The appearance of the Black Tide rift meant that the real world had entered the countdown to the Black Tide's corruption.
Qi Sheng had no idea how quickly the world would collapse. He still needed to observe the changes in the world and analyze them before he could make a judgment.
But one thing was certain: he still had plenty of time to improve the Challenger Plan.
At this stage, Monster World was recruiting under the guise of the Dark Land. It was only a matter of time before the truth was fully exposed.
But he had never worried about the truth coming out.
Under the Challenger Plan he had devised, the recruitment targets included not only humans, but also the alien factions that had fled to Earth.
But not yet. He didn't have enough Sacrificial Power to begin large-scale recruitment.
In the Containment Wall beneath Emperor's Tomb Village, nine Primal Monsters had been contained: the Black Armor Snake, Eagle Head Demon, Stone Gargoyle, Bone Fire, and five Artifact Spirits. They produced 2,160 points of Sacrificial Power each day. Including the output from players hunting and mining, the daily income came to around 2,500 points.
After deducting the 1,000 points of Sacrificial Power needed to maintain Emperor's Tomb Village, 1,500 points could be spent on recruitment each day.
In other words, they could generate one and a half player slots per day.
That amount of Sacrificial Power was a drop in the bucket when it came to expanding the Player Camp. It was nowhere near enough to recruit aliens, let alone achieve his goal of recruiting all of humanity.
If he wanted to increase recruitment, he could only wait for the players to grow stronger and generate more Sacrificial Power.
Not dwelling on the matter, Qi Sheng turned to the Guiding Water Orb.
"Let Uncle Yan know. Send me back."
[Understood.]
The Guidance nodded, then vanished. Seconds later, a Teleportation Array appeared beneath Qi Sheng's feet.
Back at the Origin Altar beneath Emperor's Tomb Village, he turned his attention to the players exploring Monster World.
Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range, Crimson Plains.
Gloomy Cave.
"Stone Gargoyle, hold the front! Black Armor Snake and Eagle Head Demon, look for a chance to attack!"
At a woman's shout, the players clashed fiercely with the Iron Shell Bugs once more.
Over the past few days, Gloomy Cave had become the players' first choice for leveling up and gathering resources.
This had to do with the unique environment of Monster World.
In a normal game, once players left the newbie village, the monsters outside were usually weak, making them ideal for leveling up and growing stronger.
Monster World was completely different. Once players left Emperor's Tomb Village, they could hunt Cursed Soldiers of a lower level, but they could also easily run into powerful monsters with high hunting levels that could wipe out a whole team. Exploring was full of uncertainty.
By comparison, Gloomy Cave had clearly ranked monsters and plenty of resources to mine, making it the players' first choice.
After growing for the past few days, quite a few players had unlocked a second Astral Vein.
Three powerful Astral Vein styles had been proven in actual combat.
The strongest style in the current version was Artifact Spirit Style. It involved embedding multiple Artifact Spirits in the Astral Veins, using the human body as the core and controlling the powers of the Artifact Spirits' various traits in battle.
But at this stage, Li Tie was the only one using this style.
Each level of Body Tempering cost 10,000 points of Sacrificial Power. The other players simply didn't have enough Sacrificial Power to build an Astral Vein setup for Artifact Spirit Style.
Next was the long-range attack style combining Bone Fire and Eagle Head Demon. The combination of damage output and sensory targeting made this style the first choice for players whose starting monster was an Eagle Head Demon, and it performed well in actual combat.
Last was the Astral Vein combination of Black Armor Snake and Li Man Axe.
Black Armor Snake attacked physically, and when combined with Li Man Axe's strength attribute and damage boost, it significantly increased combat power.
But at this stage, players mostly switched forms to fight. Very few stayed in their human form for long to combine and use the special powers of their traits.
As for Stone Gargoyle form, no suitable Astral Vein style had been developed yet. Most players chose one of the five Artifact Spirits contained by Li Tie as their second form. The popular combination was Stone Gargoyle and the Li Hun Spear.
Stone Gargoyle's damage output wasn't high, but it had strong defense. Combined with the Li Hun Spear's ability to inflict mental shock, it followed a style focused on damage effects.
Some players didn't choose any style at all, instead focusing on leveling up their starting monster form.
These players believed that the more Astral Veins they embedded, the more Evolution Points they'd need to cultivate them. They were better off focusing on a single form.
For example, they could raise a Black Armor Snake to level 100 and turn it into a Heavenly Python, or raise an Eagle Head Demon into a Roc, and so on.
As it turned out, focusing on developing their starting form could also bring a considerable increase in combat power. Players jokingly called this style Monster Stream.
Every player had different ideas, and their combat system had already begun to develop along different paths.
The battle lasted half an hour.
The players from the Grind Emperor Group, Fan Zui Group, and Youngster Group drove back the oncoming Iron Shell Bug swarm, at the cost of losing more than half their numbers.
Aside from earning a large number of Evolution Points and leveling up the monster forms of many players, the shells littering the ground were another reward.
In Guidance's analysis, these shells were classified as level-one spirit materials. They could be sacrificed to Di Zhao for an extra Sacrificial Power reward.
Since the chaotic battle made it impossible to tally each player's contribution, they couldn't decide how to distribute the spoils. In the end, they split them evenly: all the shells went to the Fan Zui Group for sacrifice, and the resulting Sacrificial Power was divided equally among the leaders of each player group, who would then distribute it to their members.
Just as the players were dividing up the spoils, something unexpected happened.
An Eagle Head Demon player in the group, who had activated the Wailing sense ability, suddenly warned them:
"Something's wrong! The Dungeon Clan is back!"
Hearing this, everyone wordlessly tossed their shells into their spatial inventories and bolted toward the cave entrance.
The Dungeon Clan warriors had a hunting level of 19. With a large number of Iron Shell Bugs accompanying them, the players were no match for them at their current strength.
Death itself wasn't scary. What was scary was losing 10 points of Sacrificial Power and having to wait an hour to revive.
As they fled, the regional voice channel was full of jokes:
"Brothers who picked Stone Gargoyle have high defense. Hold the rear for a bit and let the rest of us get away first."
"You call that human? Why should picking Stone Gargoyle mean we have to die?"
"They're right behind me! Why are you all running so fast? Wait for me!"
"So you're picking on us Eagle Head Demons for having short legs, huh? You're all running so fast. So much for being a team—this is how you treat your teammates?"
In the tense, thrilling escape, the players had no time to worry about their teammates. They all put everything into sprinting for the cave entrance.
Along the way, several players at the back were caught by threads spat out by the Iron Shell Bugs and dragged backward. Their bloodcurdling screams made the players ahead of them speed up even more.
Once they escaped the cave, the players began discussing a question.
Should they band together and kill the Dungeon Clan warrior?
The Dungeon Clan warrior had become an obstacle to their mining and leveling in Gloomy Cave.
If they didn't get rid of it, they'd have to be ready to run at any moment while they were in the cave.
Rather than live in constant fear, they might as well root out the problem and eliminate the threat once and for all.
Before you continue