure would be considered an early investment that would be repaid sooner or later. Once the two races’ players gradually caught up in strength, they would bring rich returns.
What was commendable was that the addition of the two races’ players stirred up the fighting fervor in the Rimewinter Snowfield.
In some local areas a berserk charging mode unfolded. Human players and Skyfeather players also joined the charge, wanting to take the Ecstasy Tower in one go.
But that idea was clearly unrealistic.
The Lord of Ecstasy can inject a vast amount of power of ecstasy at any time, reaching a scale similar to the Black Tide’s inexhaustibility.
Just as Qi Sheng wanted to continue checking information related to the newbie players, he suddenly received feedback from Guide.
His consciousness immediately shifted to the Colorful Mist Coast, near the Ascension race’s territory in the northeast.
What presented itself before his eyes was a domain field shrouded in white mist, very much like an Evil Moon domain, a world unto itself.
Just now, an exploration-party player discovered this new area.
Guide, which monitors players at all times, detected anomalies in this scene after a preliminary check.
Before this, this area was within the Ascension race’s territorial coverage.
But now it was occupied by a mysterious domain field, and more importantly, the nearby Ascension race had taken no action.
Or rather, they had already taken action but had not dispersed this domain field that had descended right at their doorstep.
With curiosity, Qi Sheng’s consciousness passed through the heavy white fog and probed into the domain.
What appeared before his eyes was not the ocean but an island suspended above the ocean, showing that the new force had descended carrying a land plate from its homeworld.
To be able to do this proved that this force possessed considerable overall strength.
But what surprised Qi Sheng was that everything in the scene was in a state of stillness.
Plants had stopped growing, living organisms had ceased functioning, and even the energy elements that should have been free in the air had fallen into some inexplicable state of halt.
As his consciousness went deeper into the domain field, a group of strangely attired, humanoid alien warriors came into view.
They stood towering over the battlefield, their figures elongated by the frozen afterglow of the setting sun in the scene. They generally wore armor that gleamed with a black sheen, with inner garments woven from plant fibers.
The weapons in their hands were diverse in form. Some warriors held longswords flashing with a cold gleam, some bore enormous scythes on their backs, and some held elemental staves…
Analysis information activated, swept toward a warrior on the battlefield, and related information surfaced in Qi Sheng’s mind.
[Written Word – Physical Warrior]
Hunting level: 176
Target introduction: a warrior created by the Written Word rule power, unable to gain growth by any means outside the Written Word rule.
After understanding the details, Qi Sheng’s gaze shifted to another figure holding a magic wand and clad in a white, ornate mage robe.
[Written Word – Hongyun Fantian]
Hunting level: 259
Target introduction: It was a stormy night. A brilliant shooting star streaked across the sky and fell unerringly before the cottage of a poor couple. Accompanied by deafening thunder, the whole world cheered for her birth. She is a child chosen by fate, destined to become a great deity.
—
This analysis information left Qi Sheng momentarily stunned.
“Guide, what is going on here? How can there be such melodramatic analysis content, even able to predict the other side’s future? Has your analysis capability been upgraded?”
In response, Guide propped its chin and fell into contemplation.
[It is indeed strange. It should not be so, but the analysis certainly will not be wrong.]
He did not dwell on this question.
His gaze swept over. Aside from a very few warriors having names, the vast majority bore the ‘Written Word’ name prefix, followed only by a class designation.
These warriors were all frozen within the scene and unable to move freely.
Some were still in mid-swing, slashing with swords, their bodies seemingly bound to lean forward, yet the motion was frozen in midair, upheld by an invisible force.
The sight was extremely eerie.
From their postures, this group of Written Word warriors had been engaged in a brutal battle, but for some reason they were stuck in an immobile frozen state.
Looking into the details, even the basic elements composing the scene had stopped functioning, as if the entire scene had been subjected in an instant to some kind of dimensionality reduction level force, causing everything to be frozen.
“Guide, is this scene under suppression by the time-type world rules?” Unable to make sense of it, Qi Sheng asked.
[Boss, it is indeed very strange. Everything in the scene has stopped running, but preliminary tests found that external things are not affected here.]
As he spoke, Guide burned sacrificial power to condense a plant seed and tossed it to the ground.
After landing, the plant seed rapidly grew under the infusion of sacrificial power and was not subject to the scene’s time stop.
In other words, the time-stop effect was limited to everything inside the scene, while external things were unaffected.
At this time, if an external foe broke into the scene, they would be facing a group of Written Word warriors without the power to resist.
This kind of halt restricted only the self side but was ineffective against enemies, which truly puzzled Qi Sheng.
“So what exactly is the reason?”
[I need to analyze the scene in depth, but it will consume sacrificial power. Boss, grant a permission.]
“Alright.” As soon as Qi Sheng spoke, he connected a permission tether to Guide.
Intelligence had always been something Qi Sheng valued greatly. Only by understanding the situation of the outside world could he better formulate the growth direction of the player legion, so in his view this expenditure was very necessary.
Guide nodded, and at once the energy in the sacrificial power pool surged in a blaze.
Driven by sacrificial power, the frozen contents of the scene were deeply analyzed and read.
[Boss, something is off with this scene. I have found that everything in it is not subjected to a time-stop restriction but is more like a halt without a driving force.]
“What do you mean?” Qi Sheng was taken aback.
[If it were a time pause, then the movement and change of all objects as well as the passage of time would enter an absolutely static state.]
[Whereas a halt without driving force refers to things becoming static due to the absence of any external impetus.]
[It can be understood as a film. Halfway through, the pause button is suddenly pressed, so the film frame is frozen, yet everything outside the film continues operating according to its original laws. At that time, one only needs an external force to press the progress-driving play button, consuming electricity to let the content in the film frame continue playing.]
“So you are saying this scene fell into a stagnant state because there is no new energy supply?”
[That is right. Take the Monster World as an example. Every minute and second of the world’s operation can produce vast resources and energy, but this world cannot freely generate energy, so when the external energy supply is cut off it falls into stagnation.]
“Show me the scene’s replay footage.”
[Alright.]
Sacrificial power continued to be consumed, and the images within the scene were replayed.
Just like when he had viewed the Mechanical Overlord descending upon the Monster World back then, the scene’s images replayed in Qi Sheng’s mind in the form of moving pictures.
Under Guide’s control, the continuously pieced-together information advanced forward and finally stopped at the initial point of the Written Word race’s descent, then rewound for playback.
In the footage, a pitch-black spatial fissure that kept expanding suddenly tore open in the sky over the sea, like a quickly opening eye of an evil god.
Countless points of light spilled out from the fissure and assembled on the surface of the sea.
An island formed as the points of light converged, expanding rapidly, with thick white mist encircling the island’s edge and spreading outward.
This scene immediately alarmed the Ascension race members on the nearby Ascension Island. Large numbers of Ascension warriors flew out of the island and entered the white-mist domain.
The picture then cut into the domain scene.
Facing the Ascension race’s incursion, the originally blank scene changed violently.