"Magic Calendar Year 3401, Rain Moon, Day 26, Night"
"The sky burned the city, the earth shook, it felt like the end of the world"
"The ring fades, the king's veins wither, the nine floating cities finally return to the earth, and the brilliance of magic dims."
"——A Brief History of the Empire·Prologue: The Day of Destruction"
………
Xia Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.
There was a familiar mirror in front of him, but the person reflected in the mirror was young and somewhat unfamiliar.
He has a handsome face with regular features, and his light black hair is slightly longer. His pale skin flickers in the flickering candlelight, and his overall temperament looks a bit strange.
He raised his hand in disbelief and pressed it on his face with a slight trembling. Xia Yuan looked at the figure in the mirror who made the same move and took a deep breath.
"Rumble, rumble—"
Huge thunder sounded outside the window, making Xia Yuan, who was still a little stunned, tremble all over.
He remembered that that night, a thunderstorm caused a short circuit in the power supply, and he had no choice but to light a white candle to illuminate himself.
In his memory, three days later - to be precise, two days, twenty hours and sixteen minutes later, a game that was ahead of the entire era by countless years: "Mysterious Era" would release its first trailer.
And began to release semi-open internal beta qualifications to the whole society, announcing its arrival to the entire era.
In this era when mainstream online games are still stuck in VR, an almost unbelievable 98.25% immersive game is a complete dimensionality reduction blow to the entire gaming industry.
The internal beta server will be launched one week after the trailer is released, that is, ten days later.
The major studios confirmed that their publicity was not an exaggeration, but that it was true.
Decisively, he began to cancel all other game businesses one after another and fully switched to "Mysterious Era".
When the fifteen-day closed beta ended, ordinary players who had already become greedy and couldn't stand it swarmed in. For a time, the price of game supplies soared, and countless people became rich overnight relying on this game.
Half a month after the official launch of "Mysterious Era", the daily activity of all other games has dropped to almost zero.
I don’t know how many game company bosses pulled out their hair because of this, and the wig industry ushered in a small boom.
It is said that when "Mysterious Era" was first released, the boss of a major game company refused to give up and approached the chief engineer of the company's R&D department.
It is hoped that within three months, the principles of the "Mysterious Era" game helmet and game cabin can be cracked, and similar equipment can be developed.
The chief engineer told him in euphemistic and polite words on the spot: He was living in a dream.
If someone can crack the mechanism of that strange helmet within a year, he can take off his ball and give the cracker a kick in the head!
After hitting a wall in the technical department, the boss, who still had some luck in his heart, went to find a game engineer.
But when he entered the personal office of the chief game engineer, he was shocked to find that this guy was lazy and playing "Mysterious Era" during work!
Of course, game company bosses will not sit still and wait for death. They have hired some experts and professors to vigorously advocate that this game is too real and may cause serious identity cognitive impairment to players.
And for this reason, I hope that the game will be completely banned.
But for unknown reasons, these ‘experts’ quickly stopped one by one, without any impact on the release of “Mysterious Era”.
………
Xia Yuan took a long breath, ended his wild and divergent memories, patted his face gently, and started thinking quickly.
Now that we have been reborn at this point in time before the trailer for "Mysterious Era" has been released, among other things, we must find a way to receive a spot for the closed beta of "Mysterious Era".
Although the files will be deleted after the internal beta is over, only those who qualify for the internal beta will have priority in purchasing the first-generation game capsule that is limited to a global release.
The game official has only put 5,000 game cabins on the continent where Xia Yuan is located, so there are too many game cabins.
In addition to the 500 slots for internal beta players to purchase first, the remaining 4,500 slots are not accessible to ordinary individual players at all, and have been booked early even before entering the market.
The biggest difference between the first-generation gaming helmet and the gaming cabin is the limit on online time.
Taking into account the player's physical need to eat and go to the bathroom, the helmet can only be online for a maximum of sixteen hours a day.
The game cabin with nutrient solution as a supplement can be online for eighteen hours, which results in game cabin players having one-eighth more game time than helmet players!
For high-level players who take this as their profession, this is a huge difference. And each person's helmet is bound to his or her identity, so changing equipment to circumvent restrictions is also unfeasible.
In addition, there is also the nutrient solution that comes with the first-generation game cabin, which is also a good thing, but is only sold to players who own the game cabin.
It is rumored that the first-generation nutrient solution has some hidden benefits for the human body. It was discontinued just one month after its release. The price increase in the future is even more outrageous than that of a house!
Before his rebirth, Xia Yuan was just an ordinary individual player, and his family was not wealthy.
As a result, of course he didn't get a place in the closed beta test, he didn't buy the first-generation game cabin, and he didn't even stock up on the first-generation nutrient solution. All opportunities to make a fortune were perfectly avoided by him.
When he was fighting the boss, he didn't realize that his dodge skills were so slippery!
Although his skills and awareness are considered high-end, due to the game time limit, he has gradually fallen behind the first echelon of players using the game cabin.
This directly fed back to his income. As a result, when the lower-priced and unlimited second-generation game capsule and nutrient solution were released a month later, he was still strapped for cash.
It wasn't until almost three months after the game was launched that he could barely make up what he needed. But by this time, his level had already widened the gap with the first echelon.
Therefore, he simply let himself go, no longer obsessed with leveling up to improve his strength, but instead visited major famous libraries in the mainland.
I began to study documents and materials recording "backstory" from various places, trying to find clues related to treasures, hidden tasks, hidden professions, etc.
This type of players are collectively called plot flow players, and there are quite a few of them.
Xia Yuan's logical analysis ability, insight and luck are all good. In the end, he really unearthed several hidden tasks and relics through carefully collected and organized information, got a lot of good things, and returned to the first echelon of strength.
This earned him a lot of fame among story-streaming players, and he was nicknamed "Lucky Silver Hand".
In the process, he also accidentally unlocked a hidden title: [Junior Relic Scholar]. When trading unidentified relic items, he can get a 5% price correction.
From then on, a door to a new world opened to him, and the extremely real background story of "The Mysterious Era" fascinated him. He even took exploring ancient mysteries as his main mission without doing his job.
Click, click, rumble, rumble—
Another huge thunder exploded across the sky, bringing his thoughts back to reality.
"There are still ten days until the internal beta starts, which is enough..."
Putting aside his thoughts for the time being, he looked at the younger version of himself in the mirror, and an uncontrollable smile crept onto Xia Yuan's cheeks.
There was so much pride in his heart that he couldn't help but raise his chin slightly, put his left hand behind his back, and spoke passionately.
"The heroic appearance shines in the sun and the moon, and the economics is hidden in the belly. The stranger is like jade, and the young master is unparalleled in the world——"
"Crack - boom, rumble -"
As if in response to his words, a huge thunder exploded across the sky again.
Amidst the thunder, the quietly burning candle flame suddenly swayed, and the shadows in the room squirmed slightly, as if they had gained life.
Xia Yuan was not aware of the slight changes in the candle flame, but when he stared at his eyes reflected in the mirror, he couldn't help but feel an impulse in his heart. He raised his right hand slightly and slowly moved his lips.
Speaking of which, I haven't done this for a long time.
The rain outside the window became even heavier, heavy raindrops pattered against the glass, dazzling lightning continued to divide the dark night sky, and huge thunder could be heard endlessly.
In the dark room, a strange and inexplicable scene appeared——
Under the flickering candlelight, a young man seemed to be possessed and kept making some weird movements in front of the mirror.
He was also reciting strange syllables according to a certain rhythm, as if he was performing some ancient evil ritual!
"Rock-paper-scissors!"
"Rock-paper-scissors!"
………
After a while, Xia Yuan finally decided to stop this meaningless move as his right hand became slightly sore in protest.
I didn’t lose a single round, as expected of me!
Nodding his head in praise in the mirror as if nothing had happened, Xia Yuan turned around and prepared to leave the bathroom...
…………
?
At this moment, his movements suddenly stopped.
Wait...in the penultimate game just now, when I played the cloth...he seemed to...play the scissors?
After carefully recalling a certain detail from before, Xia Yuan blinked and his smile gradually solidified.
Can I still lose with mirror guessing?
It was still midsummer in August, but Xia Yuan felt that the air was a little chilly.
He slowly turned his head, looked at himself in the mirror, and tentatively raised his right hand. The reflection's movements were still synchronized.
Did you remember it wrong?
He relaxed slightly.
"That's right, how could the reflection move on its own?"
On the coffee table in the living room, in the dark display of the electronic watch, blood-red colors formed a line of cold numbers:
[23:59:59]
Although he comforted himself that he was fine, Xia Yuan decided to leave here quickly.
But when he picked up the candle, turned around and was about to go out, the candle flame flickered inexplicably, and then went out silently! The room instantly fell into darkness——
Xia Yuan was startled, and cold sweat suddenly broke out on his back.
"Rumble, rumble—"
Just at this moment, a huge blue-white lightning pierced the night sky, accompanied by deafening thunder, and the dazzling electric light suddenly illuminated the room.
At this moment, he noticed a detail with all the hairs on his body standing on end: the corners of the mouth of the figure in the mirror quietly curved a strange arc!
As if aware of his gaze, the reflection in the mirror turned its head suddenly! The eyes that turned into pure black and white at some point turned and stared straight at his face!
Xia Yuan's hair stood on end, and his brain was like crazy and he wanted to escape, but his legs were as motionless as if they were filled with lead.
The next second, the light brought by the lightning disappeared as instantly as it appeared, and the mirror and reflection returned to darkness.
Only the black and white eyes in the reflection were still clear and eerie.
Xia Yuan looked at the mirror with a cold look on his body. As their eyes connected, a twisted and cold flow of information suddenly came from the dark mirror and was injected into his brain along the lines of their connected gazes.
It was an extremely sour feeling, as if there were thousands of little black ants crawling in the ravines of the cerebral cortex.
The content of the message is only one sentence:
"At the end of the seven light and dark cycles, you will come to Yunivar——"
Passively accepting the infusion of a large amount of spiritual information, Xia Yuan trembled violently as if he was electrocuted, and held his head in pain with both hands.
The next moment, the ceiling lamp on the ceiling suddenly turned on, and the soft off-white light fell, dispersing the darkness in the room again.