Chapter 8: The Second Batch of Players

Human Federation, Night Silence City.

Fishing and Hunting District, 5 AM.

The horizon turned fish-belly white, accompanied by the whistle of numerous fishing boats returning; outside the window, lights interwove, creating a bustling scene within the fishing port.

Rubbing his somewhat sore and swollen eyes, Jiang Zhou shifted his gaze from the window back to the computer desktop.

A prompt popping up in the top right corner showed that the compressed package had finished downloading.

He deeply detested online scammers because he had once encountered fraud on the internet himself.

Originally, after the group owner "Kindergarten Principal" kicked the welfare officer out of the group, he prepared to delete the scam link, but Jiang Zhou stopped the Principal's action.

He believed that reporting was the most correct way to handle it.

Perhaps his actions could save many innocent youths who would otherwise be deceived.

But before reporting, he needed to collect relevant information about the scam link.

Federal cyber police handle a massive amount of reported complaint information daily; organizing and collecting evidence before submission can reduce the cyber police's workload and allow fraud cases to be processed faster.

Clicking the shield icon on the computer desktop with the mouse, the computer entered network protection mode.

Afterwards, he used "Security Shield" to perform a virus scan on the compressed package downloaded from the link address.

To his surprise, there were no viruses inside the compressed package.

"Could it be a prank?"

As for whether the compressed package truly contained a cracked version of "Dark Lands," he absolutely could not believe it.

The scammer's intent was too obvious.

Not only did they reveal their intentions after chatting for just a few sentences, but the webpage address behind the link was also extremely crude, not even willing to download a webpage template, completely amateur level.

And the Moon Eclipsers' powerful network technology could not be breached by any technical means.

With doubts, he opened the compressed package and began to extract its contents.

In less than a minute, the compressed package extraction finished.

Since the contents required a virtual game pod to open, Jiang Zhou transferred the file to the game pod connected to the computer and pressed the adaptation key.

Shortly after, the game adaptation completed.

Jiang Zhou stood up and entered the game pod.

After the neural connection tubes automatically docked with various parts of his body, Jiang Zhou's vision was gradually shrouded in darkness; when it became clear again, he had arrived before a virtual desktop.

The desktop held 16 game icons, each carrying a memory of growth, but he had mostly abandoned them.

At the very bottom of the desktop was the game downloaded via the link, its icon a monster surrounded by burning crimson flames.

Although the game detected no viruses, Jiang Zhou still activated the protection function for safety's sake.

The launch of this function traced back to the era of technological explosion when the Moon Eclipsers first arrived on Earth, bringing advanced virtual technology to humanity.

With the emergence of new technologies, a large number of virtual games appeared, including no shortage of horror games.

Someone once used the "Virtual Engine Library Materials" publicly released by the Moon Eclipsers to create a horror prank mini-game, causing a player to suddenly suffer a heart attack and die instantly after downloading and experiencing it.

Following this incident, all virtual game pods must install safety detectors, which can judge the player's status through changes in body hormones and heart rate; in case of an emergency, the built-in safety alarm system will immediately send a distress signal to nearby medical stations.

Clicking the game icon, a burning crimson array appeared in Jiang Zhou's mind.

Following this was a strong sensation of dizziness, as if an invisible vortex was devouring and pulling at his consciousness.

After the sensation of weightlessness dissipated, the scene before his eyes left Jiang Zhou dumbfounded.

The sky covered in pitch-black cracks, continuous volcanoes spewing flames, terrifying monsters roaming the earth... the smell of scorched earth and sulfur in the air entered his lungs through his nose with every breath, bringing a slight burning sensation.

The rapidly advancing aerial view was incredibly realistic, immersing him instantly.

The terrifying apocalyptic scene also caused his heart rate to suddenly accelerate.

At this moment, his vision suddenly dove downward, heading toward a dilapidated village on the surface.

Under the intense sensation of weightlessness, Jiang Zhou couldn't help but let out a cry of shock.

Just as the vision was about to hit the ground, it was suddenly shrouded in darkness.

Subsequently, a huge grid-like blue crystal wall appeared before his eyes, stretching endlessly on both sides and piercing straight into the sky above.

Most of the space on the wall was empty; in the starting position at the very bottom, three grotesque monsters were imprisoned in the cells.

A prompt then sounded in Jiang Zhou's mind:

【Welcome, Challenger, to the Monster World. Please begin creating your initial character.】

At this moment, Jiang Zhou completely lost his composure.

The feeling was like holding one's nose, preparing to take a small taste of disgusting food, only to unexpectedly discover it was actually a delicacy one had longed for and dreamed of.

The huge gap caused Jiang Zhou's emotions to fluctuate violently, and he couldn't help but exclaim:

"Holy crap, holy damn crap!"

15 minutes later.

【Kindergarten Small Class Passionate Chat Group (Online: 32 people)】

Small Class-Black Ball: Actually, I think the arrival of the Moon Eclipsers is a good thing for us humans; their base is built on the moon and does not affect our living environment, much better than the chaotic forces like the Crimson Flame Clan that came as refugees.

Small Class-Iron Hammer: Yeah, the arrival of the Moon Eclipsers brought us a large amount of novel technology, improving our quality of life, and they have never oppressed us humans; they are considered a very friendly alien faction, it's just that the pricing is truly damn awful!

At this time, Jiang Zhou, who had been away for a long time, returned.

Small Class-Drunk Milk: Brothers, something terrible is happening!

Small Class-Cute Kid replied to Small Class-Drunk Milk: Didn't you turn on the safety protection function and get scammed again?

Small Class-Iron Hammer replied to Small Class-Cute Kid: Is it possible that Drunk Milk downloaded the genuine version of the game?

Facing the group members' teasing, Jiang Zhou immediately typed a line of text and pressed Enter:

Small Class-Drunk Milk: I really downloaded the genuine version of "Dark Lands"; the game is indeed 100% virtual reality as advertised, the experience is super realistic, you guys download it quickly, and once you finish installing the game, let's start exploring together.

Seeing Zui Nai's reply, the group members responded one after another with funny emojis.

Xiao Ban-Marble: Do you believe what Zui Nai said, or do you believe I am the reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang (funny. jpg)?

Iron Hammer replied to Marble: Of course I believe you are the reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang; I'll Venmo you 50 in a moment, and you can decide what title to give me later depending on your mood (funny. jpg).

Facing the group members' distrust, Jiang Zhou typed another line of text again:

Xiao Ban-Zui Nai: I swear on my second brother, this time I absolutely am not fooling you; go download it quickly, we can finally play together happily again.

Seeing Jiang Zhou repeatedly guarantee that the game could truly be downloaded as "Dark Land," the group members' mindset underwent a slight change.

Xiao Ban-Cute Baby: Holy crap, could it really be true?

Xiao Ban-Iron Hammer: Based on my understanding of Zui Nai, he probably wouldn't make this kind of joke.

Although it was hard to believe, they still chose to trust this old friend of many years and clicked the link one after another to download the game.

……

Half an hour later.

Various messages @-ing group members, along with various "holy craps," flooded the group chat.

Because the link given by the "Welfare Officer" could actually download the genuine version of "Dark Land."

At this moment, the group owner of the Toddler Group, Hearing Tong Xin, who was still asleep, was awakened by the continuous @ notification sounds.

Reaching out to take his phone from under the pillow, he, still groggy from sleep, began to scroll through the group chat content.

"Director, wake up quickly, something huge has happened!"

"Director, it's this late and you can still sleep..."

Hearing Tong Xin, becoming more and more alert the more he read, suddenly sat up, hurriedly went to the computer to wake the screen, and clicked the pinned web link.

The screen jumped to the download page; he clicked "Download" without hesitation.

At this moment, a prompt popped up on the page:

【Game download has reached the limit; the publisher has not enabled new download permissions; unable to continue downloading.】

This pop-up prompt caused Hearing Tong Xin's mindset to instantly collapse.

He immediately typed a line of text into the group chat:

Kindergarten Director: Brothers, why does this link still limit the number of downloads? It won't let us download anymore.

Xiao Ban-Zui Nai: I'm not sure, but I'll mourn for you for one second.

Xiao Ban-Black Ball: Hahaha, let you keep sleeping; you could even miss out on the 128,888 free welfare. I can now imagine you gnashing your teeth in front of the computer.

Xiao Ban-Iron Hammer: Sleeping causes trouble; at our age, we should stay up late. Look, we all received the stay-up-late welfare, but you didn't.

Xiao Ban-Cute Baby: Director, only the Welfare Officer can save you; go kowtow and apologize right now.

Kindergarten Director: You really deserve to die... I'm going to find the Welfare Officer and kneel to apologize.

……

With his mindset nearing collapse, Hearing Tong Xin decisively pulled up the system message list, found the information for the Welfare Officer who had kicked him out of the group, and after selecting "Add," a prompt box popped up:

【Do you want to add "Welfare Officer" as a friend?】

Below the prompt box was the remark information field.

After a brief thought, he typed a few hundred characters of apology information into the remark box, expressing his mistake to the Welfare Officer, sincerely repenting, and hoping the Welfare Officer would let bygones be bygones and show my lord's generosity.

Hearing Tong Xin felt that he had never been this sincere and serious when writing essays during his school days.

After repeatedly revising his wording, he pressed "Send Request" with expectation in his heart.

The next second, a prompt popped up:

【Welfare Officer has enabled the function to block strangers from adding; friend request failed!】

Seeing the text in the prompt box, Hearing Tong Xin completely lost control of his emotions and punched the desk:

"Damn it!"

New book period: updates every morning around 8 AM, two chapters per day.

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(End of this chapter)