New Player

Inside a male dormitory at a certain college in Jinghai City.

Outside Room 434 in Building 35, the area was already packed with male students from different grades, departments, and majors.

The dorm supervisor, hearing the commotion upstairs, rushed over and was startled by the scene.

Dozens of energetic young men were gathered in the hallway outside a dorm room, shouting things like "Lucky Euro-king," "Life-draining grind," and "Won't live long."

The supervisor's heart skipped a beat, fearing something irreversible had happened. She quickly shouted at the students:

"What are you all doing gathered here? No loitering in the dorms, disperse!"

"Hello, Auntie," a student on the outer edge greeted her. "It's not a fight. There's a senior in our building who got a test qualification for a game. It unlocks today, and we're all waiting for him to log in."

Inside the dorm room.

Deng Shu gave the burly men filling the room the middle finger, took a deep breath, and put on the Holographic Simulation Helmet.

Seeing this, everyone took out their phones and looked at Deng Shu's livestream.

As expected, after the countdown on the screen ended, Deng Shu successfully entered the character creation interface.

Instantly, the entire dorm erupted in thunderous cheers, making it sound like a championship had been won.

It wasn't surprising they were so excited. Many suspected that Glory Expedition OL might limit the number of players due to server issues, only allowing paying whales to play.

Someone on the "Yellowish Brown" forum had deduced that the players chosen for the opening were selected because their accounts were worth at least a million.

This suggested that the qualification for the nostalgia server was based on account value, and ordinary players might never get to play this dream game, which could be considered a "second life."

However, Deng Shu, as one of the second batch of selected players, was just a university student grinding in the game. His account was worth at most 2,000 yuan.

His very existence was the best evidence to refute that theory!

Just like what he saw in Qian Peng's livestream during the opening, Deng Shu still had to wait for other players after finishing character creation. But this time, he didn't have to wait long. A Minotaur named "Pure Love War God" woke up in the warehouse.

"Holy crap! This graphics!" Pure Love War God looked at his thick, powerful hands, clenched his fist, and snorted warmly, "This is f***ing awesome!"

The other four new players couldn't help but glance over. They walked up to the two-meter-tall Minotaur and started touching him.

It was simply too visually stunning.

After the five new players familiarized themselves with their bodies, Li Li, surrounded by a group of veteran players, walked up to them and reiterated the basic rules, such as "kill monsters for experience" and "no bad deeds."

He shook hands with the new players one by one, gave them the quest [Outpost, Part One], and then checked the time. "We set off in fifteen minutes," he said before pulling Aer to the other side of the warehouse, leaving the players to interact amongst themselves.

"Golden Wind," who had transferred to become an Oath Archer, walked up to "Wind of Dawn," a Half-Winged Celestial female, handed her a piece of equipment, and said in a low voice:

"Just as we predicted, the qualification is related to the account's value."

He didn't try to hide his words from others.

As a representative of the free-to-play players, "Pure Love War God," who hadn't yet familiarized himself with the backend operations, was urged by the chat to ask:

"Can we ask how much your first-round accounts were worth?"

"I specifically bought quite a bit of equipment, probably around 400W," said the Water Elemental player named "Crystal Flame" indifferently.

"It has nothing to do with money," said another Dwarf player named "Magic Fist Lu Zhishen." "It should depend on the overall combat power of the first-round character. If you have enough consumable items on you, it can also increase your chances of being selected, even without buying premium equipment."

Hearing this, the Human player named "Humorous Old Man" spread his hands in frustration, saying, "So that's why I got chosen."

"You're the Old Man himself?" "Amulet Owl," who was watching from the side, was stunned. "Another active professional player got their account deleted. Are we even going to have the Expedition Cup this year?"

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

Unlike the low-key players from the opening, the newly selected test players had basically all started livestreams.

So, everyone knew "Pure Love War God" was a lucky free-to-play player and turned their attention to the last silent Panda-man.

Li Li controlled his avatar and had "Lost His Mind" say faintly:

"I won it through a forum event. My main account wears the school uniform, it's not worth much."

Three whales and two free-to-play players... "Amulet Owl" confirmed the composition of the new players and didn't comment. He just walked up to the new players, intending to pull them into the group chat.

From the composition of the new players, the positioning of this game was already evident.

Li Li was actually aware of these misunderstandings among the Earthlings. His forum also had many discussions about this.

This was naturally not because Li Li looked down on the poor and admired the rich. But he could currently only select the earliest batches of players entering his world based on the brightness of their soul imprints.

And the stronger the "first-round" character, the brighter the soul imprint.

In the current situation where he could lose everything at any moment, Li Li preferred to select imprints from a "high-brightness" "gacha pool."

At least the "high-brightness" players hadn't disappointed him so far.

As for those skilled free-to-play players... they would have to wait until he stabilized and could mass-invite players before they could shine.

"I don't need to," Li Li had his avatar decline the group invitation.

Just then, Aer walked over, interrupting the players' conversation:

"Let's go."

Everyone had to pause their conversation and followed Aer into the large truck Li Li had recently purchased.

The Magical Girl codenamed "Red Falcon" was sitting in the back of the truck, and along with "Li Yuan," they had been waiting for the players for a long time.

By charging for skill upgrades, Li Li had earned a good amount of money from "Golden Wind" and "Li Yuan" respectively.

He spent this money, having Aer buy this large truck and a large quantity of building materials that hadn't arrived yet.

Establishing a player stronghold outside the city couldn't rely solely on the surrounding wood.

Li Li planned to build a forward outpost there after completely clearing out the monsters, so that players could use the external stronghold as their first "safe zone" after leaving Iron Wall City.

After waiting in the truck bed for a long time, the truck still hadn't started. Li Li had to control "Lost His Mind" to walk to the driver's cabin and look at the beast-eared girl sitting in the passenger seat.

"I can't drive," Aer said.

"...I'll do it," "Lost His Mind" sighed, got into the driver's cabin, and took the driver's seat.

The vehicle drove towards the city wall and reached the Exploration Association's encampment.

The soldiers manning the checkpoint didn't make things difficult. After receiving the "bribes" they had prepared in advance, they readily let everyone pass.

The Alliance had always been lenient when exiting but strict when entering, especially during these special times.

Explorers leaving the city were a dime a dozen, and there were even some official personnel encouraging private teams to organize and find ways to lure people out of the city to search for scattered Divinity Shards.

However, when they wanted to re-enter the city, they would likely have to pay a hefty price.