The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 652 Auction Log! Can you buy something with a gun if you don't have money?
The original site of the Lost Ship.

After the Edison team drove the spaceship away, only a large crater remained, along with a wide road extending to the edge of the crater.

At the intersection of the highway and the deep pit, there are three large parking lots and a full 50 all-weather biological turrets.

Although Echoes introduced a simple and convenient teleportation key, many players still choose to drive through the perilous rainforest to play the game with their friends.

Some people are reluctant to spend money on keys, but many others simply enjoy the feeling of road trips.

When the Lost Ship warp disappeared, many players were still in the parking lot.

After parking the car and opening the door, I looked up and the spaceship was gone.

Everyone was confused.

The same thing happened to the players who arrived later.

They stood at the edge of the deep pit, looking at each other blankly, not knowing what had happened.

After searching online and figuring out what happened, most people got on their buses and left, either returning to Mansheng Metropolis or continuing on to Yayuan Town.

Only a few lazy players and those addicted to games remained, sitting on the edge of the pit, barbecuing and chatting while waiting for the spaceship to return.

We waited until evening.

They had moved from barbecuing to camping, lying by the big pit looking at the starry sky and chatting idly.

After a while, I even felt a little sleepy.

Until one moment, a large patch of stars overhead suddenly became distorted, and the starlight was stretched into rays that converged toward the center.

In the hazy white light, the space resembled a crumpled piece of white paper, shrunken and deformed.

Until the white light exploded, a large mass of pure black shadow obscured the starry sky.

The shadow rapidly expanded, swallowing more and more starlight.

The astonished players stood up and stared intently at the shadow.

As the distance closed, the large, dark shape quickly revealed its true form—

That was a huge spaceship!

The night was dark, and the spaceship had no lights on, making it difficult for players on the ground to see details clearly.

But its dark outline alone was enough for everyone to recognize it:
"The Lost Ship!"

"I knew it, it would eventually come back to haunt me!"

"But I don't want to play games anymore, please don't block my view of the starry sky, thank you."

……

Some people who had been watching the live stream from the ocean floor were now asking, completely confused:
"Wasn't this ship at the bottom of the sea? How did it suddenly come back?"

"Did Zhu Meng succumb to the pressure and salvage the ship?"

"In the end, it still comes down to deus ex machina, doesn't it?"

"Hilarious. It wasn't that you weren't willing to take the job before, it was just that the technology wasn't working out for the time being. You were all working overtime like crazy modifying code, right?"

……

Everyone was laughing at first.

But soon, they realized something else:

After the problem occurred, Zhumeng retrieved the sunken spaceship from the seabed in less than two hours and returned it to its original location.

How much work would it take to achieve this in the virtual world?

The efficiency with which they've built this dream is simply astonishing!

"Boom" a loud noise.

The lost ship that had jumped over landed headfirst in the crater right next to them.

Even the stairs that players built to make boarding easier were not affected and remained precisely aligned with the original entrance.

Instead of boarding the ship, everyone took photos and notified their group members.

Players who were ranting online about "RNM refunding money" received the news.

Upon learning that Zhumeng had ultimately intervened, retrieved the boat, and returned it to its original location, the online criticism immediately subsided.

The development team breathed a huge sigh of relief.

But soon, the players noticed something was wrong:

The door still wouldn't open.

The players who had just forgiven the development team were completely stunned.

Then came an even greater surge of anger:

"You motherfucker! Are you kidding us?!"

"The boat has been returned, but the gate can't be opened?"

"Solve the problem, but not completely, right?"

"@Xu Meng! Control your employees!!"

……

In Xu Meng's living room, a holographic image of Knight Walker looked at him in despair.

"boss……"

Are you kidding us?
Otherwise, how could a problem only be half-solved?

He hesitated.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Xu Meng reassured him. "I'll just post another update to explain the situation."

As Xu Meng took out her phone, she complained, "What's wrong with players these days? They have no patience at all."

Knight Walker stared wide-eyed, pretending not to hear such outrageous words.

Soon after, Xu Meng posted her second update:
Players who are unable to open doors with the teleportation key in Echoes of the Deep Space are advised to drive to the Lost Ship and re-anchor to the room.

If you feel the journey is too long and are very angry about it, I completely understand.

But this isn't the development team's fault.

I suggest you go find the people who flew their spaceships into the sea.
-
Knight Walker was stunned when he saw Xu Meng's last sentence.

"Boss! Isn't this... a bit inappropriate?!"

Xu Meng shrugged. "What's wrong with it?"

Knight Walker hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

When Edison, the electronic music enthusiast, saw this post, he felt a chill run down his spine.

I wanted to change my ID on the spot.

However, when players saw this post, they didn't rush to find out about the "Electronic Edison" incident, nor did they cause any more trouble for the development team.

They all felt their minds were a bit confused—

The key isn't unusable, it just won't open the door.

But Boss Xu told everyone to take the road to the spaceship and re-bind themselves to their rooms.

Does this mean... there are now two rooms?
……

Soon, players arrived at the reappeared Lost Ship with the key and inserted it into the door.

Sure enough, a system notification appeared before my eyes:

[Re-anchor the Lost Ship's waypoint?]
[whether]
After they re-bonded, they tried opening and closing doors, and teleporting between the spaceship and the Sprawling City.

Everything went smoothly, and no further problems were encountered.

So, players eager to play the game set off one after another.

A dense stream of cars surged out of the sprawling metropolis, heading straight for the lost ship.

With mature highways and defense systems in place, venturing to the lost ship is no longer as perilous as it once was.

Even many animals and plants that could threaten the player's life have gradually moved away from the road area.

After arriving at the scene, Edison rushed to the bridge without changing the key.

He had expected to see a large number of players still fighting and battling for flight logs.

But strangely:
The front half of the spaceship was completely empty; not a single player was seen.

Even after entering the bridge, there was still no one in sight.

The huge porthole was covered with cracks, and the control panel was still in the state of being smashed by him.

He sighed, unsure whether he felt regret or relief.

However, he soon noticed another detail—

On the right-hand bulkhead, an LED clock is still ticking.

[20: 33]
There seemed to be no problem, but he still felt that something was off.

So I went closer to take a closer look.

Next to the large time numbers, there was also text in smaller sizes:

[Friday, September 24, 2027]
"?"

Edison's eyes widened instantly!
It's September 2026 right now!
Is there a bug in the virtual world's time system? He called up the control panel to check the time, but found no problem. The virtual world's calendar was still showing September 24, 2026, at 8:33 PM.

"Is the watch broken?"

He raised his arm and tapped the clock with his fingers.

But the time on the clock only changed from [20:33] to [20:34].

The dates mentioned earlier are not intended to be changed.

The expression on Edison's face went from doubt to bewilderment, and finally to utter disbelief:

"So... this is a ship that jumped back from the future?"

His viewers in the live stream were also greatly surprised to hear this:
"Jumping back from the future?"

"Awesome! The Lost Ship can not only jump through space, but also through time! It's a ship that's lost in both time and space?!"

"That makes perfect sense! Otherwise, how could it have landed in Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong?"

"You mean... the future Dream Building project will crash the Lost Ship into the city centers of Tokyo and Paris??"

"Holy crap, that sounds pretty exciting! I'm already getting excited!"

……

Once this idea came to them, they quickly found more evidence:
Dried fish scales remained on the cracked porthole glass.

The bridge was in disarray, and there were obvious signs of rust on the malfunctioning equipment.

From the outside, large patches of barnacles and fish bones even grow under the hull.

All the evidence proves that:

This ship has been submerged at the bottom of the sea for a very, very long time!

It definitely wasn't salvaged immediately after sinking into the sea!
"Therefore, Dream Building is not a deus ex machina that brought a spaceship out of the sea."

"Instead, they designed a new storyline—a spaceship from the future, a year in the future, jumps back and returns here?!"

Edison, the electronic music enthusiast, was shocked: "Is this something that can be conceived and accomplished in just two hours???"

Soon, he thought of something even more important:
"Wait! What about now?"

"Where's the ship in the current timeline? Is it still at the bottom of the sea?"

Of course I am.
-
Once the entire ship is submerged, players can no longer easily teleport there.

Fewer and fewer players are surviving.

Players without diving equipment were quickly eliminated, followed by those with weaker combat skills—by this point, most of the streamers who were distracted by live streaming had already been eliminated.

The rest either have underwater breathing equipment or skills, or their character attributes are so strong that they can survive even underwater!
As a result, the battle not only did not stop, but became even more brutal!
The way we fight underwater is completely different from how we fight on land.

The logic behind many things has changed dramatically.

Most explosives become ineffective after being submerged in water.

Even those that did not fail were severely weakened by the immense water pressure.

The power of firearms has also plummeted.

Against players with superhuman physical abilities and the Dragon Soul Armor, unless the gun is fired right next to their body, the damage will be negligible.

But how could a master soldier stand still and wait for his opponent to fire?
The result was that the two sides fought each other at extremely close range, each wielding a sword and a pistol!

The bullets left the barrel, leaving clear trajectories underwater, but only managed to graze past their opponents.

It looked incredibly dangerous.

Its actual lethality is negligible.

The real battles will be decided by cold weapons!
However, due to the resistance of the seawater, both sides' movements were severely hampered, and they could not move fast at all.

Players accustomed to high-speed, fast-paced combat suddenly find the difficulty of battles drastically reduced when faced with slow-motion engagements.

They can clearly see their opponent's movements and respond accordingly.

There is absolutely no situation like being "unable to react" on the ground.

This greatly narrowed the gap between top players and expert players, forcing even top experts to fight their opponents one blow at a time.

On the ground, a master who can take on ten opponents can only fight two at most here.

If you face more than three opponents, you risk being surrounded and killed.

This directly led to many experts suffering unexpected setbacks.

Of course, while some people may not adapt well, others may thrive in their new environment.

Long Chengfei, who had studied on Fishman Island and mastered water control martial arts, was almost unaffected by water resistance.

On the contrary, it can also manipulate the water flow to restrict the opponent.

With the addition of a bubble helmet to help with underwater breathing, it's like fighting in an empty field.

The other one is the honest fisherman Chen Zhenjiang.

He grew up by the sea, and his family had been fishermen for generations, so his swimming skills were naturally top-notch.

In addition, he has rich combat experience, super strong physical stats, and underwater breathing equipment.

They fought a series of victories and successfully established themselves as a dominant force in this underwater battlefield.

They also successfully located the core of the battlefield—

Location of the memory card.

On this level, the core of such disputes is always filled with the deafening sounds of battle.

But underwater, there is only silent fighting and death.

Only floating corpses and seawater stained red with blood.

Without hesitation, Chen Zhenjiang charged into battle alone!

He has complete self-confidence!

But this time, he seriously misjudged his opponent.

At first, he didn't feel any pressure.

But after a few minutes of fighting, he quickly realized something was wrong—

There is a group of people here who are not particularly strong in combat, but are incredibly good swimmers. They work together seamlessly and don't seem to care about their own lives at all.

This surprised him greatly.

He watched as two men pounced on him, allowing their knives to stab and pull out of his stomach and chest repeatedly, yet he remained unfazed.

Their teammates, as agile as fish, swam gently yet swiftly through the narrow gap below them before turning upwards.

With their twin swords clashing, they strangled and killed their opponent.

He then immediately lunged at the next person with a blank expression, not even glancing at his dead teammate.

That composure and determination made Chen Zhenjiang feel a little uneasy.

But he was never a coward, and he still grabbed his knife and charged forward to fight!
After killing four people, he was eventually restrained by several people and strangled to death.

……

Chen Zhenjiang was a little annoyed after Mansheng City was revived.

I'm planning to buy a hydraulic door opener to see if I can use a hydraulic device to push open the hatch and return to the battlefield.

But before he could even buy the equipment, an unexpected piece of news quickly swept through the gaming community—

Someone is auctioning off flight logs.

Chen Zhenjiang was somewhat surprised, "Is the battle over?"

He followed the message and opened Mengjin, only to find that the most popular post was about this matter:

[Flight Log Auction Announcement! This log contains clues to obtaining an honorary player title and will be auctioned for cash at the Youkexin Auction House!]
He clicked on it and found that it was a post written in multiple languages.

In addition to commonly used languages ​​such as English, Chinese, French, Spanish, and Arabic, Malay was also strangely used.

The content is very simple:
We have managed to snag a memory card for recording flight logs.

However, we do not intend to compete for the title of [Honorary Player], but rather to auction off the logs.

Players from all over the world are welcome to participate in the auction!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

After reading this post, Chen Zhenjiang felt only confusion:
"The log is still underwater in the distance, and the teleportation key is unusable. How did they manage to send the memory card to the Mansheng Auction House?"

He scrolled down the posts to see if anyone had asked this question.

But soon, even more questions popped into his head.

Because the comments from netizens didn't discuss the auction itself at all, but rather—

"Youkexin Auction House, is that right? Got it, go plant the bomb now!"

"Very good! Child, I admire your courage! But I'll gladly accept the log!"

"If we're not friends, do you really think money is so easy to make? You should think about this more carefully: how many people actually have the money to participate in the auction? Will those without money offer their blessings, or will they pull out their weapons and try to rob you?"

"Hahaha, great! Tomorrow, right? You wait here while I go raise the money!"

"Can you buy a gun if you don't have money?"

(End of this chapter)