Guard Team

Fang Yue hurriedly clicked into it and read it carefully, one word at a time, studying it in detail. It took him more than ten minutes to finish reading the post of over fifty words.

He read it from every angle, but from those fifty-odd words, he could only make out one message—he! was! praising! me!

Yes, praising!

The post was written fluently and elegantly, though. Its praise was so refreshing that it made people feel as if they were bathing in a spring breeze, light and carefree.

With a swipe of the mouse, Fang Yue clicked the like button on the post with considerable force.

Like!

Unfortunately, when he scrolled down, every reply was mocking.

"[Night Dawn]? Where did this little nobody come from? I've never even heard of him!"

"Didn't the guy above log into Blue Sea today? That Night Dawn or whatever got the first kill of an [Anomaly]. Now the whole forum's praising him. It's making me sick just looking at it."

"So he really is the world's number-one bootlicker, huh? I started Blue Sea with a [Lucky Gift Pack], and things went pretty well, but my martial arts progress is still painfully slow. I can't even beat the weakest [Anomaly]. So how did that guy get the first kill? He must've used some kind of cheap trick!"

"Jealous, the guy above is just being jealous! But to be fair, the game's only been open for a little over two hours. Even with the best martial arts manual, training only gives you between +0.1 and +0.5 points in Force or Release Force. Progress is incredibly slow. I don't believe anyone can actually kill an [Anomaly] through sheer strength."

Everything below was filled with doubt.

These doubts came from professional players' sharp instincts and precise grasp of the numbers, so theoretically, their conclusion was correct.

Even against the weakest [Nascent Anomaly], Fang Yue would not have been its match without the thirty-two attribute points granted by [Night's Breath].

Even if other people possessed talents like [Innate Divine Strength] and trained diligently, they might not be able to raise their highest attribute to ten points.

Without even ten attribute points, killing an [Anomaly] was practically a pipe dream.

Therefore, at this stage, those who could kill Anomalies had generally relied on cheap tricks. Only a tiny minority, like Fang Yue, had killed one head-on.

Unable to stand the doubts filling the post, Fang Yue slunk away and continued browsing other posts.

Blue Sea had just launched as a brand-new, cross-era game, which was precisely when the professional-player community was most active.

As a result, most of the content on the front page was about Blue Sea.

Some posts contained crude guides, some discussed game rules players had figured out, and others specifically investigated the game's worldbuilding. There was all sorts of content, and new posts appeared rapidly. Many had been locked and required money to unlock.

Fang Yue also made a post. It was basically a repost of the [Attribute Analysis Compendium] that the game had sent to Shi Wuliao and the others, which he locked and priced at 0.1 yuan—practically the price of cabbage.

After publishing the post, Fang Yue continued browsing the forum, focusing on analysis posts available for free. He picked up quite a few more useful tricks.

For example, character creation.

As it turned out, players did not go through a character-creation process when entering the game.

Instead, they randomly selected a body in the game to possess, much like taking over someone else's body.

However, this randomness was not truly random. After the system collected a player's data, it would select a body with as high a resemblance as possible for them to inhabit.

For example, if someone was a beautiful woman in real life, the game would find a beautiful woman with similar features for her to possess.

Likewise, if someone was a child in reality, the system would try its best to find a child's body for them to possess.

At the same time, to ensure that everyone had a normal body to use, players were randomly assigned to different villages.

Most players were refugees.

These refugees seemed to have fled from somewhere because of some incident. Their identities and backgrounds were essentially blank, with no way to trace their origins.

A small number of [Lucky Gift Pack] players, on the other hand, received special identities or roles.

In addition, if all the refugees in a village were elderly, weak, sick, or disabled, with not a single person matching a player's requirements, then players would generally not be born there.

Of course, there were also adaptation errors.

For example, a male player might be assigned a female body, or a female player might be assigned a male body. Such mismatches did occur, but the system did not explain how to resolve the problem.

The game had only just launched, after all. A few bugs were perfectly normal.

Fang Yue treated it as an amusing tidbit and did not take it to heart.

Fang Yue devoted more of his energy to guides about practicing martial arts and raising attribute points more efficiently.

Unfortunately, most of those guides cost money, and they were not cheap.

In the early stages of the game, this information was the most valuable thing of all.

Fang Yue hesitated for a long time before finally gritting his teeth and buying a highly popular martial arts guide.

After reading it, he indeed understood much more about practicing martial arts.

Once he was in the mood, and with his sudden "fortune," Fang Yue bought two more posts. The content turned out to be somewhat repetitive, infuriating him so much that he made a post cursing them and got muted for twenty-four hours.

Helpless, he could only become a mute and continue along the path of browsing the forum for free.

It was not until his phone rang that Fang Yue closed the forum and prepared to return to the game.

Just then, the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of the sheepskin parchment lying on the table.

After thinking it over, Fang Yue picked up the sheepskin parchment.

Before long, words surfaced on it.

"I made money in Blue Sea. The sheepskin parchment was right."

"As long as I believe what the sheepskin parchment says, I'm sure to become a multimillionaire."

"Now, I need to enter the game and continue improving my strength."

"Blue Sea has only just launched. Every second counts, and I can't waste too much time outside."

Is it urging me to enter the game?

Could there be another business opportunity in the game?

Fang Yue's heart stirred. He set down the sheepskin parchment, lay back on the bed, and pressed the dial of the Game Watch.

"Enter the game!"

After Fang Yue entered the game,

the sheepskin parchment began displaying words once again.

"What's this idiot doing outside? Game, game—get into the game!"

"Doesn't he understand how precious the launch period is? And he calls himself a professional player! Being one step ahead means staying ahead at every step! What an absolute fool!"

"I'm so mad! I'm so mad! If you don't work hard while you're young, you'll only regret it when you're old!"

Even through the writing, one could feel the sheepskin parchment's teeth-gritting tone.

The furious sheepskin parchment erased the words.

The words did not slowly fade away as they usually did.

Instead, they vanished with a crunching sound, as if someone were biting them off one mouthful at a time.

It seemed that the sheepskin parchment was expressing its emotions.

In the game, Fang Yue opened his eyes.

He was still in the same position he had been in when he left the game, but his legs no longer felt numb. Instead, they felt warm and comfortable.

He raised his head and looked at the sky. The rain had stopped long ago, and the guards who had originally been holding umbrellas had all put away their oil-paper umbrellas in unison.

These oil-paper umbrellas seemed to be quite precious. Along the way, Fang Yue had hardly seen any pedestrians carrying them. It was only the patrolling guards who had umbrellas.

In addition, the village buildings seemed to provide excellent protection from the rain. Most people had stayed inside their homes and had not come out.

After waiting a little longer, Lord Han arrived.

"The time is about right. How do you feel?"

Fang Yue stretched out his legs. They still tingled faintly, but they felt much better than before.

"Much better now."

"Good. That's good."