Chapter 69: Revisiting the old place, the black tide surges

Chapter 69: Revisiting the old place, the black tide surges

Chapter 69: Revisiting the old place, the black tide surges (first update)
Tianfeng City, South District.

Walking on the city streets, Qi Sheng's hometown seemed extremely unfamiliar.

Looking up, the streets are lined with towering skyscrapers, covered in smart glass that plays advertisements for wearable technology devices.

The road beneath your feet is no longer the asphalt and cobblestone roads of your memory. Instead, it is made of more advanced self-luminous materials that can automatically adjust the brightness according to pedestrian flow. Billboards on the roadside are broadcasting weather forecasts and news bulletins.

This city was very much like the future world he had imagined when he was young. It was full of vitality, but it lacked the familiar flavor.

When he reached the end of the street, Qi Sheng stopped and looked at the tall buildings across the street.

Memories came flooding back.

"Are you a tourist here? Do you need any help?"

Seeing Qi Sheng standing there staring at the tall buildings in a daze, a young man wearing "voluntary" work clothes and controlling a cleaning robot to clean the road on the roadside came over curiously to say hello.

Faced with the question, Qi Sheng was silent for a moment and then smiled and nodded:

"Yeah, I'm here for tourism, I don't need any help, thank you."

The young man's greetings made Qi Sheng feel emotional.

There are no friends or relatives he knows in this city anymore, and all traces of him have long been erased with the changes of the times, leaving only an unattended tombstone.

At this moment, a guiding voice with a teasing tone sounded in his mind:
[Tsk tsk, the saddest thing in life is not that children meet without knowing each other, and ask the guest where he comes from with a smile, nor that the broken door has been locked for a long time, the gray brick path is covered with dry moss, and the nameless dead grass invades the garden, but that the traces of one's own era have long been erased, and when you revisit the old place, you can't find the old memories. At this moment, sadness rises in your throat, and you suddenly remember that when your parents were still alive, you also cooked on the stove... Hey, the superpower dream that I longed for in my childhood has come true, but I find that I have also shouldered a heavy mission and embarked on a road of rise full of hardships... It seems that it was just a dream when I was young, and there is no one to tell my feelings in the old place. 】

"When did you become so cultured?"

[I recently looked through the Star Network database, which records a lot of human history data, and saw your sudden loneliness, which made me feel emotional. ]

"Have you finished sending it?" Qi Sheng asked unhappily.

[I have finished posting. Boss, you can continue to reminisce. I will not disturb you.]

Without responding to any instructions, Qi Sheng traveled around the old place according to the route he remembered, but in the process he could no longer find anything familiar.

Revisiting an old place is like carving a boat in search of a sword.

The part of his memory of that era has long been covered by the new era, and he is no longer young.

The moment he turned around and left, Qi Sheng officially said goodbye to his former self.

The memories of my hometown come to an end here.

The only way forward is to move forward.

……

Returning to the Origin Altar, Qi Sheng began to look through the information flow produced by the players today.

During this period, he was confused by a post on the forum that was gaining popularity.

The poster recorded the changes in Lu Xing's mental journey before and after he met the strange butterfly.

The content begins with the ambitious statement that Lu Xing left on the forum when he first entered the game. He stated that he would write an illustrated book for all players to travel and witness the unknown scenery of the monster world.

The post also included a screenshot of a record message posted by Lu Xing, which said:
As an exploration player, what I want to tell everyone is that games are not just about killing monsters and leveling up, but also about poetry and distant places.

When you are fighting to level up, the red dragon above the ancient battlefield is tearing the clouds. When you are mining to gain power, bright flowers are blooming on the bloody plain. When you are worried about the combination of star veins, the starry sky mantas described in the guide jump out of the sea of ​​stars. It is said that the night sky of the Great North is colorful and has unimaginable beauty... Those wonderful scenery that only exist in the guide description will be a stop on my future journey.

At the end of this passage, there is a GIF picture made by the poster by recording the screen in Lu Xing’s live broadcast room.

In the picture, Lu Xing was beaten black and blue by Qi Die. He pointed at Qi Die with a trembling finger and roared in anger:

"Just wait for me."

The other emojis below are also accompanied by text descriptions, for example:

Get beaten like crazy, curl up to reduce the area of ​​force, this is safe (laughing wildly with a gun), watch me blow you to death (arrogant face before detonating the psychic bomb), we can talk it out if you have something to say (begging for mercy), this is not scientific (the horror after the failed explosion), it is never too late for a gentleman to take revenge (crazy upgrade)...

The story of Lu Xing challenging Qi Die has become a comedy series in the eyes of forum players.

Everyone is looking forward to the sequel, but they are even more looking forward to the story being concluded as soon as possible so that everyone can have a Wind-Controlling Soul that can be embedded and used.

After reading the content of the post, Qi Sheng was attracted by another newly updated post.

[Regarding a serious problem in the Star Vein combination, I hope the Eclipse Clan officials can improve it as soon as possible after seeing it. 】

Posted by: The night is coming
Content: I have been playing a lot of new Star Vein combination styles in the test tower recently, and then I thought of a very serious problem, which will cause our later sacrifice power cost to explode.

Why is there no soul decomposition function in the game?

Suppose I have a better idea and want to reconstruct the star vein combination, I have to peel off the soul embedded previously.

However, the initial investment of the stripped soul cannot be returned, which leads to very high trial and error costs.

For example, I upgraded the Black Armored Snake Soul to level 30, but later I didn’t want the Black Armored Snake Soul anymore. After stripping it, although the Star Vein Slot had a new position and could be inlaid with a new Soul, would my initial investment be lost?

If the dog officials see this, I hope this aspect can be improved.

……

This idea seems completely feasible to Qi Sheng.

In the original setting, the soul stripped by the player would not disappear directly, but would be refined into pure sacrificial power and re-enter the sacrificial power pool.

This part of the revenue is not distributed to the players but is kept exclusively by him.

But the players' suggestions made him feel that doing so would indeed increase the burden on players to improve their strength.

After reading the post, Qi Sheng already had an idea of ​​how to solve this problem.

He planned to take 5% of the evolution points produced after the stripped soul was decomposed and put them into the sacrificial power pool as a handling fee, and return the remaining 95% to the players, who could distribute and use them freely.

The setting of decomposition return can significantly reduce the player's energy and investment in re-cultivating the soul.

The introduction of the soul decomposition mode can also inspire players' creativity, allowing them to try various combinations of star veins without having to worry about re-cultivation.

But before the decomposition function was launched, he needed to contact the super dimension in advance to implant the new function settings of soul decomposition, refining, and returning resources into the challenger system. With the idea, Qi Sheng immediately contacted the super dimension underground through guidance and proposed the idea.

After listening to his story, Super Dimension, who was constructing the armed vehicle function, immediately said that this part was very simple and that the decomposition and return function could be completed first before continuing with the production of the armed vehicle function.

After the conversation, Qi Sheng hung up the line and switched his attention to the area of ​​the earth vein cliff that provided the latest feedback prompts.

……

The ground cliff.

The energy derived from the domain nodes and the free energy particles between heaven and earth are continuously extracted by the towering Evil Eye Tower.

The black fog covering the tower was surging violently. Evil creatures were constantly generated in the black fog and then merged back into the black fog.

On the platform of the high tower, the strength of the evil spirit of the earth gradually increased with the surge of black tide energy.

"Evil Eye, has it ever been refined into divinity?"

In response to the question, the evil eye floating in the sky looked at the evil spirit on the ground:

"Don't worry. The domain node under your feet contains the power of rules. With my ability, I can't separate the origin of the rules. I can only extract a part of the energy derived from the rules. Even if it is this part of the derived energy with rules, it will take time to digest it after it is infused into your body."

After hearing these words, although he felt impatient, the evil spirit of the ground still nodded in agreement.

After knowing the strength of the monster world, he has restrained his arrogance and decided to develop well in this world.

He then continued:
"Pour this extracted power into me first."

The Evil Eye did not make a sound this time. Several pitch-black tentacles stretched out from its eyes and pierced straight into the back of the evil spirit.

Suddenly, a complex mark appeared on the evil spirit's forehead, glowing faintly, and surging energy was injected into the body.

Its physical strength is also enhanced by the energy cleansing.

What the evil spirits and evil eyes do not know is that their actions are completely exposed to the surveillance of the guidance.

At this time, on the Yuanchu Altar, Qi Sheng, who saw this scene through the guidance feedback, was curious and looked up at the guidance and asked:

"Guidance, is the evil eye extracting the power of the rules of the domain node?"

The guide heard this and immediately shook his head:
[Except for you who have inherited the Emperor's Omen Solidity, you can freely use the power of rules contained in the domain node. No other living being can do this, including our four servants. The evil eye only extracts the energy derived from the core of the rules of the domain node. ]

[Using the Dark Cave as an example, the characteristic of this domain node is to breed spiritual ore. The behavior of the evil eye is equivalent to cutting off the output of spiritual ore, converting the output energy into black tide energy, and using the black tide energy to breed a large number of evil lives. Moreover, since this process reverses the operating rules of the monster world, there is a serious loss in the process of converting energy, and only about 10% of the derived energy can be obtained. ]

After listening to the guide's explanation, Qi Sheng immediately understood the principle.

Taking the Dark Cave as an example, this domain node operates according to the laws of the monster world, and the energy produced will give birth to spiritual ore.

Cutting off the energy output will result in a certain amount of loss, and if this part of the output energy is converted into other energy substances, the loss will be even more serious.

The ultimate power of the Evil Eye is just to change the way of energy output, and it is simply unable to extract the rules and characteristics of the node area that breeds energy.

"What is the energy that is injected into the body of the evil spirit?" Qi Sheng continued to ask.

[The rule core of the domain node will produce some rule fragments in the process of deriving energy]

[The rule-derived energy refers to the fact that in the process of nurturing energy in the domain node, some of the energy will be imprinted with rule characteristics. This part of energy will soon dissipate and disappear, but the evil eye intercepts this part of energy and imprints it in the body of the earth-minded evil spirit to strengthen it... This process is like plagiarism. In theory, as long as there is enough time, the evil eye can produce a replica of the rule characteristics and let the earth-minded evil spirit master the ability of similar rules, but fake is fake after all, and the effectiveness of the rules is far from comparable to the real domain node rules. ]

[And this is exactly what makes the Black Tide Warriors most terrifying. Each intelligent evil spirit has great growth potential and can gain strength by occupying domain nodes to extract energy or devouring living beings.]

After understanding the principle, Qi Sheng continued to ask:
"Can I also cut off the process of generating spiritual ore in the dark cave, refine the generated energy and introduce it into the sacrificial energy pool, just like the contained original monster, so that it can continue to produce sacrificial energy for me?"

[Of course you can, but I don’t recommend it. ]

[In the process of producing spiritual ore in the Dark Cave, in addition to the blessing of the derived energy of the rule core, there is also the energy of heaven and earth at the moment of generation, just like completing a game task and obtaining the world's reward. The behavior of cutting off the derived spiritual ore is no different from the evil eye. The only difference is the amount of energy loss... The evil eye cannot truly control the node field, so the energy extracted has a loss of more than 50%, but you can completely control the field node, and the loss of conversion can be greatly reduced. I estimate the loss to be around 25%. ]

[The production of sacrificial power through player mining is to increase the infusion of heaven and earth energy without loss, and obtain more than 50% energy bonus. In summary, the sacrificial power produced after cutting off is only 0.75, while the sacrificial power produced by mining is 1.5, and the difference is doubled. ]

After hearing the explanation, Qi Sheng nodded to show his understanding.

As the instructions say, the Dark Cave has been integrated into the resource production area of ​​the Emperor's Tomb Village, and increasing the total income through mining is obviously a better choice.

At this moment, his eyes swept towards the light curtain floating in front of him.

In the picture, under the high tower, evil life is still being rapidly generated in the swirling black fog.

He knew that the time for the black tide to erupt in the Emperor's Tomb Mountains was approaching. When the evil spirits of the earth had a large enough number of evil creatures, they would launch an offensive against all the domain nodes in the Emperor's Tomb Mountains, trying to completely occupy the entire Emperor's Tomb Mountains.

If this is achieved, the Evil Eye will have multiple field nodes from which energy can be extracted.

The Earth Evil Spirit and the evil creatures it leads will also be infused with more powerful forces, and their strength will be greatly enhanced.

This will also be the first time that the player army truly fights against the Black Tide.

The cursed soldiers, blood corpses, and even evil creatures such as the black-armored soldiers encountered in the dark caves that the players encountered before were just unintelligent evil spirits derived under the shining of the evil moon.

It is completely different from the Black Tide Warriors like the Earth Evil Spirit.

But Qi Sheng didn’t have much thought about the upcoming war. The evil spirit was just an ordinary warrior in the terrifying black tide.

In his eyes, the upcoming Black Tide Campaign is just a training exercise for the player army's growth.

Let players experience what it's like to be in a situation where evil spirits are rampant at high intensity, and think about how to solve the problem when faced with the dilemma of evil spirits rampant.

Players may be abused in the process, but they can also grow by killing evil spirits.

The endless nature of evil spirits shows up strongly when conquering other worlds, but the challenger system conceived by Qi Sheng was designed precisely to deal with this characteristic.

The endlessness of evil comes from the rapid gestation after drawing energy from heaven and earth, but there will always be losses.

However, the players created by the Challenger System are endless without any loss. Even if they die, they can reshape their bodies and return to the battlefield without any weakening in strength.

With the support of the Challenger System and the "Flesh and Blood Remodeling" rule characteristics of the Emperor's Village, a large-scale legion of players is a more terrifying disaster than evil spirits.

(End of this chapter)