Abyss God, Activate!

Abyss God, Activate!

Network connection unresponsive. Please log back into Qiqiao Network's server.

"Ugh, what a pain. Disconnected again."

The dim view gradually faded away. Li Si sighed, subconsciously rubbing his forehead as he muttered in complaint:

"I should've moved out of this dump ages ago and gotten a dedicated line for streaming with the studio. The broadband in this rental is way too unstable. Every time my viewers go over a hundred thousand, it starts fluctuating like crazy."

Being a full-time streamer was no easy job. Even as a streamer for Star Abyss, the hottest full-dive game around, where traffic was enormous, very few streamers actually managed to make money from it.

"I'm still two hundred streaming hours short this month. Ugh, reconnecting after that disconnect took two hours, and I still have to restart the Streaming Plugin. Looks like I'll be pulling another all-nighter today."

Star Abyss was great in every regard, except its optimization for the ever-updating variety of Streaming Plugins was utter garbage. It was difficult to make them compatible, and sometimes they simply were not compatible at all.

Kuai Yin, Dou Shou, Hu Yu, BiliBili—it did not matter what platform it was. Every Streaming Plugin was treated equally before Star Abyss's game system. Network crashes were practically routine.

Had Qiqiao Network's programmers fixed it? If they had, then they had.

Li Si had been streaming for a long time. He had poured all his savings into building his current work environment, and only then had his career begun to show results. By now, he had earned a bit of fame as a Master Player of the Starcaller class.

That was just how things were these days. The barrier to becoming a streamer was too low, so competition was brutal. Either your content had to be higher quality than everyone else's, or you had to work hard enough to keep grinding overtime and earn the platform's recommendations.

The Game Pod should have been interfacing with his nerves right now, synchronizing his consciousness and data. It was an extremely lengthy process. Normally, it would not matter, but for Li Si, the outside world was currently in prime streaming hours. Missing that window would greatly reduce his traffic.

The excitement he had felt when first entering the game had gradually faded after gaming became professionalized. Once playing became work, it lost its fun. Sometimes, Li Si wanted to return to that summer years ago, when he and his friends could carefree play together and queue up as a team.

Every game was the most fun when you first got into it. Once the content started repeating, it became a dull routine of clocking in for work.

If he could, Li Si really wanted to make a new alt account and properly relive the life of a newbie starting from zero.

Unfortunately, things never went as one wished.

Adults had no room for entertainment. If they were not burdened with work, they had to manage fan groups, edit videos, organize events, attend social gatherings, secure sponsorships, chase attention, and socialize. No profession could avoid that.

On the other hand, Li Si was not optimistic about his own career either.

Anyone familiar with the game-streaming industry knew that a streamer's lifespan was closely tied to the game itself.

As a Master Player streamer of Star Abyss's ultimate Class Path, Starcaller, before he had managed to break out beyond the game's audience, his viewers were basically limited to Starcaller players.

Simply put, it was a case of the rising tide lifting all boats. The more Starcaller players there were, the more viewers he would have, the higher his income would be, and the more likely advertisers would value him.

If Starcaller rose in popularity, Li Si's streaming career would take off directly as well.

However, reality was not optimistic.

In Version 14.0, Starcaller was an ultimate class that only came into its own in the late game. Its demanding early-game controls and harsh environment made many players keep their distance, indirectly leaving its player base far smaller than those of other classes. Li Si's income had remained stable for a long time, with little fluctuation, and that worried him greatly.

After all, as the pressure of life increased, many people gradually stopped playing games and turned to novels and short videos instead. Even Li Si could not guarantee that, if not for the income from his streaming career, he would still love Star Abyss as much as ever.

"Limb neural link established. Tactile template activated."

The Neural Link activated, and Li Si stopped thinking about all that nonsense.

Star Abyss, which emphasized immersion, rarely displayed game-interface-like visual effects. During loading, there were no prompts. Instead, it gradually unlocked the senses, continuously intensifying stimulation so players could adapt to entering the game.

That was why reconnecting after a network fluctuation caused a disconnect always took so long.

Li Si was anxious, but at this moment, he could only follow the game's process.

As a veteran Star Abyss player and a Master Player of the Starcaller class, he adjusted his mindset quickly. He swiftly calmed himself and precisely followed the tips officially provided to speed up Neural Link synchronization.

"Empty your mind and gradually sense your body."

"Start with your fingers and keep trying to move them."

"Remember the sensation of airflow brushing across your skin. Keep contemplating it and deepen your awareness of it."

This technique had always been effective. From the vast, boundless void, his senses became increasingly sharp and real.

The warmth of sunlight, the ill-fitting sensation of clothes, the searing pain from a wound on his forehead, blood gushing out from a ruptured vessel...

"Huh? What's going on? Sunlight? A wound? Clothes that don't fit?"

Li Si was somewhat surprised. He clearly remembered that before disconnecting, he had been exploring and pioneering the high-risk map Secluded Garden. The place was shrouded in darkness from start to finish. There should not have been any sunlight at all.

But perhaps the logout protection system had teleported him back to a nearby human colony planet. If there was sunlight, it was most likely Valkyrie Fortress's Artificial Sun.

The wound was understandable too. Other players were probably attacking him. After all, he was a somewhat famous streamer. It was normal for passing fans to want to interact with him.

What truly puzzled Li Si was that the clothes on his body did not fit.

That was absolutely impossible.

His Silver Dream robe had been custom-made from Void Dragon Skin. It adjusted to his physique and was reinforced with thirteen layers of blessings. It could never fit as poorly as a mage wearing a warrior's armor.

Moreover, the texture of the clothing was completely different from the soft, comfortable robe he remembered. It felt more like the shoddy synthetic material worn back in the early Novice Village days.

Something's strange. Did one of my viewers pull a prank on me?

As his body and consciousness gradually synchronized, Li Si's vision was still blurry, but he had basically regained control of his body. He immediately noticed that he seemed to be slumped on the ground, with something heavy pressing down on him. It vaguely looked like a human figure.

Li Si did not think much of it. He instinctively raised a hand to push it away. As a level-three-hundred Starcaller, even though Strength was not his Primary Attribute, the sheer advantage of his level should have been enough for him to push aside a Magellan-class Interstellar Battleship.

However, when his palm touched the humanoid object, even the slightest exertion from his weak, aching hand brought a stab of pain. The heavy resistance made his face stiffen.

"What's going on? Did I get hit with the Weakness Negative Effect after being killed six times in a row?"

Li Si frowned. The humanoid object was pressing directly against his chest and abdomen, making his breathing rapid and difficult. If this continued, he would enter the Suffocation state.

He could only struggle and shake his body with all his strength. After a long while, he finally pushed the humanoid figure off himself.

Thud.

The humanoid object fell flat on its back. Li Si sat up and glanced over. The Neural Link happened to complete synchronization at that moment. His pupils focused, quickly taking in the other person's appearance.

A tall, heavily built white man wearing a light-blue Security Uniform, with no signs of life. His badge bore the name "Lanny Johns."

"What era is this? People are still wearing traditional woven clothes? This stuff is from before the Interstellar Era. Even the Internal Test Version didn't have this, did it?"

Li Si muttered to himself. It was only a corpse, after all. There was not much psychological pressure to speak of.

Back then, to farm materials, he had crawled out of and then back into places like Demon Academy, mountains of corpses and seas of blood. If not a thousand times, then at least nine hundred and ninety-nine.

He lowered his head and examined his own outfit: the same blue Security Uniform, a flashlight equipped at his waist. There was blood on his forehead and cheek as well—he reached up and touched it. He had probably bumped the corner of his forehead. It was only a shallow cut and nothing serious.

"Not only did they slap me with Weakness, they even dumped me on some random Newbie Planet. Who the hell pulled this prank?"

Without ceremony, Li Si tore strips from the guard's clothes to stop his own bleeding, then casually took the rubber baton from the man's waist to use as a weapon.

"Who knows what planet they dumped me on? I need to find a mirror and activate the system."

Li Si muttered as he quickly started moving, but the moment he took his first step, he immediately realized something was wrong.

He turned around and, squinting in the afternoon sunlight, carefully stared at the guard's corpse. His gaze settled on the badge.

"Lanny Johns. No wonder I recognized it—it's Azure Planet script."

Li Si laughed, paused, then his pupils suddenly contracted. "This is the script from Azure Planet, the Newbie Planet for Yanxia Country players in Versions 1.0 through 2.0."

"You've got to be kidding me. Didn't the Galaxy Civilization blow up Azure Planet in Version 2.5?!"

"Five years ago, I watched Azure Planet explode with my own eyes. More than fifty thousand people in my stream witnessed that stunning scene together. The planet shattered, the sky collapsed and the earth split apart. Under the main cannon of the Dallas starship, it slowly melted into magma. A civilization perished amid flames and radiant light. In the end, the entire planet disintegrated into broken stones, swallowed up and assimilated by a massive celestial body, continuing to gleam and cool in the frigid vacuum..."

"And most importantly, I was the one who blew up Azure Planet!"

I bought the complete Super God Mechanic and became a top supporter. Fine, I'll admit it—I imitated Sword of Amber.