Inside a luxurious villa.
Zhong Shenxiu sipped a glass of white wine, looking at the screen.
"Hmm... over fifty online players for the first batch of beta testers... that's already not bad."
Anyone familiar with the internet knows, as long as there's a big enough pool, you can find all kinds of oddities, just like the saying 'a big forest harbors all types of birds'.
Zhong Shenxiu didn't even target those big gaming forums, merely promoting on a few small websites, and over a hundred "pain-in-the-neck aliens" signed up.
Probably just for kicks, since it was free.
Then, he mailed out over a hundred pairs of glasses, and now with the first round of beta testing, there were still over fifty left.
"It seems... it's not enough to deter them yet."
Zhong Shenxiu put down his wine glass, pensive.
With the Key of the Heart, he forcibly connected the Grotto Heaven with another Medium Thousand World that he named 'Xuanming Sky'.
Then, he directly adjusted the flow of time between the two.
Initially, one day in the Grotto Heaven passed nearly a hundred days there, but now it had been forcefully pulled to a one-to-one ratio.
The cost for this was the retraction of his other incarnations, and the Key of the Heart also had to maintain the connection channel between the two worlds, so it couldn't be easily used.
Of course, if something happened to the true form in Seven Luminaries Heaven, this incarnation of Zhong Shenxiu could immediately take his little niece and flee—no, return the Key of the Heart for reinforcement; he was very clear about what mattered most.
At that moment, an ancient key made completely of light appeared in his hand. With this core connection, he observed every move of those fifty-plus players.
"Hmm, blurring the view a bit, did that indeed make the players treat it like a game, or some secret technology? But it doesn't matter. Even if they disassemble the device, they'll only find that it's very ordinary, with no technical content..."
Glasses, icons—all smoke and mirrors.
What truly connected the players to the game was the initial spiritual binding with the mysterious connection established by the Key of the Heart!
In this world, that was indeed the epitome of secret technology, undetectable even if a bunch of top scientists gathered with the most precise instruments.
Just like Zhong Shenxiu could simply alter a meme to make everyone who passed by automatically ignore the existence of this villa!
Against ordinary people, guile was unsolvable.
And he himself had already become an existence even more unsolvable than guile!
"As for the flow of time, maintain it at one-to-one for now. If it's profitable later on, perhaps I can open it up to one-to-two, or even one-to-ten, one-to-a-hundred... Could that be fobbed off with accelerated thinking?"
Zhong Shenxiu tossed the Key of the Heart into the air and casually caught it.
Actually, his initial concept was more akin to that of the Main God Space or Nightmare Space.
But after thinking it over, he decided games and data were more towards order and rules, so he just covered it up with a game façade.
This subtle difference might seem unimportant, but in reality, it was often the key to assimilation. It had to be explored cautiously, handled with care.
"Now that I have the first batch of players, I can set up a forum on the official website. It must be a real-name registration system; those who haven't entered the game can't post..."
The region Zhong Shenxiu chose to drop players into was an uninhabited wilderness, with scarce human traces within a hundred miles.
Over fifty players were dropped in, scattering like pepper flakes; in the blink of an eye, there was no trace of them.
For the likes of 'Compassionate Mother Holds the Line' and 'Little Wild Myriad Spirits' to meet up, they really had the kind of luck that was exceptionally good.
Most players were left alone, looking around in isolation, trying some silly antics before realizing—they couldn't find any main quests or beginner tasks!
Because Shenxiu hadn't even created those yet!
"The panel is here, but where's the task bar?"
Ji Wunian, in reality, was a corporate drone working for a company, slaving away and usually quiet.
But people are always contradictory. Those who are introverted in reality often present themselves very differently online.
Ji Wunian was exactly like that. Online he transformed into a king of snark, battling keyboard armies from all four quarters, and he played all kinds of silly bird games with tireless enthusiasm.
This time, he was forced by his boss to work overtime until midnight. As a result, while browsing forums, he inexplicably clicked on the official website for "Game Different World" and then impulsively filled in his address.
And then, he actually received a pair of VR glasses.
"Which tech giant developed this high-tech with such realism?"
He habitually wanted to lift his glasses but found that they were gone, and his 700-degree myopia suddenly became 5.2-grade perfect vision.
Indeed, this feeling was utterly intoxicating.
But after amusing himself for half a day, he finally remembered that he should, probably, most likely, do some tasks.
But why couldn't he find the task bar?
Was this game so hardcore? Claiming super high freedom, it didn't even have a single task prompt?
"Anyway, this seems to be a wilderness, so... first I need to find a player or an NPC to interact with..."
Ji Wunian muttered to himself, chose a direction, and began his trek.
The feeling was very peculiar, reminiscent of his last outdoor hiking trip.
It must be said that the physical condition of contemporary office drones is generally poor; after less than half an hour of walking, his breathing became labored.
"Hardcore... is this too much?"
"Which game's map actually makes players spend half an hour just traveling?"
Ji Wunian continuously griped and looked up at his surroundings. It was still an endless wilderness as far as the eye could see, and suddenly a sense of fear arose: "Could I be... lost?"
Just then, he heard some noise from the nearby bushes.
Ji Wunian took a few steps forward and suddenly got a fright.
From the bushes, a black shadow suddenly leaped out. Its dry and stiff fur, along with its ferocious, gleaming teeth and its vicious green eyes, all made him feel the ancient fear and primal threat of a natural predator.
Furthermore, it might be an old wolf that had been expelled from the pack, starving to the point its eyes glowed green.
The old wolf, like a very experienced hunter, circled around Ji Wunian, occasionally emitting threatening growls from its throat.
"You can't do this... Dogs are man's best friend! Even though you're a wolf, you're still related to dogs, right?"
Ji Wunian babbled nonsense as he tried to retreat, but somehow he tripped and fell to the ground.
"Wait... is this... a wild monster? I should be able to try, it's just a game after all!"
Ji Wunian psyched himself up and then bravely pounced...
A scream suddenly rang out in a rental room.
Ji Wunian screamed as he rolled off the bed, removed the VR glasses, and touched his neck. It seemed like the foul breath of the wolf and the pain of its teeth ripping through flesh still lingered.
"It was really just a game... But isn't it too realistic? Even top foreign companies can't achieve this, could it be made by aliens?"
Looking at the very plain device in his hand, Ji Wunian scratched his scalp, then decided—to continue playing!
However, the computer icon popped up a message—
'Unable to enter the game for 24 hours!'