Time had passed more quickly than he had imagined!
In reality, only a little over a month had gone by, yet he had actually managed to produce such a civilization. Zhu Zhengwei was delighted.
After all, the abilities of Zhu Zhengwei's true body were rudimentary—just the hypnosis that came with his "Entering Dreams" power. To truly grasp the power of a cultivation system for transcendent beings was enough to make him ecstatic!
This would give him the power to protect himself!
And he had no doubt that this power could be used in reality, because the essence of the "Qi Consumption" power system was the cultivation of the soul energy stored in his brain.
"The weapon system of Bronze Country would be very difficult for me to make easily in reality!"
"But the path of Seaside Ghost Country is the Qi Drawing Method. That might actually be worth trying."
Zhu Zhengwei saw that his two roommates were playing games. He secretly went into the empty bathroom, eager to learn in secret.
Following the method he had obtained in his mind, he used the Qi Drawing Method and activated Grasp of Returning Gloom.
He stretched out one hand and aimed it at the toothpaste.
"Grip!"
There was no reaction at all.
Zhu Zhengwei soon discovered a difficult problem: this world had no qi of heaven and earth.
Come to think of it, where would this place get any qi of heaven and earth?
This was the lower world of the Mining Machine.
He thought for a moment and quickly came up with a solution. "Since I can't sense the qi of heaven and earth, I'll draw on the qi stored in my own mind."
"Grip!"
"Grasp of Returning Gloom!"
Still, there was no reaction.
He practiced continuously for over half an hour.
"Grip!"
Pfft!
With a sound, the toothpaste finally began to cave in.
Zhu Zhengwei suddenly wanted to laugh. An irrepressible joy surged up from the depths of his heart. "It looks like it's only about as powerful as squeezing toothpaste with my hand. It can't compare at all to Young Ghost Empress in that world, who could overturn mountains and seas."
After all, one drew upon the power of heaven and earth, while the other drew upon one's own power. They were completely different types.
But Zhu Zhengwei was still ecstatic.
This was telekinesis!
This was a genuine Spiritual Magic!
In a sense, he had already become the first cultivator in the real world.
Carrying this excitement, Zhu Zhengwei returned to his bed.
"Ah, it really works! By using a bunch of servers to mine with Blockchain technology, I can keep excavating a massive map-like world and deduce and explore paths toward transcendent civilizations within it!"
"On Earth, there has never been any possibility of another Civilization System. But in this brain mine, I can use mining to dig one out step by step!"
"That excavated map and the constantly advancing civilizations are all lab mice for exploring the path to immortality for me."
Although he could currently only squeeze a tube of toothpaste, making him even more pathetic than the most useless telekinetic power in a movie, that did not stop him from looking forward to the civilizations of the future!
Just then, his two roommates began talking beside him. "Hey! Zhu Zhengwei, the game we helped test has stirred up quite a storm! The forum is incredibly lively right now!"
Lively?
Had everyone become furious?
Zhu Zhengwei was still excited, but when he heard this, he sensed that something might be wrong.
Zhu Zhengwei rubbed his temples and recalled what he had done before. Well, he had indeed gone too far!
On the surface, it was a desktop landscape wallpaper, but behind the scenes, it installed a Trojan virus and secretly mined resources.
Besides, lately, he had been cutting a little too deeply into the Chives to raise the Giant Octopus. He had overproduced medicinal pills, making their sleep scenes dull?
Had those Chives players finally decided that "Minesweeper" was boring, and grown tired of staring at beautiful landscape wallpaper every day?
If that was really the case, it would be troublesome. He now had abundant server resources and did not want to return to those days of scarcity, when he had to search cautiously outside and would accidentally cause a huge commotion.
Silly players were always the best Chives. They diligently played the game and worked without complaint, so they still needed to be cultivated properly and harvested slowly.
After all, as everyone knew, peanuts generally had an oil yield of forty to fifty percent, while Chives had an oil yield of one hundred and twenty percent.
"What happened?" Zhu Zhengwei asked.
"You'll know once you enter the game's built-in forum," they said.
Inside the game, players could look at the "wallpaper" and log into the built-in forum to chat at the same time. After all, staring at scenery constantly really was boring. Zhu Zhengwei had opened a forum for them, allowing them to chat while viewing the scenery. It was practically a chat simulator.
Zhu Zhengwei pretended to put on the VR headset and logged into the interface. He discovered that the forum was extremely lively.
The post pinned highest was titled <I Encountered Brother Octopus in My Wallpaper Scene>.
[Video 3:01]
The footage showed a view from the perspective of an underwater plant.
Above the plant, a gigantic octopus creature like a shadow from mythology swam by. Each of its tentacles was sucking on a human head, every pupil wide open, wooden and cold.
"Don't come over! I'm Patrick Star! Brother Octopus, have you forgotten our friendship?!" Accompanied by a scream, the footage ended.
Many people commented below.
"Wow, so cool! A deep-sea monster as mysterious as an epic myth!"
"Another one that goes crunch! The scene is clearly terrifying, but when you actually experience it, it feels incredibly soothing. There's a kind of happiness in being eaten like a plant. The chewing sounds are wonderful hypnotic music!"
"I was also viewing the wallpaper underwater. The scenery was beautiful, gorgeous fish swimming back and forth, and there was even a mysterious, magnificent Undersea Kingdom in the distance. It's so fantastical!"
Everyone chatted and praised the wonders of this Wallpaper Game.
Although they could not manipulate anything and could only watch the scenes, every image was exquisitely detailed beyond compare and incredibly interesting, with a sense of randomness. It was clearly an exceptionally thoughtful work.
Being able to participate in the beta test made them feel that the trip had been worthwhile. Once this game was released publicly, it was bound to become hugely popular!
"Thank goodness." Seeing this, Zhu Zhengwei breathed a sigh of relief, and his taut heart relaxed.
He thought for a moment and looked at the second-most popular post. Most of the beta players had actually left replies there.
The title was [The Development Team's Thoughtfulness: Stories of Humanity's Pursuit of Immortality Throughout History].
Handsome Man: "Hello, everyone. As a reviewer and a fanatical game enthusiast, I'm back again. On the surface, this game is a desktop landscape Sleep Game with a fresh, clean style. You can view mountains, cities, canyons, grasslands, sunrises, and sunsets. But if you study it carefully, you'll discover that it isn't merely a collection of beautiful scenery. Behind each scene, the Development Team is actually telling a 'story of immortality.' It's like a Lord of the Rings, recounting a long historical process centered around the pursuit of immortality, with the joys and sorrows of people throughout history."
Everyone was stunned.
This was merely a landscape wallpaper game, where players simply viewed beautiful scenery—and it had a plot, too?
Wasn't that ridiculous?
Handsome Man: "Don't disbelieve me. I'm not imagining things. As a veteran lore researcher, I've pieced together the scattered scenes various people have posted on the forum, and a vast picture has appeared before my eyes."
Screenshot 1, (Elder Imperial Emperor surrounded and attacked)
Screenshot 2, (Man with the Tear Mole)
Screenshot 3, (An old man dressed differently, appearing in various places around the world)
"The first is the scene of the Elder Imperial Emperor being besieged and killed in the desert's giant stone Royal City (post link attached). Everyone has seen it. It has an extremely high view count and can be called an epic mythological scene. The setting is magnificent and tragic: the story of a transcendent desert monarch of myth falling! From this, we can see that the worldbuilding of this wallpaper game resembles that of an ancient feudal myth."
"Before his death, he glanced at the wild grass player on the Tea Shed. That aged, desperate, yearning gaze was simply incredible! For no reason, it reminded me of the look in my grandfather's eyes before he died in the hospital. It was exactly the same. I was shocked at the time and couldn't react for a very long while. It was as if, in that instant, I also felt humanity's profound fear of death and its helplessness."
"Many players have said that this scene was made far too well, completely crushing the young pretty boys in today's television dramas. I feel the same way."
These words resonated with many players. Honestly, when they watched the video, that look was truly too shocking! Even a real person, a veteran actor, would have found it difficult to perform such an expression, let alone a specialized movie AI.
Handsome Man:
"As for Screenshots 2 and 3, they show a Man with the Tear Mole and an old man who frequently changes his appearance. I'm sure all the players have seen them. They often appear while you're viewing the scenery, come to your side, observe you, and even pluck you away and consume you, grinding you into medicine to make potions."
"So, based on my bold speculation and all these clues, the Emperor's shocked, yearning gaze upon suddenly discovering the wild grass before his death, along with the mysterious travelers grinding herbs—every piece of information from the Development Team is revealing the same thing: in the worldbuilding of this game, we plants may be some kind of special herb, a plant of immortality! We are the key to obtaining the Longevity Medicine and opening the door to the transcendent world."
Everyone felt shaken after hearing this.
This setting was a little too incredible, wasn't it?
A beautiful desktop game could actually have such depth?
As a single Immortal Herb, we grew on cliffs, precipices, deep mountains, and grasslands all over the world, witnessing beautiful scenery and witnessing the people and travelers of the Mortal World pursue their own aspirations and desires!
"Holy crap! This setting is amazing! I was actually the glamorous slut everyone was pursuing all along!"
"Thinking about it carefully, that's really how it is. There are already so many clues, yet I never considered them in depth. The expert is incredible! He's practically the Sherlock Holmes of our era, the emperor of online detectives!"
"Wow! What kind of divine Development Team is this? (Like)"
"Compared to those glamorous sluts outside, every detail here, inside and out, is full of conscience! This is the first time I've seen such a thoughtful Development Team. They must be a game company brimming with passion and dreams of making games, determined to bring people the most perfect and enjoyable work possible!"
Zhu Zhengwei was somewhat surprised as he read the comments.
He had merely left them there to view the scenery, using them as Chives and as the "Spring Eye" of this world. Yet they had managed to assemble all the scattered clues. This person was rather impressive. There were quite a few talented people online.
"But has everyone noticed? In the latest scene, the second mortal emperor, at the final moment, once again discovered the weeds on top of the Tea Shed that the previous emperor had watched with hatred. He plucked and consumed this weed player. In that instant, I felt the weight and continuity of history! Civilization was being passed down, history was beginning anew, and he became the next mythical emperor!"
"The two men in Figures 2 and 3 may be mysterious figures who run through the main historical line of the game."
"Without a doubt, this is a game about history. It tells us stories spanning decades and centuries: a story of people in a feudal age pursuing immortality and seeking development, a hymn to human history."
"It's simply too cool!"
"And of course, this Hidden Plot is an easter egg from the Development Team."
"If you don't study it deeply, it's a beautiful, soothing landscape game. You can sleep while listening to the wind, the rain, and viewing all kinds of beautiful scenes. If you study it deeply, you're a plot enthusiast. This game has an incredible amount of conscience!"
"As for the game guide? There isn't one. We can't find any game options at present, and we can't move either. After all, current AR game technology can't reach this level. The computing power required for graphics of this quality is too great. It's simply an independent wallpaper game of landscape scenes. Those who don't care for the scenery but enjoy plot stories can study the plot on the side and piece together the scattered plots seen by the various players."
"To sum up, I personally think this is an entirely new game that far surpasses 3D Desktop for Helping the Elderly Sleep. It even breaks through the traditional boundaries of wallpaper games, giving them a new aesthetic and epic feeling, as well as the shock of viewing human history. I even want to recommend it to other friends and post the videos and screenshots outside, but no matter what I try, I can't publish anything outside. It seems that the game's confidentiality during the beta test is extremely strict."
"A forum in a dream can post things outside? Don't be ridiculous." After seeing this, Zhu Zhengwei relaxed completely.
Countless players below were liking and praising the post. Some were even begging the official team to open more beta accounts so their friends could experience it. It was simply too interesting.
"Not bad." Zhu Zhengwei felt much calmer after seeing this. He decided to visit the forum more often in the future and keep an eye on the moods of these Chives players.
Before you continue