Chapter 278: Darkness Descends And The Misty Mountain Prison
City of Light Chasing, in front of the main gate of Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
As the players stepped into the flying transport vehicles, one after another rose into the sky toward the sky battleship above, making the thousands of players who had been eliminated inside the martial arts hall look on with envy, jealousy, and resentment.
“This time the super dungeon opened 999 slots. It’s a pity I became a martial artist too recently, I couldn’t beat those guild martial artists at all and ended up kept just outside the That hidden advanced profession is just gone like that.”
“Solo players in this game really have it harder and harder. Those big game guilds are now exploiting that digging-holes assessment bug, crazily having their internal members cultivate martial skills, meditation techniques, and breathing techniques in advance. Before even entering the game, they already have crushing stone fist and leopard shadow steps, plus breathing and meditation techniques at a high level. Once in the game, they basically start as intermediate or above apprentices. Too bad when I went in, my breathing technique was mediocre, so I was only a beginner apprentice in the game. I started off a whole notch below those guild players.”
“Yeah, this game is getting more and more cutthroat. Before, everyone only competed inside the game, now they are competing outside the game too. A few days ago I even saw goddess Xiao Yuan update a strategy guide on how to cultivate before entering the game so you spawn as an intermediate apprentice. The view count on that video was insane: in just one hour it exceeded five hundred thousand, and in one day over five million. It even went viral outside the circle, making many people who don’t play High Martial Arts Descend curious what kind of game it is. People have seen reservation rewards for a game before, but never seen a game where you reserve cultivation.”
“I watched that video too. The comments were full of complaints saying this game manufacturer is insanely greedy, even forcing people who can’t get into the game to find ways to whale. The game has not even been played yet, but if you want a good starting foundation you have to grind your life away cultivating. They’re utterly shameless.”
“That may be true, but basically everyone who reserved High Martial Arts Descend is cultivating according to goddess Xiao Yuan’s strategy, hoping to have a good foundation when they enter. After all, not only is the gameplay getting more refined, but the game map is also the biggest of all, and with one hundred percent virtual degree. I heard some real estate developers are planning to move into High Martial Arts Descend, developing plots of land in the game and building a vacation paradise for the rich so that in the future rich people can log on anytime, anywhere to go on vacation. Even that plot by the lakeside near Chiyue Town is said to have been pre-purchased through a commission by the guild Mythical Paradise.”
“I heard that too. In order to cooperate, those real estate developers specially provided Mythical Paradise with a large amount of funds to recruit new players. The salaries they offer are insanely high, making quite a few newcomers in the game quit their jobs to join. The headcount of Mythical Paradise suddenly broke through to nearly three hundred, second only to Heavenly Might.”
“Heavenly Might and Mythical Paradise directly took nearly five hundred slots in this event. Add in the people from Machine God Guild and Sky Guild, and we free players make up less than twenty percent. Competing with these guilds in future events will probably be even harder.”
“Not necessarily. This time a few lone newcomers broke into the top two hundred. Their leveling speed is terrifying. In less than ten days they already reached advanced martial artist level. They’re monsters. Leveling in this game is different from other games. You don’t grind monsters for experience; it’s all about comprehension. If your comprehension is high and you have enough cultivation resources, your level can increase very fast. Conversely, if your comprehension is lacking, you’ll get stuck even with enough resources. As more and more players cultivate, the guild players might have decent talent, but compared to the sheer number of players, they’re nothing.”
The many players who had been eliminated inside the martial arts hall watched the players being sent into the sky battleship, all talking at once for a while, feeling that this game was getting more and more cutthroat.
Before, they only had to compete with players inside the game. Now they also had to compete with players outside the game. Even veteran players who entered the game early could be surpassed by newcomers if they were not careful, forcing them to spend even more time cultivating in the game.
After all, High Martial Arts Descend had truly become increasingly popular. The reservation count alone had already broken seven million, and more and more real-world enterprises were starting to focus on the potential value of High Martial Arts Descend.
If these players who entered the game early did not step up their efforts, it would be very hard for them to make a big fortune in High Martial Arts Descend in the future.
On the sky battleship above Domain City, a large number of players followed Lin Qi to the deck, quietly waiting for the event to start, while more than ten players wearing B6-class battle armor, whose strength had already reached beginner martial artist level, gathered beside Dark Judgment.
“So, everyone, how is it? The game is just like I told you, right?” Dark Judgment, whose strength had already reached peak high-level martial artist, smiled at the dozen people in front of him.
The dozen-plus before him were people he had gone to great trouble to recruit from various mercenary groups. These people had all once been famous in the mercenary world, but were forced to retire and return to ordinary life because of injuries and disabilities.
After discovering the potential of High Martial Arts Descend, in addition to having his own trainees play the game, he had made a point of contacting these retired mercenaries he used to know and had good relations with, so that they could also enter High Martial Arts Descend.
These people were celebrities in the mercenary world. Their real-life experience of war and slaughter was nothing like what professional gaming players had. In combat, wilderness fighting, and wilderness exploration, they were professionals.
With a virtual degree of one hundred percent, these people could fully leverage their advantages. And thanks to cultivation, their physical fitness had become much stronger than in reality, so the strength they could display in-game would be even more formidable.
“Not bad. This game is indeed as amazing as you said. In reality I obviously lost one arm, but in this game I am no different from a normal person. It is as if my arm was never lost.” A tall, nearly two-meter-tall middle-aged man said with emotion, “And as I grow stronger through cultivation, especially after becoming a martial artist, I feel myself stronger in reality as well. At the very least those new trainees can’t withstand a single punch from me now.”
Before entering High Martial Arts Descend because of Dark Judgment, he had only been a disabled instructor, and even the rookie trainees he trained did not really respect him.
He did not find it surprising. The mercenary world had always been like that. Strength was king, and fists were all that mattered. Life in the universe meant licking blood off the blade’s edge, and one careless move could cost your life. Only with enough strength could you live better.
But after he became a martial artist, those former trainees were now each knocked down with a single punch, making him wonder if he was dreaming. Especially when he used crushing stone fist: rocks as big as a washbasin could be shattered with one punch. Such a game was simply incredible.
“Judgment, now that we have all become martial artists, we know what you said before was true,” a scruffy-bearded young man whose strength had reached intermediate martial artist said calmly to Dark Judgment. “None of us here are idiots. If you had no agenda, you wouldn’t have told us about something this good. Just say what you have in mind.”
As the young man in his early thirties spoke, the dozen others present all grew solemn and looked at Dark Judgment together.
“Agenda is too strong a word. I just want to develop something inside this game. You’ve seen how effective the game is, and this is only at the martial artist stage. As levels increase, there will likely be even more unbelievable effects.”
“Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to raise your levels? But leveling up is not easy and only gets harder over time. Putting aside talent and comprehension, all kinds of cultivation resources are not easy to obtain. That all requires strength.” Dark Judgment looked at the scruffy-bearded youth and spoke seriously. “So I want to form a mercenary guild and gather a group of professionals. Take this event dungeon for example. If you want good rewards, relying on one person’s strength is difficult. To gather such professionals, I alone am not enough. I need you to also call in our old friends, especially the ones with exceptional talent.”
Dark Judgment also held a measure of respect for the scruffy-bearded young man before him.
Feng Kuang.
Known throughout the mercenary world as the blade of hell.
There were many celebrities in the mercenary world, but Feng Kuang was a legend. He once single-handedly wiped out an entire interstellar pirate group, but retired from the mercenary world only because of a terminal illness.
It had taken Dark Judgment a long time to get in contact with Feng Kuang.
“Forming a mercenary guild?” Feng Kuang thought for a moment and agreed. “That is indeed a good idea. Those who retired all have great technical skills. If they enter this game, they should be able to show great value. Many things that professional players cannot accomplish would be easy for us. If the guild becomes large enough, we could even do something significant in reality.”
With Feng Kuang’s agreement, the dozen people present all nodded in support, feeling this was indeed a great opportunity.
Although they were all disabled now, as their in-game strength grew, there might be a chance to return to the top of the mercenary world in the future, or even surpass their former peak.
“Since brother Feng Kuang agrees, then after this event everyone should contact the others as soon as possible. I will also hurry to advance to the Bone Forging Realm and form a guard regiment.” Seeing that the people present all agreed, Dark Judgment could not help but smile.
Previous player guilds were certainly strong in the game, but when it came to real combat experience, exploration, and adventure, they could not compare to these veteran mercenaries. Not to mention that those present were all celebrities in the mercenary world. Once their levels rose, surpassing the current four great guard regiments would be easy.
Meanwhile, the four great guard regiments were also sharpening their blades.
“It’s a pity Elder Yu Tian fell one step short of completing the last bone quenching. Otherwise, this time Heavenly Might would have five Bone Forging Realm experts and hold an absolute advantage among the four great guard regiments.” Twilight of the Gods glanced at the three leaders of the guard regiments: Lu Fanchen, Fang Zhen, and Yi Ye Fu Yun, and could not help feeling regret.
Over these past days, because of the event dungeon which required being in the top 999 in strength to participate, plus the dungeon description saying there would be a large number of blood condensation realm monsters and teams dispatched by various NPC factions to compete, everyone had been frantically leveling up and improving their strength.
In just a few days, Lu Fanchen’s side had three people promoted to the Bone Forging Realm, Fang Zhen’s side also had three, and Yi Ye Fu Yun had two. Add in the free player Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang, who was also in the Bone Forging Realm, and Heavenly Might had only four, leaving them with little advantage.
“It’s fine. In this event, individual strength is important, but team strength is even more important. The event activity map is very large and there are many places to explore. The officials also said there are hidden easter eggs, which all require a large manpower. When we complete the main guided plot and start free actions, that’s when we can fully use our advantage.” Luo Wu Shang glanced at the other three guard regiments, her eyes full of confidence.
This event was extraordinary. Besides the dungeon dropping hidden cultivation methods and supernatural level and above martial skills, the player with the highest contribution would receive an extra reward: access to the third floor of the cultivation tower. She had paid a huge price for this.
The effectiveness of the cultivation tower had already driven many core disciple players crazy over this period. They bound resurrection points in two locations and traveled back and forth using the cultivation tower, obsessed with it.
As long as you cultivated inside the cultivation tower, your cultivation speed was more than double that of the outside world. Rumor had it that the third floor could reach several times that speed, but it had never been opened to players.
After reaching the Bone Forging Realm, even though the proficiency of the cultivation method improved rapidly, tempering all the bones became a slow, grinding process. Increased proficiency did not significantly speed up bone tempering. As a result, although her third level cultivation method had reached entry-level 39%, the bone tempering of her whole body had not advanced much. The further you went, the purer and denser the required energy had to be, or your bones simply could not be further quenched.
To speed up bone quenching, you had to compress and refine energy. Type three energy potions and dense external energy could greatly reduce the time needed to refine energy and speed up full-body bone tempering. Energy potions and external energy could be stacked, and if combined with a gravity environment, the effect would be even better.
Now that the game had opened access to the third floor of the cultivation tower, if they could win it, their cultivation speed would surpass other players, so she was going all in.
She spent an enormous amount of funds and used a super quantum computer for over a day to deduce a ten-man battle formation. This was also a formation often used in the great wars of the Pilgrimage Guild, where, through players’ cooperation, they combined their internal force into one person, unleashing power far beyond what a single player could produce.
This formation required extremely high cooperation between players, but fortunately more than a hundred advanced martial artists in the guild had managed to learn it. With ten people working together, one player’s internal force could be boosted to three times its original power, effectively tripling the strength of that player’s martial skills.
In this way, even a super-tier martial skill could wield power far beyond extraordinary martial skills. Under such conditions, she was confident she could slay even a blood condensation realm boss.
Amid the players’ anticipation, Domain City’s sky battleship finally spent half a day to arrive at a vast mountain range shrouded in mist.
When the players came to this mountain range stretching hundreds of kilometers, they were quickly stunned by the sight before them.
In front of two peaks tens of kilometers high, there were hundreds of sky battleships docked, once again making the players feel that this game manufacturer was nothing short of incredible. The funding invested into a single event dungeon would probably bankrupt many major game companies.
As the players stood in shock, a terrifying giant ship over six hundred meters long suddenly swept past from the side. The crimson flame insignia on its hull made Precia, standing on the sky battleship, suddenly darken her expression.
“Earth Star Pharmaceuticals?”
“How is this possible?!”
