Chapter 69: Returning to Old Grounds, Black Tides Surge (First Update)

Tianfeng City, South District.

Strolling through the city streets, Qi Sheng found his native land utterly unfamiliar in his eyes.

Looking up, towering skyscrapers pierced the clouds on both sides of the street, their surfaces covered in smart glass playing advertisements for wearable tech devices.

The road beneath his feet was no longer the asphalt and stone slabs of his memory, but replaced with more advanced self-luminous material that could automatically adjust brightness based on pedestrian flow; billboards standing by the roadside were broadcasting weather forecasts and news flash updates.

This city resembled the future world he had imagined in his youth, full of vitality, yet utterly lacking the familiar scent.

Reaching the end of the street, Qi Sheng stopped and looked across the road at the high-rise building.

Memories surged like a tide.

"Are you a tourist visiting? Is there anything you need help with?"

Seeing Qi Sheng standing still, gazing blankly at the high-rise, a youth wearing a "volunteer" work uniform, who was controlling cleaning robots to sweep the road, walked over curiously to greet him.

Facing the inquiry, Qi Sheng fell silent briefly before nodding with a smile:

"Yes, just traveling here. No help needed, thank you."

The youth's greeting made Qi Sheng feel a wave of emotion in his heart.

This city no longer held any friends or relatives he knew; the traces belonging to him had long been erased by the changing times, leaving only unattended tombstones.

At this moment, the Guide's voice, laced with a teasing tone, rang in his mind:

【Tsk tsk, the most tragic thing in life is not meeting childhood friends who no longer recognize you, smiling and asking where you come from; nor is it an old door with a rusty lock left unopened for ages, gray brick paths covered in dry moss, nameless withered grass invading the entire garden. The true tragedy is discovering that the traces of your own era have long been erased, returning to old grounds only to find no memories of the past, feeling heartache rise in your throat, suddenly recalling when your parents were alive, when the stove was burning at the cooking platform... Eh, the superpower dream of your childhood has come true, yet you find yourself burdened with a heavy mission, stepping onto a path of arduous rise... Suddenly realizing youth was but a dream, with no one in these old lands to share your feelings.】

"When did you become so cultured?"

【Recently, I browsed the Star Network database and recorded many historical data of the Human Race. Seeing your sudden desolation, I was moved to speak.】

"Done ranting?" Qi Sheng asked irritably.

【Done. Boss, continue your nostalgia; I won't disturb you.】

Without responding to the Guide, Qi Sheng traveled the old grounds along the route he remembered, yet in this process, he could no longer find anything familiar.

Returning to old grounds is like carving a boat to find a sword.

The era memories belonging to him had long been covered by the new era, and he was no longer young.

The moment he turned to leave, Qi Sheng formally bid farewell to his former self.

The memories of his hometown ended there.

The road ahead allows only forward movement.

Returning to the Meng Yuan Chu Altar, Qi Sheng began to review the information stream of player output for the day.

During this time, a post on the forum with constantly rising popularity made him both laugh and cry.

The poster recorded Lu Xing's mental journey changes before and after encountering the Strange Butterfly.

The content began with the bold vows Lu Xing left on the forum when he first entered the game, stating he would compile a comprehensive encyclopedia for all players, traveling to witness the unknown scenery of the Monster World.

The post also included a screenshot of a record message Lu Xing published, which read as follows:

As an exploration-party player, I want to tell everyone that the game is not just about killing monsters and leveling up; there is also poetry and distant horizons.

When you are grinding to level up, the crimson giant dragon above the ancient battlefield is tearing through the clouds; when you are burying your heads mining for Sacrificial Power Weight, vibrant flowers bloom on the Blood Plains; when you are struggling with Star Pulse combination setups, the Starry Sky Bat-Fish described in the Guide leaps out of the Star Sea. It is said the night sky of the Great Northern Region is colorful, possessing unimaginable beauty... Those wonderful sceneries that exist only in the Guide's descriptions will all be stops on my future journey.

At the end of this passage was a GIF image created by the poster from a screen recording of Lu Xing's livestream.

In the image, Lu Xing, beaten black and blue by the Strange Butterfly, trembled as he pointed at the butterfly and roared in grief and anger:

"Just you wait."

Below, other emoticons were also accompanied by text descriptions, such as:

Being beaten madly, curling up to reduce the surface area of impact, "This match is secure" (laughing wildly while holding a gun), "Watch me blow you up" (the arrogant face before detonating a Spirit Energy Bomb), "Let's talk it over" (begging for mercy), "This isn't scientific" (terror after a failed explosion), "A gentleman's revenge is never too late" (leveling up frantically)...

Lu Xing's challenge against the Strange Butterfly had become a comedy series in the eyes of the forum players.

Everyone was looking forward to the sequel, but even more so for the plot to end soon, so everyone could have a Wind-Riding Painful Painful Minghun to embed.

After finishing the post content, Qi Sheng was attracted by a newly refreshed post.

【Regarding a serious problem existing in Star Pulse combination setups, I hope the Eclipse Clan officials see this and improve it as soon as possible.】

Poster: Nightfall Approaches

Content: Recently, I played many new Star Pulse combination styles in the Testing Tower, and then thought of a very serious problem. This problem will cause our later Sacrificial Power Weight expenditure to grow explosively.

Why is there no Painful Painful Minghun decomposition function in the game?

Suppose I have a better idea and want to reconstruct the Star Pulse combination setup; I would have to strip the Painful Painful Minghun embedded earlier.

But the early investment in the stripped Painful Painful Minghun cannot be returned, which leads to a very high cost of trial and error.

For example, if I upgrade the Black-Armored Snake Painful Painful Minghun to level 30, and later no longer want the Black-Armored Snake Painful Painful Minghun, after stripping it, although the Star Pulse slot has a new position to embed a new Painful Painful Minghun, does my early investment just vanish like that?

If the Dog Officials see this, I hope improvements can be made in this regard.

In Qi Sheng's view, this idea was completely feasible.

In the initial settings, Painful Painful Minghun stripped by players did not simply disappear; instead, they would be refined into pure Sacrificial Power Weight and re-enter the Sacrificial Power Weight Pool.

This portion of the revenue was not distributed to players; he monopolized it.

But the players' proposal made him feel that doing so would indeed increase the burden on players regarding strength improvement.

How to solve this problem? After reading the post, Qi Sheng already had an idea.

He planned to deduct a 5% handling fee from the Evolution Points produced after decomposing the stripped Painful Painful Minghun to enter the Sacrificial Power Weight Pool, and return the remaining 95% to the players for them to allocate and use freely.

The setting of returning upon decomposition could significantly reduce the effort and investment required for players to re-cultivate Painful Painful Minghun.

The launch of the Painful Painful Minghun decomposition mode could also stimulate player creativity, allowing them to boldly try various Star Pulse style combinations without worrying about re-cultivation.

However, before launching the decomposition function, he needed to contact Super Dimension in advance to implant new function settings for the Challenger System: Painful Painful Minghun decomposition, refinement, and resource return.

With the idea formed, Qi Sheng immediately contacted Super Dimension, who was located underground, through the Guide, and proposed the concept.

The Hyperdimension listening to his account, currently constructing the function of an armed vehicle, immediately stated that this part was very simple; they could first complete the function of decomposition and return, then continue the production of the armed vehicle function.

After the conversation ended, Qi Sheng disconnected the link, and his vision switched to the Leyline Cliff area where the latest guidance feedback prompt was displayed.

Leyline Cliff.

The energy derived from the Domain Node, along with the floating energy particles in heaven and earth, were being continuously drawn out by the towering Evil Eye Gao Ta.

The black fog shrouding the Gao Ta churned violently; constantly, evil lives were generated within the black fog and then re-integrated into it.

On the Gao Ta platform, the strength of the Earth-Will Evil Spirit gradually increased with the surging of the Black Tide energy.

"Evil Eye, have you refined any divinity?"

Facing the question, the Evil Eye floating high in the sky looked at the Earth-Will Evil Spirit:

"Do not be impatient. The Domain Node beneath our feet contains the power of rules. With my abilities, I cannot separate the source of the rules; I can only extract a portion of the energy derived from the rules. Even this portion of derived energy carrying rules requires time to digest once infused into your body."

Hearing these words, although feeling impatient, the Earth-Will Evil Spirit still nodded to indicate agreement.

Knowing the strength of the Monster World, he had already restrained the arrogance in his heart and decided to develop well in this world.

At this moment, he continued:

"Infuse this portion of extracted power into me first."

This time the Evil Eye made no sound; several pitch-black tentacles extended from its eyeball and pierced straight into the back of the Earth-Will Evil Spirit.

Instantly, a complex mark appeared on the Earth-Will Evil Spirit's forehead, glowing faintly, as surging energy was injected into its body.

Its body strength was also strengthened under the washing of the energy.

What the Earth-Will Evil Spirit and the Evil Eye did not know was that their actions were completely exposed to the surveillance of the Guidance.

At this moment, atop the Meng Yuan Chu Altar, Qi Sheng, seeing this scene through the Guidance's feedback, felt curious and looked up to ask the Guidance:

"Guidance, is the Evil Eye extracting the rule power of the Domain Node?"

Upon hearing this, the Guidance immediately shook its head:

【Except for you, who inherited the Beneath Di Zhao's original self-source and can use the rule power contained within the Domain Node at will, no other living creature can achieve this, including us Four Great Servitors. The Evil Eye is only extracting energy derived from the rule core of the Domain Node.】

【Take the Dark Cave as an explanation: the characteristic of this Domain Node is to nurture Spirit Ore. The Evil Eye's behavior is equivalent to cutting off the production of Spirit Ore, converting the output energy into Black Tide energy, and using the Black Tide energy to nurture a large number of evil lives. Moreover, since this process reverses the operational laws of the Monster World, the energy conversion process suffers severe losses, obtaining only about 10% of the derived energy.】

Hearing the Guidance's explanation, Qi Sheng immediately understood the principle behind it.

Similarly taking the Dark Cave as an example, this Domain Node operates according to the laws of the Monster World, and the energy produced nurtures Spirit Ore.

The method of cutting off energy output involves a certain loss; converting this portion of output energy into other energy substances results in even more severe losses.

What the Evil Eye achieves at its extreme is merely changing the method of energy output; it is fundamentally unable to extract the rule characteristics of the node domain that nurtures the energy.

"What is the energy injected into the Earth-Will Evil Spirit's body?" Qi Sheng continued to ask.

【During the process of the Domain Node's rule core deriving energy, some rule fragments are born.】

【The derived rule energy refers to the fact that during the Domain Node's process of nurturing energy, some energy will imprint rule characteristics. This portion of energy will quickly dissipate and vanish, but the Evil Eye intercepts this energy, imprinting it within the Earth-Will Evil Spirit's body to strengthen it... This process is like plagiarism. Theoretically, as long as there is sufficient time, the Evil Eye can produce counterfeit rule characteristics, allowing the Earth-Will Evil Spirit to master abilities similar to rules, but a fake is ultimately a fake; the rule efficacy is far inferior to the true Domain Node rules.】

【And this is precisely the most terrifying aspect of the Black Tide Warriors: every intelligent evil spirit possesses immense growth potential, capable of gaining strength increases by occupying Domain Nodes to extract energy or by devouring living creatures.】

After understanding the principle, Qi Sheng continued to press:

"Can I also cut off the process of the Dark Cave nurturing Spirit Ore, refine the generated energy, and introduce it into the Shou Shou Jili Pool, just like the contained Meng Yuan Chu monsters, to continuously produce Shou Shou Jili energy for me?"

【Of course you can, but I do not recommend doing so.】

【The process of the Dark Cave producing Spirit Ore is not only aided by energy derived from the rule core, but at the moment of generation, it is also infused with the energy of heaven and earth, just like completing a game quest and receiving the world's reward. The act of cutting off the Spirit Ore nurturing process is no different from the Evil Eye; the only difference lies in the amount of energy loss... The Evil Eye cannot truly control the node domain, so the extracted energy suffers over 50% loss, whereas you can completely control the Domain Node, significantly reducing conversion losses; I estimate the loss to be around 25%.】

【Producing Shou Shou Jili through players mining adds an extra infusion of heaven and earth energy on top of a lossless basis, gaining over 50% energy bonus. In summary, the Shou Shou Jili produced after cutting off the process is only 0.75, while the Shou Shou Jili produced by mining is 1.5; the difference reaches a factor of two.】

Hearing the explanation, Qi Sheng nodded to indicate understanding.

As the Guidance said, the Dark Cave has already become a resource production site integrated into the Di Zhao Village; increasing the total revenue through mining is clearly the better choice.

His gaze at this moment swept over the light curtain floating before him.

In the image, beneath the Gao Ta, evil lives were still rapidly generating within the churning black fog.

He knew the time node for the Black Tide outbreak in the Di Zhao Mountain Range area was approaching; the Earth-Will Evil Spirit would launch an assault on all Domain Nodes in the Di Zhao Mountain Range area once it possessed a sufficiently vast number of evil lives, attempting to completely occupy the entire Di Zhao Mountain Range area.

If this were truly achieved, the Evil Eye would possess multiple Domain Nodes from which to extract energy.

The Earth-Will Evil Spirit and the evil lives it led would also receive a more powerful infusion of energy, achieving a substantial increase in strength.

This would also be the player legion's first true battle against the Black Tide.

Before this, the cursed soldiers, blood corpses, and even the black-armored soldiers encountered in the Dark Cave that players met were merely mindless evil lives derived under the light of the Evil Moon.

They were a completely different concept from Black Tide Warriors like the Earth-Will Evil Spirit.

However, Qi Sheng had no many thoughts about this impending war; the Earth-Will Evil Spirit was merely an ordinary warrior within the terrifying Black Tide.

The impending Black Tide campaign, in his eyes, was merely a training exercise on the player legion's path to growth.

Letting players experience what a scene of high-intensity evil life rampaging looks like, and to think about how to solve the predicament when facing such rampaging evil lives.

Players might be beaten up during this process, but they could also achieve growth through killing evil lives.

The characteristic of evil lives being endless performs very strongly when conquering other worlds, but the Challenger System Qi Sheng conceived was precisely built to counter this trait.

The endlessness of evil lives comes from rapid nurturing after extracting heaven and earth energy, but there are ultimately losses.

Whereas the players created by the Challenger System are endless under a lossless state; even upon death, their flesh and blood can be reshaped, re-entering the battlefield without any weakening in strength.

With the support of the Challenger System and the rule characteristic of "Flesh and Blood Weight" in Di Zhao Village, a scaled player legion is a more terrifying calamity than evil lives.

(End of Chapter)