Chapter 236-3: Calamity Goes to Sea, Time to Show Off (3) |
The fierce battle gradually reached a fever pitch.
Responding to the call were more than seven hundred thousand players, and more players kept flooding into Ghost Scorpion Space.
Included among them were many battle groups formed by top guilds.
There were quite a few top players whose main Inherited soul levels had already reached 60+.
After they joined, the situation improved somewhat, and the efficiency of killing Ghost Scorpion Bugs rose significantly.
Even so, the special underwater environment still made them feel constrained at every turn, uncomfortable all over.
In the past on land, even when fighting Black Tide Evil Entities, they could rely on practiced footwork to dodge.
But on the seabed, after the exertion methods changed, it was as if they were dragging a few hundred kilogram burden. Their bodies were constantly tugged by the current, their footing floated, and they could not find a point of leverage at all.
The trajectories of weapons slicing through water were like slow motion.
The differences brought by the change in battle environment even made top players feel their combat power had been greatly reduced.
Especially melee.
Under normal circumstances, powering up from the feet to jump allowed a quick landing for adjustment.
But underwater, after jumping, getting one’s feet back on the ground required slowly floating for a long time, waiting for the body to sink.
At this moment, players who were gradually mastering techniques during the battle began explaining in the regional voice channel how to fight underwater.
“Brothers with Vital Qi Inherited souls, use Vital Qi to boost and your actions will become more efficient. You can dodge freely just the same and also speed up your attack efficiency.”
“Players without Vital Qi should flexibly use Blood Soul Pull. Use vitality ropes to yank your positioning. Want to go left, yank the Ghost Scorpion Bug on the left. Want to go right, yank the one on the right. Treat the Bugs in your sight as displacement pillars. Very useful, brothers.”
“For spellcasters, movement is simple. Use Void Grasp to carry yourself as you move. You can all multitask to control Void Grasp, right.”
Before long, research-party players found effective methods for underwater combat.
Large numbers of players in the regional channel gave likes and pinned these combat tips to the channel’s top bar to help more players learn to fight.
But many players still found it hard to master underwater combat.
Especially the Skyfeather race players.
Accustomed to using wings, they fought upright. When they flapped, instead of moving forward their bodies were driven backward like rowing with oars.
Changing combat methods required a great deal of time to grow accustomed and proficient.
Suddenly switching methods truly made them feel awkward.
At this time, Qi Sheng, situated behind the scenes, was also paying attention to how this battle unfolded.
Sweeping his awareness across the seabed, the only ones on the field unaffected in his eyes were the Gill-Fish race and Abyssal Mermen players.
They were like sprites in the water, darting lightly across the undersea battlefield.
But the overall strength of this group of players was not strong.
Although they were veterans, when the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen first entered the game they mainly engaged in commerce, and the sacrificial power they earned was spent on improving real-life conditions.
When needed, it was hard for them to display considerable combat power.
Compared with improvements in-game, their changes in real life may have been more significant.
Players of these two races had generally been in the game for more than half a year, during which their home, Fishing Harbor City, underwent two rounds of planned reconstruction.
First was the large-scale introduction of Lunar Eclipse race medical equipment and the establishment of the Fishing Harbor medical station, improving the city’s medical conditions.
Eight hundred thousand racemen could receive effective treatment at very low cost, even settling directly with sacrificial power.
Second was the renovation of the city’s energy system and the introduction of the smart city system, making the urban environment of the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen more intelligent.
These expenditures were paid for with sacrificial power the two races’ players earned in Monster World through hunting, setting up stalls, and the like.
The concept that Monster World could bring about wealth redistribution was very real in the eyes of these two races.
Unlike players of other races, who centered on personal interests, the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen together had only eight hundred thousand people, and a race-like social structure made players of these two races willing to hand over part of their earnings to the city administration to be spent on building Fishing Harbor City.
Recently, to better experience the game, players of the two races had the idea of phasing out old game pod equipment, which was another sacrificial power expense.
At present, the administration of Fishing Harbor City was contacting the Lunar Eclipse race, hoping to purchase a batch of new game pods at a suitable price.
But the mindset of the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen players was also changing.
From initially habitually converting sacrificial power earned in-game into real world currency to improve living conditions, as real life gradually became more affluent, new pursuits arose, and in-game power growth was becoming a new goal.
This was a gradual process.
It was also a trend Qi Sheng had anticipated would appear.
When these two races were first recruited, the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen were experiencing economic hardship and living very frugally.
They had even considered cutting population to reduce foreign exchange expenses.
The main reason was that demand from outside races for their shallow-sea farmed marine exports had plunged, their core source of income.
This was related to ocean pollution, which led to a continuous decline in all races’ demand for marine products.
Second was Sin Land, the previously popular gold-farming game whose economy faced collapse due to the launch of Dark Land, which caused a massive wave of players quitting.
Players of the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen who relied on gold-farming to earn income experienced an unprecedented plunge in earnings.
The channels for making money by gold-farming were almost cut off.
And Dark Land was sold in limited quantities, and crucially, the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen were not even on the list of races granted early qualifications.
The real world difficulties made players of the two races view the game differently from other races.
They would first take meeting real world needs as the core goal, and only then self-growth within the game.
In the early days, many players of the two races also realized Monster World’s potential and believed that only by making their in-game characters stronger could they earn more money in the future.
But even these players had to compromise with reality.
Facing proposals from race administrators for city construction, they were willing to hand over part of their earnings to build their homeland environment.
This led to the Gill-Fish race’s income being largely consumed in the real world, and the sacrificial power they earned became fuel for the growth of spenders among Humans, Skyfeather, and others.
Compared with the game, the real world was clearly more important.
But this trend was changing as real world conditions improved.
The administration of Fishing Harbor City had already realized the future potential of Monster World, believing it should not be a short-term money-making tool but a virtual game with long-term development potential.
Only by raising the in-game strength of race players could the two races gain more resources and opportunities in the future.
For long-term planning, the Fishing Harbor administration began reducing the demand to use sacrificial power income for city construction, thereby accelerating their people’s growth in the game.
A series of measures aimed at in-game development also began to be implemented.
According to Guide feedback, the Gill-Fish race and Abyssal Mermen had organized professional Monster World study teams.
Members were seasoned veteran players and think-tankers familiar with game mechanics. They conducted in-depth research into all kinds of resource distributions in Monster World, and even on improving sea-combat techniques suitable for the Gill-Fish race and Abyssal Mermen.
These research results were compiled into detailed tutorials and distributed free to their racial players, helping them avoid detours in the game, gain sacrificial power more efficiently, and raise their strength.
At the same time, the Fishing Harbor administration used accumulated sacrificial power to establish an in-game resource support platform.
Every racial member who obtained game qualification would receive start-up funds from veteran players upon entering the game, 500 sacrificial power per person.
The condition was that after the sponsored racial member grew, they would also contribute a portion of their earnings back to the resource support platform to pave the way for newbie players in the race who later obtained Monster World qualifications.
The funding pool of the support program would also gradually grow as the two races’ players progressed in the game.
At the beginning, this newbie support stipend was only 300 sacrificial power. As later players grew, it increased to 500 sacrificial power.
It was foreseeable that in the future this newbie support stipend would continue to grow.
Someday perhaps newbies of the Gill-Fish race and Abyssal Mermen would receive ten thousand sacrificial power upon entering the game, enough to raise the initial character to level 1 body tempering.
No other race could learn this model. Only players of Fishing Harbor enjoyed this treatment.
In Qi Sheng’s view, this support model was also highly meaningful, significantly enhancing the cohesion of the two races’ players.
Every player of the Gill-Fish race and Abyssal Mermen had a strong sense of racial belonging, regarding all racial members as part of a whole.
Recently, the resource support platform in Fishing Harbor City was even preparing to launch a project to help newbies level up.
Veterans would lead newbies to level and grow quickly, opening a growth channel where the already prosperous lead the later prosperous.
Newbies would quickly advance from supported targets to new supporters.
So Qi Sheng saw nothing wrong with the Gill-Fish and Abyssal Mermen using sacrificial power on real life.
This was a development trend he had anticipated.
The growth of the two races’ players had to be gradual. It was a process of having enough to eat before seeking growth. Only when real life was satisfied could they feed back into Monster World.
If they could barely fill their stomachs in reality, how could they exert themselves in-game to earn sacrificial power for him.
What he wanted was always the future, not the present.