Chapter 254: The Right Way For Newbies To Play?
“Are you planning to go too?”
Lin Qi looked at the somewhat eager Qin Mu. He had not expected Qin Mu to be so battle-hungry.
By now, after this period of training with the Martial Arts Hall Resources, Qin Mu had already reached the level of a Limit Intermediate Martial Artist. His Microscopic realm had also risen from the Initial Stage to the Middle Stage, and his speed of progress was quite astonishing.
It was precisely because Qin Mu had reached the Middle Microscopic Stage that Lin Qi felt at ease letting him train the Martial Arts Hall Guard Corps members. After all, going from the Initial Microscopic Stage to the Middle Microscopic Stage was not something easy.
The Initial Microscopic Stage only meant being able to grasp the extreme distance of battle, evading attacks with the smallest movements, and making attacks without unnecessary motions, allowing attack speed to increase significantly. At that level, experts of the same rank would find it hard to cope; under normal circumstances, a Viscera Refining Realm Martial Artist at this stage could handle several opponents alone.
Once one reached the Middle Microscopic Stage, things became completely different. One could instantly change their evasion and attack trajectories while dodging and attacking, stopping when they wished and moving when they wished. They truly achieved movement like thunder and stillness like a mountain, and fighting above one’s level became easy.
As for the High Microscopic Level, that was truly terrifying. With control over the body at that level, one could use Martial Skills without any need to gather strength, throwing them out as casually as normal attacks. Let alone fighting above one’s level, even fighting across realms was not impossible.
Of course, even at the High Microscopic Level, not every level of Martial Skill could be turned into a normal attack. From his attempts, at most high-level Martial Skills could be used this way; anything above that was impossible.
Even so, it was still extremely powerful. High-level Martial Skills could generally increase strength by 5 times, which meant that normal attacks could be unleashed with 5 times the strength. As long as they did not give a Bone Forging Realm Intermediate Level expert time to react, Advanced Martial Artists could absolutely fight them.
If, after transforming into an Extraordinary Lifeform, he had not been unable to properly control his body to reach the High Microscopic Level, he could have completely fought against a true Blood Condensation Realm expert.
“Hall Master, the purpose of establishing the Martial Arts Hall Guard Corps is to protect the hall. If they only train without undergoing bloody tempering, they will never grow. Real combat and sparring are completely different. Many people may be able to bring out their full strength in sparring, but due to their mentality, in real combat they are doing well if they can display thirty or forty percent. To be able to unleash full strength in real combat, they must adapt through repeated real battles, and this step must be taken sooner or later.” Qin Mu said seriously. “This City War, although very dangerous, is also an opportunity for the Martial Arts Hall Guard Corps to improve. It would be a real pity to miss it.”
“All right, tomorrow you will act together with me.” Lin Qi thought for a moment and felt that what Qin Mu said made sense.
He had not created the Martial Arts Hall Guard Corps as decoration, but to take over the defensive duties from the players. If they could not be used for battle, then there would be no point in establishing them.
And Qin Mu was very right. Every step on the path of the Martial Artist was incomparably difficult. Although the talent of the City Guard was far inferior to that of the Genius Training Camp students, there were still many whose achievements surpassed those of the Genius Training Camp students.
The main reason was that the City Guard were constantly undergoing life-and-death tempering.
Although the Martial Arts Hall had plenty of Resources and raised the upper limit of the Martial Arts Hall Guard Corps members, if they only trained, their lifetime limit would likely be the Bone Forging Realm. As for stepping into the Blood Condensation Realm, it could only remain an idea.
“Thank you, Hall Master!” Qin Mu could not help becoming a little excited when he heard this.
“Right, call over those people from the Lionheart Merchant Guild tomorrow as well. Since they paid, we should at least let them experience such a real combat opportunity.” Lin Qi instructed.
“Is this… really okay?” Qin Mu hesitated a little.
The Lionheart Merchant Guild had paid them to help with training, and yet they were going to bring their people to the battlefield as cannon fodder. If the Lionheart Merchant Guild found out, they would definitely go crazy.
“What’s not okay about it? An opportunity for this kind of real combat training is something you usually cannot buy even with money. This is benefiting them.” Lin Qi was completely unconcerned. Instead, he felt that the Lionheart Merchant Guild was making a big profit this time.
Ordinarily, it was very difficult to find Bone Forging Realm experts outside for real combat. Now that the City War had begun and Blood Condensation Realm experts could not make a move, with the strongest being only Bone Forging Realm, this was simply a paradise of practical training for Bone Forging Realm experts.
And for normal training, just inviting one Bone Forging Realm expert as a sparring partner cost a lot of money. Now they could casually choose from all the Bone Forging Realm experts in a city, and he was already being kind by not charging the Lionheart Merchant Guild extra.
For a moment Qin Mu was left without rebuttal. He felt it made a lot of sense and had not expected that the members they helped cultivate could be used in this way.
Midnight.
As another batch of newbies appeared in the Underground Confinement Room, the entire Underground Confinement Room became lively.
“We’re in! After lining up for more than a month, I finally got in!”
“This game feels so real. The texture of these clothes is absolutely top-notch. It’s a pity they’re not pure cotton; must be polyester, a bit scratchy.”
“The impact feeling in this game is really great. I punched the wall and my hand is bleeding. The degree of realism must be sixty to seventy percent of reality. I wonder where they sell wound medicine. I think I need to bandage this.”
…
The appearance of one hundred Newcomers made Fang Zhen and the others who had returned to the Martial Arts Hall feel quite emotional.
They remembered how they had gone through the same thing back then, and they also lamented that the number of Newcomers in this game was growing. It was obvious that many Newcomers did not even read basic game strategy guides and simply jumped straight in.
“Why are there suddenly so many Newcomers who don’t know anything?” Yi Ye Fu Yun looked at these silly new players in front of him and could not help being surprised.
Newcomers from earlier batches more or less had some understanding of High Martial Arts Descend, and there had even been quite a few veteran players, with the worst at least having watched live streams.
But as for the current Newcomers entering the game, he suspected that many of them had barely touched virtual games. At a glance, many were office workers clearly lacking exercise.
“It should be due to those local tyrants and super rich players making a push.” Fang Zhen said with feeling. “Because of this Version Event, those local tyrants and super rich players must have hired a lot of people to make reservations. That’s why many office workers who usually don’t really play games have come to earn side income. When I logged off to rest just now, I checked the game’s Reservation Count. It has already exceeded three million. It will only get harder for our people to get in later.”
As Fang Zhen finished speaking, Luo Wu Shang, Lu Fanchen, and the other guild players present all frowned slightly.
Previously, their super guilds had arranged for tens of thousands of people to reserve the game, and the success rate of entry had been decent. At least each time, about five or six out of a hundred could get in. But now that the Reservation Count had reached three million, the number of guild members who could get in later would likely drop a lot.
“It seems that from now on, we still have to convince those directors to increase investment; otherwise, with only one hundred slots each time, we won’t get many at all.” Zhang Qing Wei, seeing that over ninety percent were complete newbies, made this suggestion to Luo Wu Shang.
Currently, Heavenly Might held a considerable advantage in High Martial Arts Descend. But if they did not have a large influx of Newcomers later, their future development could easily be surpassed by other guilds. The longer one played this game, the more one understood how important people were in such a game.
You could say that many things in the game required players to do them personally. They could not both rush their own cultivation and improvements while also handling everything everywhere.
Even something as simple as information delivery required a dedicated group of players. Unlike other virtual games where you could just add Friends and chat anytime from anywhere, in High Martial Arts Descend, even with Smart Watches, you could only stay in contact freely within a City. Once outside, there was no signal, and they could only function as walkie-talkies for short-distance calls.
Given that the current Map distances were often over a hundred kilometers apart, unless they had someone by their side who could log off at any time to communicate with someone else who logged off elsewhere, they would have no idea what was happening inside the City.
And that was just information. Map exploration also required a huge number of people. Take the Mountain of the Dead area, which covered over a million square kilometers; if one person were to explore it alone, they would not finish even in three to five years. Of course, as superhumans they would not actually need that long, but a year or half a year would still be needed. There were too many monsters in the Mountain of the Dead; they had to fight from time to time, and if they died they had to run back. It was not something you could clear by simply grinding.
If they did not explore the Map, they could not obtain more and better Cultivation Resources, so manpower in this game was extremely important and completely incomparable to other games.
“I already suggested this to the president long ago.” Luo Wu Shang said with a bitter smile. “But you know how those consortiums are. They would rather invest tens of billions more into Pilgrimage than risk putting money into an unknown game. It doesn’t matter that we have faith in it. For now, the president has already committed all the manpower that can be committed. Unless we can prove this game’s future Value, those consortiums will never allow large-scale investment.”
Although their Large Guilds had huge numbers of members and funds far beyond those of one or several large enterprises, the real decision-making power in the guild lay with those consortiums that held large amounts of guild Shares.
These consortiums had long been drawing massive Profit from Pilgrimage, a masterpiece with a billion players. They had developed an instinctive dependence on it. Getting them to put money into another game was difficult; even the president could not easily persuade them.
“What if we convince the president and unite the other elders to pool funds?” Zhao Hu suggested.
While the real voice of Heavenly Might Guild lay in the hands of several major consortiums, the elders with the rank of Saint also held a lot of Resources and Money. If over a dozen elders plus the president pooled funds, raising more than ten billion would not be difficult. As one of the guild’s Founders, the president still held a considerable portion of guild Shares; the Cash in his hands exceeded that of many large enterprises.
“That probably won’t be easy either.” Luo Wu Shang shook her head. “These elders are all getting on in years. Even if they are willing to trust us, asking them to put in the Savings they managed so hard to accumulate is unlikely. That money is basically their retirement fund; touching it is like taking their lives. Unless they can come in and personally experience High Martial Arts Descend, persuading them will be no easier than persuading those consortiums.”
“But what if we can persuade Elder Yu Tian?” Zhang Qing Wei asked.
“That old guy?” Luo Wu Shang thought for a moment. “That might be possible. That old guy was among the first elders to follow the president and has an excellent relationship with the other elders. If he invests, the others will probably invest too, since they are all around the same age.”
Just as Luo Wu Shang finished speaking, a deep and hearty voice suddenly rang in the ears of Luo Wu Shang and the others.
“Good, you brat. I was the one who recommended you to join back then, and you talk about me like this behind my back!”
A burly middle-aged man of about forty-five or forty-six stepped out of the crowd, his eyes as big as copper bells staring fiercely at Luo Wu Shang, leaving her momentarily stunned.
By his side, Zhang Qing Wei could not help but snicker, because just now she had spotted Elder Yu Tian among the Newcomers and that was why she had asked that question.
“Elder Yu Tian, how did you get in?” Luo Wu Shang looked at the burly middle-aged man, her eyes full of disbelief.
Elder Yu Tian was one of the first elders of the Heavenly Might Guild and was almost the same age as the president. Within the guild, he had already stepped back from the front lines and was basically in retirement. In virtual games, age had too big an impact. Often, during prolonged extreme battles, a lack of stamina would cause them to be defeated by younger experts who were slightly inferior in technique, so they were forced to retire.
And High Martial Arts Descend had clearly avoided choosing older players during Internal Test, so most players were young people. The oldest were probably players like Fang Zhen, who were nearing thirty.
It was hard to imagine that a middle-aged man over forty-five years old could enter High Martial Arts Descend.
“Why shouldn’t I be able to get in?” Elder Yu Tian glared, his beard bristling, feeling that this girl was taking him less and less seriously as her uncle.
“Elder Yu Tian, this game’s Internal Test seems to only have let in young people, so that’s why Wu Shang asked,” Zhang Qing Wei explained.
In fact, she was also very curious how Elder Yu Tian had gotten into the game. Given High Martial Arts Descend’s selection standards, someone of Elder Yu Tian’s age should have been impossible to choose.
“Doesn’t this game only require lasting twenty seconds in the Test Assessment?” Elder Yu Tian stroked his beard and said proudly. “This whole time I’ve been fighting the test boss, but I just couldn’t hold on for twenty seconds. So I started thinking about how to last that long. Since this game claims a virtual degree of 100%, and many people on the forum said you can reproduce Skills from other games, plus the Stellar Explosion Meditation Technique and Breathing Technique you copied in the guild for practice in the Test Space…”
“For more than a month, I practiced that Stellar Explosion Meditation Technique and Breathing Technique while reproducing Heaven Gang Nine Transformations, one of the top ten Martial Emperor Ultimate Skills in Pilgrimage. Unexpectedly, I really succeeded. This game is truly impressive. I managed Energy Manifestation and successfully lasted twenty seconds in front of the test boss. Otherwise, how do you think I got in?”
Elder Yu Tian’s words left Luo Wu Shang and the others, and even Fang Zhen and his group on the side, completely dumbfounded.
They had never imagined the game could be played like this.
PS: Extra update tomorrow!
