Ancient Secrets (2)

After a brief period of research, Li Mingfei was appointed as the game's lead designer. Shen Yuan had to completely obey Li Mingfei's orders. The result was self-evident: most of the Old Gods and their related designs were removed, and the Old Gods' stats were modified to be slightly higher than the Elemental Lords, accounting for only about 1% of the game content.

However, Shen Yuan was unwilling to let his hard work go to waste. On the night before the game officially started operating, he secretly sneaked into the computer control room and reinstalled all the things that had been deleted. He did it very discreetly, and it wasn't until a month after the game started its trial operation that they realized something was wrong. By then, it was too late to undo the damage.

Hearing this, Xiao Yu suddenly felt something was amiss. "You mean the game hadn't even been officially released yet? Then why is it irreversible? Couldn't you just modify the game to make it easier?"

Jiang Zeyan, "This involves the operating principle of the quantum computer. The game 'Sky World' is completely different from past games. It has a very high degree of freedom, and the whole world is alive. Because of this, it's impossible to selectively roll back like in ordinary games. In past games, you only needed to roll back the adventurer's data; the rest of the game was essentially static. But in 'Sky World,' players can play any role, so theoretically all the characters in the game are alive. Even without players in the game, the entire game world is still dynamic. Monsters will fight each other, heroes will adventure around, and Alliance and Horde will wage war. It's almost a real fantasy world, which makes rolling back virtually impossible unless we completely rebuild from scratch, but that's impossible. We've been developing 'Sky World' for five years and spent over a billion yuan. That's no small sum."

"So we could only take some remedial measures. Because of the game's unique nature, we couldn't directly modify the data to control it; we could only do so through things that already existed in the game. The strongest force Li Mingfei set in this game was the gods of the Sky World. So Li Mingfei gave the Gods of the Sky orders to destroy the Old Gods. But when the battle started, he found that these Old Gods were extremely powerful, fighting the Gods of the Sky to a standstill. Although we could use various creatures in the game to help the Gods of the Sky, the Old Gods had the ability to corrupt and control these native creatures. In the end, it almost led to the destruction of the game. Finally, because we had the home-field advantage, we managed to gather the power of the gods to forge several artifacts, close the passage between the Sky World and the other world, and seal away four Old Gods. But most of the gods perished in these battles, with only a few surviving."

"These Old Gods were too powerful to be completely destroyed, so they could only be sealed. But even sealed, their power still keeps stirring. We sealed them in hidden locations that players can hardly reach, and arranged powerful Guardian to watch over these seals. But we never expected that you would still break them."

"So now you understand why we're so excited, right? Once the Old Gods are released, even we'll have a hard time capturing them. And the game's storyline is dynamic; once it happens, it can't be changed. Because of this, the Old Gods' actions will cause huge changes to the game world. For example, if the Old Gods destroy Stormwind City, then Stormwind City will be completely destroyed. And what's most terrifying is that with our current power, it's very difficult to stop them. If we have artifacts, it'll be a little better, but without artifacts, there's really nothing we can do."

Xiao Yu thought to himself, "So that's how it is. In other words, the existence of the Old Gods is beyond the control of the game company. That sounds pretty scary. But if that's the case, doesn't it mean that the Sky World still has passages to other worlds? If there's a chance to open those passages and go on adventures in other worlds, that should be quite interesting."

Xiao Yu suddenly remembered something, "By the way, what happened to Shen Yuan later? He did so many things, didn't you sue him?"

"Sue him for what? Sue him for tampering with game data? The problem is, he was one of the game's lead designers, so in the end, the only solution was to fire him," Jiang Zeyan said with a wry smile.

"So another world really exists? Is it located in the Sky World?"

Jiang Zeyan. "That's right. And to be honest, even we game developers don't know what's in that other world, but it must be terrifying. Shen Yuan is a bit gloomy; he's poured all his crazy fantasies and evil ideas into his game world. If players go in, they might develop psychological trauma or something. So we don't plan to open this other world, and you shouldn't even think about trying to find it. We've implemented various encryption measures to ensure that you players won't discover the entrance."

Xiao Yu thought to himself, "You really underestimate us players. We're experts at uncovering game secrets." But then he remembered his promise not to leak the secret and not to use it for personal gain, and he couldn't help but sigh.

Jiang Zeyan, unaware of Xiao Yu's thoughts, continued, "Therefore, we must retrieve the divine artifact and reseal the Old Gods. Although this will be extremely difficult, and the divine artifacts in this game are all unique, we can't just make them whenever we want. Everything must comply with the game's rules. If we want to create a new divine artifact, we need to collect materials, find excellent crafting masters, and then craft it through epic story events."

Xiao Yu nodded. "Alright, I think I understand you now. I can give you the Scourge of the Ocean."

The group immediately showed expressions of relief upon hearing this, but Xiao Yu's next words made their expressions turn serious again.

"However—you don't actually think I'm giving away a divine artifact without any conditions, do you?"

Jiang Zeyan nodded. "Of course, there will definitely be compensation. Tell me, what are your conditions?"

Xiao Yu smiled slightly, "I'm not greedy at all, so I won't ask for an exorbitant amount. Three million—I urgently need the money right now, so if you give me three million RMB, the artifact is yours."