"In other words, this Fourth Calamity I summoned are essentially my believers."
"Their power comes from the Ashen Divine Power I grant them. When they kill monsters and level up, I can take a cut to restore my strength."
"We rise and fall together, more or less."
Lin En mulled it over. This wasn't just a survival game-it was a fucking tower defense management game, too!
Once he figured that out, Lin En immediately summoned the system and began exploring the functions of his cheat.
Two extremely minimalist main panels appeared before him.
First came the [Statue Upgrade Panel].
He clicked it open, and his current territory was clearly listed:
[Current area: ruined church on the outskirts of the Black Forest] [Faith Barrier radius: 50 meters] [Surviving believers: 1] [Upgrade requirements: 10,000 faith points.] [Upgrade effects: greatly expands the barrier's range, repairs the statue, and unlocks advanced system features such as territory construction.]
Looking at the requirement of ten thousand faith points, Lin En silently closed the panel.
Sorry to bother you. I'll see myself out.
Even slicing up all five players and selling them wouldn't cover a fraction of that. For now, it was far out of reach.
He opened the adjacent [Player Console] instead.
It displayed: [Beta slots: 5/5], [Currently online: 0].
On this screen, Lin En could enjoy the absolute authority of a "damn game designer."
Whenever he pleased, he could [Mute] or [Ban] players. He could even spend one faith point to transmit his voice to them!
There was another button at the bottom of the panel: [Recruit new player: 100 faith points].
Lin En glanced at the balance in the upper-right corner: 176 points.
Originally, he had been so broke that he only had 60 points left. He had just taken a tearful cut of 90 points, while the remaining 26 had all come from the little nun Sivir, who had been frantically kowtowing nearby, imagining him as the "Supreme Sovereign" and churning out fanatical faith.
"That little girl really is a reliable passive money printer..."
Looking at his savings of 176 points, Lin En hesitated, but ultimately restrained the urge to call in more people.
He had too little saved up. There was no room for error.
He was better off keeping these funds as "revival tokens" for his existing five players.
But the mention of revival tokens suddenly made Lin En frown.
Earlier, left with no other choice, he had lied and said they only had two chances to revive, hoping to stop these chaos-loving idiots from mindlessly throwing their lives away.
But that kind of revival mechanic was extremely unreasonable and unhealthy for a game!
If they had too few lives, though, the Fourth Calamity wouldn't dare cut loose and fight!
If the players didn't dare fight, where was he supposed to take his cut and bleed them dry?
He had to give them the ability to keep reviving!
But if revival was completely free, who knew how reckless these players would get? They could squander his meager stockpile of faith points in minutes!
"For sustainable development, I need a perfect system of monetary exploitation... no, monetary circulation!"
Lin En rapidly crunched the numbers in his head.
Suppose killing one monster yielded 100 faith points.
Ten of those would be given to the player as experience, but experience couldn't be spent as money.
After thinking it over for a while, Lin En came up with a new idea!
From now on, in addition to experience, the system would print five [Ash Coins] out of thin air and award them to the player!
Then came the crucial part!
If a player got themselves killed and wanted to revive, they would have to pay a processing fee of ten [Ash Coins]!
To scrape together the ten coins needed for revival, the players would have to risk life and limb out in the wilds to kill two monsters.
And when a player killed two monsters, Lin En's system would pocket a net profit of 180 faith points! Once the player died, Lin En would only need to spend ten faith points to mold a new body for him.
"You work to earn ten bucks for your revival, while I've already made 180 off you. With enough players, the margin I pocket will be absolutely terrifying!"
The more Lin En thought about it, the more viable this currency system seemed!
"System, build this [Ash Coins] transaction system for me right now!"
[Ding! Ten faith points consumed. Ash Coins data module installed in the player backend.]
Hearing the system notification put Lin En in an excellent mood.
Those ten faith points in "system development fees" were money well spent. This would be his ultimate scythe for harvesting a fortune!
After solving the most critical part of his closed-loop economy, Lin En wasn't in a hurry to dismiss the system.
If he was going to milk the players, he had to put on the full show.
"These players might be a bunch of carefree idiots, but they're still helping me build my empire."
"Keeping them as bare-assed, bald warrior monks all the time really does hurt my dignity as the Lord of Ashes. They'll get tired of looking at it, too."
Lin En decided to give the game's visuals and worldbuilding presentation a major upgrade.
"System, activate a basic character customization system. Make me a slightly more impressive loading cinematic, too!"
"As for the lore, adapt it from this world's actual history..."
"The twilight of the gods. Darkness invades, and the sanctuary of old lies shattered. They are sacred pioneers reborn from the ashes, charged with the glorious mission of cleansing the wasteland and reforging the divine realm!"
[Ding! Thirty faith points consumed. Game login module updated.] ["Awakening of the Old Gods" opening cinematic loaded.] [Basic character customization and appearance system installed.]
"All done."
Looking at his remaining balance of just 136 faith points, Lin En felt more secure than ever before.
Everything was ready. All that remained was to wait for his cash cows to log back in tomorrow and keep grinding.
With everything finished, a wave of utter exhaustion finally swept through Lin En's tightly wound soul.
Though gods stood apart from the mortal world, with his divine power drained to the brink of death, even his consciousness needed sleep to slowly recover and replenish itself.
Lin En slowly closed the system panel.
The majestic blue light in the eyes of the stone statue atop the altar gradually dimmed, returning it to its weathered, mottled gray.
In the dark, ruined church, only the little nun remained, sleeping peacefully in a corner, along with the ancient divine statue standing silently in the darkness, waiting to astonish the world once again.
Meanwhile.
On Blue Star, it was already one in the morning.
Lu Ziye abruptly sat up in bed, yanked the secondhand VR headset off his head, and gasped for breath.
He felt his arm, then pinched his thigh.
"Holy shit... this really is reality?"
His mind was filled with images of that foul-smelling Mutated Corpse and the rough texture of the stone pillars he could reach out and touch.
"A masterpiece! This is a fucking nuclear-bomb-level masterpiece in the history of gaming!"
So excited that he jumped straight down from the top bunk, Lu Ziye rushed to his computer without even putting on his shoes and opened the country's largest hardcore gaming forum.
The forum was still buzzing, with countless night owls spamming posts and complaining about the major studios' latest reskinned games.
Lu Ziye's hands flew across the keyboard in a blur as he posted a thread in large, bold text:
[Wake the hell up! I played a genuine 100% full-immersion VR online game today! "Awakening of the Old Gods" is fucking incredible!!]
In the post, he described his experience tearing a monster apart in the ruined church in wildly exaggerated terms:
"Guys, can you believe this? That monster's drool splashed onto my face, and I could actually fucking feel its warmth and how sticky it was!"
"The physics engine is absolutely maxed out. I picked up a door panel and smashed the monster with it, and the recoil left the web between my thumb and finger numb!"
"The craziest part is that the installer is only 1 KB! This has to be alien technology!"
Before you continue