Game Update

Xuan Zi had never expected things to develop like this. After all, what normal person would set off a bomb and blow themselves up along with their opponent?

But the people before Xuan Zi weren't normal people at all. They were game players, commonly known as the Fourth Calamity.

At such close range, Xuan Zi couldn't possibly dodge the explosion, even if he wanted to. He had only enough time to summon his martial soul.

Then the mushroom cloud swallowed him whole. Even in the dead of night, the cloud was clearly visible from Star Luo City.

In fact, Star Luo Emperor Xu Jiawei had only just gone to bed when the earthquake caused by the explosion jolted him awake.

Once he realized what had happened, he immediately sent people to investigate.

An explosion of this magnitude was fortunate to have happened outside the city. If it had happened inside Star Luo City, he couldn't even imagine how much chaos it would have caused.

At the center of the explosion, Xuan Zi had to be acknowledged as a Level 98 Title Douluo. Even that hadn't killed him.

Of course, Xuan Zi hadn't come through unscathed. He had lost an arm and a leg, both completely blown away. There was nothing left to reattach.

He was also gravely injured, and used the last of his strength to leave the blast site.

By the time the people Xu Jiawei had sent arrived, they found only a huge crater blasted into the ground and some scattered bloodstains. Beyond that, there were no clues at all.

The players had all returned to the Sect Base in Heaven Dou City, waiting to revive.

When the revival countdown ended, the notification that the mission was complete rang out as well.

[Congratulations, Players, on completing the mission. The target's health has been reduced by 4/5, and a crippling effect has been inflicted. Mission complete. Rating: Excellent]

[Mission reward: All players' Soul Power levels increased by one]

A one-level increase to everyone's Soul Power was already a pretty good reward. After all, the further they progressed, the more time it would surely take to level up.

Wang Zhongwang: "Now that was satisfying. A crippling effect! Do you think Xuan Zi lost a leg or an arm?"

I Am an Angel: "Maybe he lost both an arm and a leg. Maybe we'll get to see Xuan Zi hobbling around on crutches from now on."

Qian Xixi: "I don't think Douluo Continent has any way to regrow limbs at this point in time. If he lost an arm or a leg, it really won't grow back."

Spirit Hall Eternal: "He could get prosthetics. Isn't the Sun Moon Empire's crown prince, Xu Tianran, all natural apart from his prosthetics?"

Agile Dog in the Mountains: "Xu Tianran's a ruthless one, too! He can't perform as a man, so to shut the ministers up, he just told Orange to find some man and have a child. He doesn't care at all whether he's got a vast green grassland growing on his head."

Primordial One: "People like that are all ambitious heroes. He could clearly stand with the help of soul tools, but he stayed in his wheelchair the whole time to make his enemies underestimate him, then wait for the right moment and seize all the power in one fell swoop."

Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior: "I have to say, the villains are written much better than the protagonist group. If not for that last-minute divine intervention, even the author wouldn't have been able to tie everything up."

Just as the players' discussion veered off topic again, another game announcement appeared.

[The game will update soon. Please prepare to log off. Countdown begins: ten, nine, eight...]

Wang Zhongwang: "It's only just occurred to me-we've been playing this whole time without logging off. Are our real bodies going to starve to death?"

Spirit Hall Eternal: "Why does this remind me of a certain anime? What if we wake up in a hospital?"

Ten-Year Veteran: "I don't think so. It's more likely that time in the game and time in reality don't move at the same rate..."

The discussion abruptly stopped. All the players logged off and awoke in the real world. They checked the time, and sure enough, not much time had passed. It wasn't enough to land anyone in the hospital.

Of course, they were still hungry. Once they came to, the players all went looking for food.

After eating their fill, they began posting online about their gaming experiences.

But their posts were quickly drowned out. Most people didn't believe them.

There were too few players. Although Tang Yi had set up an official website, he hadn't updated it with anything. Ordinary people had no reason to pay attention to it.

Tang Yi didn't really care what happened in the real world anyway. All he needed was to recruit the players he needed from there and have them work for him.

After this update, he planned to add another forty-nine players.

The so-called update simply involved loading in the maps for Star Dou Great Forest and the Sun Moon Empire.

Tang Yi hadn't changed anything about the Sun Moon Empire map. The players could explore it as an open world once they got there.

However, he had used the authority granted by the will of his world, along with some of the game system's Fortune Points, to modify Star Dou Great Forest.

After the changes, Star Dou Great Forest became a large instance dungeon.

All the Soul Beasts in Star Dou Great Forest became monsters. Players could earn experience by killing them and, if they were lucky, even get cards that increased their Soul Ring age, as well as Soul Bones.

This was the leveling ground he had prepared for the new players, so they could catch up with the old players and take part in the story missions.

The monsters in the instance would naturally respawn, but the rarer the monster, the longer it took to respawn.

The Soul Beasts who appeared in the story, however, would not respawn. For example, all the Ferocious Beasts and the Emperor Auspicious Beast were among those who would not respawn.

The players would hardly ever encounter them in the instance, either. They would have their own separate storylines.

Tang Yi, as the mastermind behind the scenes, had planned all of this in advance.

While the game was updating, time on Douluo Continent continued to move forward.

After Xuan Zi had his arm and leg blown off and was gravely injured, he ran back and found Zhou Yi.

When Zhou Yi saw how miserable Xuan Zi looked, she was nearly scared out of her wits.

"Elder Xuan, how did you end up like this?"

"Don't worry about that now. Hurry and find a healing Spirit Master to treat me. Then take the students and return to Shrek Academy immediately. Don't delay."

"Yes, I'll go find one right away."

And so, the next day, Shrek Academy left Star Luo City and hurried back to Shrek Academy as quickly as they could.

With Xuan Zi so badly injured, Shrek Academy had effectively lost one of its major fighters. The academy was bound to take this seriously.

Meanwhile, Tang Ya, the Sect Master of the Tang Sect, had left Shrek Academy and gone to the Tang Sect's former base in Heaven Dou City, which was now the players' sect.

Of course, Tang Yi had influenced things a little. Otherwise, she would have waited until after meeting Bei Bei to leave.

After eating their fill in the real world, the players could only wait patiently for the game to update.

That immersive game world was truly captivating.

If they hadn't been able to come back, they would have thought they'd been transported to another world.

At long last, the update was complete. The old players immediately logged back in without wasting a moment.

And the new players selected by Tang Yi were drawn into the world of Douluo Continent at that very moment.