Chapter 7: Emperor Omen

Emperor Tomb Village, 300 meters underground.

Qi Sheng stood before the blue crystal wall containment barrier, his gaze sweeping over the three Primordial Monster Soul Spirits already imprisoned within; a flexible tube extended from inside the crystal wall into each of their backs, continuously extracting a scarlet energy.

Closing his eyes, scarlet flames instantly climbed over his entire body.

His head transformed into fiercely burning scarlet fire, shifting between substance and illusion, while three small orbs of light appeared around him, rotating in orbit.

Switching to the Emperor Omen form, data-like feedback from the Guide floated in Qi Sheng's mind.

【King of Monsters: Emperor Omen】:

Control over the Source Land:

Emperor Tomb Village (Territory Trait: Life Reshaping)

Territory resistance cost against the Black Black Tide: 1000 Sacrificial Power points/day.

Retainers: Nine Yin, Yan Ming, the Guide, Super Dimension.

Remaining Sacrificial Power Pool: 130, 28.

Sacrificial Power output from the Containment Wall: 30 points/hour.

Contained Primordials: Gargoyle (Petrification), Black Armored Snake (Deadly Poison), Eagle-Headed Demon (Resentful Chant).

Although he had inherited the Emperor Omen's source and become the new Emperor Omen,

his strength at the current stage was not formidable.

Over ten thousand years ago, the previous Emperor Omen had decomposed his power into countless Primordial Monsters, scattering them across the Monster World.

As the new Emperor Omen, he had inherited only the core source but lost the countless power traits that had been decomposed and scattered.

The original intention behind recruiting players was to have them explore the Monster World, ravaged and destroyed by the Black Black Tide, to contain the Emperor Omen's lost Primordial Power—that is, the Primordial Monsters.

For every Primordial Monster contained, his strength would receive partial enhancement, and he would regain one of the power traits lost by the Emperor Omen.

Furthermore, after the Primordial Monsters evolved from the Emperor Omen's power were imprisoned within the Containment Wall, they could produce 10 points of Sacrificial Power per hour.

The Gargoyle, Black Armored Snake, and Eagle-Headed Demon—these three already contained Primordial Monsters—could produce 30 points of Sacrificial Power per hour, totaling 720 points daily.

However, Emperor Tomb Village's daily expenditure of Sacrificial Power to resist the Black Black Tide was 1000 points; at the current stage, expenditure exceeded income.

The remaining Sacrificial Power would soon be exhausted; he needed more channels to generate revenue.

This was one of the reasons he chose to impersonate the highly popular "Land of Darkness" to recruit players, hoping to create greater Sacrificial Power output through them.

Another reason for recruiting players was his need for more domain nodes.

The Monster World was tens of thousands of times larger than Earth, composed of countless domain nodes pieced together, with each source node retaining rule traits controlled by the Emperor Omen.

For instance, the rule trait of the Emperor Tomb Village territory was "Life Reshaping."

The players' ability to resurrect was accomplished through the trait power provided by Emperor Tomb Village.

There were many similar territories in the Monster World; he needed players to occupy domain nodes already eroded by the terrifying Black Black Tide and integrate them into Emperor Tomb Village, bringing more territory traits.

First, contain the Primordials.

Second, reclaim the domain nodes.

These were his two most important reasons for recruiting players.

If the plan succeeded, he would become a true Emperor Omen God, gaining the powerful strength to Iron Face the terrifying Black Black Tide directly.

【Boss, the first batch of players created 32 points of Sacrificial Power revenue for you in just half a day; not bad.】

Just then, the Guide, hovering beside him, suddenly spoke.

"Still too slow; we need to recruit more players."

The 32 points of Sacrificial Power mentioned by the Guide referred to the energy refined after Li Zheng and other players killed numerous Curse Soldiers, from which he would extract a thirty percent share of the revenue and send it to the Sacrificial Power Pool beneath Emperor Tomb Village.

He had carefully considered this setting.

Extracting too much would hinder player growth, while extracting too little would fail to offset Emperor Tomb Village's daily Sacrificial Power expenditure.

Thirty percent was just right.

Switching back to human form, the scarlet flames on his head extinguished, and the three orbs of light orbiting his body dissipated accordingly.

【When are you preparing to open the next recruitment?】

"Now!"

Raising his hand, a spatial teleportation array appeared beneath Qi Sheng's feet.

After a brief spatial distortion, he returned to his bedroom in the real world.

He had already formulated a clear plan on how to recruit more players.

In the early stage, he would use the super-popular name "Land of Darkness" to attract new recruits.

If players wanted virtual reality, what he offered was a real world.

The target for this round remained those groups who wanted to play "Land of Darkness" but were unable to do so due to the game's exorbitant price.

These groups generally had experience with virtual reality games and possessed a certain technical foundation, allowing them to adapt quickly to the game environment and grow rapidly.

Compared to pure pay-to-win players, these groups were more suitable for the early-stage development and exploration of the Monster World.

He still had 130, 00 points of Sacrificial Power; crafting each Monster Body required 1, 00 points of Sacrificial Power energy, meaning he could recruit at most 130 more players.

Adding in the consumption required to maintain the operation of Emperor Tomb Village's defensive barrier, he could only issue a limited number of qualification slots externally for now.

【Kindergarten Small Class Passionate Chat Group (Online: 38 people)】

Kindergarten Principal (Group Owner): (News Link) Latest news: The Moon Eclipse Clan behind "Land of Darkness" has issued another 1 million game purchase quotas to our Human Federation!

Small Class-Black Ball: I don't want to hear this news; obviously, none of the 1 million quotas are for me, and the price is enough to make one give up (Sighs. pg).

Small Class-Iron Hammer: I saw this news; it's said that high-ranking officials of the Human Federation hoped to apply for more quotas, wanting to use the virtual environment for experiments, but were rejected by the Moon Eclipse Clan.

Small Class-No Nap: Sigh, who asked us to be unable to develop a virtual reality game with such high fidelity as "Land of Darkness."

Small Class-Drunk Milk: I have a proposal; since everyone wants to play but is restricted by insufficient funds from experiencing the game content, I suggest we pool our money to buy one copy of "Land of Darkness" and gift it to me, allowing me to experience the game content on behalf of everyone, bearing your enthusiasm and longing to play happily in "Land of Darkness."

Small Class-Cute Kid replying to Small Class-Drunk Milk: I agree with pooling funds, but why should you be the one enjoying it instead of me (Angry table slam. pg)?

Just as the group members were wailing about the exorbitant price of "Land of Darkness," a line of small text popped up at the bottom of the chat group:

【Welfare Officer verified and joined the chat group.】

Kindergarten Principal (Group Owner): Who is this? Checking the verification info, it doesn't show who passed the application?

Small Class-No Nap: Blind guess: the newcomer is a porn peddler with a large stock of colored videos and pictures, hence calling himself Welfare Officer... On behalf of the group members, I extend a warm welcome to you.

Small Class-Black Ball: @Welfare Officer, why isn't the newcomer speaking? Start your welfare special session; I'm ready.

Under the constant @ mentions from the group members, Qi Sheng sent his first message after joining:

Welfare Officer: I have the good things you all want on hand; wait a moment while I send them to everyone.

Small Class-Drunk Milk: We all know you have them, but we hope they're free; this group does not welcome porn-selling brothers, only free welfare brothers.

Welfare Officer: Do you want to play "Land of Darkness"?

Kindergarten Principal (Group Owner): Bro, are you next going to tell us you can buy genuine qualifications at a discount (Laughing until spraying. pg)?

Welfare Officer: Since fate has brought us together, I'm giving everyone a super welfare benefit; I've posted the link to download the cracked version of "Land of Darkness" in the group; if you want to play, you can download it anytime (Link: *****).

Seeing the download link for "Land of Darkness," the originally lively group instantly fell silent, after which the group owner was the first to break the quiet.

Kindergarten Principal (Group Owner): @Welfare Officer, Get out! Sending you a plane ticket; this scam trick is 500 years behind the times; whoever falls for it is an idiot.

【Notification: Group member "Welfare Officer" has been kicked from the chat group】

Small Class-Cute Kid: This guy was too impatient; far inferior to the scammer who joined our group a year ago; I still clearly remember that scammer stayed with us for three months, occasionally sending red envelope benefits, then suddenly claimed to have an internal discount recharge channel for "Bloodthirsty Maniac"; I believed it at the time and ended up being scammed out of 800.

Kindergarten Principal: Hahaha, I remember the one scammed the worst back then was Drunk Milk, who transferred 3000 to buy the discounted recharge.

Small Class-Drunk Milk: Society is treacherous; thinking about it makes my heart ache; after that ordeal, my innocence vanished... The more I think about it, the angrier I get; I'm going into the link right now to collect the content and report it to the Federal Cyber Police; since the internet uses real-name authentication, hopefully, we can drag the scammer out for trial.

(End of Chapter)