Chapter 33 Player's Interior
That night, the ten helmets, which should have been sorted at the logistics transfer center according to normal procedures, fell into the hands of the expert group who rushed to Province G in person.
The helmet was dismantled by violent means, and they were horrified to find that the part of the helmet that touched the back of the head would turn into a pile of powder as soon as it was taken apart... The expert group called a halt to this wasteful behavior and instead started experiments on wearing the helmet for vegetative patients.
A vegetative patient cannot connect to the official website and fill in his/her ID by himself/herself, so the expert group decided to randomly assign an ID name and have the patient try it on.
At the same time, in order to test whether the consciousness of a vegetative patient can appear in the "game", Lu Yiyun personally got a helmet, filled in his real name as his ID, and accompanied the vegetative patient to "log in" to the game.
Soon, a skeleton with the three big characters "Lu Yiyun" on its head appeared at the birth point of Exile Town.
Lu Yiyun looked at this world in amazement. It didn't feel like a virtual game at all, but rather like another world.
In the spirit of scientific inquiry, Director Lu first tried to take a deep breath. She found that although she was controlling a skeleton, she could feel ; but the airflow stopped at the mouth and could not be actually inhaled.
She moved her "body" again and found that it was very flexible and there was no stiffness in the movements. And because the skeleton was more than 60% lighter than that of a normal person, even though she was over 40 years old, she could jump up easily, as if she had suddenly become 20 years younger.
When Director Lu was standing at the birth point and looking around curiously, several players with green words on their heads and wearing T-shirts and shorts passed by and looked at her in shock.
"There's actually a newcomer?? An internal beta test number has been issued?!"
"I saw on the forum at noon that new numbers would be issued, but I haven't heard of the announcement of the issuance method?"
"Didn't the idiot planner PY the new account out?! What a shady operation!!"
"Hurry up and go offline and check the forum!"
As these players talked, they rushed into the earthen platform at the birth point.
Lu Yiyun watched the skeleton characters of these players sink into the ground with his mouth wide open. In disbelief, he walked forward to touch the place where the players sank.
Before she could figure out what was going on, several players who had just sunk came back online and emerged from the ground.
"The numbers were sent out without even being announced. The production team is definitely behind the scenes!"
"Damn, I was just applying for an account for my mom. She broke her leg and couldn't get out of bed for months."
The players started cursing as soon as they came online. One of them saw Lu Yiyun still squatting at the spawn point, so he shamelessly approached and said, "Brother, how did you get your account? Did you trade with the production team or are you a member of the uncle party?"
Lu Yiyun: "Uh..."
"Oh, it's a girl, sorry." The player quickly changed his words and said very earnestly, "Can you tell me how you got a new account? I also want to get an account for my mother."
Lu Yiyun, who was in his early forties, was called a girl by this unreliable player. It was so embarrassing: "... Sorry, young man, I can't tell you the details. It's not what you think."
The player realized that the girl's age might not be much younger than his mother, so he immediately admitted his mistake: "Sorry to bother you, Auntie."
As these players walked away, Lu Yiyun could still hear them muttering things like "I told you not to call girls randomly" and "How would I know?"
Lu Yiyun shook his head and stood there waiting.
After waiting for about ten minutes, no one came online, which made Lu Yiyu's heart sink.
She quit the game, and when the people in the room who were waiting for the results saw her expression, their faces darkened.
Lu Yiyun took a deep breath and said, "Continue to the next one."
The helmet on patient No. 1's head was replaced by patient No. 2's head.
Ten minutes later, patient No. 3 was replaced.
After three consecutive attempts, the scientists in the expert group had to accept the reality...
"After the patient wore the helmet, the EEG and MRI showed brief fluctuations, but they were still not as good as normal people's brain wave imaging..." sighed an expert in neuroscience research, "This proves that our speculation that the helmet works by reading brain wave signals, the brain waves generated by the patient's neuronal interaction are too weak, which is likely the reason for the failure of the experiment."
Lu Yiyun nodded sadly and sighed...
The neuronal electric wave signals discovered and demonstrated by scientists on Earth are similar to the theory of mental force waves in the magical plane.
The mental imprint that Yang Qiu attached to the helmet had been greatly weakened in order to adapt to the average mental power of Earthlings. However, no matter how much it was weakened, activating the mental imprint and entering the matrix through the imprint still required mental power within the standard line, that is, the brain wave activity level of a normal person...
However, scientists will certainly not give up so easily. Although the patient's consciousness cannot be awakened during the "game", the brain wave imaging of the patient will show brief activity when wearing the helmet, which is also worth studying.
When the scientific team was discussing how to use helmets to provide "massage and stimulation" treatment for vegetative patients, one of the helmets was sent to a military hospital in Province G by Professor Yin Zhengliang.
Saturday, October 12, 11:00 am Earth time.
A special new player comes online at the birth point of Exile Town.
Unlike most people who look around in amazement after logging into the game and are curious about this world that is so real that it doesn't seem like they are playing a game, this new player... seems to be more curious about himself.
From the moment he entered the game, he kept his head down, looking at his feet, carefully and cherishingly lifting his feet, and putting them down, lifting them up again, and putting them down again.
The real feeling of being down to earth seemed to touch the new player. He slowly squatted down and stroked the bony instep of his feet with both hands, his movements very focused.
A few seconds later, the new player suddenly stood up and ran around the street like a madman...
"Fuck! Be careful!" A group of players who were heading back to the resurrection point to eat offline were almost hit and shouted in annoyance.
"Sorry." The new player turned around and apologized, but he didn't stop at all and continued to run forward.
"Wait, Ji Tang? That's an ID I've never seen before, and he's not wearing any clothes yet, is it a new account?!" The player who was almost hit saw the naked skeleton running away in the blink of an eye, and was shocked, "Damn, what they said on the forum is true, the bastard planner PYed out the new account?!"
"Hey, even if you don't PY out, it's not easy to get an account. Those who are looking for non-binding helmets are asking for five figures." The player's friend urged, "Let's go, log off to eat, and then log on quickly to open up the spider cave with the vanilla boss and the others."
The other one shook his head and said, "You guys can go and do it this afternoon. I don't want to go and send them off. I'd better go back and do the quests. I'll talk about it after I reach level one and can change my job."
"No way, third brother, I just killed you a few times yesterday and you've lost your spirit?"
"It's different, brother. In other games, if the team is wiped out, the most you can do is to start over again. But in this game, if the team is wiped out, you have to log off and stay offline for half an hour. It's so frustrating..."
"What's the difference? If we kill Naifa, it will still take half an hour..."
"Oh, it's too difficult. This game is too difficult."
Not long after this group of players went offline with sighs on their faces, the brick-moving party who chose to go offline to eat because the NPC was off work also rushed to the offline point in twos and threes.
"Sister Ying, Qingyue, do you want to try the spider cave again this afternoon?" Tang Jia asked.
"Forget it." Yang Ying said sadly, "Players are too weak now. It's too tragic to go in. Let's all level up first."
"Yeah." Jialuo, the lone ranger who had just joined their all-girl team, sighed, "We followed the big group in yesterday. We were very careful to keep our distance, but we still had no way to escape after they killed us."
"Hey, you guys aren't going?" Tang Jia said disappointedly.
Ever since the breakthrough mission was solved by players and the Spider Cave was opened as a monster spawning point, players have been very active in forming teams of all sizes, gathering more than 200 people and rushing to the Spider Cave... and then the first batch of warriors were wiped out before they could even last ten minutes.
The players who were kicked off the line angrily flocked to the forum to complain that the monster points were too dense and too tricky, and that the players could not deal with them with bare hands, so Yang Qiu also followed suit and opened up weapon merchants and armor merchants - in fact, they just gave the bulk-purchased wooden-handled steel machetes and the artificial leather vest-style armor with a layer of patches made from the prison to the high-level NPCs who were not performing their duties as mentors and had nothing to do to sell.
A steel machete costs twenty copper coins, and an ugly steel leather armor costs thirty copper coins. Players said that the price is reasonable and they can afford a set in two days. After being fully armed, they formed a team to fight again... but they were defeated again.
Many people also dropped equipment, especially weapons. After all, the players were a group of earthlings with little combat experience, and too many of them dropped their weapons before their health bars were destroyed by the spider monsters. Yang Qiu secretly sent a few summons to pick up the weapons dropped by the players, and recovered a lot of copper coins for nothing...
After being wiped out twice, the players were still full of fighting spirit. They came up with the idea of tying machetes firmly to their hands with vines so that they could continue to lead a large group to fight.
This time the players successfully killed more than a dozen spider monsters, but because someone accidentally stepped on the spider eggs, various spider monsters besieged them and the team was wiped out again.
By this morning, Brother Lahong and Vanilla Pudding, who were able to lead a large group, had stopped their activities and honestly organized the players who played with them to move bricks. They also spread the word that they would fight again in the afternoon and asked interested teams to gather together... Regardless of what others thought, Tang Jia was really interested in following.
"Otherwise, you can go play with Xiangcao's group this afternoon, Tangjia." Zheng Qingyue said, "I will quickly brush up Lord Yang's reputation in the next few days and change my job to a nurse. Then we can form a team and go."
"But after playing with them for so long, I would feel embarrassed to refuse if they asked me to form a blood alliance," Tang Jia said in a conflicted tone.
"You have too strong a sense of self-awareness. Didn't you see the explanation in the update announcement? The first-level blood alliance can only add thirty people. How many people follow the vanilla boss? When the time comes, you want to join their blood alliance, they won't want you." Zheng Qingyue mocked her childhood friend mercilessly.
"Hehe... Yeah, I'll go play with them then." Tang Jia scratched his smooth skull embarrassedly.
"Don't always think about playing. Hurry up and max out your warrior mentor's reputation. Otherwise, it will be a joke when you have enough potential but not enough reputation to change jobs." Yang Ying advised.
"Don't worry, Sister Ying, I know what to do!" Tang Jia waved her hand carelessly.
The girls said goodbye to each other and logged off while laughing. After about 40 minutes of game time, they logged on again at almost the same time.
Tang Jiaxin had already flown to the monster-killing group. She hurriedly said hello to her friends and ran away. Zheng Qingyue and Yang Ying shook their heads and went to do the zombie-killing quest with Jialuo - yesterday, when they followed another group into the spider cave, several girls had lost their weapons or armor, so they had to work hard to make up for the losses.
The three of them worked on the task for half an hour at the most popular brick-moving zombie, Bildad, and then they saw Vanilla Pudding and Brother Lahong, who had pulled a large group of players, passing by the street next to them.
"I don't know how long they can hold out this time?" Yang Ying said as he used a sledgehammer to tamp down the wooden pillars that served as the foundation.
"With yesterday's experience, we shouldn't die miserably today." Zheng Qingyue said as she mixed cement, "Don't all go into the spider cave. Pull the monsters out carefully in batches and fight them. We should still be able to survive."
"The main players haven't changed their jobs, and they don't have any skills, so it's too hard to kill monsters." Jialuo quickly applied cement to the bricks, "The easiest Dreamweaver needs to have its abdomen completely destroyed before it can be killed, not to mention the most difficult Razor Spider. As long as you lure the Razor Spider, there will be no immortality."
The male player who was squatting next to them doing the task waited for a long time and finally got the chance to interrupt: "Girls, did you go to the spider cave yesterday? Why not go today?"
"The equipment has dropped. I need to earn some money to buy more equipment." Yang Ying said honestly.
"Hey, does a girl need to buy her own games?" The male player said obscenely, "Why not just find a husband?"
Yang Ying frowned.
The players she met while playing this game were all of high quality, but this was the first time she encountered such a boring person.
Before Yang Ying could turn cold and start to rant, Jia Luo raised her finger and pointed at the male player and said, "Your wall is crooked."
Male player: “Huh?”
Jia Luo said: "It's really crooked, take a closer look and fix it quickly, otherwise the NPC will ask you to tear it down and rebuild it when you hand it in, and your work will be in vain."
The male player took two steps back suspiciously, took a closer look, and began to sweat... It wasn't just crooked, it was extremely crooked.
So the male player quickly dismantled it and started over again before the cement dried...
"I've been moving bricks for so long that I'm almost as skilled as a bricklayer." Jia Luo said to his two friends with emotion, "If I didn't have the stamina and the ability to withstand the sun in real life, I would have gone to work on a construction site."
Yang Ying and Zheng Qingyue laughed loudly at the same time...
After laughing, Zheng Qingyue said with a pained face: "This game really has no limit. At first, I thought that asking players to demolish dangerous buildings and sweep the streets to carry garbage was the limit, but I didn't expect that bricks and cement would be refreshed for us to build houses."
"That's right. The NPC also added an acceptance function. The NPC refused to settle the account because it was too bad." Jia Luo was also very annoyed. "If it weren't for our skeleton characters who don't get tired and are not afraid of the sun, this game would be really unplayable."
"Fortunately, the houses that the zombies want to build are very simple, not much different from the pigpen I built for my uncle's family when I went to the countryside to play. Otherwise, I guess there wouldn't be many people who could continue to carry bricks." Yang Ying said with a smile.
"Hey, what good house do a bunch of zombies live in? I've been sitting outside in the sun and rain, but I haven't seen these zombie NPCs move." Jia Luo said, "Fortunately, I worked hard to get the Ranger reputation. Now the reputation tasks of the Traveler Guild are so difficult. The acceptance standard is higher than that of zombies. Many players have worked hard and still failed. Many people cursed while watching videos to learn how to build walls. It's really miserable."
"Hey, hey, the situation over there at the soldiers' construction site isn't much better. You're shooting at me too." Yang Ying said with a helpless smile.
"I say, Jialuo, don't be too gloating about your achievement of becoming friendly. It's not like you won't have to gain Ranger Mentor reputation anymore. Do you still want to take the second job quest and become a Ranger?" Zheng Qingyue said happily.
"Let's talk about it later. You need 100 potential points to reach the second level, which is a long time ago. By the time I want to brush up my reputation again, the Traveler Guild will have been built." Jialuo said nonchalantly.
The girls were chatting and laughing while moving bricks. After all, skeletons don't get tired, thirsty, are not afraid of dust or the sun, and have unlimited physical strength. If you have a good attitude, you can even treat moving bricks as playing with building blocks... It's just a bit dirty. After completing the task, you have to go to the river to wash the dust off the bones.
After about an hour of game time, I saw a few players who were hanging out with Brother Lahong, such as Huanling, Mingfeng Chunpu, etc., running to various brick-moving sites and shouting, "Brothers and sisters, please pay attention. The highest market price is 10 to 1 for copper coins. We support various trading methods. We guarantee your credibility. Please sell as soon as possible!"
After the auction of the Undead Horse ended, the price of copper coins did not drop. The reasons were: first, most players had sold or lent their previously saved copper coins to others, and had little money on hand; second, many people firmly believed that there would be more good things worth spending money on, and the value of copper coins would not fall, so they were all secretly saving money.
Now that the spider cave has opened and high-level NPCs are selling weapons and equipment, the copper coin market has become active again...
"It seems to have been destroyed again." Jialuo shook his head sympathetically.
"I guess so." Yang Ying also said, "These people are really weird. Why do they keep running over when they know they can't win?"
"You don't understand, do you? Although Brother Lahong and Boss Vanilla appear to be in harmony and working together, they are actually competing against each other secretly." Jialuo chuckled, "It's hard to say whether this game will have dungeons in the future. Anyway, the only place where players can spawn monsters now is the Spider Cave. Whichever side can gain a foothold in the Spider Cave first and spawn monsters stably, individual players and small teams who want to spawn monsters will move towards that side. Even if they can't join the Blood Alliance for the time being, they can grab people and arrange them as reserve members of their own second-level or third-level alliances. There are only so many people in this game. If you can attract people to your side in advance, your opponents will have no chance to grow, and your position as the first Blood Alliance will be secure."
Yang Ying looked at Jia Luo in surprise, then looked at Zheng Qingyue. Although they had only known each other for a short time, Yang Ying was still convinced of Zheng Qingyue's intelligence.
Zheng Qingyue nodded: "Jia Luo is right. Now we should lay a good foundation for the 'First Blood Alliance'. When new players are added to the game in the future, the talented new players will be more likely to join the First Blood Alliance."
"There are so many tricks to playing a game." Yang Ying couldn't help but click his tongue.
Zheng Qingyue said with a smile: "We finished the mission yesterday morning. Didn't Brother Lahong and Boss Vanilla come to talk to us? They both wanted to pull us over."
"Eh?" Yang Ying was a little confused, "Isn't it just a normal chat?"
Zheng Qingyue shook her head in amusement. Yang Ying, a sister two years older than her, was not stupid, but she was a little careless and didn't care about details. She patiently explained, "I asked Tang Jia to join the group of Big Brother Xiangcao because Big Brother Xiangcao is a popular anchor after all, and he has to save face. If Tang Jia joined the group of Brother Lahong, she probably wouldn't be able to come back."
Yang Ying: “…”
"So I don't like to join those big guilds or gangs when I play games. I don't care about mandatory activities. I'm just playing anyway. What I hate most is all kinds of intrigues." Jia Luo said, "In the game I played before, several gangs on the server were fighting openly and secretly. One of the gangs couldn't beat the others, so it went to another server and invited a group of studios to come and kill the enemy gang 24 hours a day. There were verbal battles every day, which was annoying."
"Oh oh!" Yang Ying looked surprised. "I thought the studio was just like the group of people in 'Yikou Ba Ba', who were working hard to move bricks? How could they play so fiercely?"
Zheng Qingyue smiled and said, "This is normal. The top guild in some games is directly a studio. Studios do everything to make money. Not only do they collect money and kill for revenge, they can also rob ordinary players of their resources and monopolize certain special materials on the server. There are only a few small studios like them that only make gold."
Jia Luo nodded and added, "Yes, this game is fortunately so with so few players and a high entry threshold. If it were open to registration, ordinary players would definitely not be able to receive the tasks of moving bricks from zombie NPCs, as they would be monopolized by the studios. Three copper coins can be converted into thirty yuan, and one hour of game time is only equal to half an hour of real time. Just imagine if the studios would compete for it."
"If the studio monopolizes the copper coin production for the big-headed zombie NPC task, the price of copper coins would not be ten yuan each." Zheng Qingyue said.
"That's right, it will definitely be raised." Jialuo nodded in agreement.
Yang Ying was stunned after hearing this... It seems that if one can make it through the game, one should be thankful that there are not many players?
“It seems that playing games is not an easy thing.”
Another male player who was squatting with the three of them listened for a long time and couldn't help but speak out.
"Yeah... huh?" Jia Luo turned to look at the player who had been working silently, "Ji Tang? How come I haven't seen this ID before?"
The player with the ID Ji Tang on his head, wearing only a novice outfit and no waist bag, smiled at Jia Luo in a friendly manner: "Hello, I'm a newcomer who just logged into the game today."
"Fuck! A newbie!" Jia Luo was shocked. "What the forum said was right. The idiot planner really PY'd out the new account!"
"Are you from the uncle's party?" Zheng Qingyue asked curiously, "Do you know anyone from the production team?"
"Uh... I don't know him. This helmet was given to me by someone else. I don't know where it came from." Ji Tang said calmly.
When Yang Ying heard the word "give", he looked at the new player inquiringly.
Although Yang Ying is a newbie in the game, she has been playing for many days and has visited player forums offline. Not only are there people offering five-digit prices for the helmet, but there are also people lining up to buy it... This made Yang Ying privately nervous. She left messages on social media asking her brother several times whether the helmet she gave him would cause dissatisfaction among other people or get him fined.
Because her helmet was given to her by her younger brother, even though the other party denied it, Yang Ying subconsciously regarded this new player as an "uncle party" like her - that is, a relative or friend of the game development team.
"Have you ever played games before?" Yang Ying, who inexplicably felt a sense of identification with his peers, took the initiative to talk to Ji Tang.
"I played it before joining the army." Ji Tang said honestly.
"You were a soldier?" Jialuo was also interested. He looked the player up and down and glanced at the wall in front of the player. "You have some military temperament. You built this wall pretty well."
"I'm from the countryside, and my family isn't well off. When I was in school, I had to go to work on construction sites during the holidays. I also helped relatives and neighbors when they were building or expanding their houses." Ji Tang said embarrassedly.
Ji Tang's voice sounded very young, and it is difficult for young men to directly admit to a group of strange young girls that their family is not well off financially. Most of them can't help but brag with their eyes closed out of vanity. This man was so honest that he quickly won the favor of several female players, who also brought him along when they chatted.
Ji Tang, who had been squatting nearby and listening for a long time before mustering the courage to talk, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally, I have completed the initial mission and infiltrated the players.
