An hour later.
The Youngster Group players finished their resurrection cooldown, and the chat group, which had been buzzing with heated discussion, fell silent.
Amid the group leader's various furious howls of "You people are the worst," all 30 players logged back into the game and respawned in the central square of Emperor's Tomb Village.
This time, they still chose to explore the Gloomy Cave.
According to the Guidance, claiming a Domain Node was simple.
They only needed to shatter the node crystal corrupted by Black Tide energy. Di Zhao's power would then cover the Domain Node again, bringing it under Emperor's Tomb Village. Once that happened, new features would become available in the village.
After an hour's journey, the Youngster Group reached the Crystal Wall of the Gloomy Cave again.
To their surprise, they found players locked in a fierce battle with Iron Shell Bugs.
Two of the players had chosen a Bone Fire form they had never seen before. Dark flames burned all around them, and with a wave of their hands, they conjured fireballs and hurled them at the Iron Shell Bugs.
Black Ball: This Bone Fire form is so cool. I love controlling flames. I'm picking it for my next Astral Veins.
Drunk Milk: Guys, they don't seem to be holding out. Should we help?
Iron Hammer: Obviously! We came here for revenge, so of course we should help!
After a brief exchange, the 30 Youngster Group players switched to their monster forms and joined the fight.
The scene immediately descended into chaos. In such a cramped space, collisions were inevitable, and all kinds of hilarious scenes unfolded.
"Bro, what are you biting? You're biting me! I'm a player!"
"Hey, Stone Gargoyle bro! Why'd you smash my head? Watch where you're aiming!"
"Who's throwing fireballs all over the place? You hit me! Hurry up and put it out—I'm taking damage over time!"
"Sorry, bro. I only know how to start fires, not put them out. Let me apologize first. You can go in peace."
In the chaos, plenty of players got walloped by their own side.
Several players immediately turned into black mist and entered their death cooldown.
The realism of the game made the players in the middle of the fight complain again.
Most other games had faction systems or safe-PK settings, so players could choose whether or not to damage one another.
But this game had no such features. Even teammates could hurt each other.
Bone Fire's Inkflame attacks were especially difficult to extinguish after hitting a target, burning them continuously until they died.
As a result, a few unlucky players were killed by their own side instead of by the Iron Shell Bugs.
Several Iron Shell Bugs were also killed along the way. Their life energy became Evolution Points and flowed into the players who landed the finishing blows, raising their levels and strengthening their bodies.
According to Qi Sheng's settings, whenever a player killed a monster,
the Challenger System would extract 30% of the monster's dissipating life energy and convert it into Sacrificial Power, which would enter the Sacrificial Power Pool. The remaining 70% would be converted into life energy suited to the player, improving their physical abilities—in other words, what players understood as experience points.
Qi Sheng, who was watching the battle, naturally noticed the players' complaints about friendly fire.
But at this stage, there was no way to solve the problem.
After all, Monster World was a real world disguised as a game. There were no factions, and no damage immunity between players.
The players, however, came up with their own explanation. They assumed the feature was there to make the game more realistic, and couldn't help praising the development team's skill even as they complained.
The fierce battle in the cave lasted for more than ten minutes, ending in the complete annihilation of the players.
Though he was eager to claim this Domain Node, Qi Sheng knew that taking it with the players' current strength was unrealistic.
After the Guidance detected and examined the area, it discovered that there were five levels beneath the cave. The players were on the first level, and the farther down they went, the more Iron Shell Bugs they would encounter. The Domain Node crystal was on the cave's fifth level.
The players still had a lot of growing to do before they could clear this dungeon.
That gave him the idea to recruit more players.
After recruiting the second batch, he still had 100,000 points of Sacrificial Power.
The four contained Primal Monsters could generate 960 points of Sacrificial Power for him each day. With the Sacrificial Power generated by players hunting in Monster World and sacrificing gathered resources, Emperor's Tomb Village's income and expenses had reached a balance before its expansion.
He planned to recruit another 50 players, leaving the remaining 50,000 points of Sacrificial Power in reserve.
The one-hour resurrection cooldown ended.
After both groups of players logged in, they respawned at Emperor's Tomb Village's central respawn point and looked at each other in surprise.
Through their conversation, the Youngster Group players learned that all players shared the same map exploration progress.
Once they had explored as far as the Crimson Plains, the other group had also seen the new marker on the map and followed its coordinates to the Gloomy Cave.
Their experience inside the cave had been much like the Youngster Group's. They had been thrilled when they saw the spirit ore and immediately bought Pickaxes to mine it.
But the sounds of their Pickaxes striking the rock soon attracted a large number of Iron Shell Bugs, and a battle broke out.
Then the Youngster Group arrived, joined the brawl, and got wiped out along with them.
At that point, Iron Hammer from the Youngster Group couldn't help looking at Li Zheng and asking curiously:
"Bro, how do you get the Bone Fire form your team is using?"
Li Zheng immediately explained that killing Bone Fire had granted them free access to a second Star Vein Slot, and that two members of his team had spent 1,000 points of Sacrificial Power to buy Bone Fire Monster Souls and socket them.
After hearing the explanation, the Youngster Group players who had chosen Eagle Head Demons all raised their hands and cheered:
"Haha! I knew I'd made the right choice. Eagle Head Demon's perception plus Bone Fire's ranged elemental damage? This combo is unbeatable for early-game exploring!"
"No way! I only picked Eagle Head Demon because the team needed a balanced lineup, and now you're telling me it's the meta pick? This happiness came out of nowhere!"
Listening to the other team's discussion, Li Zheng smiled and shook his head:
"This game offers a lot of freedom. In the future, there'll be plenty of new Primal Monster Souls for us to choose from. Bone Fire is just the beginning. Every monster form has huge potential, so there's no need to worry that your starting form is too weak. Besides, you can change your starting form for just 1,000 points of Sacrificial Power."
Drunk Milk: By the way, do you know why there aren't many players in Newbie Village? It feels so empty.
Black Ball: Yeah, I've been wondering about that too. I've only run into you guys so far. I haven't met any other players.
Cute Kid: It wouldn't make sense if all the other players had already left Newbie Village, either. At this point, there are only four selectable Primal Monster forms. Three are starting options, and the other is Bone Fire, which you guys killed. Are you telling me no other players have ever killed a Primal Monster?
Faced with the question, Li Zheng was taken aback. After a brief silence, he improvised a reasonable explanation:
"Maybe the Dark Land opened multiple server instances to deal with overcrowding. We ended up in a newly opened server, and not many players were assigned to it, so there aren't many people in Newbie Village."
"That makes sense." Iron Hammer nodded in agreement.
"By the way, which platform did you buy your game access from?"
Li Zheng's sudden question left the Youngster Group players stunned.
They didn't dare tell the truth, because their answer might put the Welfare Officer in danger.
If they gave the wrong answer, the Welfare Officer would probably end up inside, getting free room and board.
"Haha, we got lucky and snagged 30 game slots on the Dark Land's official website... What about you? Where did you buy yours?"
Iron Hammer's question made the ten players from the Grind Emperor group feel awkward. Their leader, Li Zheng, hadn't expected the question to be turned back on him.
He'd asked because he wanted to find out whether the other team had the means to start a guild, so that his group of Bricklayer players could join them.
Though he felt awkward at the question, Li Zheng smiled and said:
"Small world. We didn't use any other channels either. We all bought our game slots on the official website for 128,888."
As they chatted and laughed, both sides came up with a plausible explanation.
Neither side pursued the topic further. They tacitly shifted the conversation to the Gloomy Cave and decided to explore it together.
(The End)
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