Drunk Gang

Chapter 13: Drunk Gang

Emperor's Tomb Village.

Underground space.

Qi Sheng sat cross-legged on the Primordial Altar, sifting through information from the Guider's reality network, searching for suitable recruitment targets.

He already had a clear direction for the third round of recruitment.

The players who entered the monster world in the first and second batches shared a common trait: they never spent money in the game, or only a very small amount, and some even relied on the game to earn a living.

This was especially true for the Grinding Player group, who had to make a living from the game while playing it.

Therefore, this time he planned to recruit players who had the financial capacity to spend, to make the in-game ecosystem more complete and to increase the circulation of items and Sacrificial Power.

Only by solving the real-world problems of the grinding players could they continue to play the game better and generate more Sacrificial Power revenue for him.

11 PM.

Fog Lamp City.

The city, adjacent to the sea, was an important port city for the Human Federation. When it was first established, thick fog often rolled in from the sea, requiring lighthouses to guide ships, hence its name, Fog Lamp City.

The night was hazy, yet some people found it hard to sleep.

In a luxurious villa in the northern district of Fog Lamp City, a woman with a graceful figure, dressed in pajamas, held a tablet computer. Her eyes were fixed on the countdown timer on the Dark Land official website.

"Please, please let me get it."

With her hands clasped together, Li Siyu prayed devoutly.

As time passed, her expression grew more anxious, and sweat beaded on her palms.

Just then, the countdown timer on the official website hit zero.

Li Siyu's poised fingers moved like a machine gun trigger, a blur of frantic clicks, but the webpage popped up a prompt:

[This qualification purchase has ended. Unfortunately, you did not obtain the purchase qualification for Dark Land.]

"Damn it!"

Overwhelmed with emotion, Li Siyu slammed the tablet onto the bed.

This was the third time she had tried to grab a purchase qualification for Dark Land, and each time she had failed, not even getting to the payment page.

She had been eagerly anticipating Dark Land for a long time.

Before the game's release, she had sold her Conquest account at a low price, intending to dedicate all her energy to Dark Land.

But she hadn't expected to be blocked at the purchase stage before even starting.

With a total population of 2 billion in the Human Federation, even at a steep price of 128,888, the qualifications were in short supply.

Most importantly, the platform distributing the game was directly linked to the official website and operated under the supervision of the Moon Eclipse Clan, making it impossible to get in through connections.

Furthermore, identity verification was required before purchase, making reselling impossible.

This meant that even with money, one might not be able to buy the game; luck was the key.

After venting her frustration, Li Siyu picked up the tablet again, tapped the contact list in the bottom right corner, found a group chat, and started complaining.

[Drunk Gang (Online: 21 people)]

Wosniedie: (#｀皿) Didn't get a purchase qualification again, what's going on with you guys?

StayUpLateAndSnack: What else could be going on? I stared until my eyes were blurry, started clicking frantically a minute early, and then they told me this round of application failed. I almost crushed my fists.

ShrimpMeatPigHeart: (皿) They're so stingy with the qualifications. The Moon Eclipse Clan's virtual servers can definitely handle more players. This hunger marketing is truly disgusting.

IsThisReasonable: Let's sleep, let's sleep. Didn't get it again. The next batch of qualifications will be days later. By then, we'll be a week behind the first few batches of players in development time. Big Sis's dream of establishing a top guild is gradually shattering.

WordMaYa: Limited qualifications is one thing, but it's also tied to identity cards, so there's no way to buy from other channels. They're not giving us a way to live! Why is it so hard to play a game?

LaidBackSaltFish: Trash game. I've waited for years, and I can't accept this result. I'll try for 10 more rounds at most. If I don't get it, I'm going back to Conquest.

Just as the group members were furiously criticizing the Moon Eclipse Clan's hunger marketing, a stranger suddenly joined the group.

[Welfare Officer has joined this group.]

This notification instantly stunned the group members.

The Drunk Gang group hadn't had a new member join in two years because the group settings blocked strangers from joining.

Seeing a new member join suddenly, without any indication of who invited them, left the group members very confused.

Before the group members could say anything, the newly joined Welfare Officer proactively sent a message:

Welfare Officer: Heard you guys want to play Dark Land? I have a free cracked version download qualification here. I'll put the link in the group. Grab it if you need it (Link: ...)

Without waiting for anyone to ask, Welfare Officer quickly left the group.

This series of actions completely baffled the group members.

Their first thought was that this scammer named Welfare Officer was too impatient, sending a phishing link right after joining the group, practically insulting their intelligence.

No sane person would fall for it.

But the group owner, Li Siyu, had a different idea.

After Welfare Officer left the chat group, she opened their profile page to check and found that this person had no IP address displayed.

In this era of universal online identity verification, netizens' IP addresses are public, with no possibility of hiding them.

More importantly, the chat group she created had the search blocking function enabled, making it impossible for outsiders to join.

The fact that Welfare Officer could easily break through the group chat restrictions maintained by Moon Eclipse Clan to join proved that Welfare Officer's technical skills were extremely high.

"Could it really be a cracked version of Dark Land?"

As soon as the absurd thought crossed her mind, Li Siyu couldn't help but shake her head.

In her opinion, there was no possibility of Moon Eclipse Clan's technology being cracked.

There were no cracked versions of their previous virtual games online, let alone Dark Land after its technical upgrade.

However, Welfare Officer had successfully piqued her curiosity.

With nothing else to do, driven by curiosity, Li Siyu decided to investigate.

After enabling her network protection features, she clicked the link.

The pop-up webpage was very rudimentary, almost completely blank, with only a compressed file available for download in the center.

Such a crude webpage and a scam that treated people like idiots only intensified Li Siyu's curiosity.

She wanted to know why Welfare Officer was doing this. Was it just a prank?

She clicked the download icon on the webpage.

Immediately, a download prompt with a percentage progress bar appeared in the top right corner of the screen.

Time ticked over to midnight.

Ding!

The compressed file finished downloading. Li Siyu swiped her hand across the tablet, wirelessly transferring the unzipped file to the limited edition Obsidian game pod in the corner of the room.

Three minutes later, the game pod lit up with a green light, indicating it was ready.

Li Siyu also got out of bed at this moment.

After changing into her gaming outfit, she entered the game pod and pressed the "start" button. The semi-transparent lid slowly lowered.

"I want to see what exactly is inside this thing!"