Chapter 265: The Shocking Experience of Rebirth

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Inside the game pod, the body automatically connects to the tubes; as the nutrient fluid gradually covers the body, vision blurs.

This made Ji Chen feel incredibly curious.

He tried to resist this sensation of consciousness being pulled away, but was surprised to find he could not withstand the overwhelming drowsiness at all.

"Such powerful technology."

After returning to Earth, he had already roughly understood the current environment of Earth.

Before crossing over back then, he had read many novels, watched many anime, and seen many movies.

The popularity of the transmigration genre remained extremely high.

Back then, he was young and reckless, his heart full of longing for crossing over to a different world.

He even fantasized more than once that after returning to Earth, he could, like the protagonists in stories, put on a grand show and slap faces, enjoying the envious gazes of the crowd.

But having spent over two hundred long years in the other world, time's ruthless chisel had long since quietly smoothed away his youthful passion.

The face-slapping plots he once cherished now stirred not a single ripple in his heart.

He felt his weathered heart had long lost its desire for stimulation.

But the truth was.

The environment after his return to Earth had already changed; even if he wanted to show off and slap faces, he lacked the ability.

The powerful Eclipse Clan controlled countless cutting-edge technologies; the technology he provided had not attracted the attention of the Data City's high-level personnel.

The Data City administrator who spoke with him at the time said this:

"We will arrange for professionals to rigorously verify the technology you provided... However, given the current environment, spiritual resources are extremely scarce, making it highly likely these technologies cannot be fully promoted and applied."

"The human race today, under the influence of the Eclipse Clan, has already forged a brand-new development path unique to itself... Nevertheless, we must thank you for your support."

The administrator was very polite, but Ji Chen also heard that the administrator did not value the technology he brought nearly as much as he had imagined upon his arrival.

And regarding what the administrator said, he agreed from the bottom of his heart.

The output of spiritual resources is indeed the core factor affecting technological development.

But this conversation also made him feel incredibly curious about the Eclipse Clan.

This was his first time entering a virtual game pod; this sensation of nearly pulling consciousness away made him deeply realize how powerful the Eclipse Clan's technology was.

But what puzzled him was why the human race trusted the Eclipse Clan so much.

In the era where he lived, this could never have happened.

After all, only independence brings a future; entrusting the future to the hands of an alien race, this trust truly made him feel unable to understand.

And this was precisely why he chose to experience the virtual game.

Many questions might be gradually revealed during the process of experiencing the virtual game.

As thoughts surged, darkness completely enveloped his vision.

A few seconds later, a sliver of light pierced the darkness and appeared; low epic music accompanied by chanting sounds seeming to come from afar rang in his ears.

What presented itself before his eyes was an aerial view.

The four large characters "Di Zha Mountain Range" appeared faintly in his eyes and then vanished.

The camera suddenly plummeted from the sky, passing through churning black mist; a bloody crescent moon hung high in the firmament.

Dark red light spilled over the towering mountain range; the ridges wound like giant dragons, jagged black rock peaks pierced the clouds, and from above they resembled the remains of ancient gods and demons.

In the distance, the earth cracked open into deep gullies; magma lurked beneath, scorching steam rose, weaving with the moonlight into a sea of blood mist.

A solitary figure was seen floating above Gao Ta with arms crossed; behind him were evil eyes waving tentacles, with a massive bloody crescent moon in the background.

At this moment, the viewpoint suddenly shifted, abruptly stretching toward the sky.

Clouds receded like waves; blue-green seawater lapped against white sandy beaches; colorful mist floated like silk between sea and sky, refracting dreamlike rainbow light.

The view pierced into the sea; huge coral reef groups rose from the seabed, forming a naturally magnificent palace; schools of fish leaped out of the water, their scales shimmering like stars.

Ascending islands, Ancient God Arenas, Shu Yan Domain... countless scenes flashed by quickly.

The aerial view shifted again.

A cold wind suddenly rose; the scene was instantly swallowed by pale white blizzards.

The camera swept rapidly across endless snowfields; auroras danced in the pitch-black night sky; glaciers stood towering; ice crystals howled in the wild wind...

The fourth scene: Sen Luo Forest Realm.

Wind and snow dissipated; vitality burst forth.

Towering ancient trees rose from the ground, branches and leaves interwoven into a green dome blocking the sky and sun.

Fluorescent mushrooms dotted the forest like stars; vines hung down, petals danced; under the night sky, the earth shone brilliantly like a galaxy.

At the very end of the scene, it froze on a giant mushroom as tall as the sky; then the viewpoint shifted again...

The rapidly flashing scenes left Ji Chen utterly shocked.

He could not imagine that these would actually be real scenes within the game.

By comparison, he would rather believe this was modern CG technology; only in opening animations could one experience scenery this realistic.

At the very end of the opening scene.

The camera suddenly accelerated, rushing through forests, sweeping over mountains, crossing Wang Yang, and charging toward a burning land.

On the crimson wasteland, three red suns floated above the horizon, never setting.

Scorching wild winds whipped up dust, forming swirling fire tornadoes across the land.

The scene finally froze above a land of ruins covered in broken walls and collapsed buildings; the music stopped abruptly, and a line of burning text appeared in the darkness:

【Welcome to Monster World. Begin selecting your initial Painful Painful Minghun.】

After the burning text dissipated, Ji Chen's heart had not yet calmed.

At this moment, the viewpoint also shifted to a blue crystal wall before which dozens of monsters were imprisoned.

His gaze focused on the first monster, and immediately the monster's relevant information surfaced in his mind.

【Gargoyle…】

The choice of starting ability at the beginning made Ji Chen suddenly feel it was somewhat interesting.

Back when he hadn't transmigrated yet, he had played quite a few online games.

In his memory, the most classic setup in online games was undoubtedly the three iron-triangle classes: Warrior, Mage, and Priest.

Other classes were all derived from these three.

Something like Monster World, with dozens of class choices right at the start, struck him as very novel.

After carefully reviewing the abilities of various starting Painful Painful Minghun, Ji Chen's gaze finally settled on the creature in slot number 2 — a beast with fiery-red wings, resembling an owl.

Immediately the relevant information surfaced.

【Are you sure you want to choose "Eagle-Headed Yao" as your starting Painful Painful Minghun?】

Confirm.

The moment the thought surfaced in his mind, the Eagle-Headed Yao rapidly grew larger in his sight, its sharp claws swiping straight at his face.

"Thought-reading?"

The moment a thought arose, the selection was automatically completed.

Ji Chen gained a new appreciation for the technological sophistication of this game.

In his eyes, the Eclipse Clan already possessed a civilization and technology surpassing the Bai Yao Clan's.

And his choice of Eagle-Headed Yao was mainly related to his own combat style.

During his long journey in the other world, his main method of combat was releasing spiritual power, converting it into telekinesis to manipulate objects.

This ability was personally taught by the Dragon Descendant.

Including the various-race members of their resistance army, the vast majority also learned abilities taught by the Dragon Descendant.

As the Dragon Descendant had once said, Bai Yao's greatest mistake in this life was summoning it to the other world — this sealed Bai Yao's failure.

In the perception image, the spine lit up like a river of stars.

The Painful Painful Minghun orb symbolizing the Eagle-Headed Yao slotted into the first groove on the spine.

Immediately, an indescribable power surged into his body.

At this moment the prompt sounded again, requesting that he name his game character.

After a brief moment of thought, Ji Chen typed in a line of text:

The Returner.

【Prompt: This game name has already been used by another player.】

Explorer.

【Prompt: This game name has already been used by another player.】

Reborn, Wandering Traveler, Return-to-the-Ruins Guest… every name prompted that it had already been used by another player.

Feeling helpless, Ji Chen typed in again:

【Still Can't Win After Reborn Return】

【Challenger prompt: Naming successful. Welcome to Monster World: Still Can't Win After Reborn Return.】

Ji Chen: …

After the naming succeeded, four large characters — Pursuing Sun Space — flashed before his eyes, and the crystalline wall before him rapidly crumbled and dispersed.

In an instant, countless chaotic waves of sound exploded by his ears.

"Everyone here is a qualified player now, so speak up loud from now on — you can't be muted even in livestream rooms, hahahaha."

"Newcomers, look over here — freshly formed party, short one tank-type player, starting Painful Painful Minghun preferably Gargoyle or Rock Shield."

"Buying Shou Shou Jili, 1 to 50 unlimited buying, fair price, instant transfer, scammers die whole family!"

"Everyone quiet down, listen to me for a second — selling a newly made Monster World cheat: unlimited Shou Shou Jili, unlimited strength, unlimited stamina… and can skip a one-hour respawn cooldown, guaranteed authentic, price 1 billion Shou Shou Jili, no after-sales."

……

The various shouts gave Ji Chen an instant headache.

Looking around, dense, packed figures surged like a tide.

Tens of thousands of newbies wearing the same style of black cloth garment as him packed the entire plaza space.

Some players bumped around like headless flies, some players squatted on the ground studying something, and even more figures stood frozen in place like him, too stunned by this absurd sea of people to speak.

In the distance, teleportation Bai Guang flashed from time to time — each flash meant a newbie player was teleported out.

But soon more dark masses of figures would join this boiling ocean.

This wasn't a newbie village — it was more absurd than the Spring Festival travel rush train station in his memory.

In such a congested scene, finding even a single gap to get out was difficult.

But Ji Chen's attention quickly shifted to himself.

His expression suddenly froze.

He lowered his head to look at his own hands.

The skin that had originally been covered in cracks, like withered tree bark, was now smooth and intact, glowing with a healthy sheen under the light of the virtual scene.

His fingers had also become slender and strong, and as he slightly bent and stretched them, his joints made crisp sounds — not a trace of the familiar stinging pain from his memory.

He suddenly pressed his chest.

The once-fierce scar that had spread from his collarbone to his abdomen had also vanished along with it.

Through the rough black cloth garment, he could feel the young, vigorous heartbeat coming from within his chest.

Although the white hair on his head still cascaded over his shoulders like snow, when he twisted his neck, there was none of the stiffness caused by aging.

"This…"

Ji Chen was internally shocked; he instinctively jumped in place, and the long-lost sense of lightness nearly made him stumble.

His originally rotting internal organs no longer hindered his movements, and his atrophied muscles tightened once more.

He tried punching the air; although it was soft and powerless, far inferior to that rotting body, the smooth sensation of his joints and tendons cooperating perfectly made his eyes burn.

There was no lingering pain from old injuries, no suffocating feeling of organ failure.

He greedily took a deep breath of air; even the extent of his lungs expanding was a luxury he had never dared to imagine before.

This made Ji Chen realize that this data-reconstructed body had returned him to the state of his youth.

At this moment, he slowly closed his eyes, letting this long-forgotten sense of lightness flow through his body.

He took a deep breath and then exhaled Xu Xu; the sound of surging blood was clearly audible in his ears.

Feeling the vitality radiating from every wisp of qi and blood within him, he felt as if a withered tree had met spring, brimming with vigorous life from the inside out.

After a long while, Ji Chen opened his eyes.

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, a smile appeared on his face:

"This game... truly exceeded my expectations; it seems the rest of my life will be very interesting."

Following the crowd, he pushed forward slowly; he tried to dodge intentionally, but the crowd still squeezed him.

Scanning his gaze, besides Human players, he could also see the figures of many players of different races.

Just then, a non-Human player squeezed against him looked at him:

"Buddy, what initial Painful Painful Minghun do you have?"

Facing the question, Ji Chen smiled and replied:

"Eagle-Head Demon."

"What a pity; I wanted to form a party with you. The Eagle-Head Demon Painful Painful Minghun is indeed very strong, but the starting combat power is too low. We'll definitely have to fight for monsters when we go out; forming a party with you has no kill efficiency."

Speaking thus, this non-Human player waved his hand with a triumphant expression, condensing a golden, burning battle axe:

"I started with the Strength Maul Axe, used for rapid leveling in the early game, then switching to a damage-absorption flow later; this is the strongest starting choice."

Ji Chen nodded with a smile and did not argue.

He knew very little about this game and truly did not know which initial Painful Painful Minghun was the strongest.

Unlike other players who checked vast amounts of data before entering the game, comparing which Painful Painful Minghun was the true god of the version, he cared only about the experience, not which playstyle was stronger.

Before entering the game, his understanding of the Monster World was limited to various monster data in the Monster Compendium.

But this monster data was obviously useless.

After all, this time the latest scene was opened, a new region that even veteran players had not yet explored.

He planned to wait until he left the scene to practice and understand what it felt like to release abilities.

Although the game claimed externally to possess perfect physical performance simulating reality, even if the scene's realism was pushed to the extreme, the skills within the game were ultimately fake things created artificially.

There was a fundamental gap compared to real supernatural power; this difference obviously could not be bridged within the game.

When the fake merges with reality, there will definitely be various awkward places.

But for the game to achieve such realism already surpassed his expectations.

Finally, following the crowded crowd, he arrived at the scene's exit, then followed the crowd through an invisible barrier; instantly, his body was wrapped in Bai Guang.

When his vision cleared, the scene presented before his eyes made Ji Chen freeze.

Staying in a pure white space scene containing nothing but new players, one could still feel the sense of a virtual world.

But when leaving the space scene, he could find not a single flaw in the picture before his eyes.

On the sky at the end of his vision, three dim small suns hung in the high sky in a triangular formation; the radiating light was not dazzling, as if softened by some invisible filter, casting a warm halo, making the scene resemble dusk.

At this moment, Ji Chen squatted down and reached out to touch the ground.

The tactile sensation transmitted from his fingertips made his heart flutter.

Picking up a small piece of gravel, every sharp edge of the sand grains on the rough sandstone surface was clearly distinguishable; his fingertips could feel the subtle temperature difference of the rock under the sun; observing carefully, one could even see tiny weathering patterns.

Grabbing a handful of sand and soil, the trajectory and weight of the grains sliding through his fingers, and even the form of the dust scattering in the air, were identical to reality.

The only difference was that the gravity of the Monster World scene seemed to differ slightly from Earth.

But with the experience of a body reshaped by data, this perception might contain deviations.

After all, after the body's strength changed, the perceived gravity would also change.

Standing up, he gazed at the horizon.

His pupils trembled slightly at this moment.

The realism of this world had already surpassed the scope of simulation in his cognition.

He could not imagine what kind of technology could create such realistic physical laws.

Having lived for over two hundred years, he never expected to receive such a shock immediately upon returning to Earth.

A scene constructed virtually actually possessed a more realistic sensory impact than reality.

Feeling the temperature of the light from the three suns on the back of his hand, Ji Chen was stunned.

"Old man, move aside; there's no respecting the old and loving the young in the game; if you block the door again, I'll beat you."

Hearing the voice coming from behind, Ji Chen decisively stepped aside to yield the position; he saw a non-Human player three meters tall holding a yellowish-brown shield walk past him, then turn his head and glare at him.

Facing the provocation, Ji Chen did not respond.

His heart was still in a state of shock.

The more he understood, the more he felt the technical content required to create such a realistic scene, and even the terrifying resource consumption.

Even the Dragonborn, whom he saw as omnipotent, could not possibly achieve this point.

What made him feel even more incredulous was the air here.

A gentle breeze blew, and he smelled a scent he had never experienced before.

It seemed to be the mineral scent of scorching rocks, carrying a plant fragrance similar to mint, and an indescribable slight burning sensation.

The key point is the concentration of spiritual Qi in the air.

Even the other world he struggled in for 200 years pales in comparison.

They are not even on the same level.

The spiritual Qi concentration here is a hundred times stronger than in the other world, or even more.

Ji Chen unconsciously took another deep breath.

Instantly, his lungs felt as if a spring of clear water had been poured into them.

Every subsequent breath brought him satisfaction; nearly tangible spiritual Qi particles surged down his windpipe into his body, transforming into a warm, fine stream within his chest, sweeping away the fatigue accumulated from adapting to Earth's environment over the past few days.

Ji Chen closed his eyes again, and the Dragonkin's laughter surfaced in his mind:

"Chen, you have never experienced the charm of the Great World, so you are destined to be unable to comprehend a world capable of nurturing powerful races; every breath you take can optimize your life level... Do not doubt it. The energy you gain from your current cultivation efforts might not even equal the energy of a normal breath in the Great World. The only difference is that a normal breath cannot utilize energy, leading only to passive evolution, whereas you, through the cultivation method I taught you, have learned to utilize energy."

Recalling this now, Ji Chen finally understood the meaning behind the Dragonkin's words.

He also understood why the Dragonkin described cultivation as "inhaling and exhaling the essence of the world"; just like now, every breath was drawing the purest life energy from the air.

He used his skin to feel the flow trajectory of the spiritual Qi brought by the gentle breeze.

Invisible energy brushed over his brow and nose bridge like silk, finally surging into his body with his breath, surging and spreading throughout his form.

This sensation made Ji Chen fall into Tao Zui.

He had originally entered the game with a mindset of mere experience, but this game had brought him far too much shock and surprise.

He realized that the rest of his life might become very interesting.

(End of this chapter)