Chapter 1167: Chapter 166: Update
"Now the productivity of players is way higher than before."
Chaichai casually remarked as she stared at the computer screen, "The game market has a wide variety of equipment and tools,
some can mass-produce ordinary items, some can speed up factory assembly lines, some can directly copy and paste items,
there are even some tools that are essentially a complete weapon production assembly line.
A single person can churn out war munitions."
"Indeed."
Li Ang nodded, as the slaughter game progresses, the total number of players is dynamically increasing.
The large player base implies uncontrollable randomness, with innovative tools entering the market every moment.
In the everyday world, these novel tools are all dangerous items.
Not to mention that to cope with the worldwide chaos,
all the arms companies have been happily working at full capacity, producing all kinds of weapons and equipment for over two years.
In places like Africa, a new assault rifle is even cheaper than the equivalent weight in food.
"Additionally, the arms trade is much bolder than before.
Previously, sneaking heavy arms into developed regions like Europe required helicopters, submarines, cargo ships,
now, various forces just send low-level players to the destination directly—players have a dozen or twenty item slots on them, enough to carry tons of goods, and with space tools, they can transport even more in one go."
Chaichai casually brushed her hair, she’d helped Luozu make a ppt purely out of interest and learned some knowledge from the broker circle,
somewhat boastingly told Li Ang: "Besides having low-level players serve as human couriers, there are other methods.
Like putting items into storage rings and then having trained low-level bird magical beasts—so low-level that they don’t trigger any radar attention—
carry the storage rings and fly directly across borders.
Making it impossible for border inspection departments to defend against it.
Or, like the Demon Scientist Alliance, they publish apps on the dark web,
ordinary people just need to download the app, follow the instructions, buy livestock themselves, perform the ritual track,
and acquire remotely transported arms through sacrifices.
Of course, the most convenient is trading in the game market, allowing players to bring items back to the real world directly.
This method has no energy fluctuations, and each player essentially serves as an independent sales node.
Coupled with the vast territory and numerous bustling cities of the United States, once the front line is extended,
the effective security forces become extremely stretched, unable to maintain law and order, only able to protect inside city towers.
So, citizens who aren’t eligible to live in city towers are forced to take up arms to protect their families and property, while also defending against others, constantly upgrading their weapons and equipment.
This is why the number of small guilds in the United States has surged recently—they’ve regressed to the late 19th century era of developing the American West, where people have to protect themselves in chaotic situations."
The ppt Chaichai was fiddling with earlier is going to be publicly posted on the international network,
no matter if it’s a small military warlord, or ordinary people living in the dire situation of America, after seeing the ad, they can call the hotline,
and get goods from Luozu’s dealers, very convenient.
Li Ang looked at Chaichai, who was enthusiastically typing at the keyboard, and smacked his lips.
Alright, it’s good to let Chaichai find something to do, lest she suddenly comes up with odd inventions or creations—like last time when she took cosplay costumes to a comic convention and almost caused a performance accident.
"I have a new idea now, I suggest Luozu to set up a security company for ordinary people,
where regular citizens use a mobile app called ’Call Someone’ to purchase security services,
armed security personnel will arrive at the location of the mobile signal within minutes, wielding light and heavy weaponry to protect the client’s safety.
Charging by the hour, taking on special tasks like escorting, interrogation, and rescue if necessary,
the slogan is ready,
’Call Someone, protecting your last mile of travel.’
Chaichai smugly gave a thumbs-up, already imagining how in the future ordinary people living in chaotic areas would have to open her designed app every time they travel, making a call to summon a van full of armed security personnel.
"Heh heh heh,"
Chaichai grinned foolishly, suddenly noticing the grave expression on Li Ang’s face and instinctively asked, "What’s wrong?
Did something happen?"
"Yeah."
Li Ang slowly nodded, just now, he heard the long-lost system notification sound in his ear.
[Notification: According to system detection, among the selected Earth players in this seventh slaughter game, 1% have reached Lv25 or above. Meeting the requirement to open the third phase]
[The third phase of the slaughter game will further open the functionalities of the game market, Sky Arena, and other facilities. The selection range for player aptitude will be expanded, and selection frequency will be increased. Regular mission intensity will be dynamically increased]
[The third phase of the slaughter game will open in 72 hours Earth’s standard time]
[For more implementation details, see the ’About Slaughter Game and Help’ section on the player panel]
[The large-scale event ’Battle of Destiny’ is about to begin in the slaughter game’s third phase, players can check the event description on their personal panels]
[The final interpretation of the above content is owned by the slaughter game]
"..."
Li Ang’s gaze sharpened slightly, he didn’t expect, this time, instead of waiting for script task notifications, it was the large update of the slaughter game’s third phase that arrived.
"1% of players have reached Lv25 or above already..."
Li Ang’s current level is just over Lv27. This is mainly because, apart from the system’s regularly distributed system tasks,
he barely participates in conventional real-world tasks,
so his experience point accumulation speed isn’t very fast,
at least some players who were originally high in the power rankings have already surpassed him.
Like Tai Hao at Lv29, Lose Control at Lv30, Side Truth at Lv30,
according to some rumors, Michael’s level might have already reached Lv31, though who knows if it’s true.
Li Ang shook his head, after reaching the first tier, the level of a player doesn’t necessarily indicate their specific strength, but reaching Lv30 or above still proves the player’s formidable capability.
The reason Li Ang doesn’t choose to level up quickly is because he has better ways to enhance his strength besides leveling up.
"Before the Door Contention Battle, the total player count was around fifty thousand to a hundred thousand,
after the Door Contention Battle and subsequent accumulation,
the estimated current total number of Earth players is around two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand."
Two to three hundred thousand isn’t much; in East Asia, it wouldn’t even fill the population of an 18th-tier small county,
1% at Lv25, which is about two to three thousand people.
"Buzz buzz——"
The friend communication list vibrated, and without even thinking, Li Ang knew it must be those friends passing information about the version update,
he skipped over the unread messages in the communication list, continuing to browse the version update notes.
The third phase of the slaughter game will further open the functionalities of the game market and the Sky Arena and other facilities.
The variety of goods in the market will be more abundant, and the purchase price for players selling items to the market will be slightly increased, so players won’t have to sell miscellaneous items for dirt cheap like before.
The functionality of the Sky Arena will also be extended further, now, players can not only match with players who have booked matches at the local Sky Arena,
but there’s also a certain probability to compete with entities from other Sky Arenas.
"Other Sky Arenas..."
Li Ang instantly realized the deep implication of this statement, "There’s more than one Sky Arena,
Apart from the Game Square connected to Earth,
other places, other planes, also have a Sky Arena."
His gaze sharpened, and images of the Desolated Lion and others flashed in his mind, "The Desolated Lion and his group are undoubtedly players on par with Earth’s Transcendents,
they have their own Game Square and Sky Arena.
And on other planes, other planets, there are also their facilities.
Moreover, this sentence mentions ’competing with ’existences’ from other Sky Arenas’,
’existences’, not ’players’.
That means that the Sky Arenas of other planes might be open to non-players..."
He immediately followed the link in this sentence to view the specific details of this version update,
and indeed found the situation he anticipated.
The new Sky Arena will no longer be limited to the space where the Game Square is located but will appear in the real world in the form of a high tower.
Ordinary people on Earth can enter the high tower,
entering the overlapping region of the Game Square and the real world,
where they can watch the games as spectators,
or directly sign up to participate.
To protect these ordinary people, the Sky Arena will not pit them against Transcendents, but will assign them suitable opponents,
if they can defeat their opponents, then even as ordinary people, they can directly receive rewards from the Sky Arena, or even directly obtain player qualification,
ascending to Transcendent status.
"The location of the Sky Arena in the real world will be near the intersection of the international date line and the equator.
Approximately north of the Fiji Islands."
Li Ang’s mind raced, quickly pondering the many changes this update might bring about, "If ordinary people can also earn player qualification by defeating opponents in the Sky Arena,
then the number of players will continue to increase and even expand in the future.
Player qualification has always been one of the most precious resources,
each player represents boundless potential and possibilities.
I wonder how many people are willing to risk their lives for a chance to ascend to Transcendent status.
With Earth having nearly eight billion people, even if only one in ten thousand is willing to enter the Sky Arena and survive the trials, there will be eight hundred thousand new players.
This number is simply too large,
if the Killing Fields game isn’t having a crisis of conscience and intends to wholesale player qualification, there’s only one possibility— the trials for ordinary people will be extremely difficult,
even surpassing the difficulty of the first script mission that players with no prior knowledge faced at the commencement of the Killing Fields game.
Moreover, it’s very likely that the difficulty of such trials is dynamically balanced,
ordinary people who received strict training from organizations like the Special Affairs Bureau might face even greater challenges."
Li Ang frowned and thought: "Because if it wasn’t this way,
there would be no need to add a note about ’continuing to expand the selection range for player qualification applicants and increasing the selection frequency’ in the update.
The opportunity to ascend to a Transcendent through the Sky Arena is intended for an extremely limited number of people.
The real focus is the next point,
which will dynamically increase the intensity of regular missions."
The missions released by the Killing Fields game are roughly two types, one is regular missions in the real world,
the other happens in the script world.
The former is commonly known to the public as mutations.
In the early stages of this session of the Killing Fields game,
the continuous and bizarrely unpredictable mutations caused considerable damage to social order,
with people getting inadvertently caught up in the mutations daily, unfortunately dying.
Even now, only a handful of areas, such as major cities on the east and west coasts of the United States and East Asia,
have improved their understanding of mutations and accumulated enough experience to keep the casualty rates to a manageable level.
"Dynamically raising the intensity of regular missions,
is tantamount to dynamically raising the horror level of mutations.
Previous mutations caused casualties in tens, hundreds, or thousands,
post-update mutations could cause casualties in the tens of thousands,
covering a wider area and even more dangerous.
In a sense, could this be considered a Spiritual Energy resurgence or a fear resurgence?"
Li Ang multitasked, casually recounting the content of this version update to Chaichai,
suddenly realizing something crucial,
"No matter who it is, there’s a probability of obtaining player qualification through the Sky Arena.
At the same time, the world will see a larger scale of collective mutations.
The combination of these two..."
A strong sense of foreboding rose in Li Ang’s heart.
Deities.
Those ancient Transcendents from the same era as the Sibi King, by transforming into Faith Gods, avoided the periodic culling of the Killing Fields game, sustaining their continuity.
And now, as large-scale mutations strike,
will those deities begin to awaken?
Perhaps, they have calculated all of this.
The Sky Arena will project into the real world, allowing anyone, including these ancient deities, to enter it.
They could easily pass the Sky Arena trials with their former strength,
and regain player qualification.
"Hoo..."
Words spoken by the Sibi King surfaced in Li Ang’s mind.
After the ancient deities awaken,
whether they have regained self-awareness or become puppets of belief and stray thoughts,
they will deal an unprecedented blow to human civilization.
Put yourself in their shoes, those Faith Gods will not allow their existence to be forgotten,
their orthodoxy to be discarded by modern civilization,
themselves to grow weak and die because no one worships them.
Once they awaken, the first thing they will do is to disrupt the existing order of human society,
paving the way for their return.
Seventy-two hours, three days,
three days later, at the intersection of the international date line and the equator, a giant white tower will rise,
and those ancient deities will awaken from their tombs.
