The Third-Generation Virus

Time quickly reached the fourth day, and the players who had died in the first wave of the hellish quests respawned and logged back in.

Although Cyberworld is an incredibly realistic game, it is still a game after all, and the system offered two options for its release.

The first method is to log in at a fixed respawn point, which is usually the stronghold of the player's faction and is set by the player themselves.

The second option is to launch the game at the location of death, which is probably to take into account players' need to recycle equipment or restart quests.

Without a doubt, no one would give up on the first Tier 2 top-tier quest in the game just because they only die once.

However, when these veterans logged on again, they were almost all dumbfounded.

"Holy crap! The map has changed!"

"This is illogical! It's only been three days, is the planner working this hard? How many hairs does he even have left?"

"The island... the island is gone!"

"It's not that they've disappeared, it's that there are more! What they're saying on the forum is actually true! Holy crap, that's outrageous!!"

At this moment, what appears before the player is a miniature island group. The smallest of these 'islands' is only the size of a basketball court, and there may be a building or a carousel on it. The larger ones are small forests. These deformed trees that block out the sky seem to have been forced to grow overnight. From within the forest, the roars of radiated beasts can be faintly heard.

A careful player counted them and found that there were fifty of these "islands" in total. They were basically divided from Atomic City and were not far apart, at most a hundred meters apart and at least a dozen meters apart. Not to mention players, even ordinary people could swim across them with a single dive. For some agile modders, they could even cross them with a single leap.

However, when some players planned to do this, some "newcomers" looked at them with surprise.

"Are you looking for death?"

"Fighting monsters above your level?"

"Didn't you check the forum?"

"What does that mean?" one of the first players to die couldn't help but ask.

"It means, you'll see once you try it—"

The player shrugged, picked up his gun, and walked towards an ancient robot stronghold, fully demonstrating what it means to sacrifice a friend rather than oneself.

It's not that veteran players are careless; it's just that they're in a hurry to recycle their equipment!

One player witnessed his hard-earned high-level cybernetic body hanging on the head of the opposing robot dog. He couldn't stand it any longer and took a step to cross the sea. Then, in the next moment, a flash of purple light appeared, and he mysteriously disappeared.

About three minutes later, this player's post appeared on the game forum.

"Aaaaaaah! Why did going into the sea teleport me?! And even if it was teleporting, why did it teleport me straight into a monster horde?! My health is instantly reduced to zero! Aaaaaaah! My modification rate has dropped!!!"

Players don't really care about losing levels and experience, since they can level up again by fighting monsters. However, if they die frequently, there is a certain probability that their "modification rate" will drop. Once the modification rate drops, it not only means that the previously implanted prosthetic body cannot be used, but this "drop" is permanent and cannot be raised back up. This means that at the same level, your ceiling is lower than others, which is the most frustrating thing.

Not to mention the gloating and sarcastic remarks on the forum, most of the first batch of victims weren't that reckless. They started idling on the forum to browse the featured posts and quickly figured out what had happened.

After the first batch of players died, this hellish mission has evolved from "Biohazard Mode" and "Electronic Ghost" to the current island version, which is the third version.

The Biohazard mode goes without saying; it's a bunch of cybernetic zombies and is known as the version where equipment is the least useful.

The second version features "Electronic Ghost," which is quite eerie. Players will suddenly die, their health will be instantly depleted, and they won't even know how they died. Before they die, they will hear faint footsteps, so players affectionately call it "Ghost Mode."

But players are players after all. After various deaths and system prompts, they finally figured it out: this "electronic ghost" is actually a very special "lethal virus." This virus is related to your "cybernetic durability." Once the durability drops to two-thirds, the virus will activate instantly, the "ghost" will invade, or rather, the cybernetic body will backfire, killing the implantee.

More people died in this version than in the first version, including many expert players, because they had no idea how "death" worked.

Then there's the current version, which was just "launched" yesterday. The entire Atomic City has split into many small islands, and each island is like a small map. Players must complete the "main quest" of this small map, either by solving puzzles or exploring, in order to move on to the next island. It's like a large map has been broken down into 50 miniature structures.

If you go directly to the next island, you will be transferred to a group of monsters and beaten to death.

During this process, the difficulty of the monsters will increase exponentially, making it difficult for even skilled players to defeat them alone.

However, once you complete a few side quests, you will gain powerful NPC teammates, such as mercenaries from Mas's Edge.

So far, the player with the highest completion rate has surpassed 41 small maps. This player is not the famous Umbrella Brother, nor the top player in the eroge (adult game) world, Sister Ji, but an unknown female player.

Her name is Dida. (Ang)

At this moment, Dida was breaking through the 42nd map at a breakneck speed. With a wave of his hand, countless energy mycelia danced and quickly cleared out the monsters. Although these mycelia did not deal much damage, there were many of them, like releasing a swarm of fireflies. The skill was very beautiful.

She neither dodged nor evaded the attacks from the ancient robots. Physical attacks are ineffective against pure energy life forms, which is why she broke through so quickly.

Soon, Professor Xie's holographic projection appeared, and he began to talk in a mystical manner about the evolutionary history of the virus known as the "Atomic Heart".

"Viruses are evolving. I can sense it. Viruses originating from the old era are taking root and sprouting in the new era. In order to harness their power and control their devastation, we must..."

"Alright, your storytelling skills aren't as good as you think, Mr. G," Dida interrupted rudely.

The "Dr. Xie" in the video paused for a moment, then said, "Ma'am, you've mistaken me for someone else?"

The mushroom-like girl rolled her eyes adorably and said, "If you keep saying that, I'm going to settle the score with you for leaving me behind in the digital space."

Dr. Xie sighed, rubbed his temples, and seemed to look decades younger in an instant, vaguely resembling Mr. G.

"I really can't make up stories. If I were to write a novel, it would definitely be a flop."

"You're just too lazy, too lazy to even bother with a little cover-up. These mutated radioactive beasts on the islands, and some electronic traps, are just too much like someone's aura and style."

For some reason, despite being a mysterious NPC with an unpredictable background, Dida felt exceptionally warm and friendly when they met again, as if they were seeing an old friend.

The outline that G had prepared, concerning the grudges and entanglements between Dr. Xie, Mas Sifeng, and Dugo Technologies, as well as their respective ambitions and plans to cause trouble, was completely wasted. The outline went completely off track. However, G's shamelessness was not just for show, and he directly handed the draft over to the other party.

"Since you've found out, there's nothing I can do. Here's the pen, you write it down."

Tick glanced at it, his lips twitching a few times. It clearly stated—"Dirty."

Using the bodies of participants to catalyze the renewal of the "Metal Heart," the draft states that the virus needs to evolve to at least the fifth generation before it can be considered fully formed. Each generation of this virus will kill at least tens of thousands of people, and the more powerful the virus, the more "tools" it will require.

For example, the third-generation "metal flesh virus" that is currently being developed has the characteristic of breaking down the "essence" of metal materials and integrating it into the surrounding environment.

In layman's terms, if you can't break through the minimap in a short period of time, your cybernetic equipment, or even your modified body, will permanently lose attributes.

The player is really unlucky!

As a player with a benevolent and orderly playstyle, I can't stand it anymore. They're using players as walking medicine bottles, cheating them, and ruining their equipment. What's worse, these quests are practically impossible to complete! This is just too disgusting! This NPC is inhumane!

She looked up with a serious expression and said earnestly, "It costs extra!!"

...dirty

The senior engineer successfully negotiated the deal with Ms. Jia Qian and then entered the "Purple String Space". In this energy space, countless threads intertwined to form a virtual world. In this world, there is an island group composed of atomic islands, which float in a purple energy ocean, rising and falling.

In fact, without his almost "unlimited" Honkai energy catalysis, "Heart of the Atom" would never have matured so quickly, and without the successive stream of players using drugs, the virus would not have mutated so rapidly.

"Well, once bitten, twice shy. It's better to be a medicine pot than a tin can. Be more careful in the future and know that not every mission is worth taking."

This is why the senior engineer didn't deliberately try to recruit players into his faction.

Firstly, this game isn't won by having more players; secondly—

Once you've gotten to know someone well, it's harder to make a move!

Within the Purple String Space, the senior engineer could observe the world from a unique perspective. At this moment, small bubbles were bubbling and gurgling in the purple seawater, these bubbles gleaming with a strange metallic sheen, showing no signs of melting even while submerged in energy.

Just as the senior engineer was carefully observing, he suddenly heard Miao Miaomiao's anxious voice.

"Oh no! Our surveillance satellites have detected the robot."

.