Chapter 924: Simple Observations of the Game World
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 924: Simple Observations of the Game World
After seeing off Dean Mei, I was quickly surrounded by a group of witch sisters.
Since they had finally encountered something that piqued their interest, they naturally wanted to get the full story. Of course, the main reason was that transcendents were forbidden from interfering with the Game World, which meant many witches lacked first-hand information about it.
After all, cross-world intelligence wasn't something every witch could afford to play with.
"Hey, hey—Xiao Han, did you really send a clone over there?"
"Mhm, of course."
"A cross-world clone... that’s impressive. Tell me, is there any lag when controlling a clone like that?"
"Hmm... it’s alright... but it’s definitely not as strong as my main body," I replied.
"So, how many clones did you send, Xiao Han? How’s their strength? Can they just flip that world upside down?"
"That’s... a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it? I actually just sent one over to scout the way. My main goal is just to collect information and data about that world."
After all, that data, information, knowledge, and even memories were all nutrients for the Tree of Great Knowledge. Naturally, I was quite proactive about it.
"You’re being too modest~"
"It’s fine, really... My clone is mostly just a substitute to make up for the fact that I can't leave the laboratory. Being able to visit a brand-new world counts as a novel vacation."
* * *
While I was chatting casually with the witch sisters, back in the Game World...
By this time, Yue had already made preliminary contact with the Real Protection Association, and Tang En had officially become a Vice President. He was responsible for liaising with me; his existence was the foundation of my cooperation with the Association.
Currently, I was lying in the residence the Real Protection Association had prepared for me—a massive hotel skyscraper. Because of my previous battle with that Fallen Elf, many buildings had been damaged, but this one was not among them.
Furthermore, the entire top floor of this building, including an open-air night-view terrace, was part of the suite. It was incredibly spacious. It even had a rooftop pool; they certainly knew how to enjoy life.
During my contact with the Real Protection Association, we talked a lot. They took this "formal meeting" very seriously, especially after I had "captured alive" that Fallen Elf. Their attitude was nothing short of enthusiastic.
So, I learned quite a lot from them.
We started with the Fallen Elves. The Real Protection Association was aware that many such visitors had arrived in their world, and that Fallen Elf was just one of them. Some had reached cooperation agreements with the Terminal of Myriad Worlds Headquarters. Whether these agreements were sincere or just mutual exploitation, they were at least partners on the surface.
Of course, more visitors were unwilling to submit to others and chose to go solo. Consequently, these individuals would end up on a wanted website run by the Terminal of Myriad Worlds Headquarters, complete with bounties.
However, these wanted posters weren't released to the general public. After all, ordinary people weren't qualified to catch such individuals, and doing so would expose the existence of outsiders. That would lead the "ignorant masses" to suspect the nature of the games, and such suspicions could be exploited by organizations like the Real Protection Association.
Currently, the Real Protection Association had tracked over a hundred such outsiders. I had to admit... that number exceeded my expectations.
Wasn't that a bit too many?
But I soon felt relieved. According to their statistics, some had died directly under the saturated fire and human-wave tactics of the vanguard players. In other words, even among geniuses, the disparity in combat power was massive. Some were even killed by regular players... what was that about?
While the combat power of these people surprised me, I obtained another piece of definitive news: the Wizard Apprentices.
The Wizard Apprentices were closely linked to the Terminal of Myriad Worlds Headquarters. The Real Protection Association reasonably suspected that the Supreme Council might have reached some form of cooperation with the transcendent civilization of Wizards. The rest was unclear. Whether they truly didn't know or were holding back information as a bargaining chip remained to be seen.
But I didn't care. I only needed to know that the news was true to guess the general situation.
Afterward, I took the opportunity to learn some common concepts regarding the structure of this world, such as the Supreme Council.
Twelve Supreme Senators formed this council. Every decision they made affected the direction of the world; they were effectively the twelve most powerful people on the planet.
However, the more I learned about the structure of this world, the more suffocating it felt. The degree of class stratification was breathtaking to an outsider like me. The upper class stood above all living beings, while ordinary people lived in a daze within the games, enjoying fake happiness.
They could do whatever they wanted in the games—but not every game in the Terminal of Myriad Worlds corresponded to a real world. After all, players in a real world were actual transcendent resources for their original world! How could they let the "fools" squander them?
Thus, even being a "Player" had a threshold. Those without gaming talent could only immerse themselves in the minor pleasures of fake games for the rest of their lives. Even then, their daily playtime was limited; they spent most of their time "grinding" in game worlds according to personal duty rules.
These "grinding" games were the only real games the bottom-layer people could access.
I also learned that the currency of this world... was also in-game virtual currency. This meant the upper class could have as much of these virtual numbers as they wanted and could change them at will. It was ridiculous, but that was Game Coins for you.
They weren't just for buying game tickets, general equipment, or exclusive gear; even operations like strengthening required Game Coins. They could even be used to buy clothes, food, and so on.
By "clothes and food," I mean real-world items. Many daily necessities could be purchased with them. This required immense productivity. Just as I was wondering how the Game World maintained such massive productivity to keep the world running, I received a shocking answer.
By simply lowering individual needs, they effectively increased productivity.
Subsequently, I witnessed their "essential supplies"—food.
Protein blocks, compressed food blocks, high-energy nutrient solutions, trace element balance granules... There was even a total nutrition injection. This was used in conjunction with game pods—"food" injected directly to maintain vital signs, a necessity for long-term game logins.
And even this kind of food was expensive. Items with a lot of marketing hype, like trace element lozenges, were particularly pricey. Furthermore, the world enforced a blockade on certain technologies, leading most people to believe that these low-cost mass-produced items were expensive.
They had no concept of "cost" in their heads. Hype, labels, and such were directly equated with "expensive."
Following this blockade of technical and scientific knowledge, I learned of another surprising concept. Their education system lacked compulsory education, which resulted in a significant portion of the population being illiterate.
After all, they didn't need to read, nor were they allowed to read the scripts in the games. The games wouldn't translate the languages of other worlds for them. Their games were all "real experiences" without subtitles. Many adults could speak but not write; only a few conscious players would learn simple literacy in-game for communication.
Consequently, there was a very strange hierarchy of disdain between text communication and voice communication among players.
Beyond that, there was media control, cultural control, social control, and so on. Every one of them lived in a cocoon. This "cocoon" referred not only to an information cocoon but also to the physical rooms they lived in.
The dual shackles of spirit and flesh were enough to make anyone who saw the truth feel suffocated. Within the games, collectivism was weakened while heroism and the "savior" spirit were promoted, creating a thick cognitive barrier that prevented people from uniting in reality.
Even the Real Protection Association was deeply influenced by individual heroism—take their leader, Monroe, for example. Why else would he be called a "spiritual leader"?
This exchange with the Real Protection Association truly opened my eyes. It was a collision of civilizational ideologies and personal cognitive baselines. I had achieved the maximum level of "I don't understand, but I respect it."
However... having just learned all this and seen the helplessness and ignorance of the bottom layer, I was now enjoying an entire floor of a hotel suite all to myself. This polar reversal was sigh-inducing.
Perhaps this is what they mean when they say the joys and sorrows of humans are not shared.
It felt somewhat ironic and made me think of that wanted list. The bounties for visitors from other worlds ranged from hundreds of thousands to millions of Game Coins, with some reaching tens of millions. In reality, these numbers were more for reference than for people to actually collect. The significance of the bounty was that every additional digit represented an increase in the individual's threat level.
Using one hundred million as a benchmark, that category represented individuals or organizations labeled as terrorists, possessing weapons of mass destruction, and posing a constant, serious threat to the entire world.
There were many other criteria. To this, I figured I could just barely reach that level.
But what made me think of the bounties wasn't how high they were. It was... just how ridiculous the luxury of the rich in this world could be.
According to the information from my Ley Line Identification Art, a single night in the suite beneath my feet cost a million. This wasn't absurd; in such a crowded world, the wealthy had a peculiar obsession with the sheer size of their living space.
Here, even without any extra services, sleeping for one night cost as much as a person's entire bounty on that wanted page. For instance, the Fallen Elf who ambushed me had a bounty of around a million, nearing the ten-million mark.
What did that mean? The bounty for catching him wouldn't even cover ten days in this hotel.
Keep in mind, he was capable of plotting to make the Real Protection Association serve him. Regardless of his ultimate success or failure, he was someone capable of influencing the world's situation. If he hadn't run into me and my "cheats," he'd probably be living quite comfortably right now.
But the real pity was the building itself. This building wasn't even constructed from Material Pixels. In this city, it stood out like a handcrafted work of art mixed into a sea of industrial assembly-line products.
To me, it was just staying in a very luxurious hotel. Perhaps this was just the difference between worlds.
Regardless, this would be my residence for a long time to come. No one would disturb me, and no one dared to. The only person who could contact me was that Vice President named Tang En.
Of course, at this moment, on this floor that belonged solely to me, I wasn't alone... Well, actually, there was only one life form. I was a clone, so I didn't count as a true life form.
As for who that life form was? Naturally, it was the still-living Fallen Elf.
Earlier, the Real Protection Association had wanted to take the Fallen Elf from me, but I refused. Even so, they still had to greet me with smiles and even prepared this accommodation for me. From my perspective, it was a decent show of sincerity.
After all, for now, I was only in preliminary cooperation with the Real Protection Association. The further cooperation and the initial draft of the details hadn't been fully finalized. At this stage, we were just mutually beneficial; they feared danger, and I hated trouble. It was that simple.
As for what I intended to do with this Fallen Elf...
Naturally, he was for setting the stage!
What can you do with a guy who is hard to kill and has immense vitality? The witches back in the Great Knowledge Seed Research Laboratory at the Witch Academy could provide the answer.
I would use his Sea of Consciousness to plant a "Knowledge Mother Tree," a derivative of the Great Knowledge Seed, to continuously produce Great Knowledge Seeds. The Great Knowledge Seeds currently popularized in the academy were created this way. The difference was that the witch sisters went directly to demons to get what they needed, while I had caught this one myself.
After all... once he had completely fallen into a demon, the elven bloodline in his body was effectively ruined. This was just waste utilization.
Since this world had game players, then... I would rely on my power network! Which power model would win? That didn't matter.
Although a player's death wasn't a true death, were there really that many high-end players? Certainly not as many as the ordinary people who had no power and were being oppressed to the point of being unable to resist.
In truth, I didn't know what the final outcome would be, but if given the chance to lead a civil war of a civilization, who could refuse?
As the Rebel Witch Sheryl said, in a world without any rules where you can do whatever you want, it really trains one's vision and perspective. It is precisely because one witnesses the vast disparities between people that the consciousness of "Why can't I do this?" awakens.
It’s not a matter of understanding; it’s the difference between having experienced it and not. And once one experiences the beauty of doing whatever they want, most people will fall deep into it. The "bottom line" Sheryl mentioned at the end... was likely her way of warning me about this.