Evolution - Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The promotion for the holographic game was massive. Not only was the internet buzzing, but in real life—on the subway, on buses, in offices, in almost every public space—everyone was talking about it.
When Ji Changqing wasn’t on a business trip, she attended a weekly meeting to listen to work reports and offer her opinions. So, she experienced firsthand what it meant for something to be a “national topic.”
Compared to the hype for the upcoming holographic game, what were those so-called national heartthrobs, goddesses, husbands, or daughters? Nothing! Even the frenzy for Apple products at their absolute peak couldn’t compare to this wave.
Soon after, the official website announced pre-orders for the game’s equipment.
And as stunning as the game’s promotional visuals were, its prices were equally breathtaking.
Holographic Game Pods:
High-End Game Pod: 198,000, includes 30 bottles of specialized high-grade nutrient solution (3-month supply, 70% conversion rate)
Mid-Range Game Pod: 98,000, includes 10 bottles of specialized mid-grade nutrient solution (1-month supply, 55% conversion rate)
Basic Game Pod: 39,800 (40% conversion rate)
Gaming Helmet: 2,000 (10-15% conversion rate)
High-Grade Nutrient Solution: 2,000/bottle
Mid-Grade Nutrient Solution: 1,200/bottle
Basic Nutrient Solution: 500/bottle
Furthermore, both the game pods and the game itself were limited. The high-end pods were limited to 100,000 units, mid-range to 300,000, basic to 600,000, and gaming helmets to 3 million.
The official website also included a special note: the game pods could be bought back at a depreciated value—90% of the original price in the first year, 70% in the second, and 50% in the third.
Seeing a price that left everything else in the dust, even the most seasoned netizens wanted to explode on the spot!
They had endured the far-above-market prices of Apple phones and computers. They had survived sinking hundreds of thousands into new energy vehicles only to end up with a pile of scrap metal. And now, they had to face the fact that to show off while playing a game, you needed a six-figure salary.
“Holy crap, this is the kind of game you play while lying on a pile of money. It reeks of cash!”
“A total pay-to-win game! You have to spend a fortune before you even start playing!”
“Anyone who dares to buy a high-end or mid-range pod is a whale. Hundreds of thousands just to play for a year.”
“No, brother, you missed the buy-back value. If you only play for a year and then swear off the game, the high-end pod only costs you 260,000!”
“Look at the whale upstairs, ‘only 260,000’… Is 260,000 our problem? No, our problem is not having the million-a-year job that lets you spend 260,000 on a game!”
“Are they insane? What kind of garbage company is this? We should boycott them!”
“I don’t like the sound of that. It’s expensive, sure, but it’s a history-making holographic game. It’s normal for it to be pricey. Besides, they’re even offering a depreciated buy-back. And it’s not like they’re forcing you to play. If you can’t afford to show off, can’t you at least afford the 2,000 helmet?”
A flood of replies followed:
“If you can’t afford to show off, can’t you at least afford the 2,000 helmet?”
“I’d give my life for it, let alone 2,000!”
Regardless of the storm brewing online, the “remaining quantity” counter for the game equipment on the official website was dropping at an incredible speed.
The message count in their five-person WeChat group was also jumping frantically. Ji Changqing opened it to see “Old Cadre” furiously tagging everyone, urging them to order a game pod immediately.
A while back, Zhong Lan had told the group to be ready to snatch one up as soon as pre-orders went live so they could be in the first batch of players.
Although she hadn’t explained why, no one in the group, aside from maybe Xue Hong, was particularly interested in games. But Zhong Lan wouldn’t lead them astray, so they all figured she’d heard something. They casually agreed. What was the big deal?
Old Cadre: Go pre-order, holy crap! They’ll be gone soon!
Red Scarf: Damn, that’s expensive. I’ve lost interest already.
Old Cadre: You make three to five hundred thousand a year, for crying out loud. If you can’t afford a high-end pod, you can at least get a mid-range one, right?
Old Cadre: I gritted my teeth and ordered a mid-range pod myself!
Old Cadre: What are you waiting for? They’re even promising a depreciated buy-back. They’re clearly not short on cash, which means it must be worth the price!
Old Cadre: If you play for a month and don’t like it, you can sell it back. At most, you’ll lose ten thousand!
RMB: Why are you so worked up? We already said we’d play, so of course we’re buying.
Old Cadre: Don’t just get a helmet to get it over with!
Old Cadre: Everyone get a pod!
Old Cadre: Even the poorest one of us—me—bought a mid-range pod. Don’t let me down!
…
Everyone was stunned by Zhong Lan’s frantic spamming, practically begging them to flex their wealth.
Red Scarf: Alright, alright, I ordered a mid-range pod.
Son of Heaven Zhou: Ordered a high-end one.
Red Scarf: Damn, you won’t even buy a car, but you’re willing to splurge on a high-end pod!
Son of Heaven Zhou: Damn idiot! For twenty thousand, I get to play for three months, okay?
He Shi Bi: Didn’t I send you guys the money I made from stocks a few days ago? I said then that what comes from the game goes back to the game. I ordered a high-end pod too.
Old Cadre: I did the math. With my income, plus the money I earned before, I can only afford a mid-range pod!
RMB: Mmm, I ordered two mid-range pods. It’s just for fun, anyway.
He Shi Bi: The hype for this holographic game is huge, and they’re promising a buy-back. It doesn’t seem like a one-and-done cash grab. It feels like they’re certain that once people start playing, they’ll keep playing and won’t want to return the equipment.
Son of Heaven Zhou: Didn’t old sci-fi novels have ideas about holographic games being used for all sorts of training? Maybe it’s real?
He Shi Bi: Even if it’s not, for them to sell it at such a high price and be so sure people won’t return it… it must mean you can earn enough in the game to support your continued play!
Old Cadre: Holy crap! I never thought of that! Regret.JPG
Red Scarf: The high-end pods are sold out! Regret.JPG
RMB: You can just switch to a high-end one later. A mid-range pod will do for now.
He Shi Bi: You guys…
He Shi Bi: Especially you, @Old Cadre. You were the one who pushed us to play together, and when we cashed out our stocks, we all said what comes from the game goes back to the game. Weren’t we all prepared to spend? And today you spammed us to pre-order, but in the end, you…
Son of Heaven Zhou: She’s a hardcore gamer, so of course she has to consider sustainability. That’s perfectly normal.
Red Scarf: Ah, life. There are always moments when you just can’t think straight… @Son of Heaven Zhou, don’t tell me you just figured that the three-month trial for the high-end pod for twenty thousand was a better deal than the mid-range one?
He Shi Bi: …
Old Cadre: …
RMB: …
Son of Heaven Zhou: Yes, my train of thought is a little different.
A strange silence fell over the group for a few seconds before they awkwardly changed the subject.
He Shi Bi: Well, you’re certainly one of a kind. After the high-end pods, the basic ones sold out next.
RMB: Does… does that mean we’re all normal people?
Old Cadre: Pro-probably.
Red Scarf: It feels like the mid-range pods are particularly unpopular?
Son of Heaven Zhou: The gaming helmets are sold out too.
He Shi Bi: This… probably means that income stratification is pretty severe?
Son of Heaven Zhou: Even if you say that, I still maintain that the people who bought high-end pods think like me, while the ones who bought mid-range pods are the ones with the most faith in the game. Most of them are thinking about sustainability. They’re the true fans.
Whatever. The equipment was sold out, and what was done was done. All they could do was wait for their pre-ordered game pods to arrive.
Less than an hour after the pre-orders went live on the official website, everything was gone. Immediately after, the site announced the game’s official launch date: just seven days away.
The internet erupted in debate again. Just how prepared was this game company? The pre-orders were global. Where were the manufacturing plants located, and how many were there, to ensure everyone would receive their equipment within seven days?
But there had been so many unbelievable things related to the holographic game already that people didn’t have much passion left for this question. Most were just waiting to see the reactions of the first two million guinea pigs in seven days. Would it be cries of amazement or howls of despair?
The intensity of their reactions would determine whether others should jump into the game as soon as possible.
The next afternoon, however, the WeChat group was shaken again, making everyone feel that there was something truly off about this holographic game.
Old Cadre: My game pod is here! The service staff called me to schedule an installation time. I set it for seven tonight.
Red Scarf: That’s same-day delivery speed. Is the factory in the Imperial Capital?
He Shi Bi: So we should expect ours the day after tomorrow?
Son of Heaven Zhou: This speed is too weird. Even if they could manufacture them that fast, how could they train installation teams so quickly, and all over the world?
Red Scarf: Is this solid proof that aliens have discovered Earth?
He Shi Bi: Maybe. It feels like this whole series of events is meant to prove just that.
RMB: Don’t overthink it. We’ll know once we log into the game in a few days.
Those six days passed by at a crawl.
The five who had ordered game pods couldn’t focus on work, counting the seconds as if they were days.
As expected, the other four received their pods on the third day, all scheduled for installation that same evening.
Finally, the day of the open beta arrived. They had coordinated in the group chat and found out that the high-end pods could log in half an hour earlier than the mid-range ones. After agreeing to use their WeChat names or real names as their in-game IDs, they chatted idly.
Ji Changqing had the game pod installed in her study. Seeing that it was almost time, she injected the nutrient solution, changed into the special suit for the pod, took a deep breath, and mentally prepared herself. She slowly lay down inside and closed the lid.
The moment the lid sealed shut, something seemed to scan her body. A login interface floated before her eyes:
Gender: Female
Age: 42
Physique: D (Potential: S)
Mental Power: C- (Potential: S)
Below these four lines were rows of asterisks, indicating she didn’t have clearance to view them yet.
A soft female voice sounded: “Please create your account. Your name and appearance, once selected, cannot be changed.”
Ji Changqing quickly entered “Son of Heaven Zhou.” The appearance could be adjusted up or down by 20%. As someone who had never worried about her looks, she firmly selected “No adjustment.”
“Detecting that Son of Heaven Zhou is using a high-end game pod. Skills learned by the player in the game can be simultaneously converted to reality with a 70% conversion rate.”
Ji Changqing almost sat up, her voice tight. “You’re saying that what I learn in the game, including knowledge and physical training, can be converted to reality at 70% efficiency?”
“Correct. Each time you log out, the system will prompt you on how to practice to achieve 100% conversion.”
Ji Changqing’s heart pounded. The theory that an alien civilization had discovered Blue Star was definitely solid proof now.
Next came the game experience trial. In those three minutes, she slayed an evil dragon, killed a ghost king, cut down a demonic cultivator, took out a sorcerer, and finished off a demon emperor…
The visuals, the sensations, the smells—everything was incredibly real. The exhilarating feeling of mastering power and wielding it with both freedom and exquisite precision made her tremble.
But it wasn’t her power. It was as if someone else was using her body, guiding her to experience what it felt like to possess such formidable strength.
Magic, Daoist arts, cultivation, divine sense, body tempering… she felt them all. Though fleeting, the taste was intoxicating.
Three minutes later, all the images vanished. The same soft voice spoke: “This is a calculation of the peak power you may be able to master through effort. Enter the game now?”
“Enter the game,” Ji Changqing heard her own firm reply.
Then, a massive spinning wheel appeared before her.
“Please select a starting village.”
Ji Changqing speechlessly gave the wheel a spin.
The next moment, she appeared in a village.
She hadn’t played many games, though she’d read plenty of novels about them. But this game was exceptionally refreshing and unconventional.
The moment she appeared, someone waved at her. “Newcomer, come get your quest book.”
There was no need to grind NPC favorability to trigger quests. An NPC directly handed her a quest book, which stated that she had to complete a certain number of tasks within three months to leave the starter village.
What would happen if she failed? Well, Ji Changqing had absolutely no desire to find out.
Retaking a test was always a sad affair—a drain on both money and spirit.
She looked down at her current weapon: a wooden stick. Others at least got a knife at the start, with gear earned through fighting. Was she supposed to start with a stick and get gear by fumbling around?
Actually, the NPCs weren’t that heartless. They gathered all the new players who had entered the village during this period and taught them a simple “staff technique” in an open area. The basics included parrying, sweeping, swinging, thrusting, and cleaving, with a special focus on swinging, thrusting, and cleaving. Everyone guessed it was because only these three basic moves were offensive and had higher damage potential.
The time ratio in the game was four hours in reality to one day in the game. The maximum time they could stay in the game was twelve real-world hours.
After half a day, the person who had been teaching them the staff basics judged their movements to be adequate. He gave each of them two meat buns and sent them off to join a hunting party that was about to depart.
Ji Changqing dazedly gnawed on a bun while listening to the hunting party leader explain key points to the newcomers. She figured a hunting party armed with sticks would probably just be hunting rabbits and pheasants.
Then she discovered to her astonishment that while they were indeed hunting rabbits and pheasants, the rabbits here had teeth that could shatter sticks and legs that could break bones. The pheasants’ beaks were like daggers, and their claws were harder than steel.
The members of the village hunting party treated them just like they had in training. They only intervened to prevent them from being killed by the rabbits and pheasants; the rest of the time, they just gave verbal instructions:
“Hey, swing it!”
“Wrong angle, your form is off!”
“Sweep, sweep!”
“Cleave with force!”
“Hey, beautiful!”
…
On that difficult first day, Ji Changqing exhausted her health bar. Battered and bruised, she finally managed to bag two pheasants and one rabbit.
She had barely completed the basic quest.
Back in the village, the chief treated them to roasted rabbit and chicken soup, then sent them to soak in a medicinal bath. After they got out, they were dragged back to the open ground for more training.
After eating the roasted rabbit and drinking the chicken soup, Ji Changqing felt a warmth spreading through her body, though she wasn’t sure if it was just psychological. After the medicinal bath, her wounds scabbed over at an unnatural speed, and her limbs no longer felt as sore and weak as when she had first returned. Unfortunately, when she practiced the basic staff movements again in the dark, no miracle occurred. She didn’t suddenly master them. Instead, with each passing moment, her form deteriorated, and she was struck more and more often for her mistakes.
After two hours of practice, she soaked in another medicinal bath and went to sleep.
The next morning, they didn’t start with staff practice directly. Instead, they began with basic training targeting their weaknesses.
After the basic training, they were only required to repeat each basic staff movement 50 times before having a hasty lunch and heading out to hunt again.
On the way to the hunting grounds, some players started muttering. Ji Changqing pretended not to hear. The high-end pod users had logged in half an hour earlier, which translated to three hours of game time. That meant when the three of them had gone out with the hunting party yesterday, the mid-range pod users were just logging in.
People who could afford high-end pods weren’t fools. Even if they were, the people who paid for them weren’t. They must have been repeatedly warned. Muttering and complaining now was such a weak tactic—it was like those people in school who would tell you studying was boring and doing practice problems was pointless, urging you to go have fun. But when school was out, while you were still messing around, they were at home studying hard.
It was a tiresome trick, but an effective one.
Many people had fallen for that disgusting trap before.
Perhaps recalling some dark history from her naive youth, Ji Changqing gritted her teeth and continued practicing the basic staff movements after the night’s training session. During the afternoon hunt, she felt like she was slowly getting the hang of it. She wanted to practice more to let her body memorize the correct posture.
After doing 50 extra repetitions of each move, she went for her final medicinal bath. As she was leaving, she saw the person who had been muttering at noon was still practicing.
She snorted and left without a backward glance.
After finishing her extra practice and medicinal bath on the third night, she received a system notification that she had to log out. After confirming, she was surprised to find that she didn’t exit the game immediately. Instead, she entered an empty room. A female instructor in a training uniform gave her a cold look and, without waiting for her to react, began to move slowly. “Physique Technique, Section One, First Movement…”
Amidst excruciating pain, under the instructor’s disdainful gaze and with her rough assistance, Ji Changqing completed the movement 30 times, drenched in a cold sweat.
After the 30th repetition, the instructor vanished. On the floating interface, a fifth line had been added below the previous four:
Physique Level 1: 1/100
Looking at the 1/100 progress and hearing the system prompt that she needed to complete 30 repetitions of the first movement in reality before her next login, Ji Changqing’s vision went dark.
Yes, in our melodramatic youth, we always said that the path of growth is accompanied by pain. If the level of that manufactured, teenage sorrow was like the pain of a paper cut, then the pain accompanying the path to true strength had to be the agony of having your bones scraped clean.
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