Chapter 73

Returning to the Origin Altar, Li Zheng sat cross-legged.

The short journey ended, and he returned to his busy state, flipping through the information produced by players to find directions for updates and optimizations.

And the Mechanical Overlord he saw during this trip had already been marked by him as a hostile force.

The Mechanical Overlord’s goal of pulverizing the Monster World was destined to run counter to his own ultimate goal.

But this hostile force did not need to be dealt with for the time being.

At least until the player legions advanced to the Earth-Shattering Continent, it would not pose a substantial threat to the development of the player legions.

In his eyes, the vast and boundless Monster World seemed to have become very exciting in the years since the Four Gods disappeared.

The terrifying Black Tide, the Anti-Tide Legion, the Mechanical Overlord... clearly, countless new forces were rising in this ancient and vast world, staging an unprecedented and magnificent epic hegemony.

The future of heroes competing for the world made Li Zheng look forward to it.

Currently, the forces clearly marked by him as hostile were the terrifying Black Tide and the Mechanical Overlord. As for the Anti-Tide Legion, he did not know for the moment whether they were friend or foe, or if there were any conflicts of interest.

Thinking of this, Li Zheng looked up at the Guide water sphere floating beside him:

"Guide, if I were to win over this Eight Extremes God of unknown identity in the name of Di Zhao, what is the probability of success?"

[Boss, there are no specific conditions to analyze, and I don't know if the Anti-Tide can be won over... It is better not to make contact before knowing the specific situation of the other party. The identity of Di Zhao’s successor is too sensitive; exposing it rashly will inevitably attract the attention of all parties, including traitors who covet Di Zhao’s power and powerful enemies from outside.]

Hearing this, Li Zheng nodded in understanding.

The Four Great Servants had all said similar things to him.

Di Zhao was the creator of the Monster World, and its power was something even the controllers behind the Black Tide could not refuse.

Before possessing sufficiently strong power, exposing his identity was purely a death-seeking act.

At that time, all forces would gather, the player legions would have no room for development, and he would completely lose the initiative, becoming the center of contention for all parties and drifting with the tide.

This was also the reason why he chose to burn sacrificial power to go hunting in the first place.

Without dwelling on this question, Li Zheng’s gaze jumped to the forum.

While flipping through quickly, a post refreshed 3 seconds ago caught his eye.

[It's finally my turn to get rich. I'm posting to attract fire before successfully containing it. The more you flame, the happier I am, because I know you are jealous. If you want to curse, come to my livestream; it's best if you can tip some money.]

Poster: Hero Kill My Teammates First

Content: (Livestream link)

Li Zheng’s gaze jumped to the livestream.

In the livestream footage captured by the Guide’s clone perspective, three players were engaged in a fierce battle with a bright green plant at a volcano to the west of the Earth-Cracking Furnace area.

This plant’s roots pierced into the earth, its branches and trunk like flexible whips, lashing the three players until they were "howling." Every strike left red marks on their bodies, and the Black-Armored Great Snake at the very front was whipped until its skin was torn and flesh was gaping, with most of the scales on its body falling off.

But none of these three players retreated, continuing to fight while howling.

Looking at the analysis screenshot in the bottom left corner of the screen.

[Extraction (First Generation Origin)]:

Hunting Level: 18

Guide Analysis: A special monster that controls Origin power, possessing the special ability to extract plant essence.

Seeing that it was an Origin monster, the livestream chat was filled with a uniform screen of "You guys really deserve to die."

What the watching players couldn't stand most was that the three-player squad was clearly about to successfully contain the Origin.

One could see that most of the branches wielded by "Extraction" had already broken, and the frequency of its whipping was also decreasing with time; containment was only a matter of time.

"Ferocious Snake Coil."

Accompanied by a roar, the ten-meter-long Black-Armored Great Snake braved the dense whipping of branches and pounced on Extraction, coiling tightly around its body.

"Ow, it hurts, it hurts, hurry up and output, my soul is about to be whipped out."

Although there was a 90% pain suppression, the remaining 10% pain feedback still made the player who chose the Black-Armored Snake grimace, and then he bit down hard on Extraction’s trunk, his sharp teeth piercing through the skin and deep into it.

Seeing this, the other two teammates raised their hands to condense ink-colored fireballs and threw them at Extraction.

After the fireballs made contact with Extraction, they turned into tongues of flame and spread, but after a few seconds, they were extinguished by the green light released from Extraction’s body, unable to cause sustained damage.

The tragic battle continued for another five minutes.

Extraction completely lost the energy to continue fighting, and its branches hung down powerlessly.

Accompanied by two large fireballs hitting Extraction, the ink-colored flames no longer extinguished, burning fiercely. Extraction’s branches drooped, withered, and shrank.

Along with it, the Black-Armored Snake teammate who was still in the coiling state was also ignited by the ink-colored flames. After loosening its taut body, it fell to the ground and rolled:

"Unfilial son, hurry up and give me a bottle of medicine, it's killing your daddy."

"Damn it, I definitely won't play melee in my next life, it's too miserable. I haven't been beaten up this much in my whole life combined as I was just now; it almost whipped my soul away."

Amidst the cursing of the lead player, the other two players stepped in to help, muttering:

"Electric Brother, melee is the choice of a real man. In our squad, you are the strongest, melee is definitely for you."

"Electric Brother, hurry up and switch to Gargoyle. Black-Armored Snake is still a bit weak at taking damage. Only the most fierce Gargoyle is the Life Soul that best suits you."

Just as the three squad members were talking, a full-channel announcement sounded:

[Challenger Tip (Full Channel): Congratulations to players Hero Kill My Teammates First, I Am A Teammate, and I Am A Hero for successfully killing the first-generation Origin monster Extraction, obtaining a sacrificial power reward: 10,000 points (shared by participating players)]

Under the barrage of comments from the watching players, the three players were laughing very happily.

After switching to human form, the lead player smoothed his hair with his head, which had obviously swollen a circle, and said flirtatiously:

"Containing the Origin, easy-peasy, logging off!"

The livestream footage was then cut off.

Half an hour later, the forum successively refreshed review posts about the new Origin Life Soul "Extraction."

The one with the highest attention was the review shared by player Night Is Coming.

[Don't rush me, the preliminary review post is here.]

Poster: Night Is Coming

Content:

Before explaining the review content, let me stack a buff: this review content is for reference only. If you have different opinions, we can discuss them together. Uncivilized language is not allowed in the comment section.

Next, let’s get to the point.

I can clearly tell everyone that this is the weakest Life Soul of this version, bar none.

Of course, the "trash" I refer to here is limited to the current version. Perhaps in the future, there will be matching Life Souls that will show very powerful performance.

Just like the Brain Overclocking, Good Luck, Great Luck, and other Life Souls I reviewed before, which seemed like useless waste in the early stages, they were all proven later to have excellent performance when paired with other matching Life Souls.

The Extraction Life Soul is the same.

The ability effect of this Life Soul is to extract spirit plant essence.

I conducted multiple tests and found that this Life Soul is only effective on plant-type life, but the effect is pitifully weak.

The test target was a level 10 Ghost Wood. Every time I used Extraction, the damage caused was not as good as a level 10 Strength Barbarian Axe going up and hacking once; it is simply chicken ribs to the extreme.

Although Extraction can extract plant energy, this thing is not of much significance to us.

We can completely sacrifice spirit plants directly to Brother Di Zhao; why go through an extra Extraction procedure? The sacrificial power obtained will not increase.

Unless the Monster World opens up Alchemist and similar professions in the future, I can't think of what the Extraction Life Soul is useful for.

The full test video is placed below. Brothers who are interested can take a look.

Finally, let me say one thing: the role of the Extraction Life Soul is at the bottom of the list when paired with any Life Soul in the current version, and it can be ranked at the top of the ten weakest Life Souls.

Sea of Learning Has No Bounds: I was excited when I saw a new Life Soul being contained, but I didn't expect it to be a chicken-rib Life Soul. Continuing to kill evil spirits.

Is This A Beaver: I thought the effect of the Extraction Life Soul was to extract the target’s life energy to heal oneself. I didn't expect it to be the ability to extract resource essence. After reading Brother Night’s text introduction, I didn't even bother to click on the review video. It is definitely a trash Life Soul.

Killing Intent Moved: What I want most now is to test the Invisibility, Godly Movement, and Sure-Kill in the Life Soul library, plus my Black-Armored Snake’s Fierce Poison, and I can play the assassin style I’ve been dreaming of. I hope I can play this style in my lifetime.

Night Is Coming (OP) replied to Killing Intent Moved: I advise you to continue pairing with existing Life Souls and not to plan for future pairings. The worldview of this game is very large. I asked the Guide, and it indicated that the Di Tomb Mountain range area we are exploring is just a small corner of the Monster World. From this, it can be seen that the Moon Eclipse race intends to develop and operate this game for a long time. There may be many Life Souls that we will never be able to contain in our lifetime, and it might even be hard to see them; we have to rely on our descendants to work hard.

Game Brick-Moving Party replied to Night Is Coming: Damn, what you said is so heartbreaking. When I have money, I must go to the Moon Base and get a shot of life-extending gene medicine.

Super God Old Hen: More and more Life Souls are being contained, but the true god of the version is always the magic system, especially the recently developed Clone Fireball style, which is too brutal. When will we melee players have our day? (God of Wealth clenching fists, red-faced.jpg)

Luck European Emperor: I’m not very interested in melee or ranged; I only want the Shadow Legion style. The feeling of getting stronger while lying down is cool just thinking about it.

Just as players were heatedly discussing the Extraction Life Soul.

At the exit of Di Tomb Village.

Yang Tianxuan of the Doomsday Technology Guild was testing the power of the fourth-generation spirit energy firearms.

With the foundation of the first three generations of modifications, they carried out more detailed modifications and upgrades to the structure of the spirit energy firearms.

His gaze swept toward the guild members who were testing the power of the spirit energy firearms not far away.

He saw the test personnel switch to Bone Fire form and take out the spirit energy firearm from their space bag.

After pulling the trigger, the flames on their body surface were continuously injected into the gun body.

The muzzle then spat out bullets with ink-colored flames, igniting the blood corpses not far in front. The continuously exploding bullets caused wave after wave of sustained damage, making it impossible for the blood corpses to get close.

2 minutes later, the blood corpses completely stopped moving, leaving only charred remains on the ground.

The All-Things Extraction System in the Challenger System was then activated, extracting the blood corpses whose "life stability structure" had been destroyed, causing them to turn into a gray mist and fly toward the player who killed the blood corpses.

"Director Yang, the preliminary test effect is good, but the gun body will be continuously scorched and damaged in Bone Fire form, and it won't be long before the weapon’s durability is exhausted."

"It's okay, human form can also use the Bone Fire ability. Later, when other players’ body-tempering levels go up, they won't need to maintain Bone Fire form all the time. There is no need to worry about this problem."

After speaking, Yang Tianxuan looked at the test personnel on the other side.

The biggest improvement of the fourth-generation spirit energy firearm compared to the first three generations is that it can be used in combination with Life Soul abilities.

For example, the flames released in Bone Fire form can be injected into the gun body, and after fusing with the energy provided by the spirit stone, it condenses into an ink-flame bullet inside. The performance of the preliminary test was excellent.

When other elemental attack Life Souls are contained in the future, they can also be paired with the fourth-generation spirit energy firearms to cause sustained elemental damage bombardment to targets.

Just then, information popped up in Yang Tianxuan’s mind, prompting a video call.

After connecting, a light screen popped up in front of him. The man in the picture had a back-combed hairstyle, his hair color was slightly white, and his face was wrapped in a circle of thick whiskers.

"Xiao Ye, what's the matter?" Yang Tianxuan asked curiously.

The man in the picture was named Cheng Ye, a team leader in their weapon R&D department.

After entering the game and creating the Doomsday Technology Guild, Cheng Ye chose a completely different path from them, and the star veins he embedded were all melee-type Life Souls.

The purpose of doing this was also for weapon R&D.

Recently, they were preparing to build a simple furnace for smelting spirit mineral ores. They, a group of R&D personnel with no strength, couldn't do it at all, and needed strength-type players to be responsible for completing the task of hand-crafting the smelting furnace.

Cheng Ye chose a position similar to a mechanical engineer, responsible for manual labor such as manufacturing and maintenance.

The batch of measuring tools built recently was also completed by him.

Facing his inquiry, a smile appeared on the face of Cheng Ye in the light screen:

"Boss, have you seen the latest Life Soul review post on the forum?"

"Is it the Extraction Life Soul that was prompted just now?" Yang Tianxuan asked curiously.

"Yes, it is this Extraction Life Soul, you should take a look on the forum...."

Hanging up the connection, Yang Tianxuan was curious in his heart, not understanding what Cheng Ye wanted to express.

But he still decisively summoned the function panel and opened the forum page.

His gaze searched the popularity list, and he quickly locked onto the review post released by Night Is Coming.

Flipping through the content of the post, Yang Tianxuan’s expression gradually changed.

"Extracting plant essence?"

He suddenly realized why Cheng Ye would suddenly find him.

The Origin characteristic of the Extraction Life Soul made him think of a special department in the Sky Technology R&D Center: the "Gene Modification Department."

This department was established after the Moon Eclipse race gifted gene editing technology to the Human Federation.

The purpose of its establishment was to create a batch of super gene warriors for the Human Federation through gene editing technology, and secondly, it also had the grand pursuit of exploring the mysteries of life and promoting the progress of biological science.

Developing to this day, the Gene Modification Department has created 100,000 super gene warriors for the Human Federation, and also has many contributions in the fields of agricultural biotechnology and medical health.

Nowadays, gene modification experiments are divided into two types.

The first is gene editing modification, which enables warriors to obtain powerful physiques and strength by optimizing gene sequences.

The second is modification by implanting spiritual seeds.

The modification material most used for this type of modification is: spirit plants.

Unlike the wild spirit plants in the Monster World, the spiritual plants in the real world are all cultivated indoors and catalyzed to grow by continuously injecting energy.

Both the medicinal effect and the growth rate are far inferior to those in the Monster World.

The strengthening method is to stimulate and strengthen human genes by extracting spiritual medicinal liquid, enabling them to evolve.

This is also the most advanced modification technology at the current stage.

But this process has greater risks. The success rate of creating gene warriors is less than 30%. The vast majority of warriors participating in the experiment will die after a series of diseases such as physiological dysfunction, immune system collapse, and nervous system abnormalities during rapid gene collapse.

He had talked with an old friend in the Gene R&D Department and learned that solving the problem of gene modification requires improvement from two aspects.

First is the quality of spirit plants.

The Human Federation’s technology for cultivating spirit plants is limited and cannot cultivate high-quality spirit plants. If there is gene modification medicinal liquid obtained after extracting high-quality spirit plants, the risk of death during the modification process can be reduced.

Second is the physical fitness of the experiment participants.

The higher the physical fitness, the smaller the risk of gene modification that can be endured.

And these two problems can be solved in the Monster World after the appearance of the Extraction Life Soul.

First, in terms of medicinal liquid extraction, the real world requires highly precise and advanced instruments to assist, needing to retain the spirit plant essence while removing various impurities.

But in the Monster World, it can be completed in a short time through the Extraction characteristic.

Most importantly, the Monster World has a wide variety of high-quality spirit plants to choose from.

Second is the physical fitness problem of the personnel receiving modification.

The Monster World is essentially a game. If the modified personnel die during the experiment, they only need to wait for the one-hour cooldown to end to resurrect, and there is no risk of casualties.

His heart was pounding. He felt that the "Extraction" characteristic, which was at the bottom in the eyes of forum players, was simply a divine skill in the eyes of those guys in the Gene Modification Department.

This means they can conduct gene modification experiments in the game without risk.

As long as there is enough sacrificial power, they can buy as many spirit plants as they want.

When the Cloud Field domain node is contained in the future, the player camp can even mass-produce spirit plants.

As for the modification effect, he felt that it was highly likely related to increasing body-tempering experience.

If this is really the case, those guys in the Gene Modification Department can even obtain huge sacrificial power income by selling gene potions that increase body-tempering experience, and then use this money to build gene modification laboratories and purchase spirit plants.

Thinking of this, Yang Tianxuan immediately decided to inform his old friend of this news.

Summoning the function panel, he chose to exit the game.

Accompanied by the jumping 30-second countdown numbers appearing in his eyes, inside his body that Yang Tianxuan could not see, lines of spirit patterns were rapidly generated and connected to each other.

The countdown returned to zero, and the consciousness teleportation array in his body was activated.

Dome Technology R&D Center.

"Old Yang, so you have already started doing weapon R&D in the game?"

Looking at the surprised old friend in the video screen, Yang Tianxuan nodded without hesitation:

"This game has a virtual environment that perfectly simulates real physical performance, which is very suitable for weapon R&D and power testing. I naturally won't miss it, and your gene modification technology can also make progress there...."

After listening to Yang Tianxuan’s account, a look of helplessness appeared on Yu Ze’s face:

"Your idea is good, but the problem is that we can't buy the game qualifications for the Dark Land at all, including the brother who was responsible for the procurement task of the trading center last time... Qin Ye, right... The cracked game link he sent, every time I click to download, it’s a pop-up prompt that the quota has been distributed."

Hearing these words, Yang Tianxuan fell into silence.

He had also encountered this problem, but he didn't expect that his old friend still hadn't been able to grab a cracked qualification.

"Alright, I’ve heard your suggestion. I will find a way to solve the problem of game qualifications. Recently, I will submit another application to let the higher-ups ask for a batch of Dark Land game qualifications through diplomatic forms."

Hanging up the video connection, Yu Ze sat in the office with a helpless expression.

He had thought about Old Yang’s suggestion.

But the problem was that the number of official genuine quotas issued by the Moon Eclipse race was very small, and it was impossible to grab game qualifications. Even the cracked versions were hard to grab, which was really excessive.

Sighing, he looked up at the virtual desktop and tried to click on the shortcut URL saved in the bottom right corner of the desktop.

The popped-up webpage then jumped to the download address of the cracked version of Dark Land.

Yu Ze, who didn't hold any hope, chose to click download again.

[Ding~ Download started, progress: 0.01%]

"Holy crap?!"