The Second Batch of Players

Chapter 8: The Second Batch of Players

Human Federation, Night Orchid City.

Fishing and Hunting District, 5 AM.

The sky was turning a pale white, accompanied by the blaring horns of returning fishing boats. Lights intertwined outside the window, creating a lively scene in the fishing port.

Rubbing his tired eyes, Jiangzhou shifted his gaze from the window back to his computer desktop.

A notification popped up in the upper right corner: the compressed file had finished downloading.

He detested online scammers, having been a victim himself.

The group owner, "Kindergarten Principal," had kicked the Welfare Officer out of the group and was about to delete the scam link, but Jiangzhou stopped him.

He believed reporting was the correct course of action.

Perhaps his actions could save many innocent youths from being deceived.

But before reporting, he needed to gather information about the scam link.

The Federal Cyber Police dealt with a massive volume of reports daily. Collecting and organizing evidence before submitting would reduce their workload and expedite the processing of scam cases.

Clicking the shield icon on his desktop, Jiangzhou put his computer into network protection mode.

He then used "Safety Shield" to scan the compressed file downloaded from the link for viruses.

To his surprise, the compressed file contained no viruses.

"Is it a prank?"

He absolutely couldn't believe that the compressed file contained a cracked version of "Dark Land."

The scammer's intent was too obvious.

They revealed their intentions after only a few messages, and the webpage address behind the link was incredibly crude. They hadn't even bothered to download a webpage template, showing a complete amateur level.

Furthermore, the powerful network technology of "Moon Eclipse Clan" was impossible for anyone to breach.

With lingering doubt, he opened the compressed file and began to decompress its contents.

In less than a minute, the decompression was complete.

Since the content required a "Virtual Game Pod" to open, Jiangzhou transferred the file to the game pod connected to his computer and pressed the compatibility button.

Soon, the game compatibility was complete.

Jiangzhou stood up and entered the game pod.

As the neuro-link tubes automatically connected to various parts of his body, Jiangzhou's vision was gradually enveloped in darkness. When it cleared again, he found himself in front of a virtual desk.

There were 16 game icons on the desk, each representing a memory from his growth, but he had abandoned most of them.

At the bottom of the desk was the game downloaded via the link, its icon a monster engulfed in crimson flames.

Although the game hadn't detected any viruses, Jiangzhou activated the protection function for safety.

This feature's introduction traced back to the technological explosion era when "Moon Eclipse Clan" first arrived on Earth, bringing advanced virtual technology to humanity.

With the emergence of new technologies, a large number of virtual games appeared, including horror games.

Someone had used the "Virtual Engine Library Materials" publicly released by "Moon Eclipse Clan" to create a horror prank game. After downloading and trying it, a player suffered a heart attack and died.

Following this incident, all "Virtual Game Pods" were required to be equipped with a safety detector. This detector could monitor the player's condition by judging hormone levels and heart rate changes. In case of emergencies, the built-in safety alarm system would immediately send a distress signal to the nearest medical station.

Clicking the game icon, a burning crimson formation appeared in Jiangzhou's mind.

This was followed by a strong sense of dizziness, as if an invisible vortex was consuming and pulling at his consciousness.

When the feeling of weightlessness subsided, the scene before him left Jiangzhou stunned.

A sky covered in pitch-black cracks, continuous volcanoes spewing flames, and terrifying monsters roaming the land... The smell of scorched earth and sulfur filled the air, entering his nostrils and lungs with each breath, causing a slight burning sensation.

The rapidly advancing high-altitude panoramic view was incredibly realistic, instantly immersing him.

The terrifying doomsday scene also caused his heart rate to quicken.

His vision suddenly plunged downwards, heading towards a dilapidated village on the ground.

Under the intense sense of weightlessness, Jiangzhou couldn't help but exclaim.

Just as his vision was about to hit the ground, it was suddenly shrouded in darkness.

What then appeared before him was a massive, grid-like blue crystal wall, stretching endlessly to both sides and piercing the sky above.

Most of the wall's space was empty. At the very bottom, in the starting grid, three monstrously terrifying creatures were imprisoned.

A prompt then sounded in Jiangzhou's mind:

[Welcome, Challenger, to the Monster World. Please create your initial character.]

At that moment, Jiangzhou completely lost his composure.

His feeling was akin to pinching his nose, preparing to take a shallow taste of disgusting food, only to unexpectedly discover it was a delicacy he had longed for and dreamed of.

The immense discrepancy caused Jiangzhou's emotions to fluctuate wildly, and he couldn't help but exclaim:

"Holy shit, what the actual fuck!"

15 minutes later.

[Kindergarten Class A Passionate Chat Group (Online: 32 people)]

Class A - Black Ball: Actually, I think the arrival of the Moon Eclipse Clan is a good thing for us humans. Their base is on the moon, which doesn't affect our living environment. It's much better than chaotic forces like the Crimson Flame Clan who fled here.

Class A - Iron Hammer: Yeah, the arrival of the Moon Eclipse Clan brought us humans a lot of novel technology, improving our quality of life. They've never oppressed us humans either, so they're quite a friendly alien force. It's just that their pricing is damn high!

At this moment, Jiangzhou returned after a long absence.

Class A - Drunken Milk: Bros, big trouble!

Class A - Cute Baby replies to Class A - Drunken Milk: Got scammed again without turning on safety protection?

Class A - Iron Hammer replies to Class A - Cute Baby: Is there a possibility that Drunken Milk downloaded the genuine game (wipes sweat.jpg)

Facing the teasing from his group mates, Jiangzhou immediately typed a line of text and pressed Enter:

Class A - Drunken Milk: I really downloaded the genuine Dark Land. The game is truly 100% virtual reality as advertised. The experience is super realistic. You guys should download it quickly. Let's go explore together once you've installed the game.

Seeing Drunken Milk's reply, the group members responded with various wobbly face emojis.

Class A - Marble: Do you believe what Drunken Milk says, or do you believe I'm the reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang (wobbly face.jpg)

Iron Hammer replies to Marble: Of course, I believe you're the reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang. I'll V you 50 later, and you can decide my title based on your mood (wobbly face.jpg)

Facing the group's distrust, Jiangzhou typed another line of text:

Class A - Drunken Milk: I swear on my second brother, I'm not fooling you this time. Hurry up and download it. We can finally play together happily again.

Seeing Jiangzhou's repeated assurances that the game Dark Land could indeed be downloaded, the group members' attitudes shifted slightly.

Class A - Cute Baby: Holy crap, could it be real?

Class A - Iron Hammer: From what I know of Drunken Milk, he wouldn't joke about something like this.

Although it was hard to believe, they still chose to trust their old friend of many years and clicked on the link to download the game.

Half an hour later.

Various messages tagging group members and exclamations of "Holy crap" were flooding the group chat.

Because the link provided by "Welfare Officer" actually allowed them to download the genuine Dark Land.

At this time, the group owner of the Kindergarten Class A, Tong Xin, who was still fast asleep, was also awakened by the continuous @ notifications.

He reached under his pillow, took out his phone, and groggily began to scroll through the group chat.

"Principal, wake up quickly, something big has happened!"

"Principal, how can you still be sleeping at this hour..."

The more he read, the more awake Tong Xin became. He sat up abruptly and hurried to his computer, waking the screen and clicking the pinned web link.

The screen switched to the download page, and he clicked "Download" without hesitation.

At this moment, a prompt popped up:

[Game download has reached the limit. The publisher has not enabled new download permissions. Cannot continue downloading.]

This pop-up notification completely shattered Tong Xin's composure.

He immediately typed a line of text into the group chat:

Kindergarten Principal: Bros, why is this link limiting downloads? It's not letting me download anymore.

Class A - Drunken Milk: I don't know, but I'll mourn for you for one second.

Class A - Black Ball: Hahahaha, serves you right for sleeping in. You missed out on a free welfare of 128888. I can already imagine you grinding your teeth in front of your computer.

Class A - Iron Hammer: Sleeping causes trouble. At our age, we should be staying up late. Look at us, we all received the "staying up late" welfare, but you didn't.

Class A - Cute Baby: Principal, only Welfare Officer can save you now. Go kowtow and apologize quickly.

Kindergarten Principal: You guys are truly the worst... I'll go find Welfare Officer and grovel.

Tong Xin, whose mental state was nearing collapse, decisively opened his system message list, found the information for "Welfare Officer" who had been kicked out of the group, selected to add them, and a prompt box appeared:

[Add "Welfare Officer" as a friend.]

Below the prompt box was the remarks field.

After a brief moment of thought, he typed hundreds of words of apology in the remarks box, expressing his mistakes to Welfare Officer, sincerely repenting, and hoping Welfare Officer would let bygones be bygones, being magnanimous.

Tong Xin felt he had never written an essay so sincerely and diligently during his school days.

After repeatedly revising the wording, he pressed "Send Application" with anticipation.

The next second, a prompt appeared:

[Welfare Officer has enabled the stranger addition blocking function. Friend request failed!]

Seeing the text in the prompt box, Tong Xin completely lost his composure and punched the desk:

"Fuck!"

New book period, updated every morning around 8 AM, two chapters daily.

(End of chapter)