"Sharks" Fighting Over Resources

To be fair, browsing forums was quite interesting.

Especially when all sorts of "talents" on the forum kept popping up one after another, with convoluted setups, classic lines, bizarre schemes, and hidden calculations emerging without end—like an old general performing the Empty Fort Strategy onstage, his back bristling with flags...

Even Li Yun only wanted to say one thing.

—Humanity truly was exceptionally creative only when doing bad things and seeking profit.

Of course, that did not stop him, an "administrator" who was not particularly proactive about managing affairs, from spending his days lurking on the forums like most ordinary Main God users, looking for novelty and entertainment.

If nothing else, simply watching these people repeatedly bicker over the rounds of "ads" they posted was already worth the price of admission.

[Buying all extraordinary items produced by the Main God Platform at high prices. Prices negotiable. Payment methods include anonymous Swiss accounts, BTC, or direct transfers to designated accounts...]

[Seeking to purchase Main God Universal Points. Exchange rate: 1:1.12 million. Larger sales may receive an even higher rate...]

[Sincerely seeking to purchase surplus "Visitor slots" from first-generation Main God users. Starting offer: 1.6 billion pounds sterling. Further negotiation possible if insufficient...]

By the time the second round of the Main God Game had been over for four or five full days, aside from a small number of educational posts about experience-sharing, mission analysis, and the like...

These currently most popular and fashionable "ad posts" had become places where Main God users argued fiercely, watched the spectacle, traded verbal blows, and piled up dozens or even hundreds of replies.

The constant stream of immediate new replies meant these threads showed virtually no sign of sinking down the forum.

Clearly, with Main God missions still limited by something like a "cooldown period," aside from the tiny number of users who had become "self-cultivation types" through exchanges, everyone still had plenty of free time and enthusiasm.

Take the "buying Universal Points" posts, for example. The current exchange rate had risen to 1:112... and the unit following that 112 was "ten thousand."

Naturally, the currency in question could not possibly have been Jinbuba Counterfeit Currency.

To be precise, it was currently being settled on the surface at a rate of "one point for 1.12 million U.S. dollars."

Not to mention those "veterans" who, as official Level One Main God users, had successfully completed the second round of missions and received an additional "Visitor introduction slot" from the Main God.

The scattered slots in their hands totaled fewer than two thousand, yet they could each be used to freely select one person and introduce them to the Main God Game as a Visitor, allowing them to participate in the next round of missions seven days later. They had become an irresistible prize that made those in the know insanely jealous.

Li Yun had even noticed quite a few comments below them saying things like "obscenely rich," "there really are more rich people than expected," and "this must be a post from some oil tycoon"...

Sitting on the sofa, he merely shook his head and said nothing.

It was true that the Main God could provide most exchanges, but certain exchanges that seemed low-level yet had deep and widespread effects on the real-world order were not currently open for Main God users to bring into reality.

The more obvious examples included things such as T-Virus Stock, Secondary Hives, Antimatter Bombs, and so on...

Likewise, "real-world currency" was also among the restricted items.

For one thing, currency had no inherent value. It was merely a product granted value by certain "rules of credit," and had little significance beyond that.

Once the Main God opened a one-way exchange from Universal Points to currency, it would have to use an enormous relative exchange ratio to offset the difference in "value" between the two.

Yet currency really could easily disrupt the deep structure of the current real world.

Considering humanity's diversity and absurdity, Li Yun had no doubt that once this exchange was enabled, someone would inevitably try to stockpile resources and directly crash the real-world monetary system through "exchanging currency"!

That would be far faster than messing around with color-changing ink and acid-free paper!

And as the foundation from which the Main God currently recruited "newcomers," the "operational rules" jointly established by Li Yun and the Main God included requirements to maintain a certain degree of stability in the real world.

After all, a "home base" capable of continuously producing new users naturally needed to preserve a sufficient level of order.

Thus, even though Li Yun had noticed that quite a few people in various countries had tacitly begun "putting lids on things" online through all kinds of methods, confusing truth with falsehood, or even staging performances to conceal certain details and erase many "traces" that could have caused enormous waves in their societies, thereby delaying a process that should have had a massive impact...

The Main God had not interfered too much.

And once social networks—the most mainstream channels in modern society and the ones with the greatest reach—had their normal flow of information disrupted, many things became much easier for those who knew the truth.

Otherwise, in less than half a month, news related to the "Main God Game" should not have remained so "narrowly" spread.

Simply controlling the internet's "mouthpiece" meant controlling the influence over most information channels.

It was just that, when facing a Main God user population that had now surpassed two hundred thousand...

Those major conglomerates and interest groups might no longer have been able to prevent information from spreading further and deeper, but they still tacitly continued employing methods like "silencing people, buying them off, laying false trails, locking down platforms..." in a frenzied effort to delay the spread and fermentation of information, all so they could keep squeezing out profits.

Their thinking was clearly something along the lines of—if it could not be stopped, then so be it. There had never been an impenetrable wall in this world anyway!

But as long as there was anything to grab, even a scrap of meat, it had to be swallowed into their own stomachs first!

With every one of them acting like starving ghosts reincarnated, Li Yun saw a rather realistic joke in it all—

The Yingjilige Secret Intelligence Service had initially obtained scattered, unverified information about the "Main God" more than two hours ago. Yet in terms of order, it had actually ranked behind six or seven "private financial groups," including four major conglomerates, as well as a large number of ordinary users...

It was like receiving a piece of sugarcane pulp that had already been chewed an unknown number of times.

And even then, two or three of those groups had voluntarily disclosed the information as part of an exchange of interests...

All one could say was that compared to them, those financial conglomerates that pursued profit like sharks smelling blood, along with the modern corporate families bound together by blood ties and practical interests, possessed a sharpness and hidden influence over the flow of benefits that far exceeded the so-called "official response speed."

Or rather, from the perspective of the Windsor Family as one particularly notable example, they themselves represented something substantive...

Secondly, in a situation like the current one, when the Main God itself did not restrict the "trading and circulation" of Universal Points and merely imposed seemingly loose "surface rules" such as "a limit on the number of trades within a certain period" and "an additional percentage of points charged for gifts"...

There was not actually any lack of channels for obtaining real-world benefits from them.

Rather, if not for the Main God's trading rule stating that "transactions can only be conducted when both parties are willing to a certain extent," what most Main God users would need to prioritize would probably not be how to profit, but how to gain the capital to protect themselves by joining major powers and using various other methods...

Even so, the various risks those users who attempted to trade Main God Universal Points for money through forums and real-world channels had to bear—including the possible exposure of their identities—were likewise choices they made for themselves.

The Main God would not deliberately restrict such "freedom," but neither would it foot the bill for their actions.

Clearly, however, aside from some who had no choice for various reasons, those who truly failed to understand their real value, or the shortsighted people blinded by profit who could not see the situation clearly—

Most users were still maintaining a relatively wait-and-see attitude, with no intention of casually letting the "Main God resources" in their hands flow out.

In fact, if most people had not lacked sufficient funds, the intensity of the "bidding war" on the forum would have long since surpassed this.

—There was a price, but no market. That was the true situation.

That was why those users backed by "big predators," who had barely gotten a taste of the sweetness, continued raising prices like they had smelled blood, trying to consume as much of the limited supply as possible before more "peers" entered this blue ocean!

Anyone with eyes could see that this "Main God Platform," which within the currently confirmed range seemed to have experienced only two rounds of games...

Or rather, this "Main God Space," which might have only just begun turning through another cycle—these seemingly tiny, inconspicuous early resources...

Could create unimaginably vast gaps between different people in the future!

With the assistance of certain researchers in seemingly unrelated fields such as web fiction, human psychology, and sociology, a rough trajectory had already been outlined.

As long as one did not die halfway through, this was naturally a path from human to god, one of constant upward evolution!

All kinds of real-world resources were ultimately nothing more than performing grand rites in a snail shell, calling oneself king among monkeys. A hundred years later, one would still end as a mound of dirt.

But what lay before them was an alternative "Main God Space"!

Even if only one-tenth of the benefits it promised, including those on that unsettling exchange list, were real—no, one percent! One-thousandth! One ten-thousandth!

As long as even an insignificant fraction of it was real!

Then the benefits involved would no longer be something common sense could imagine.

Becoming immortals and ancestors, ascending the steps to godhood, living forever, roaming the universe, doing as one pleased, free and unrestrained...

These desires and pursuits that transcended mortality were the "underlying color" deeply carved, through the long history of evolution, into the instinctive struggle of lives tormented by birth, aging, sickness, and death!

Was it really so difficult to understand which of the two mattered more?