Unfortunately, You Were Not Selected for This Test

Blue Star, eight o'clock that evening.

The instant the progress bar on the Official Website for Awakening of the Old Gods, which had been stalled for ages, shot from 54% to 100%, a nuclear bomb seemed to go off across Blue Star's entire gaming community!

Countless players camped in front of their computers with VR headsets on, too busy even to eat as they hammered the registration button with autoclickers, stared fixedly at the progress bar that had jumped to [100%].

Then, under the eager gaze of hundreds of thousands of people...

"Ding-dong!"

Fifty mysterious emails silently arrived in the inboxes of the chosen ones.

[To the lost outlander:]

[The great Lord of Ashes has answered your resonance.]

[Congratulations! You have been selected for the closed beta of Awakening of the Old Gods version 1.1: Whispers of Fog Town.]

[Soul Bridging has been bound to your current VR device. Enter the Wasteland tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and rebuild the divine kingdom.]

The moment they received the email, all fifty people, whether they were eating, taking a shit, or working overtime, burst into wild laughter loud enough to blow the roof off.

The remaining 499,950 unlucky souls who hadn't received an email had complete meltdowns on the spot!

In a men's dormitory at a university.

"Aaaaaaah! Why?!"

A heart-wrenching howl erupted from the lower bunk, making even the windowpanes buzz.

Lu Ziye, who had just logged out of the game, was so startled he nearly plunged headfirst off the upper bunk.

He leaned over to look down and saw his roommate, Wang, kneeling on his computer chair with his head clutched in both hands.

Facing the email on his screen that read [Unfortunately, you were not selected for this test], he sobbed with tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Wang, what the fuck, did you just rise from the dead?!" Lu Ziye rubbed his aching temples.

"Lu! I don't want to live anymore!"

Wang whipped his head around, his eyes bloodshot and his face filled with the despair of someone abandoned by the world.

He lunged over and grabbed Lu Ziye's bunk ladder, wailing through his tears:

"I used three autoclickers!"

"I even forwarded every granny-praying-to-Buddha meme they posted in the group! Why couldn't this shitty game save me just one of its fifty slots?!"

"Can the hand speed I built up over twenty years of being single really not beat superstition?!"

Watching Wang fall apart, Lu Ziye fought back his laughter, cleared his throat, and adopted the air of an enlightened monk:

"Wang, my friend, broaden your horizons."

"This game doesn't just test your hand speed. It also tests your karmic connection with the gods."

"One look at your face tells me you still have worldly attachments. The Lord of Ashes thinks you can't handle a hardcore, higher-dimensional world like this."

"Bullshit! I can beat Souls games without taking a hit! How could I not handle it?!"

Grinding his teeth, Wang released the ladder and lunged back toward his computer.

"No! I'm posting a bounty on the game's Official Website forum! Even if I have to bankrupt myself, I'm getting a beta key today!"

The other players who hadn't won beta access felt much the same as Wang and headed to the Official Website forum to try their luck!

In just ten minutes, the number of users online on the forum broke a hundred thousand.

The server lagged like a slideshow, while new posts poured in faster than a waterfall.

At that moment, the forum was a madhouse, with everyone's mothers catching an extraordinary amount of abuse.

[Hot thread]: "Paying top dollar for beta access! Name your price! Take your pick of villas and sports cars!"

Original poster: [Spending Is Power]:

"I don't have much, except so much money I have nothing else left. Any bros win access? Name your price. A hundred thousand? Five hundred thousand? Transfer your account to me and I'll pay immediately!"

No Regrets Choosing Civil Engineering: "Let me cozy up to you, moneybags! Looking for a rich sugar mommy!"

Death-Wish Daredevil: "Don't bother, buddy above. Someone already tried. You can't trade accounts in this game. Put the headset on a different brain and the screen goes black!"

Spending Is Power: "Holy shit, so all my filthy money is useless in this game? What kind of anti-human design logic is this?!"

[Hot thread]: "Rigged-ass devs, get out here and take your beating! Fifty slots? Who the hell are you trying to fool?!"

Original poster: [Zaun's God of Literature]:

"I camped in front of my computer for three days and nights! I clicked until my left mouse button practically smoked! Who the hell got the slots? Come out and show yourselves! Let me see these chosen ones. I promise I won't crawl down the internet cable and strangle you!"

Angry Keyboard: "+1! We demand that the devs publish the winners! This is definitely rigged!"

Done with Worldly Life: "Stop cursing, stop cursing. I saw a guy next to me at the internet café win a slot. He got so excited he smashed the café's keyboard. The owner has him pinned to the floor and is beating him up right now. He probably won't even be able to afford a headset by seven tomorrow morning."

[Hot thread]: "Holy shit! Holy shit! Bros! I won! My lucky break is finally here!"

Original poster: [Cat Woken Up by a Midnight Urge]:

"I was about to go take a piss and casually clicked my inbox, then a new message popped right up! Seven tomorrow morning, I'm heading to another world to be Pure-Love Warrior's underling! Nobody stop me. I'm becoming a cyber wage slave!"

Sour Lemon: "You'd better sleep with your eyes taking turns on guard duty tonight. Don't let me catch you."

One Apartment in the Magic City: "Name your price. A hundred thousand Renminbi. Just sell me the headset along with your username and password, and the money will arrive within five minutes."

[Hot thread]: "A rational analysis: this game's opening cinematic is definitely fake. I refuse to believe current technology can do this!"

Original poster: [Angry Keyboard]:

"Don't let those five first-test players fool you! Use your brains. One hundred percent holographic pain? Physical collisions? A seamless world map, too? This has to be bait from some scam company running a pig-butchering scheme, specifically designed to brainwash cyber nutjobs!"

User 0316514: "Sour grapes, huh? Is it really that hard to admit other people got lucky?"

Law-Abiding Citizen Wang: "OP's mad. He's so mad! He didn't get access, so now he's throwing a helpless tantrum here."

Even Monkeys Have Dignity: "All this yapping is just you trying to scam an account so you can get in and have some fun, isn't it? Too bad this damn game recognizes your brain. I personally killed a massive boss at the First-Tier Peak today, one with an evil god backing it. The blood that sprayed onto my face was hotter than your hands pounding that keyboard. Get it?"

As soon as the username [Even Monkeys Have Dignity] appeared, the mood of the entire forum changed.

Countless users who had been bitterly hurling abuse instantly changed their tune.

"My benefactor! Our benefactor Ma Lou is here!"

"Brother Ma, you're my one and only brother! Hurry up and tell us how you filled the progress bar! What monsters did you kill to rack up those hundreds of thousands of points this afternoon?"

Before long, Lu Ziye, who had logged off and eaten some takeout, stormed into the forum under his glittering username, [Passing Pure-Love Warrior].

To help these veteran players show off, Lin En had thoughtfully synced their in-game information with their forum accounts.

When Lu Ziye posted, his username not only sported a gleaming gold [Lv. 7 Ash Apostles] level badge, but an exclusive, impossibly impressive title also floated beneath his name:

[Ash Guide]!