Chapter 38 The added value of helmets
It is 11 o'clock in the evening of October 14th, Earth time, and it is also late at night in the other world.
After get off work, the trio gathered in front of Tuttle's tent for dinner as usual, and the atmosphere was depressed.
"...Although the previous operation failed, at least we have proved one thing. These crazy, chaotic, and evil undead have no respect for Yang." Hal said with all his strength, "If the town hall was not built with earth magic, I have no doubt that those damn undead would have demolished Yang's residence."
Tuttle, who was chewing his "after-meal dessert" of dried sweet potatoes, hesitated for a moment and said reluctantly, "Hal, I think we'd better... stop thinking about using these undead. I apologize for my stupidity at the time. I shouldn't have come up with such a naive idea... These undead are simply unreasonable."
"...I know." Hal looked a little uncomfortable. "What I want to say is that these completely uncontrollable undead will one day turn against that bastard Yang. We don't need to do anything. We just need to wait patiently for the opportunity ."
Tuttle fell silent again, and Pansy said nothing.
Hal actually took the initiative to suggest forbearance and patiently waiting for the right opportunity. They really didn't know whether they should be happy that this old friend had grown up, or sad that even Hal had bowed his head...
Of course, Hal's willingness to "temporarily" submit was the right choice for the two former think tanks of the thieves' gang - the evil black magician was not angry after learning of their betrayal, but instead calmly took out the means he had prepared long ago to coerce them. What does this show?
This shows that the Black Mage Yang is willing to reason with them.
This...is not a good thing.
The thing called "reason" has no room for survival in a lawless zone. Only those with the bigger fist can keep their word.
Only where there are laws and rules can reason prevail.
In other words... they underestimated Yang's ambitions. This damn black magician really intended to establish laws and rules in the Tarantan Wasteland.
Yang didn't think they were rebels worthy of being "suppressed" by force. He didn't even bother playing the childish game of "I can beat you until you obey" with them. From the very beginning, he regarded them as meat on a plate... (For example, when many heroes are competing for supremacy, everyone is a warlord and they have the opportunity to compare fists with each other. Only when one of them stands out from the rest will they negotiate and talk about politics)
The embarrassing thing is that this is indeed the case. When Yang used his logic to persuade them, they really didn't even have the qualifications to express their opposition with their fists...
Therefore, the two think tanks, Tuttle and Pansy, will not advise everyone to refuse to accept the supplies distributed by Yang from now on, so as to avoid owing more and more, because it is obvious that it is Yang who makes the rules. It is impossible to win by playing games according to someone else's rule system. The only two options before them are to obey and enjoy or to overturn the table directly.
The table couldn't be lifted. Yang, who was sitting opposite the table, was too heavy. He could hold the tabletop firmly with one hand. Anyway, the two think tanks couldn't see where their chances of winning were at least at the moment...
After a moment's silence, Pansy felt that she should give Hal some positive feedback so that he wouldn't think too much.
As he was preparing his words, a series of nightmare-like "click, click" sounds, accompanied by unbridled noisy conversations, came from the street...
"???"
The three of them felt their scalps tingling and turned their heads to look in the direction where the sound came from.
They were quite aware that these damn undead spirits would run around the town without sleep even in the middle of the night. However, in most cases these undead spirits did not move in large groups. They either wandered alone or in groups of three or five.
There were about twenty undead souls that appeared at the other end of the street and made disturbing noise, and it was obvious that they were not heading towards the construction site of the Traveler's Guild, which made the trio secretly relieved.
When the group of undead ran out of the street, the three of them exchanged glances, stood up at the same time, and quietly followed them...
When the operation failed that night, the three of them privately reflected on their lack of knowledge about these crazy undead. They would naturally try their best to avoid making the same mistake a second time.
The players didn't know that the high-level NPC, who usually tried to avoid them as soon as he was "off work", actually started tracking them, chattering all the way to the ruins of Zhennan.
The rampant rats in this ruin have killed countless innocent players who broke in or even passed by since the server was launched. The "senior NPCs" are well aware of this situation - the players who squat on their side to do quests often curse them, except for the "dog planners" and "silly production team" which they cannot understand, and the demonized rats blocking the town gate.
The three travelers lurking in the dark looked at each other, then looked at the group of skeletons in confusion.
Could it be that these crazy guys... are trying to kill this demonized rat?
Ever since the frequent contacts between the mainland and the outer continent began more than four hundred years ago, it is not known whether it is because too many slaves from the outer continent who believed in the evil gods died after being transported to the mainland, but unstable space-time rifts have frequently appeared in various places in Nabarron on the mainland.
Many of these cracks lead to the dimensional demon world and even the endless void...
The Tarantan Wasteland is also a severely affected area affected by the unstable space-time rifts. The demonic beasts and monsters that have been demonized and infected by the evil spirit overflowing from the unstable space-time rifts coexist and are the real "masters" of this land.
Hal and his companions were not unfamiliar with Warcraft. After all, the Sorenson Mountains where they originally made a living were not a good place. Every spring and autumn, they who lived on the cliffs of the canyon could even hear the roar of Warcraft in the forest above their heads.
Magical beasts like this demonized rat, whose fur is visibly enhanced and whose body shape is abnormal, are the type that professional masters in this world hate the most. The entire body of this kind of magic beast is a weapon, with extremely strong defense and brute force. Not only is it very difficult to deal with, but even if you kill it with great difficulty, the benefits are hardly proportional to the effort...
For monsters with "physique mutation", only the mutation parts are valuable, such as fur and skeleton. The fur is fine, but the skeleton is worthless - although the hardness and toughness are higher than metal, the processing difficulty and cost are more than ten times that of metal. In addition, due to the mutation nature of the alchemists, they cannot be used, and professional masters are too lazy to pick them up.
The three people who were observing secretly were puzzled when one of the undead team that was moving late at night stood up.
This player who stood up ... is giving me medicine.
This fellow held a money bag in his hand, took out copper coins, and distributed them to some people in the team one by one, thanking them while handing them out: "Thank you all brothers for coming to help, I am very grateful."
"What's the big deal, Yao Ge? It's just a death." The players collected the money with a smile and patted their chests, "We will lure the rat away and you just run away. You will be safe once you get out of the ruins."
After paying their hard work fees, the players who volunteered to help lure the monsters began to take off their clothes, unpack their wallets, and hand over their belongings to their friends who came with them to help them get their belongings...
This scene left the three people who were secretly observing with a lot of question marks in their heads.
Qin Guan would definitely come to help his good brothers on the mission. He handed his novice suit, waist bag and the equipment he bought in the last carnival night to Miaobishenghua, and walked to the front of the team naked: "Are you ready? If you are, get ready!"
"OK!"
“Okay!”
"Okay, everyone, be careful not to huddle together. Spread out as much as possible and try your best to delay the rat for a little longer!" Qin Guanbone Claw waved, "If you are going to be caught up, choose an open place to die. If you are hit in the air, you will die immediately. If you are hit against the wall, you will feel the pain of being torn apart. It's quite painful."
The players responded with laughter: "I can still play with the undead without falling apart. I'm used to it!"
The three people who were peeping from a distance were just wondering whether to get closer to hear what the undead were saying, when they saw those naked skeletons rushing into the territory of the demonized rats without saying a word...
Hal and the other two: “???”
When a player stepped into the ruins, a large rat with red eyes dozing in the garbage was startled. It suddenly stood up and shot out...
"Fuck, that's fast!"
The players who helped to lure the monsters away quickly ran away.
"Don't stick together! Scatter! Scatter!" Qin Guan shouted as he swung his legs and ran wildly.
"It's being divided! It's being divided!" The players running around responded in a scattered manner.
“Why the hell are you rushing towards me—” Before a player could even finish his last words, the giant rat that rushed towards him pushed him into the air and disappeared in white light.
"Run! Run!" Players watching the battle outside the ruins hurriedly shouted to cheer.
"Don't draw the rats here again, run away!"
The fleeing players wanted to curse the rat, but the rat was too fast. The players did not dare to be distracted at all. They risked their lives to lead the rat in the opposite direction.
After three or four people died in succession, this group of players finally led the big rat to a farther place, making way for those who needed to go out to complete the task to give me medicine.
Without anyone reminding me, I took the medicine and immediately activated the initial skill "Elementary Wind Control" that I could learn after upgrading, and it flew out like an arrow...
"My goodness, this speed! It could fly if it had wings, right?" said one of the players who was helping their friends and relatives keep their belongings with envy.
"It's pretty fast, but it can only last for eight seconds." Miaobishenghua, who was holding his friend's belongings, said, "After the skill ends, there is a fifteen-second weakness period, and the speed drops by 30%. I can't rush out in one breath."
"That's pretty awesome." A player nearby said, "My friend wants to switch to a knight, and after upgrading, he will activate the primary battle roar. After this skill is activated, the strength will be increased by 50% within eight seconds. With the base strength of the undead, the bonus is really not that big, and the weakness period is still a full thirty seconds."
"At least the power of the Battle Roar will not be reduced during the weakened period, but you can no longer use skills." Miaobishenghua said, "If you have equipment that can increase the rage value in the later stage, you can keep roaring for 30 seconds, which is more practical than the Wind Control Technique of the Walker system."
——In order to help players adapt to the professional system, Yang Qiu displayed the tiny amount of mental power consumed when players activate skill runes as a blue bar/rage bar on the players' personal panel. Obviously, the players like this and have no difficulty understanding it.
"My friend said the same thing, so he insisted on gaining Knight reputation instead of switching to a new profession." The player nodded in agreement. "Huahua, what is the effect of your magic system's elementary meditation?"
The man who had just been talking eloquently and fluently suddenly dropped to the point where his jaw rested on his collarbone.
Player: “???”
"Don't poke at someone's sore spot. Huahua just went with En Bu Zeng to do a magic job transfer last night, but failed." The person next to him poked the player's arm and said, "Their magic job transfer is different from the walker's. They can't ask for help."
"That's so harsh." The player smacked his lips, "Luckily I'm grinding for Walker reputation."
"What's so good about it? Even Huahua can be stuck in the job transfer. How many people can play the nanny in the future?" The person next to him looked annoyed. "It's okay that the nanny in traditional games is not fun and few people play it. But the magic nanny in this game is also good, and it's hard to find a nanny. In the future, DPS will have to queue up to form a team."
There is not much introduction to the background of the game on the official website. The skills of each profession after the job transfer were released after the last breakthrough mission was completed. There are two major categories of the second job transfer in the late magic system, one is the dark prophet and the other is the black magician. Both have output skills and healing skills (black magic has a healing effect on creatures like undead), but the proportions are different.
While they were chatting, Give Me Medicine had already rushed out of the ruins and ran to the lush green grass outside the ruins. The players waiting in the town hurriedly called out to their surviving relatives and friends: "Brother Yao has rushed out! Don't send him off! Come back quickly!"
Only a few players were left and they ran back desperately... Although they were paid a fee for their hard work, no one was willing to log off if they could avoid losing time playing the game.
In the distance, the three people who were observing secretly were: "..."
The three of them retreated silently without saying a word...
They would fight with swords over a disagreement, and their companions would run away laughing after being chopped. This was the most profound understanding that the former thieves had about the internal relationships among these undead.
I never expected that this group of undead would be willing to sacrifice themselves to help a companion leave the town safely...
Even though their "lives" were worthless and those who died at the hands of the demonized rats would soon be alive and kicking again in the town, the three still felt that they needed to get to know this group of undead again.
Yang Qiu's pace of life follows that of Earth. When it is time to sleep and rest, he naturally returns to Earth to enjoy the convenient modern life.
No matter how you look at him, Yang Qiu is already over 300 years old. Compared to when he was one or two hundred years old, nothing is more important to Yang Qiu now than a good sleep and a good mood... When he is not around, those former thieves and players like Husky can do whatever they want, and they can just wait until he is "online" to settle the matter.
Before going to bed, Yang Qiu logged into the player forum on his computer and sent an email to Director Lu of the Brain Intelligence Center.
The people assigned by Director Lu already knew about the "NPC" who takes care of the patients in the game. Yang Qiu felt that since both parties knew the situation well, we should just talk about it openly.
Although I will never admit that I have the ability to allow "game players" to travel to another world, but since you believe that there is research value in this, it is only natural for me to ask you for help when I am in trouble... I am not your subordinate department and I am not qualified to ask for funding, but I have supported your research after all, so I can't not give you any benefits, right?
So… the next morning, when Lu Yiyun just woke up, he saw this shameless email:
In the email, the person claiming to be the "target" of the "Alien World" game production team very calmly sent a long list of supplies, and extremely shamelessly expressed the hope that it could be arranged within three days and delivered to a place in the suburbs of Anshi.
What made Lu Yiyun speechless the most was that this guy asked for supplies without even thinking of a reason!
Without giving any reasons or making any excuses, he just asked for things openly!
Director Lu took a few deep breaths and read the email carefully again.
Very good... Not only did they not even give a reason to ask for supplies, they didn't even promise how to give back after giving them the supplies!
Director Lu's mood was so intense that it was hard to describe it...
As a top scientist in China's AI field and having worked as the coordinating director at the Brain Intelligence Center for many years, Lu Yiyun has seen many shameless people - even in the scientific field, which seems pure and sacred to the world, there are villains.
For example, people of a certain age group who actually have at most a high school education level but can actually have the right to speak in a certain field.
For example, there are academic scoundrels and academic fraudsters hiding in institutions of higher learning or even in serious government departments...
These people, the shame of academia and the Jia Yueting of the scientific community, have no real achievements or contributions, but their means of defrauding funds are even better than those of professional scammers. There is no project that they cannot brag about, no egg that they cannot pull off, and no major project that they dare not subcontract to students or even laymen.
Ten million yuan of funds were allocated, but in the end only fifty thousand yuan was used by people who were doing real work. This joke is not limited to the "local area".
So Lu Yiyun felt really fucked up... He didn't even make an excuse or give an empty promise. From what dimension did this weird "goal" come from?
Well... Although he felt fucked up, Lu Yiyun didn't refuse immediately. He made a phone call to his leader with a dark face...
"Give it, of course. Having something to ask for is a good thing. The worst thing is that the 'target' has nothing to ask for, then we won't know where to start!" On the other end of the phone, the leader gave instructions in a very heroic manner.
Lu Yiyun hung up the phone silently and replied to the email expressionlessly, saying that the relevant materials were already being coordinated...
Two hours later, Lu Yiyun received another new email from the "target".
In this email, the "target" indicates that twenty new places will be considered for the internal testing account. These places will not be distributed publicly but will only be issued to designated applicants via email application.
Account applicants are required to have work experience in fields including but not limited to chefs, doctors, nurses, classrooms, and literary and artistic workers, and after logging into the game, applicants must take five hours out of their day to perform designated positions in the game.
That is to say, if you log in for 12 hours a day in real time, you will have to be a "tool man" in the game for five hours, and you can move freely for the remaining seven hours.
This batch of specific internal testing accounts will give priority to applicants with disabilities or elderly diseases that require bed rest.
At the end of the email, "Target" bluntly stated that the approval authority for this batch of goods would be given to the expert group as a thank you for the material support.
When Lu Yiyun saw this, his expression became very strange...
The expert group has long known that the flow of time in the game is only half of that of Earth time, and has discussed this incomprehensible phenomenon many times.
During the days that Ji Tang entered the game, every time he logged into the game, staff members assigned to the military hospital carefully recorded his physical condition. In the short term, the double time that his "spirit" spent in the "game" did not have a negative impact on Ji Tang's physical condition.
On the contrary, Ji Tang, whose body was weakening due to injuries, gradually improved in spirit and even his appetite and food intake recovered.
The attending physician at the military hospital believed that Ji Tang would be able to be discharged from the hospital after recuperating for about half a year.
"It's not surprising that this guy can guess that Ji Tang is different from other players. Ji Tang's characteristics are too obvious. But how can he know Ji Tang's situation and know that Ji Tang recovers faster during the game?"
Lu Yiyu muttered to himself in disbelief.
Ji Tang's identity was originally kept secret and could never be found on the Internet.
The expert group also kept the arrangements for the helmet confidential and did not make it public - the ability to move freely during deep sleep and the ability to extend life in disguise are two very attractive options that are self-evident.
After discovering the even more inexplicable phenomenon that Ji Tang actually recovered his spirit slowly and bit by bit after entering the game, even the leaders asked them to keep a close eye on the remaining seven helmets… Too many families have patients who are bedridden for years. Even if wearing a helmet cannot cure the disease, it can allow the patient to temporarily forget the pain and torture in a deep sleep and slowly recover his spirit. For the patient's family members, it is worth spending a lot of money - you know, painkillers have side effects, and taking too much can cause drug resistance.
"How on earth did this guy find out?!"
Lu Yiyun understood why this guy was so calm when he asked for supplies, which made her even more suspicious.
Anything that can extend life in disguise and relieve the pain of critically ill patients is of course a good thing, but even the best thing can cause big problems if there is a problem with the way it works.
The expert group moved to Province G from the very beginning because they did not want to cause trouble.
The experts, including Lu Yiyun, did not really want the "target" to discover the added value of the helmet used in the game, because they were all worried that this guy would use this "monopoly resource" to cause trouble.
After thinking about it for a long time without any clue, Lu Yiyun could only silently copy the email content to a USB drive and then delete the email.
This matter...she can't make her own decision, she has to hand it over to her leader.
"The leader is indeed courageous. If it were me, this batch of supplies might have been delayed for two days while we waited for the other party to make a statement... In that case, perhaps the 'target' would not have been so straightforward."
Lu Yiyun sighed.
Director Lu, who had only been online on the day the helmet was used clinically for patients with impaired consciousness, probably never imagined that if she had been online a few more times, she might have discovered the reason why the "target" discovered Ji Tang's mental state had changed - players in the game could see each other's potential value (mental strength) by casting an identification spell on each other. Ji Tang's potential value of 53 points when he first came online on the 12th had skyrocketed to 60 in just three days...
Ordinary players can improve their mental strength by projecting their souls to another world for "running exercise" through the imprint matrix for a long time. What about patients whose mental strength is declining due to physical reasons?
Although there is no room for magic on Earth, the upper limit of the mental power of Earthlings is low. They cannot, like spellcasters in the magic plane, enhance their mental power to their own limits and then feed back to the body to achieve the magical effect of making the physical body exceed the lifespan. However, it is definitely not bad for Earthlings to improve their mental power.
