Chapter 4: The Fourth Calamity's Birth Point
Yang Qiu, who felt seamlessly sitting among a group of Internet cafe masters sleeping in various postures, successfully turned on his computer and surfed the Internet.
Entering the keywords, Yang Qiu searched for a bunch of online articles about "Otherworld Gaming" that he had heard his classmates discuss before crossing over. He opened them one by one with a serious look, learning from their experiences...
That's right, although the Earth is indeed his rear base, it is almost impossible .
Of course, believers are not the only ones who can serve as anchors. As long as there is enough trust between each other, and intelligent creatures with stronger souls and spirits who can open some spiritual "back doors" to each other, they can all anchor each other.
For example, among magicians, the first commandment upon entry is "Do not pray to God". Many of them are anchored by each other as master and apprentice, couples, or comrades, increasing each other's resistance to spiritual pollution.
Considering this point of view, Yang Qiu could actually consider debuting as a magician or something like that...
Try your best to improve your social status and popularity, and gain loyal fans who have a certain degree of trust in you. These loyal fans can become his anchors.
When he encounters the torrent of mental pollution from the ancient gods, his die-hard fans, as anchors, can enhance his mental resistance and allow him to maintain his sanity longer so that he won't lose control at the mere glare of the ancient gods.
But this is just a perfect deduction. If you really do this, it will be very skinny... First, he cannot come up with an identity that can stand up to scrutiny; second, the so-called die-hard fans based on "love for a stranger's talent" are actually unreliable.
Just as he who is anchored can attack the ancient god's tentacle, the anchor point can be released, freed from, or even attacked by itself.
Why are all good gods, evil gods, and ancient gods so keen on assimilating and brainwashing believers?
Why do spellcasters work so hard to "cultivate themselves" when they can clearly anchor each other?
It is because believers who have not been assimilated and brainwashed are too unstable...not to mention the relationship that is only built on trust or even the cheaper "like, like".
Under these difficult circumstances, the most feasible method that Yang Qiu could refer to was the "game alien world" type of online writing that was quite popular among his classmates before he traveled through time.
Using the "spiritual imprint" in magic tricks, combined with the power of space rules absorbed from the ancient god's tentacle, the souls of the earthlings are "borrowed" to the magic plane.
When the souls of Earthlings are active in the magical plane, the spiritual backdoor is fully open and unguarded to Yang Qiu, who is the "time and space intermediary", and is the most reliable anchor point.
The more Earthlings' souls he could keep at a "high online rate" in the magic plane under the guise of "playing games", the safer he would be...
After spending a whole morning in the Internet cafe and referring to the operations of a large number of online writers, Yang Qiu thanked the brother who provided the camera and left the Internet cafe.
Then... he went to the stationery store to buy some odds and ends, ran back to the pedestrian street in the commercial area near the Redwood Community, and stood on the roadside to perform street magic...
His image already had the temperament of a wandering artist, and the difficulty of a magician performing street magic was not too easy. Soon, a large number of young people gathered around him.
By taking advantage of the opportunity of frequent light physical contact with young people, Yang Qiu easily collected sample data on the soul strength of ordinary people on Earth today...
The magic trick of "spiritual imprint" can open up a consciousness channel for the soul of an intelligent being that is different from the rules of the material world. The principle is somewhat similar to the transmission of electromagnetic waves, but the operating rules are much simpler.
In the process of transmitting the soul spirit to another place through the channel of consciousness, there will be a consumption rate... That is to say, in this process, the mental power of the organism is in a state of continuous consumption.
For the caster, this consumption is negligible, and the caster's naturally recovered mental power is enough to pay for the consumption, with some left over.
But ordinary people certainly cannot compare with the caster's spiritual power that is strong enough to feed back to the body...
If Yang Qiu wants to achieve "sustainable development", he must weaken the intensity of the "spiritual imprint", or at least reduce the consumption generated during the transmission process to a level that will not affect ordinary people.
After collecting enough samples, Yang Qiu said goodbye to the reluctant audience with a smile.
Before leaving, he went back to take a look at the Redwood community.
Before I even got downstairs, I saw my mom and sister running down from upstairs in a hurry...
Yang Qiu quickly turned around, pretending to be an indifferent passerby, and only secretly glanced at the two relatives out of the corner of his eyes.
"Yang Qiu hasn't called back yet?"
"No! I called several of his classmates, but he wasn't at their house! No. 2 Middle School also said he didn't go to register! I was so worried!"
Yang Qiu's heart was filled with warmth and he couldn't help but want to jump out to recognize his relatives.
"Yesterday morning, a psychopath knocked on our door and said he was Yang Qiu! I was so pissed! I should have called the police. That psychopath might have known where Yang Qiu ran off to!"
Yang Qiu's head drooped weakly...
Watching his mother and sister anxiously running out of the community, Yang Qiu was both moved and embarrassed.
He had been "missing" for two days, and even his sister, who usually wanted to beat him three times a day, was so anxious that she jumped up and down...
But even if he stood in front of them, Yang Qiu doubted whether his mother would recognize him...
With a sigh, Yang Qiu left the Redwood community sadly.
Forget it... I'll think of a way to let them know I'm safe later, at least so they don't have to worry about me all the time.
Finding an inconspicuous corner to "open the door" and return to the magic plane, Yang Qiu summoned the undead horse and modified the "Magic Trick·Spirit Brand" while on the road.
He is currently located east of the Napalm continent, within the territory of the Rhine Kingdom.
The Kingdom of the Rhine is not a vassal state of the Holy Church, and the influence of the Holy See here is not very strong.
But the Rhine Kingdom believes in the righteous god of money and trade, the Lady of Gold... In other words, this country has no moral integrity from top to bottom. As long as the crazy people in the Inquisition are willing to pay the toll, the Rhine royal family will open its doors to allow those pagan knights to stay overnight in the palace.
Even if you are not afraid of being entangled by those crazy people in the Inquisition again, it is not a good idea to open an "Earth Players Playground" within this kingdom.
The reason is still the same: the Rhine Kingdom really has no moral integrity.
Just imagine what kind of chemical reaction would occur if the players of the Fourth Calamity, Earth, who treated this world as a playground, hooked up with this group of indigenous "NPCs" with no moral integrity... Yang Qiu felt dizzy.
For example, there was the butler Buff, who bought his refurbished old clothes at a super low price (compared to this world). Although he was just a butler who managed the land for a country landlord, if he was paid enough, he would definitely sell the village and all the villagers, pack up his belongings and abscond with the money.
What if the players on Earth took this as a way to gain game bases and NPC "followers" and studied it... well, then Yang Qiu would have to prepare for a territory war with the local nobles with a frown on his face.
He himself was once a game player, and he doesn't underestimate the professionalism of players in researching game loopholes!
Ten hours later in the magic plane time.
After traveling hundreds of miles under the moonlight, Yang Qiu finally arrived at his destination.
Tarantin, the lawless zone between the Kingdom of the Rhine and its neighboring countries, is a thousand-mile wasteland consisting of hills, swamps and primeval forests.
In addition to the official name of Tarantan, this wasteland is also called the Ancient Battlefield, the Land of Exile... In short, this is a wild wilderness that has not been declared occupied by any official organization, and the Fourth Scourge created it at will.
“This is it.”
Yang Qiu looked around the valley in front of him, put away his undead horse, and walked into it.
In this valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, there are still hundreds of scattered, dilapidated wooden houses.
Dried-up wells, broken clay pots, and wildly growing lush vegetation that has squeezed the wooden houses to the point where they have almost lost their footing... no matter how you look at it, it looks like a Fengmen Village that has been magnified several times.
Of course, compared with Fengmen Village, this place is much worse... At least the houses in Fengmen Village are still very solid. After cleaning up the garbage left by curious tourists, the houses can still continue to serve as shelter from wind and rain.
As for these wooden houses... it would be nice to dismantle them and burn them for firewood.
“It seems a bit too much to ask players to build their own ‘spawn point’… Never mind, let’s keep it. Players are not real people anyway, they won’t mind how bad the spawn point is.”
Yang Qiu walked through the ruins left by the exile army, selected the center location, and took out the dragon bone staff.
Magic power surged out of his body and gathered behind him, forming a huge magic array with a diameter of about five meters.
"Forbidden magic: Withering and decaying."
With a slight wave of the staff, black mist surged out from the huge magic circle behind Yang Qiu and rolled in all directions.
Under the erosion of the black fog, the lush vegetation that blocked the road and filled the valley with almost no place to stand quickly withered and died. The green branches and leaves turned yellow and decayed within seconds, turning into black mud and merging into the earth; the trunks and branches disintegrated into debris and fell to the ground.
When the black fog dissipated, only wooden houses, mud walls and other dead objects were left standing in the valley covering an area of about 1.5 square kilometers.
"That's pretty much it for the 'birth point'." Yang Qiu nodded with satisfaction.
Next, it is time to create a resurrection point.
Yang Qiu took out a bag of magic powder, grabbed a handful and threw it into the air.
In addition to common magic tricks, spellcasters of different systems need the assistance of magic powder as a casting material when they want to cast magic across systems.
Yang Qiu is a black magician, and he can cast black magic spells at will. If he wants to use earth magic across the system, even the simplest earth-gathering array requires magic powder...
"Reformed Spiritual Brand Core."
The magic powder fell to the ground, the ground shook slightly, and some soil floated up to form a large magic array.
"Reinforce it into a semi-permanent spell and use it as a resurrection point... Well, bake it into a porcelain state and seal it with a protective shell."
Behind Yang Qiu, a huge, suspended, slowly rotating magic array was emitting heat, covering the soil that formed the magic array.
Black magic can also generate heat energy...you can save some magic powder.
The formation diagram made of soil was solidified, and more soil floated up from the ground, forming a giant bottle cap shape, which was inverted on the core formation diagram of the spiritual imprint.
"Okay." Yang Qiu clapped his hands and dispersed the formation diagram.
Now that we have the “birth point”, we also need to prepare a carrier for the souls of Earth players to attach to...that is, the “game character”.
If it were in other places, even if Yang Qiu had ideas, he would not have the "materials", but in this place, he had no shortage of "materials".
Coming out of the valley of the "birth point", Yang Qiu summoned the undead horse and searched around for traces.
After searching for about an hour and running about ten kilometers, Yang Qiu came to a huge swamp with no visible end.
Standing at the edge of the swamp, Yang Qiu summoned the magic circle and raised his staff:
"Forbidden magic: Resurrection of the dead!"
The muddy sewage in the swamp began to churn...
Dozens of seconds later, human heads in varying degrees of decay emerged from the churning mud and water.
One by one, incomplete corpses, dragging various rags, waterweed, and damaged armor, crawled out of the swamp...
