prynovel Chapter 9: Hardcore Game, I'm Definitely Going to Play It!
Chapter 9: Hardcore Game, I'm Definitely Going to Play It!
In the real world, it's 8 PM.
This is the prime time when most people, after a long day's work, are relaxing on the sofa scrolling through their phones.
Because of the statutory holiday, the group chat started getting lively as early as noon today.
The group of three, led by the group leader Climbing Snail, and Xiaoyu, who joined the game later, have not been active for several hours.
Among the guys in the group, quite a few have started to believe that the game is real, and they are all waiting for the game review from these guys.
You can't play games for 48 hours straight.
Even if you're not tired from playing games, it's time to rest, since you still need to eat dinner.
Of course, the group members didn't have to wait too long. At Lynn's signal, the four of them quit the game, and George also reluctantly logged off under Xiaoyu's bloodline suppression.
There is indeed important business to attend to right now.
I still need to look in the group to see if there are any knowledgeable people who know a lot about materials.
I vaguely remember there was an ID in the group called "Carrying a Bucket and Running Away," who must have been a civil engineering major.
"I'll say it again, that meat really does smell delicious!"
"And it has that smoky, woody aroma, not the artificial fragrance you get in stores!"
The first thing I recommended to my group members was roasted whole lamb.
He had just gotten out of bed and was frantically tapping on the screen.
Shangguan Buluk: "What nonsense! I'd believe you if you said the game was fun, but this is a bit fake."
Sprite from 82: "I believe you. Didn't Xiaoyu's corgi completely get absorbed in it?"
"Right!" the whole roasted lamb replied incredibly quickly. "It's not just the aroma, it's the feeling of your teeth cutting through the meat fibers, the fat exploding on your tongue, and the satisfaction in your stomach after swallowing it... Holy crap, I even felt like I'd been eating animal feed for the past twenty years of my life!"
"There's still air."
Xiaoyu suddenly interjected, her tone as serious as ever:
"The oxygen content in the air there seems to be higher than in reality, and every breath feels wonderful. Moreover, the feedback from stepping on the ground is extremely complex. Depending on the dryness or wetness, the resistance of each step is slightly different. These subtle differences are something that ordinary computing power simply cannot handle."
Whole roasted lamb: "There's just one problem, this GM seems a bit arrogant."
Agent: "Indeed, it seems like he'll only be happy if you call him 'GM'."
This detailed, almost trivial description caused a brief silence to fall over the otherwise noisy group chat.
If the guy who's making fun of roasting a whole lamb is bragging, then Xiaoyu, who doesn't usually talk big, doesn't need to play along.
Just as the group members were still half-believing and half-doubting, a profile picture that had been dormant for a while lit up—a climbing snail.
As a veteran in the professional brick-moving circle, the group admin's words carry far more weight than a whole roasted lamb.
"Alright, stop arguing about the senses; that's just appearances."
Then the little snail began to state its conclusion, which took up half the screen due to its length.
"I've been working in this industry full-time for over ten years. From the earliest online games to VR, which has been around for a few years, I've seen countless games that claim to be realistic. But let me tell you, the scariest thing about these games isn't their sensors, but their underlying logic."
The online gamers in front of their screens unconsciously stopped typing and waited for the little snail to speak.
"I spent a day carrying bricks in that Rainbow Village. I discovered an extremely absurd pattern: material consumption is actually conserved by mass. I ground up ten pounds of blue snail shells, and the resulting mortar was exactly that volume, without any numerical loss. Even if there was loss, it was the completely real processing loss. Moreover, the NPC Lynn wasn't refreshing resources through the system; he was directing us to perform secondary processing of resources."
"This means there are no infinitely farmable resources in this game. Every brick and every grain of rice is a real product of production. It's not a grind game; it's a civilization development engine. I see a complete and logically consistent prototype of a society in it. If this game could allow gold coin trading, I dare say its currency exchange rate would be stronger than the US dollar, because it's anchored to real productivity."
"I've decided to play this game long-term. Even after the closed beta ends, I'll keep playing. This game is seriously awesome!"
These few words were like a bombshell, shaking the nerves of the veteran players in the group.
This isn't playing a game anymore; it's practically accumulating primitive capital in another world.
I believe the group admin.
"+1"
Are there any new closed beta test qualifications available now?
"@Lin En, could you please get some more spots from your company?"
"I want to play, please take me."
If the snail's words drove professional gamers crazy, then the agent's next words drove all the male members of the group completely insane.
Czech public security agent: "The little snail is talking about the macro level; I'll talk about the micro level."
The agent's statement, once again, took a different approach, carrying a convincing calmness: "Regarding that tailor NPC named Sophia. I swear on my LSP personality, that's not just a simple model. When I made eye contact with her, I could feel her gaze moving; she was observing my tattered clothes; when she smoothed her hair, I could even feel her seducing me. This isn't a pre-set plot; this is advanced AI."
The group chat immediately started flooded with messages.
"Stop with the nonsense, get to the point! What about their figures? What about the perks?"
"Is this game really that explicit?"
"Where's the picture?"
"You're talking nonsense without a picture."
The agent paused for a few seconds, then sent out a message that was enough to make everyone imagine a short video.
"The key is that implicit visual tension, do you understand?"
The blouse she was wearing looked extremely conservative. But when she bent over, the fabric, stretched taut by her body's exertion, created an exaggerated curve.
That was a golden ratio I had never seen in reality.
"Then there's her hair, a deep brown, wavy style. Although the hair is a bit rough, the mature charm isn't shown by showing skin, but rather hidden within her body."
This kind of sophisticated aesthetic allure is a million times more real than the long legs you see in those anime games.
The chat group was silent for a few seconds, then exploded instantly.
"You're really good at writing, aren't you? You were that 'Brother Chi' on Weibo back in the day, weren't you?"
"Damn! I want to cancel my subscription to next year's virtual reality headset. Lynn, could you please give me a spot?"
"I'm going to go in and lay bricks! Nobody can stop me!"
"You're my god, sir! I could recite this quote over and over again for a year!"
"That's all for today's group chat. I have some things to take care of."
...
Lynn really didn't expect that, compared to the hardcore evaluation of climbing snails, it was Sophia, this inconspicuous NPC, that the agent talked about so much.
It seems that the game's appeal is considerably less than that of MILF.
In just half an hour, the noise in the group reached its peak.
Roasted Whole Lamb Ah-Hmm: "Family, I'm going to grab a bite to eat now, then I'll get back to grinding."
It's great not having to go to work! I can play games all day long without getting tired.
The guy with the ID "Running Away with a Bucket" looked at the group chat messages and curled his lip in disdain, thinking that it was a bit of an exaggeration.
Just as he was about to close the group chat, a special private chat window popped up in the lower right corner; it was from Lynn.
Lynn: "Bro, I saw your analysis in the group before was quite professional. You're a civil engineer, right? I think the game is in need of someone with expertise in infrastructure and materials science."
There's only one spot available, so I shipped it to you directly via an internal targeted courier service. That was a super-fast logistics test based on IP location, so don't be too surprised.
Before he could even process what was happening, there was a rapid knocking at the door.
He opened the door and peeked out; no one was there… there was a black box on the floor.
"Damn it, I'll see if you guys are just bragging."
A few days ago, he refused a private business owner's request to revise the structural calculations and reduce the reinforcement ratio below the red line.
The boss scolded him on the other end of the phone for being stubborn, saying that this industry doesn't lack people who can draw, but it lacks people who can obey.
He ran away with the bucket without saying a word, and simply hung up the phone silently.
He's been clearly down these past few days, so playing a new game to distract himself is a good idea.
But it's just too strange. This so-called express delivery is indeed quite fast, and even the courier is nowhere to be seen.
After hesitating for more than ten minutes, he finally picked up the bucket and put on the VR glasses that Lynn had given him.
Vision gradually darkened until it became completely invisible.
When he opened his eyes again, his shoes were already on the land of Rainbow Village.
His pupils suddenly contracted as he ran away with the bucket. He instinctively squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and rubbed it in his hands.
The moist and delicate texture felt so real, the soil even had some grass root fibers in it.
"This is not a game...this really is not a game."
"New here? Don't stand there staring blankly."
The whole roasted lamb came running over, covered in dust and dirt. "Do you even know how to build a house? That wall collapsed again, and the GM is furious."
After running away with the bucket, I came to my senses and walked to the pile of collapsed mud wall, and my occupational hazard kicked in instantly.
"Nonsense! Your proportions are completely wrong. Even if I've never seen this material before, I can tell at a glance that there's a huge problem! And you didn't even leave settlement joints. It's no wonder it's going to collapse! Go, go, get me a shovel. I need to figure out how to fix it!"
However, before he could even pick up his bucket and run off to show off his infrastructure talent, a sharp scream suddenly came from the village entrance.
"Please save that child!"
Sofia's anxious voice sounded particularly jarring in the morning mist.
The group rushed towards the village entrance, only to find that the green poisonous fog, like a tidal wave, had completely blocked the entrance to the northern forest boardwalk.
Pio's son, the young man who had been searching for wood, was now slumped at the edge of the mist, his face pale and purplish, reaching out for help.
"Don't go there! That's poison gas! You'll die if you go in!"
Old Lucas held onto several villagers who were trying to rush forward.
Upon hearing the news from the villagers, carpenter Pio ran over barefoot.
Looking at the scene before him, his eyes widened in horror, and he was utterly desperate...