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Bonus chapter! Thank you to Chocco for the donation! ^^
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The spacecraft finally landed on a deep green planet.
[Welcome to the Game Base.]
[Please use the assistance of the Game Sub-System to explore the Game Base independently and participate in the full instance in two days.]
[We wish you a pleasant gaming experience.]
This process was familiar to Ning Su.
What lay before them was less of a "game base" and more of a "game planet." The number of people here far exceeded that of their own game base, and its level of development was vastly more advanced.
Even those who had remained calm on the spacecraft couldn’t help but feel like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden* at this moment.
(T/N: "Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden" is a famous reference from the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber. It describes someone from a simple background being overwhelmed by the luxury and grandeur of a new environment.)
They knew of the game’s existence but had never actually entered it. This was a place they had long imagined—both intriguing and unfamiliar.
After all the players disembarked from the spacecraft, it vanished from the sky outside the game base’s gates. It was as if a rift had sealed shut, leaving the sky seamless with no trace of an exit.
Ning Su turned around and, without hesitation, walked into the game base.
Unlike their own game base, there were no recruiters at the entrance scanning player information or pulling newcomers into factions.
Yet, many people were watching them covertly.
"Where are you headed?" asked the person who had been sitting in front of him in the spacecraft, now walking alongside him.
"I'm just... going to wander around a bit." Ning Su had been about to say he wanted to check out the game hall, but as a supposed newcomer who had just entered the instance, he shouldn’t know about such places.
"By the way, my name is Ning Su. What’s yours?"
Unlike when they had first entered the instance, no system had scanned his personal data—perhaps because he was an unregistered user.
Ning Su decided to use his real name.
"Shao Ruoyang."
Ning Su said, "Shall we go together?"
Shao Ruoyang replied, "Let’s go."
The two walked along the main road in front of the game base. After about ten minutes, they saw the game hall.
It closely resembled the one in their own base—a grand, expansive entrance flanked by two large screens. One displayed the player rankings, while the other, slightly different, showed the squad rankings.
Ning Su stared fixedly at the name at the top of the player rankings.
"Professor Shao?!"
A player rushing over interrupted his gaze.
"Professor Shao, you... you’ve entered the game too?" The young woman looked at Shao Ruoyang with a complicated expression.
Along the way, Ning Su had noticed several players glancing at Shao Ruoyang. He must have been quite well-known in the real world.
Shao Ruoyang nodded but said nothing.
He continued observing the game hall. The woman didn’t leave either, standing beside him and saying, "Professor Shao, you just got here, right? If there’s anything you want to know, feel free to ask me."
"Alright, thank you."
Though he said this, Shao Ruoyang didn’t immediately ask anything.
It was Ning Su who pointed at the player rankings and asked, "Excuse me, are the people on this list all really strong players?"
He posed what seemed like a very naive question.
When the girl saw Ning Su with Shao Ruoyang, she assumed he was Shao Ruoyang's friend and enthusiastically explained to him: "Yes, this is the Player Rankings. It lists the ten most powerful players in the base—some use their real names, while others go by representative occupational skill names."
She pointed to the name at the very top. "For example, Ling Xiao—that’s not his real name. He earned that name in the base after killing the dungeon boss, the Man-Eating Flower, and merging with it to become a Lingxiao Flower."
Ning Su was taken aback.
He had seen Ling Xiao’s name at the top of the player rankings as soon as he entered the game lobby.
From the spaceship in the cosmos to this game planet, everything felt unfamiliar.
This sense of unfamiliarity went far beyond what he had experienced when arriving somewhere new before. This was no longer his world—it was a higher-dimensional reality, a civilization more advanced than his own.
Just as Shao Ruoyang had said, he was like a primitive here.
But the moment he saw Ling Xiao’s name, that wall of unfamiliarity shattered instantly. In that one second, a connection formed between him and this world.
That connection was Ling Xiao.
Still, he hadn’t expected there to be such a backstory behind Ling Xiao’s name—a backstory that deepened Ning Su’s bond with this world.
The girl continued, "Ling Xiao has firmly held the number one spot on the player rankings for years. He’s practically a monster—he’s been running dungeons since he was five, and he must have cleared at least two thousand of them by now."
Ning Su: "…"
So that’s where all his points came from.
The girl added, "And he’s… really handsome. Like, devastatingly handsome!"
She said this last part in a hushed but excited tone.
Ning Su turned and saw her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed.
Ning Su: "?"
Ning Su: "You can’t do that."
The girl looked strangely at the slightly stern-faced young man. "Huh? Why not?"
Without changing his expression, Ning Su said, "Because he likes men."
The girl: "?"
"Oh ho!" A boy not far away whistled. "Boss! He says Ling Xiao likes men—doesn’t that mean I’m in danger?"
Ning Su: "…?"
He followed the sound and saw three men dressed entirely in black.
A girl whispered, "Those three are Ling Xiao's teammates."
Ning Su: "..."
Ning Su turned his attention back to the player team rankings, trying to guess which team Ling Xiao belonged to.
After scanning the top ten, he looked back only to find that the three men had already vanished.
He swept his gaze across the game hall once more. The game base was densely populated, but the hall itself was relatively empty. Most people were coming from the direction where the three men had been standing.
The girl’s timely explanation cleared up Ning Su’s confusion. "This is the game hall—where players select and enter instances, and also where they’re teleported out after finishing one. No one has been entering instances these past couple of days since everyone is preparing for the upcoming mass instance. Most players here now have just emerged from instances."
When they first arrived at the game base, the system had indeed reminded them about the mass instance happening in two days.
The girl added, "Since you’re new here and don’t have a team yet, it’s best to join one before entering the instance."
"Usually, instances require team cooperation to clear. This being the first mass instance, having a team will be even more crucial."
Shao Ruoyang had remained quiet all this while. After the girl finished speaking, she tactfully prepared to leave.
Before she went, Ning Su quickly asked her, "Which team does Ling Xiao belong to?"
The girl pointed at the team rankings. "The third one—‘The Cannibalistic Little Buns.’ Everyone calls them the Cannibal Corps."
Ning Su: "..."
He instinctively asked, "Why not call them the Bun Corps?"
The girl gave him a look that said, "Really?"
Ning Su: "..."
Alright, clearly they weren’t exactly "bun-like."
After the girl left, Ning Su asked Shao Ruoyang, "Should we go look for a team?"
Shao Ruoyang replied, "It seems we’ll have to team up with other newcomers."
Ning Su: "Obviously."
Most players here had already formed teams. Facing the first mass instance, they weren’t likely to readily accept newcomers.
They had arrived at the game base at dusk. By the time they left the game hall, it was already dark.
The game base glittered with lights, and the revelry had only just begun.
