Hidden Talent
Seeing the message, Shen Xing dismissed it and picked up his phone to reply.
Spark: "I'm in. A game with this much depth is a must-play!"
Sole Lender Through the Ages: "111, is it realistic, bro?"
I Eat Eat Eat Eat: "Holy crap! Are there any orcs with six-pack abs, standing 1.9 meters tall and covered in hair? Give me ten of them!"
The three of them: "..."
"All right, enough messing around. Go in and see for yourselves."
Loves Cilantro sent one last message: "Oh, right, one more warning. This game is very difficult, and it's dangerous."
"I can't really explain what makes it dangerous. There's just a line of red text during the opening cinematic when you enter the game."
The other three responded with a string of speechless reaction stickers. How dangerous could a mere game be?
Shen Xing put down his phone and wheeled himself over to the dining table.
He tore open the cardboard packaging, revealing a pair of black, rimless glasses. They looked utterly ordinary, without even a hint of high-tech design.
"Are these the gaming glasses Qin Lang mentioned? Why do they seem so unreliable?"
He picked up the glasses, wheeled himself into the bedroom, and examined them carefully.
The more he looked, the more convinced he became that the thing was a scam and not worth wasting time on.
But then he recalled the 99.999% realism Qin Lang had mentioned and glanced at his own legs. A longing welled up inside him.
Every day, he told himself to stay positive. He had only lost his legs, not his life.
But after spending years in this cramped rented room, waking up with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, the despair had seeped almost into his bones.
Even if... it was only in a game, he wanted to stand up again.
Taking a deep breath, Shen Xing slowly put on the glasses.
In an instant, a sharp pain shot through both temples, as if two extremely fine needles had pricked them!
The scene before his eyes shifted.
-The seal on an ancient, long-forgotten land loosened, and thick mist spread across the world.
Monsters ran rampant, the land decayed, and countless villages, towns, and cities were swallowed by the dense fog.
A pioneer, lantern in hand and longsword held high, severed countless pale arms reaching out from the mist and lit the first bonfire in the wilderness.
By the light of that feeble flame, civilization preserved its last spark. Great cities, villages, and towns rose from the ground amid the mist.
[The celestial spheres converge, and the rifts open wide. The ancient curse descends once more.]
[The cycle of mist begins again. Two worlds are about to meet the same fate.]
[Pioneer, welcome to the Land of Mist.]
When the epic opening scenes faded, Shen Xing found himself in a dilapidated village.
Several low, rundown black wooden houses stood around a bonfire burning at the village center. Thick mist churned at the edge of its light...
Shen Xing opened his mouth, stunned by the incredibly detailed scene before him. It took him quite a while to come to his senses.
"This game is way too realistic!"
Then, with a hint of hope, he slowly lowered his gaze.
His scrawny legs still had no sensation, and he was sitting in a simple wooden wheelchair.
"Fuck!"
Chapter 2: Hidden Talent
In a dilapidated little village, a young man sat in a black wooden wheelchair, his face full of gloom.
Shen Xing hadn't expected that after using a wheelchair in the real world, he would still fucking need one in the game world.
It had completely crushed his fantasy of standing up again.
Just then, he noticed a line of translucent text at the edge of his vision.
[The game world and the real world are deeply linked. Players' real-world bodies will be reproduced with 100% accuracy in the Land of Mist.]
"A 100% reproduction of the real body in the game? Sounds impressive."
Shen Xing chuckled. "If you're so capable, sync the abilities in the game to reality too."
He stopped dwelling on the wheelchair and checked his attribute panel instead.
[Lord: Shen Xing] [Level: 1] [Attributes: strength 4, spirit 6, agility 0, constitution 5] [Skills: none] [Talents: none] [Evaluation: a novice lord who has just entered the Land of Mist. Disabled and frail, he doesn't look like he'll survive three days.]
"You're the one who won't survive three days. And what the hell is with zero agility?"
"Even without legs, you could've given me at least one point of agility, right?"
Shen Xing complained inwardly. He couldn't shake the feeling that this game was a little strange.
"But I have to say, the visuals really are lifelike!"
Black wooden houses, black earth—the entire village had an oppressive, dark atmosphere.
If not for the warmth radiating from the blazing bonfire in the center, the place could have been a scene from a horror game.
He looked toward the conspicuous bonfire, and some information appeared before his eyes.
[Bonfire: level 1] [Bonfire effect: raises the temperature somewhat within a 20-meter-diameter area and dispels mist] [Materials required for upgrade: soul stone x5] [Note: this is the fire that keeps your territory alive. Be careful not to let it go out.]
"I remember Qin Lang saying in the group chat that we shouldn't venture into the mist outside the village lightly."
"In other words, our range of movement is limited to the area lit by the fire."
"Looking at it that way, this bonfire is important."
"If monsters from the mist break through and destroy it, that's basically GG."
As Shen Xing analyzed the situation, he looked beside the bonfire.
There stood a pitch-black structure that looked like an altar.
It was a little over three meters tall and seemed to have been polished from obsidian.
[Draw a random troop nest?]
"So this is where you draw your troop type?"
Without hesitation, he clicked to draw.
"Buzz!"
The obsidian altar trembled slightly and released a mass of white light, which formed a slowly rotating sphere before Shen Xing.
[Draw successful. You have obtained an initial troop nest: Orc Barracks (Common ★)]
[Orc Barracks] [Rank: Common ★] [Recruitable troop type: orc infantry (Common ★)] [Number recruitable: 10 (first batch free)] [Recruitment requirements: soul stone x3, Vinar Silver Coin x3, food x10] [Upgrade requirements: soul stone x20, Vinar Silver Coin x20, food x100] [Description: an ordinary orc barracks that can recruit green-skinned orc infantry to fight for you.]
"Orcs? They're kind of trash."
As one of the initial troop types, orcs were about as ordinary as they came.
Their brains were basically decorations, and each one ate enough for three.
Their only advantage was that they knew no fear. When trouble came, they really did dare to charge in, and they fought viciously.
"The first batch is free, so I might as well recruit them and take a look."
With a thought, Shen Xing placed the troop nest he had just drawn on the empty ground beside the bonfire.
Light flashed, and a large, crudely built wooden house, hung with beast teeth and tattered flags, appeared out of thin air.
Then the entire wooden building was enveloped in white light.
[Recruiting the first batch of initial troops...] [Recruitment successful. Territory population +10]
[Orc infantry] [Level: 1] [Attributes: strength 6, spirit 3, agility 4, constitution 5] [Potential: Common ★] [Skills: none] [Talents: none] [Bond-orcs (activated): when more than 10 orcs are present at the same time, all orcs gain 10% strength] [Description: a batch of new orc recruits fresh out of the barracks. They don't look very smart.]
"Bang!"