Chapter 1: Pirated Link

【Latest News: The Eclipse Clan's decade-long project, the epoch-making virtual reality game "Dark Land," has officially launched. Purchases are now open on major gaming platforms and the official website. The base game is priced at 128, 88,...】

【Grind-Emperor Player Chat Group (Online: 10)】

Poor-Enough-To-Eat-Dirt (Admin): Brothers, "Dark Land" sold one million copies in just ten minutes. What are your thoughts?

Spending-Money-On-Games?: How else should we look at it? Obviously, we watch it on the news. I'd love to buy it and experience it, but my wallet won't allow it.

Leopard-Head-Zero-Spend: I've waited eight years for this game. When I saw the price, my heart finally died. This pricing clearly offers no path to survival for ordinary players. Rumor has it the game also employs various new anti-cracking technologies. People like us probably won't have a chance to play it in this lifetime, unless my plan to find a wealthy sugar mommy makes new progress.

Family-Share-Benefactor-Father: What's even more tragic is that this game blocks external streaming and recording functions. It's hard for us to even find game videos to watch while eating, perfectly eliminating any possibility for us common players to peek at how the rich play games.

Poor-Enough-To-Eat-Dirt (Admin): Aaaaaah! I really want to play! Watching the early CG videos already maxed out my anticipation, but then upon release, they tell me it's 128, 88! If they had priced it at 28, 88, I would have gritted my teeth and bought it; at worst, I'd just eat dirt for a few months.

Just as the players in the chat group were wailing over the price of "Dark Land," a sudden message caught their attention.

Welfare-Officer: Actually, if you really want to play, I have a cracked version of "Dark Land" here that can connect to the network normally.

Poor-Enough-To-Eat-Dirt replying to Welfare-Officer: Bro, stop blowing smoke. A cracked version? Even buying the legitimate copy requires queuing and snatching. The Eclipse Clan issued limited quotas to our Human Federation; how could a cracked version possibly appear on the very first day?

Leopard-Head-Zero-Spend replying to Welfare-Officer: Are you trying to trick us into downloading SpongeBob SquarePants and Teletubbies? By the way, who are you, kid? I've never seen you in this group before.

Welfare-Officer: I've posted the cracked version link in the group. If you want to play, just download and log in directly. Link address: ******.

Seeing that Welfare-Officer had indeed sent a download link in the group, none of the members clicked to download it.

Subconsciously, they assumed this might be a scam link; clicking it would likely result in heavy losses.

Just as the members were cursing at Welfare-Officer and preparing to kick him out of the group, one member jumped out.

Game-Brick-Mover: Brothers, don't panic. Let me download and test it first. My bank card balance is only 20; if I get scammed, there's no real loss. As the saying goes, "If you're poor enough, you're invincible." The destructive power of scams depends on one's wealth. For someone as poor as me, the destructive power is truly limited. Everyone, wait for my update.

Family-Share-Benefactor-Father replying to Game-Brick-Mover: Benefactor-Father, go quickly and return quickly. Your children await good news here.

Human Federation, Tianfengcheng.

South District, Slums.

The narrow alley walls were covered in moss and vines, and the air was filled with an indescribable odor, a mixture of cooking fumes, mildew, and the smell of unknown garbage.

The houses here were mostly low and dilapidated, constructed from wood and iron sheets; when it rained, they would make a "pitter-patter" noise, as if protesting the terrible living conditions.

As night fell, a dim yellow light ignited in an old wooden house in the corner.

The view passed through the gaps in the wooden house, revealing a room occupying less than thirty square meters.

Slurp!

Li Zheng sucked the remaining instant noodles from the bowl in one go, chewed, and swallowed. He let out a long sigh, reached over to toss the noodle cup into the trash bin beside his chair, pulled a tissue from the box, and wiped the grease from his lips.

Glancing at the time in the bottom right corner of his computer screen, Li Zheng saw there was still one hour until the scheduled broadcast time. He stood up and went to the bathroom to tidy his appearance.

In the mirror, he stood 1. 2 meters tall with fair skin. Wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and sporting a clean buzz cut, he looked somewhat handsome.

Looking at his reflection, Li Zheng couldn't help but sigh in dejection.

His current job was that of a game brick-mover; usually, he farmed resources in various popular games to sell to whale players for money, and occasionally he would stream to earn some extra income.

Recently, "Dark Land" had become extremely popular, drawing a massive number of whale players to that game, causing the income from the few games he currently farmed to plummet at a visible rate.

The most tragic thing in life is being alive while having run out of money.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, which displayed the latest payment notification.

【Your savings card ending in 3584 consumed 329 for purchasing Grade-D nutrient solution. Balance: 21. Would you like to activate account protection? This feature will safeguard your account funds.】

Using a six-digit bank password to protect a two-digit deposit, Li Zheng felt it was entirely unnecessary.

Returning to his computer desk, the game download progress bar reached 95%; only three more minutes were needed before he could experience the game.

Glancing at the chat group still heatedly discussing "Dark Land," Li Zheng felt the probability of him being deceived was 99. 9%.

"Dark Land" was produced by the Eclipse Clan using the most advanced virtual reality technology and contained numerous core anti-cracking technologies; the possibility of it being cracked on the very first day of release was nearly zero.

Even the virtual reality game "Land of Sin," released by the Eclipse Clan five years ago, still had no cracked version available to this day.

Nevertheless, he decided to download and try it, even knowing the outcome would most likely be like the Calabash Brothers saving their grandfather one by one.

Watching one episode wouldn't cause any real harm.

Five minutes later.

The game download completed. Li Zheng extracted the files and transferred them to the game pod connected to his computer, then pressed "Game Adaptation."

Before experiencing the game, he decided to ask for leave from his livestream audience first.

He had originally scheduled an 8 PM livestream tonight with his fans, but going to experience this "fake game" would inevitably make him miss the time.

With a slight sense of apology, he took out his phone, opened his fan group, edited a message, and sent it:

"Apologies, an urgent matter has come up. Tonight's 8 PM livestream is cancelled."

Before he could even put down his phone, a group member replied:

"Anyway, no one watches. One day isn't enough; I suggest taking several days off. If that doesn't work, just take an annual leave."

This was followed by a series of copy-paste replies.

Li Zheng:...

The fans' replies dealt a heavy blow to Li Zheng.

Just then, the game pod beside the computer desk lit up with a green light, indicating adaptation was complete.

"Forget it, let's watch an episode of 'Calabash Brothers Saving Grandpa' first to calm my nerves."

After changing into his game suit, he approached the game pod, pressed the open button, and the translucent lid slowly rose.

He lay sideways into the pod. As the lid closed, nutrient solution flowed out from holes around him, enveloping his body, while neural connection tubes automatically docked with various parts of his physique.

After a moment of vertigo, the scene before his eyes shifted to a virtual interface.

There were twelve games displayed; at the very bottom was the newly downloaded "Dark Land." The game icon depicted a monster engulfed in scarlet flames.

"Sure enough, something's wrong."

He had seen the login icon for "Dark Land" on the news; it was a pitch-black sharp sword, completely inconsistent with the current monster icon.

"Damn liar!"

While cursing silently in his heart, Li Zheng still chose to press the game icon and launch the game.

"Calabash Brothers, activate!"

(_) Newcomer reporting in, please take care of me.





(End of Chapter)