Weapons Research Department

Weapons Research Department

Elemental Bombs, poison gas bombs, sonic bombs, gravity bombs... By combining different Monster Soul traits, Qin Ye became increasingly certain that creating a growth path centered around Spirit Energy Bombs was the right choice.

But he had found no answer in the Test Tower's Soul Repository for solving the problem of the explosions affecting himself.

Whenever he was uncertain, he asked Guidance. Qin Ye chose to seek a solution from Guidance.

Faced with his question, the surface of the Guiding Water Orb formed a humanlike thoughtful expression. Its illusionary palm propped up its chin and rubbed it repeatedly before it spoke:

[The Test Tower's Monster Soul database only records a portion of the Origin Source abilities. A large number of unknown Origin Source abilities are scattered throughout the Monster World. What can be certain is that space-teleportation-type Origin Source abilities must exist. If you can obtain one of them, you will certainly be able to teleport across space.]

[For example, you could open a spatial passage in front of yourself, then throw the Spirit Energy Bomb into it and teleport it to a distant location for a precise explosion.]

After hearing Guidance's explanation, Qin Ye immediately became interested:

"Where can I hunt Primal Monsters with spatial abilities?"

[I cannot answer that question. The Monster World is vast and boundless, and its geography changed drastically after the Black Tide swept across it. It is completely unknown where Primal Monsters with specific abilities are scattered. If you are lucky, one might be in the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range. If you are unlucky, it might be in the extremely distant Great Northern Territory.]

Hearing this, Qin Ye was dumbfounded:

"Is there no function for locating Origin Source abilities?"

[Perhaps there will be one in the future, provided that you can reclaim the node domain possessing the ability to locate Origin Sources.]

"Then where is the node domain that can locate Origin Sources?"

[I don't know.]

Qin Ye: ...

Just then, a prompt rang out in Qin Ye's mind:

[Challenger Prompt: Important notification detected in the Virtual Game Pod. Exit to view it?]

After receiving the prompt, Qin Ye did not hesitate and immediately exited the game.

At that moment, the Skydome Research Center held a meeting because of an email Qin Ye had sent.

After reading the email, the staff member who received it realized that the attached address could download a cracked version of the Dark Land. He decisively passed the information on to the Skydome's upper management.

What surprised the senior management, however, was that the download link had access restrictions and could not be downloaded.

They immediately forwarded the issue to the cybersecurity center, hoping it could bypass the restrictions and complete the download.

The response they received was that the cybersecurity center's Artificial Intelligence had no authority to bypass the restrictions behind the link and could only wait for download access to open on its own.

The staff member then chose to send Qin Ye a message, hoping that he could copy the downloaded file and transmit it to the Skydome Research Center.

But Qin Ye's reply disappointed the Skydome Center once again.

The downloaded game file was locked by access restrictions and could not be sent to the Skydome Center through data transfer.

In the end, the Skydome Center's senior management decided to monitor the link constantly and wait for download access to open again.

After this news reached the Weapons Research Department of the Skydome Research Center, the weapons researchers could no longer remain calm.

If it could truly achieve the hundred-percent virtual reality described in the email, it would be the perfect dangerous-weapons testing ground.

That night, at 11:50 p.m.

The Dark Land official website was about to distribute another batch of access slots. Among them, the Human Federation had one million slots available for purchase.

A group of white-haired elders from the Skydome Center's Weapons Research Department opened the official website right on time and waited to buy them.

At midnight, the countdown digits on the official website reached zero.

The purchase of the slots ended in less than a second.

At that moment, in Office A1 of the Weapons Laboratory, an old man sat before a desk, staring at the screen. His hair was sparse and disheveled, and he wore a blue uniform, but his eyes were exceptionally bright.

Looking at the failure notice that had popped up on the webpage, Yang Tianxuan could not help shaking his head regretfully.

The difficulty of securing a slot was truly giving him a headache.

Before this, he had also considered using technology to get an advantage, but no script could read the official website's information. It was simply impossible.

Thinking of the contents of the email Qin Ye had sent, which confirmed that the game perfectly simulated reality and that all kinds of dangerous weapons could be tested there, he felt unbearably eager.

A completely safe testing ground—this was practically the dream sanctuary of their Weapons Research Department.

Nanoviruses, meteorological weapons, the Sky Curtain arsenal... The many advanced technologies provided by the alien races carried certain risks during development and testing, making it impossible to conduct the experiments at all.

Take meteorological weapons, for example. Manipulating changes in the weather at will could very well cause an ecological disaster on Earth.

But in a game environment with one-hundred-percent fidelity, all the weapons they envisioned could be tested, then applied to reality once the technology was fully mature.

This would eliminate the severe environmental destruction and danger to human life that could occur while the technology was still immature.

The problem was that Dark Land game slots were far too difficult to obtain. He had already applied several times to his superiors, hoping that the Human Federation could acquire additional game slots through diplomacy, but he had yet to receive any reply.

After failing to secure a slot again, Yang Tianxuan felt helpless.

Just then, he suddenly thought of the email address Qin Ye had sent.

He immediately opened the mailbox on the virtual desktop and clicked the address attached to the email.

The webpage that appeared was extremely plain. It was almost entirely blank, with only a downloadable compressed file in the center.

At the exact moment Yang Tianxuan clicked download, Qi Sheng received the feedback. The Star Network IP information showed that it belonged to the Weapons Research Department of the Skydome Research Center.

Having learned of the Weapons Research Department through Qin Ye's memories, he decisively opened additional slots for it.

Ding!

Accompanied by a crisp download notification, Yang Tianxuan was stunned.

The prompt that had appeared the last time he clicked had said that download access had not been opened.

But this time, it had been opened.

Before trying, he had not held out much hope at all. Yet he had actually downloaded the game.

Without the slightest hesitation, he decisively opened the group-chat software in the lower-right corner.

Yang Tianxuan (Director of the Weapons Research Department): @Everyone, notify everyone to click the link Qin Ye sent immediately and download the game!

After @ing everyone three times in succession, Yang Tianxuan could not help laughing heartily.

The disappointment brought by failing to secure a slot vanished completely.

As for whether the downloaded game file could run, he was not worried in the slightest.

The message from the cybersecurity center had explained that this pirated link had very likely leaked from within the Moon Eclipse Clan and could connect to the Star Network to play online.

Watching the loading progress bar, a bold idea arose in Yang Tianxuan's mind.

The experimental process would consume tremendous amounts of resources, and there were only two ways to obtain resources from the game world.

The first was to spend money and purchase resources from other players for use in research and development.

The second was to establish a powerful force in the game and control part of the resource production.

The first method required applying to his superiors for a game budget. The process was cumbersome and required detailed explanations.

The second method, however, did not carry that concern.

Thinking of the super-geniuses in various weapons research fields under his command, Yang Tianxuan suddenly had the idea of building a powerful force in the game.

He did not know how the other players would play the game.

But since it was a game that perfectly simulated reality, he and the members of the Weapons Research Department could completely start from scratch, build a technological weapons army, and compete with other players for the game's resources.

Actual combat could also test the power of the new weapons.

(The End of This Chapter)