Everyone, Don't Panic—I've Got This Routine Down

"All tests complete."

"What a pain. I'll have to start all over and act it out again later."

Lin Qi watched Fang Zhen slowly dissipate on the ground, turning to ash, and could not help sighing. Being an NPC was not easy. Then he glanced at the time displayed on his wristwatch and added a few words beneath Fang Zhen's entry in his little notebook.

Maximum time: 2 hours, 23 minutes, 14 seconds.

Physical awareness: Poor.

Overall evaluation: Senior kindergarten class.

"Without protection, this is about the limit of how long they can resist the pollution. Looks like I need to buy a batch of protective equipment." Thinking of the few Bits he had left, Lin Qi's head began to ache as well.

The dangers of the wilderness were not limited to monsters. There were also many areas contaminated by radiation. Generally, without the ability to withstand radiation pollution for five or six hours, it was difficult to make a living in the wild.

In addition, people with sharp senses and a keen awareness of their physical condition could survive in the wilderness for a long time.

The instant such people stepped into a contaminated area, they could quickly move away. Thus, they would not be slowly irradiated to death.

But players like Fang Zhen were clearly not among them.

Previously, Lin Qi had borrowed a total of 30,000 Bits from the Gorilla Gang. After buying weapons, repaying Luo Qi, and paying to keep the martial arts hall's generator running, 18,500 Bits had already vanished.

Then there was the food and water he needed to recover these past few days, which had cost another 495 Bits.

There was also the hospital's monthly 2,500 Bits. Altogether, that came to 21,495 Bits.

If he wanted players to farm, he had to cover their daily food and drink. At the bare minimum, a player's daily consumption was one box of high-protein biscuits and one bottle of water, around 3 Bits a day. The cost per person was not particularly high.

With the money currently in his hands, let alone supporting ten players, he could support twenty or thirty of them until they watched him go meet those gorillas without any problem.

But planting Blood Essence Rice was another matter entirely.

Under normal conditions, planting one stalk of Blood Essence Rice required four square meters of energy-rich land, and one stalk could yield ten grams of Blood Essence Rice.

To produce one jin of Blood Essence Rice, he would need two hundred square meters of energy-rich land.

If he wanted to earn 30,000 a month, he would need to reclaim at least 30,000 square meters in the wilderness. If he planted in three batches, that would still be 10,000 square meters, and that was before deducting the costs of seeds and water.

There was not much energy-rich land in relatively safe wilderness areas to begin with. Nearly all the energy-rich land near the city was controlled by the major gangs of the City of Light Chasing. The scraps left over were fought over by countless unregistered drifters, making it extremely difficult to find hidden energy-rich land.

The areas near the city were either too small or too scattered. Planting there made it easy to be discovered and difficult to manage.

Places far from the city, meanwhile, were crawling with active monsters. A round trip carried immense risks. If he got robbed even once along the way, there would not even be a place to cry.

If the cost of protective equipment was added on top of that, the risks of making players farm for money would undoubtedly rise considerably. If players died in the wilderness, the protective gear would be lost too. Yet without protective gear, players could hardly operate in the wild. It was truly a dilemma.

"Good grief! A set of secondhand wilderness protective equipment costs 3,000 Bits?" Lin Qi looked at the listed price on his wristwatch. Without the slightest hesitation, he shut it off, feeling as if his eyes had been offended. Then he took out his little notebook and flipped through it. "Looks like I can only carry out Plan B. They'll die a lot more often, but it'll be safer."

Obsidian Martial Arts Hall had originally stood in what was once the center of the City of Light Chasing. It had only become the abandoned district it was today because of the beast tide battles and all kinds of radioactive pollution.

Though most of the abandoned district had been contaminated, as the former city center, there were quite a few Energy Veins underground. Even though they had long since been mined dry, the energy contained beneath the earth remained abundant.

As long as one was willing to invest the time and manpower into developing underground farmland, then even if many places were unusable due to contamination, the areas that could be cultivated would still bring in a decent return.

At least, Lin Qi valued it highly. It was merely less profitable and slower than planting in the wilderness.

"Next are the rewards needed to motivate those players."

At that thought, Lin Qi began patting all the pockets on his clothes. As the founder of a game technology company, he understood players far too well. Trying to freeload off players was impossible, but if he could offer decent rewards—

Then there was nothing in the world more insane or more willing to grind than players.

Yet after searching for a long while, Lin Qi found nothing remotely presentable. Especially since he ran a martial arts hall, he could not be too shabby.

Just as Lin Qi was about to open his wristwatch and search properly for some secondhand goods, the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of an elementary school textbook scattered on the floor of the passageway.

Fitness Breathing Technique!

"Excellent! This is it!" Lin Qi strode over, scooped up the Fitness Breathing Technique, which was already missing half its pages, and nodded in satisfaction. "Good thing players who come to this world cannot understand the language. I just need to copy it out and change the name to Soul Shocking Breathing Technique. If they can't master it or train it well, that'll be a problem with their talent."

Inside Fang Zhen's livestream, Fang Zhen stared at the High Martial Descent icon displayed in the virtual pod for a long time without recovering his senses.

"Brothers, was I just playing High Martial Descent?" Fang Zhen could not help asking his viewers, utterly unable to believe it was real.

That texture! That sensation!

And the stabbing pain throughout his body!

It had been exactly like reality! Far too real!

"Brother Zhen, you're way too good at acting. Hurry up and tell us, did the game company pay you?"

"Brother Zhen, that performance just now was incredible. I thought you had really been kidnapped."

"The streamer is insane. This is the first time I've watched a livestream where someone did squats for two hours without even catching his breath. That stamina is seriously enviable."

Watching Fang Zhen's astonished expression, the viewers all teased him, thinking he was putting on far too much of an act. He was only playing a game, yet he made it seem real.

"Brother Zhen, you did squats for two hours too. How immersive is the game? Is it real?"

"What are you asking that for? Brother Zhen did squats for two hours. Isn't that real enough?"

"But this game's opening is pretty hard. Two hours of squats right from the start, and Brother Zhen died before even leaving the room. The game company is definitely doing this on purpose. They just don't want people asking for refunds."

Seeing Fang Zhen still spacing out, the viewers began asking curiously one after another.

Livestreams of virtual games were like watching movies. The viewers could not experience them firsthand, and there were only two perspectives available: a third-person view and the player's view. Other than the visuals, they could feel nothing.

"Immersion? Is it real?" Fang Zhen looked at High Martial Descent on the screen, his eyes growing brighter and brighter as he said with a slight tremble in his voice, "Brothers! All I can tell you is that I've never played such a realistic game before. That sense of realism is genuinely unprecedented. I can praise it to the skies—High Martial Descent is absolutely this year's masterpiece, and it'll definitely blow up worldwide in the future!"

"Those other masterpieces with immersion above 75% may have done a decent job with their gravity and tactile systems, but compared to High Martial Descent, they're miles behind. Every time I did a squat, I could feel the fatigue coming from every part of my body. Especially when I died at the end—the stabbing pain coming from inside my body was crystal clear, just like the real thing. Calling it 100% immersion is not an exaggeration at all."

"But this game does have some flaws. For example, there's no beginner tutorial or game interface. After I went in, I didn't even know how to log out. There's no character customization system either. It reproduced my face and build one hundred percent from the moment I entered. It really doesn't give you any chance at all."

"And the beginner opening is way too difficult. Two thousand squats right from the start. Players without enough perseverance probably can't complete it at all. The developers need to redo that properly, or it'll drive off far too many newcomers."

As Fang Zhen described his experience with High Martial Descent and listed some of its shortcomings, his gaze only grew hotter, despite all the flaws he mentioned.

A second spring!

Fang Zhen felt that his second spring had arrived!

The career of a professional competitive gamer was short. Most were finished by thirty, and only the top professionals could keep going until thirty-five, earning enough to fill their bowls to overflowing.

The hottest game right now was the mech combat game Mecha Continent. Fang Zhen had started playing it late, and he was already old. He had fought desperately just to enter a professional league team in Mecha Continent, and now he was on the verge of being cut. It was clearly impossible for him to achieve anything in Mecha Continent.

But High Martial Descent gave Fang Zhen an opportunity.

With immersion as high as 100%, and judging by its name alone, it was clearly a fighting game. Once it became popular, it would definitely form its own professional competitive scene. By then, surpassing Mecha Continent, with its mere 75% immersion, would be no problem at all.

And as one of the first players to experience High Martial Descent, as long as he seized the opportunity, becoming one of the top experts in the professional scene would not be impossible.

"Brother Zhen, you gave plenty of useful advice for newcomers, but is there a possibility... that newcomers simply can't get in?"

"I paid for the game quite a while ago, but it's still telling me I'm queued for connection."

"No way, it costs 4,999 yuan, and you guys already paid?"

"What 100% immersion? Fake! The game company definitely hired streamers to advertise it. It's just a scam. They limit it to ten actual players, yet don't restrict more people from buying it and waiting in line. What else could that be but a scam? Since real players can't play anyway, these streamers can praise it however they want."

"It's obvious the streamer is just trying to stir up hype. If it really has 100% immersion, I'll praise it to the skies, okay?"

"Newbie here, is this game real or not?"

"I don't believe it unless you let me play for free!"

As Fang Zhen continued promoting High Martial Descent in the livestream, quite a few viewers wanted to try it themselves. At the same time, many others claimed that Fang Zhen was in league with the game company and was deliberately tricking people into buying a game that could not actually be played.

For a time, the livestream was filled with nonstop arguments, while its popularity climbed higher and higher, faintly pushing toward the top ten game livestreams. High Martial Descent's reputation continued to grow, and more and more players either doubted it or were ecstatic over it.

"Listen to me, everyone. This game is still in beta testing. Since they're still allowing people to buy it, they'll probably release more slots later. Those who don't believe it can forget it. I stand straight and fear no crooked shadow. I'll keep streaming this game." Looking at the viewers' endless insults and mockery, Fang Zhen stopped explaining. He intended to strike while the iron was hot. "Family, let's continue. I've only just begun today—I'm not ending the stream."

After saying that, Fang Zhen topped up 648 yuan, and the High Martial Descent icon immediately lit up, no longer dark gray.

Inside the dim basement, the cold wind still whistled, and wails still rang out without end.

"Two more people this time?"

Fang Zhen opened his eyes and discovered that there were now two more people beside him: a young man and woman dressed in long gray T-shirts.

Neither was very old. The man looked under twenty, a somewhat shy student. The woman was around twenty-three or twenty-four, fair-skinned with shoulder-length hair and a hint of heroic spirit between her brows, like a wandering swordswoman from the martial world.

Having just awakened, both were dazed by their sudden surroundings and looked around blankly. Especially when they saw Lin Qi seated before the iron-framed table, holding a little notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, panic appeared on their faces.

Looking at the flustered pair, Fang Zhen did not know why, but all his previous depression vanished. He even felt a trace of accomplishment.

"Everyone, don't panic." Fang Zhen stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, and looked at the two calmly. "I've got this routine down!"

After hearing that, the student and the swordswoman immediately calmed down considerably. Both looked toward Fang Zhen, this bearded big brother, as though they had found their pillar of support. Their earlier anxiety was completely gone.

"Name?"

"Fang Zhen!"

"Age?"

"Twenty-nine!"

"You're a bit old."

"I think I still have potential! I can prove it!"

For a time, Lin Qi and Fang Zhen traded questions and answers. Fang Zhen's responses were forceful and firm, neither servile nor overbearing, displaying the bearing of an old player without question.

"Good! Since that's the case, prove it." Lin Qi looked at the supremely confident Fang Zhen and nodded in satisfaction. This was what a model player should be like. His initiative in cooperating had not been wasted. Then Lin Qi picked up an alloy shovel from the ground and tossed it directly in front of Fang Zhen. "Turn right down the passage ahead. There's a small storage room there. You have two hours and twenty minutes to dig five meters underground and excavate a ten-cubic-meter space. You may begin!"

During the new book period, Old Cat will update twice daily.