[Welcome to the deep-sea survival game! Every player has a Coral Shell Room of their own. Outside your room lies the deep ocean floor!] [The deep sea holds surprises beyond your imagination, as well as countless terrifying, deadly dangers.] [Whether you rise to greatness or amount to nothing depends on your own luck.] [Remember: your Coral Shell Room is your only safe zone. Once you step outside, you will be exposed to the gaze of all kinds of unknown creatures!] [You can open or close the game panel with a thought. The game has many more features waiting for you to discover. Please enjoy the game.] [Do your best to survive.]
Xiao Hao stared at the game panel floating in the air before him, its letters flashing blood-red, and felt a headache coming on.
He looked up and saw a room of roughly twenty square meters, somewhat like a crude house with a tiled roof.
The strangest thing was its multicolored walls. He couldn't tell what they were made of, and the tiles overhead looked more like oversized seashells than actual roof tiles.
Sitting on his bed, Xiao Hao felt thoroughly depressed. He wasn't some caveman. Of course he knew about transmigration.
But being transported along with the bed he slept in at his low-rent apartment was a whole new level of ridiculous.
He probably wasn't the only person trapped in this game.
Wait, the deep sea?
How could a room possibly be built in the deep sea? The water pressure should crush it instantly!
The Coral Shell Room had a transparent floor-to-ceiling window. Xiao Hao walked over and could just make out aquatic plants glowing faintly in the darkness half a meter beyond the glass.
He called them aquatic plants because that faint, swaying glow was enough for him to tell he was underwater!
Perhaps, just as the game had said, he really was on the ocean floor.
With a heavy heart, Xiao Hao opened his phone, and a pale-red game panel immediately appeared.
[Personal information], [Forum], [Trading exchange], [Synthesis House], [Space Slots], [Exploration Bubble]...
The labels were arranged in rows.
Frowning, Xiao Hao tapped personal information, and a new page popped up on the game panel.
Name: Xiao Hao ID: No. 869 Age: 20 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 100/100 Spirit Pearls: None Coral Shell Room safety rating: 1 star (Your Coral Shell Room's safety rating is extremely low. A passing deep-sea beast might destroy it with a casual swipe. Please collect Spirit Pearls as soon as possible.) Coral Shell Room guardian: None Coral Shell Room area: 20 square meters Personal skills: None Strength assessment: Weak
It looked like one of the farming games Xiao Hao had played before.
The usual gameplay loop was nothing more than upgrading the Coral Shell Room while steadily acquiring more Spirit Pearls and guardians. Naturally, those things had to be found outside the room.
But the problem was, how could a human possibly walk around in the deep sea?
Forget searching for supplies. He couldn't even leave the safe zone!
Xiao Hao closed the personal information page and turned his attention to the forum. Perhaps he could find the information he needed there.
As expected, the forum was already in an uproar.
"Holy shit! I woke up and the whole world had changed!"
"What the hell! What's happening to everyone else? My room is pitch-black, and there seem to be giant creatures swimming around outside! I'm hiding under my blanket, too scared to make a sound!"
"Second poster, quit being a coward. Get out there and fight!"
"I'm usually a total noob at games. I'm so screwed..."
"What is this place, anyway? The room is dry. Are we sure we're in the deep sea?"
"This definitely isn't a world governed by science. I'm a biologist, and I can identify the plants outside my door as deep-sea plants. It's honestly amazing. When I opened the door, I found a wall of water, but none of it flowed into the room."
"I don't want to play some deep-sea survival game. I want to go home... Boo-hoo..."
"Someone save me! My phone has no signal. I can't even call the police!"
"Damn it, what the hell is going on?"
"Everyone, haven't you noticed there's no food in the room?!!! There's nothing to eat or drink!"
"We're doomed! There really is nothing!"
"Uh, actually, there is. It's in the Space Slots. I'm lazy and a total homebody, and I like eating in bed, so I had loads of snacks on it. Turns out they all came along with me. They've nearly filled my Space Slots..."
"Hey, handsome, could you give me some?"
"Good-looking, I want some too!"
"Heh. Dream on!"
The forum posters had nothing but ID numbers and plain white avatars. Xiao Hao was on his own and didn't care in the slightest who any of them were.
The forum refreshed extremely quickly. Xiao Hao could only sift through the flood of useless posts for scraps of barely useful information.
First, this wasn't his original, scientifically governed world, and he really was in the deep sea.
Second, the Space Slots were something like a spatial storage ring and contained the starting survival supplies provided by the game.
Opening his Space Slots, Xiao Hao found only two kinds of supplies among the many empty slots: bottled water ×1 and bread ×2.
For players like Xiao Hao, who hadn't kept food on their beds, one bottle of water and two pieces of bread wouldn't last more than a few days.
That biologist on the forum said the water couldn't flow in. Should I try opening the door and taking a look?
He would have to open it sooner or later.
After a moment's hesitation, Xiao Hao walked to the door. Holding his phone in his left hand, he placed his right on the handle, ready to turn it and peek outside.
Just then, Xiao Hao suddenly noticed a line of text drifting across the floating game panel, like a scrolling viewer comment on a video site.
On closer inspection, the text was small and somewhat transparent, overlapping the game panel.
[Another one's about to die. He definitely doesn't realize there's a Deep-Sea Ghost lurking right outside his door.]
Xiao Hao froze. The game gives hints too?
His hand went rigid on the handle. He stopped without turning it.
What was going on?
If this was a survival game, why was it giving him hints?
Xiao Hao opened the forum again. If everyone could see these scrolling hints, someone should have mentioned them there.
Strangely, though, he looked for a long time and saw all sorts of topics, but not a single mention of any hints.
He did learn something else from the forum, however. The Coral Shell Room had its own lighting. The protruding shell beside the door served as a light switch; pressing it would illuminate the room.
That meant he wouldn't have to keep his phone's flashlight on.
Since Xiao Hao was standing beside the door, he pressed the shell switch. A row of unusual shells on the ceiling immediately lit up like an incandescent lamp.
Xiao Hao turned off his phone's flashlight and wondered whether the scrolling comment was unique to him or visible to everyone. If everyone had it, had not one person mentioned it or questioned whether it was true?
Xiao Hao posted a tentative question on the forum.
[No. 869: Does the game give any other hints? Or is there only the introduction at the start?] [Haven't seen any.] [I've checked every nook and cranny at least ten times. There's only the introduction and the basic features.] [Did you find some other game hints? Hurry up and post them for everyone. Get a move on!]
Seeing the third reply, Xiao Hao couldn't resist tapping it to find out who this piece of work was.
The profile contained only the ID number 666. It was none other than the person who'd hoarded a bedful of snacks earlier.
Unbelievable. His bed had been covered in snacks, and they'd been transported along with him. Now he was showing off about it everywhere.
He had plenty of food but hadn't shared any, yet he felt perfectly entitled to demand information.
Xiao Hao replied immediately.
[No. 869: Yeah, I saw a little game hint.] [No. 666: Out with it! If you please me, I might reward you with a potato chip!]
One chip?
That was an astonishing level of stinginess.
[No. 869: Bottom-right corner. The hint says: This game reserves the right of final interpretation.] [No. 666: ???] [No. 666: You dare mess with me! Don't come begging when you're starving to death!] [Exactly! How dare you mess with Boss Six! Got a death wish?] [Boss Six, ignore him!]
Below were crowds of Boss Six's followers, all piling on Xiao Hao.
Even if he had a bedful of snacks, how much food could that really be?
If I'm the only one who gets these hints...
Who ends up begging whom remains to be seen.
With a Deep-Sea Ghost outside his door, Xiao Hao could only familiarize himself with the game's features and wait for it to leave.
First came the [Trading exchange].
The trading listings offered a dazzling assortment of items. Since entire beds had been transported to the ocean floor along with their occupants, plenty of people had brought all kinds of things they kept on their beds.
Some were trading charging cables for food, others pillows and blankets. There was even lubricant and ***...
The exchange's listings kept refreshing, and items disappeared once a trade went through.
Xiao Hao browsed the exchange for a while. Once he understood how trading worked, he opened the Synthesis House.
Before you continue