Chapter 13

Fang Yue quickly clicked in, reading carefully, word by word, studying intently for over ten minutes before finishing the fifty-plus-character post.

He looked at it sideways, upside down—only one piece of information emerged from those fifty-plus characters: HE! IS! BLOWING! ME!

Yeah, blowing.

But the post's writing was fluent, its content elegant, the flattery so soothing it felt like basking in spring breeze, making one float toward transcendence.

With a mouse swipe, Fang Yue clicked the heavy "like" button on the post.

Like!

Unfortunately, when he scrolled down, every reply was pure mockery.

"【Yese Liming】? Where did this little nobody come from? Never heard of him!"

"Did you even log into 'Blue Sea' today? That Yese guy got the first kill on a 【Chu Sheng Gui】—now the whole forum is fawning over him, it's making me sick."

"So it's 'world's best blowhard' then? I got a lucky gift pack and started strong in 'Blue Sea,' but my martial cultivation progress is still painfully slow—I can't even beat the weakest 【Chu Sheng Gui】. How did that guy get the first kill? He must've cheated!"

"Envy, you're just jealous! But honestly, the server's been up less than three hours—even the best martial scripture only grants +0.1 to +0.5 in Control or Deflect stats. Progress is glacial. I don't believe anyone killed a 【Chu Sheng Gui】 purely through skill."

Below, every comment was skepticism.

And this skepticism stemmed from professional players' sharp instincts and precise numerical intuition—so theoretically, it was correct.

Even the weakest 【Chu Sheng Gui】 was no match for Fang Yue—not without the 32 stat points boosted by 【Night Breathing】.

Others, even with innate talents like divine strength and relentless training, might not even reach 10 stat points total.

Without even 10 stat points, killing a 【Chu Sheng Gui】 was pure fantasy.

So at this stage, anyone who kills a 【Chu Sheng Gui】 is almost certainly cheating; only a rare few like Fang Yue manage it through raw power.

Unable to bear the skepticism in the thread, Fang Yue slunk away and moved on to other posts.

The launch of this brand-new, era-defining game, "Blue Sea," was precisely when professional players were most active.

So most of the homepage content revolved around "Blue Sea."

Some were crude guides, others discovered game mechanics, some dug into lore—every kind of content flooded in rapidly, many locked behind paywalls.

Fang Yue also posted his own thread, reposting the "Stat Analysis Guide" he'd sent to Shi Wuliao and others, locking it with a 0.1-yuan price tag—practically giving it away.

After posting, Fang Yue kept scrolling the forum, focusing on free analysis threads, picking up even more new tactics.

For example, character creation.

Turns out, all players entered the game without a character creation phase.

Instead, they randomly possessed a body—like soul possession.

But this randomness wasn't truly random; after collecting player data, the system matched them with bodies of similar physical traits.

For instance, if a player was a beautiful woman in real life, the system would find a similarly beautiful female body to possess.

Or if a player was a child, the system would try to find a child's body.

To ensure everyone got a viable body, players were randomly assigned to different villages.

Most players' identities were refugees.

These refugees had apparently fled due to some unknown event—their backgrounds were blank, impossible to trace.

A few lucky gift pack players received special identities or roles.

Also, if all refugees in a village were elderly, weak, sick, or disabled—with none matching any player's profile—the system would simply not spawn a player there.

Of course, mismatches occurred.

Like a male player being matched with a female body, or vice versa—but the system offered no solution.

It was a brand-new server; bugs were normal.

Fang Yue treated it as a funny anecdote and didn't take it seriously.

Fang Yue devoted most of his energy to martial cultivation strategies and ways to efficiently raise stat points.

Unfortunately, most of these guides cost money—and expensive money at that.

In the game's early phase, this data was the most valuable.

After hesitating for a long time, Fang Yue reluctantly bought one of the most popular martial cultivation guides.

After reading it, he indeed understood martial cultivation much better.

Energized and flush with overnight wealth, he bought two more posts—only to find their content nearly identical. Furious, he posted a rant and got banned for 24 hours.

Helpless, he became a silent observer and resumed his free-riding forum crawl.

Only when his phone rang did Fang Yue close the forum and prepare to return to the game.

At that moment, his peripheral vision caught the sheepskin parchment lying on the desk.

After a moment's thought, Fang Yue picked up the parchment.

Quickly, text appeared on the parchment.

"I made money in 'Blue Sea.' The parchment was right."

"Clearly, if I believe the parchment, I'll become a millionaire."

"Now, I need to enter the game and keep improving my strength."

"'Blue Sea' just launched—every second counts. I can't waste time outside."

This is urging me into the game.

Could it be… new opportunities have emerged in the game?

Fang Yue's mind stirred. He set down the parchment, lay back on his bed, and tapped the dial on his 【Game Watch】.

"Enter Game!"

After Fang Yue entered the game.

The parchment once again began to display text.

"What's this idiot doing outside? Game, game—get into the game!"

"Does he have any idea how precious the launch time of a game is? And he's supposed to be a professional gamer! One step ahead of everyone else, and you stay ahead every step of the way! He's an absolute idiot!"

"Infuriating, absolutely infuriating — if you don't work hard when young, you'll only grieve in vain when old!"

Even through the text, one could feel the gnashing tone of the parchment.

The fuming parchment erased the words.

Those characters no longer faded away slowly as they normally did.

Instead, they vanished with a crunch, crunch, as if being bitten off one by one.

It seemed the parchment was expressing its own emotions.

……

In the game, Fang Yue opened his eyes.

He was still in the same posture as when he had logged out, but his legs were not numb — instead, they felt warm and comfortable.

Looking up at the sky, the rain had long since stopped, and the guards who had been holding umbrellas had all uniformly folded up their oil-paper umbrellas.

These oil-paper umbrellas seemed quite precious — along the way, Fang Yue hadn't seen many pedestrians walking with umbrellas; only the patrolling guards carried them.

Also, the village's buildings seemed to have excellent protection against the rain, so most people had stayed home and not come out.

After waiting a while longer, Lord Han arrived.

"It's about time. How do you feel?"

Fang Yue stretched out his legs. Although there was still a tingly numbness, it was much better than before.

"I'm already much better."

"Mm, that's good then."

(End of chapter)