The closed beta begins

"Closed beta announcement: to better prepare Divine Revelation for its official open beta, the game is launching a closed beta with a data wipe effective immediately. The closed beta will last three months, with a total of 300 places available."

"Announcement: player character registration is now open. The starting location will be a random area within Jiangling Prefecture, in the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty of Act One."

"Announcement: the auction house is now open."

"Announcement: the public chat channel is now open."

"Announcement: the inventory has been activated."

"Rest here and await orders!"

A series of announcements rang out in Lister's ears, and the entire group came to a temporary halt in the Lost Land.

On the game system panel, the long list of functions that had been grayed out and disabled had finally become available.

Lister was immediately overjoyed. It was good to have players!

Without players, his grand undertaking with passive skills would be difficult to continue. Now, at last, he could see a glimmer of hope.

He also tried out the inventory and some of the other newly available functions, but before he could enjoy them for long, a series of warnings suddenly appeared before his eyes.

"Warning: registered alien life-form detected... system check in progress... automatically reported to the main AI..."

Scarlet text appeared before his eyes. It was the first time he had seen a warning in red.

"Initiating contingency plan one. Deleting player character."

The icy system notification sounded in his ears, and Lister's heart rate instantly soared.

He had thought the arrival of players was a good thing. Who would have thought the system would check his identity and even move straight to erasing him?

"Initiating deletion... deletion failed..."

"Warning: this life-form belongs to an alien universe. A further report has been submitted to the main AI..."

"District 71 of the main AI has taken direct control..."

"Determination: Lister Merick is not a character created by a Federation citizen. He is a physical life-form from an alien universe and cannot be deleted!"

"Record created: closed beta bug 1, NPC character error caused by an alien life-form (repair in progress)."

Lister was anxious. In the space of a few minutes, close to a hundred red warnings had popped up on his otherwise sparse system public screen.

Fortunately, the game's main AI was unable to erase him, which put him considerably at ease.

Before long, another announcement appeared on the system panel.

"A player character has been recreated for Lister Merick and is awaiting a name. In faction areas with real interaction, this NPC will automatically gain the player character's communication and trading functions. All other functions have been permanently deleted!"

"Notification: closed beta bug 001 has been fixed."

The stream of notifications finally came to an end, and Lister took another look at his player panel.

[Name: Lister Merick (NPC), unnamed (player character)]

"Note: please name this player character first. This name will only be used for public chat and auction house transactions."

Lister still wasn't sure exactly what his situation was.

But since the name would be used for public chat, he hesitated briefly before, almost without knowing why, typing in the three characters most familiar to him.

"Name set successfully: Chen Xinhe."

Though he didn't expect to transmigrate back, Lister still hoped something of his past could remain.

"Note: the minimap function has been activated."

"Warning: this player is outside the closed beta area."

"Record created: bug 007."

Lister had figured it out: his very existence was one bug after another.

After another series of fixes, a clear marker appeared on his minimap. The flashing red dot to the southwest was Jiangling Prefecture.

That was good news. He hadn't known where the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty was and had originally had no choice but to charge ahead blindly.

Now that he had a direction, he had a destination and could avoid taking risks.

Only when he saw that the system had gone completely quiet did Lister get back to his feet.

"Move out!"

As he mounted his horse, the guards immediately assembled. Lister led them off in the direction now marked for them.

Messages were already appearing in the game's public chat.

"Anyone here?"

No one replied. Lister silently watched the public chat window as he traveled.

In games before, ordinary messages would be swept away in an instant. Only system megaphones could make a message linger for a few seconds, barely long enough for players to communicate.

Now, even an ordinary message could just sit there on the public chat.

That single, lonely message seemed to get under the skin of the player called "War God of Jiangling Prefecture (Chen Shanqiang)," and another soon drifted across the public chat.

"Fuck, it wasn't easy getting into the closed beta, and you lot aren't even hurrying to log in?"

Lister noticed that his view of the public chat was somewhat unusual. Unlike when he had been a player before, he could see the real names others had used to register.

"Who are you yelling at? Your daddy here is busy grinding levels!" - "Love of a Lifetime (Qi Lü)"

"Who the fuck are you calling your son? You that eager for me to fuck you up?"

As the two began arguing across the screen, other players in the public chat also started speaking up.

"This game is a great experience!" - "Viking Warrior (Jeniffer)"

The ensuing conversation was a series of pointless messages.

Lister hadn't experienced this closed beta with its data wipe in his previous life. He hadn't even heard there had been a closed beta.

The people who had qualified for it were probably people of some standing in the Earth Federation.

He now wanted to hurry to Jiangling Prefecture and make contact with this first batch of closed beta players.

After more than half a month of traveling through the nights, Lister finally reached his destination.

Jiangling Prefecture lay within Jiang Province, on the northern border of the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty.

It was essentially a border city, sparing him the risk of venturing into other cities.

Along the way, Lister had only encountered two groups of demonic beasts, all below level ten.

They were suited for beginners to practice on, so the group ignored them and headed straight into Jiangling Prefecture.

"My lord, is this the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty?"

Only when he spotted signs of villages did Rolf, captain of the Sixth Guard, instantly brighten with surprise.

Having spent time with Lister recently, he had become fairly familiar with his earl's temperament, so he asked in an excited whisper.

"Yes, we should have arrived, though this should only be the border."

"My lord! This... this is unbelievable!"

Hearing the two of them talk, the professionals of the Sixth Guard behind them all grew excited.

The reason was simple: they had thought that following Earl Lister amounted to a kind of partial exile.

They had been searching for the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty, which scarcely seemed to exist, and had never expected to actually find it.

The village they had just passed, with its architecture so strikingly different from that of Lucian and the surrounding countries, had left them unable to contain their excitement.

This was a great achievement!

Once they returned with Lord Lister, a great reward for their service would surely await them, to say nothing of the other rewards they would receive.

But before the guards had spent long dreaming about it, the sounds of fighting came from not far away.

Lister suspected it might be players brawling and led the group over to investigate, looking forward to it.

But as soon as he drew a little closer, he sensed something was wrong. The fighting was fierce, and it wasn't a one-on-one fight.

Sure enough, once they got close enough, they found two groups of people hacking at each other.

The side under attack wore matching long blue coats. More than twenty of them were fighting to protect two carriages in their midst.

The attackers, meanwhile, wore gray hemp clothing and looked like mountain bandits.

By then, both groups had naturally noticed Lister and his companions, who had stopped nearby.

But their battle had long since become a desperate struggle, and both sides merely glanced at Lister.

Seeing that he hadn't led his group forward and didn't seem to be reinforcements for either side, they continued fighting. Neither dared stop at will.

For a time, the fighting grew ever fiercer.