New Players

Jinghai City, a certain college, inside a men's dormitory.

Outside Room 434 of Building 35, male students from different years, schools, and majors had packed the hallway so tightly that not even water could pass through.

Hearing the commotion upstairs, the dorm manager hurried over, only to be startled by the sight before her.

Dozens of hot-blooded young men were gathered in the corridor outside a dorm room, shouting things like "damn luck god," "traded his life for it," and "won't live long."

The dorm manager's heart skipped a beat. Afraid something irreparable might happen, she hurriedly shouted at the students:

"Why are you all gathered here? Gatherings aren't allowed in the dorms. Disperse!"

"Hello, ma'am." A student on the outer edge greeted her and explained, "It's not a fight. One of our seniors got beta access for a game, and it unlocked today. We're all waiting for him to log in."

Inside the dorm room.

Deng Shu raised his middle finger at the roomful of burly men, took a deep breath, and put on the Holographic Simulation Helmet.

Seeing this, everyone pulled out their phones and opened Deng Shu's stream.

Nothing unexpected happened. Once the countdown on the screen ended, Deng Shu successfully entered the character creation screen.

In an instant, thunderous cheers erupted throughout the entire dorm building. Anyone unaware of the situation would have thought some team had just won a championship.

They could hardly be blamed for being so excited. Many people had suspected that Glory Expedition OL might limit player numbers because of server issues, only granting access to big spenders.

Someone on the shit-colored forum had theorized that the launch-day players were chosen because their accounts were each worth at least a million.

Therefore, preregistration access for the nostalgia server was determined by account value, and ordinary players might never get to experience this dream game worthy of being called a "second life."

Yet Deng Shu, one of the second wave of selected players, was merely a college student grinding away in the game. His account was worth no more than two thousand yuan.

His very existence was the best evidence disproving that theory!

Just as he had seen in Qian Peng's stream at launch, Deng Shu had to wait for other players after creating his character. This time, though, he did not have to wait long. A Minotaur named "Pure Love War God" woke up in the warehouse.

"Holy shit! These graphics!" Pure Love War God looked at his thick, powerful hands, clenched one into a fist, and snorted out a blast of hot air. "This is fucking incredible!"

The other four new players who had just entered the game could not help glancing over. They walked up to the over-two-meter-tall Minotaur and started touching him directly.

There was no other reason. He simply had too much visual impact.

Once the five newcomers had familiarized themselves with their bodies, Li Li approached them surrounded by the veteran players and repeated the basic rules: things like "kill monsters to gain experience" and "don't do bad things."

He shook hands with each new player, gave them the quest Outpost, Part One, then checked the time. After saying, "We leave in fifteen minutes," he pulled Aer to the other side of the warehouse and let the players talk among themselves.

Golden Wind, who had already changed class into an Oath Archer, walked over to the female Half-Winged Celestial named Wind of Dawn, handed her a piece of equipment, and said quietly:

"Just as we expected, preregistration access is related to account value."

He did not avoid the others when he said it.

As a representative of ordinary players, Pure Love War God had not even gotten familiar with the interface when his chat began urging him to ask:

"Can I ask how much your first-cycle accounts were worth?"

"I specifically bought quite a lot of equipment. Around four million, I guess." The water elemental player called Crystal Flame answered indifferently.

"It has nothing to do with money." Another player, a dwarf named Magic Fist Lu Zhishen, said, "It probably depends on the overall combat power of your first-cycle character. You don't need to buy overpriced equipment. As long as you have enough consumables on you, you can also increase your chances of being selected."

Hearing this, the human player named Humorous Old Man spread his hands helplessly and said gloomily, "So that's why I got selected."

"You're Old Man himself?" Amulet Owl, who had been watching from the side, was dumbfounded. "Another active pro player got his account deleted. Are we even playing in this year's Expedition Cup?"

Humorous Old Man shrugged and explained to his own stream, "The club talked to Expedition Company. They said all the content in the new version is decided by AI, and they can't interfere manually."

Unlike the low-key players from launch, almost all the newly selected beta players were streaming.

Thus, everyone learned that Pure Love War God was a lucky ordinary player, then turned to look at the last panda player, who had not said a word.

Li Li controlled his alt and had Lost His Mind say blandly:

"I got mine from a forum event lottery. My Main Account wears a school uniform, so it isn't worth much."

Three big spenders and two ordinary players... Amulet Owl confirmed the makeup of the new players but offered no opinion. He merely walked over to them, intending to invite them into the group chat as well.

The composition of the newcomers already revealed the game's positioning.

Li Li actually knew about these misunderstandings among the Blue Star natives. There had been plenty of discussion about it on his forum as well.

It was not because Li Li favored the rich over the poor. Rather, at present, he could only use the brightness of soul imprints to select the earliest batches of players entering his world.

And the stronger a character was in the "first cycle," the brighter their soul imprint would be.

With the risk of losing everything at any moment, Li Li preferred to choose imprints from the "high-brightness" "pool."

At the very least, the "high-brightness" players had not disappointed him so far.

As for those highly skilled ordinary players... they could only wait until he was stable enough to bring in players on a large scale before showing their worth.

"I'll pass." Li Li had his alt decline the group invitation.

At that moment, Aer walked over and interrupted the players' conversation:

"Let's go."

Everyone had no choice but to pause their conversation and follow Aer into the large truck Li Li had bought not long ago.

The Magical Girl codenamed Red Falcon was sitting in the truck bed, waiting with Li Yuan for the players.

By charging for skill upgrades, Li Li had earned quite a bit of money from Golden Wind and Li Yuan.

He spent that money to have Aer buy this cargo truck, along with a large amount of construction material that had yet to arrive.

A player base outside the city could not be built with just the nearby wood.

After completely clearing out the monsters there, Li Li planned to turn the place into an outpost. In the future, once players left Iron Wall City, they could treat the base outside as their first "safe zone."

Everyone waited in the truck bed for quite a while, but the truck still did not start. Li Li had no choice but to control Lost His Mind over to the cab, where he glanced at the beast-eared girl sitting in the passenger seat.

"I can't drive," Aer said.

"...I'll do it." Lost His Mind sighed, climbed into the driver's seat, and took over as the driver.

The vehicle headed straight for the city wall and arrived at the Exploration Association's grounds.

The soldiers at the checkpoint did not make things difficult. After receiving the "tribute" prepared in advance, they readily let everyone leave.

The Alliance had always been lenient about leaving and strict about entering, especially during this special period.

There were explorers leaving the city everywhere. Some officials even encouraged people to privately organize fundraising teams, doing everything they could to lure people out of the city to search for Divinity Shards scattered outside.

But when they wanted to enter the city again, they might have to pay a heavy price.