The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 662 The Yunnan native shows off his skills! (Seeking monthly votes)
Mushrooms of all sizes and varieties together form a world entirely composed of mushrooms.

The enormous mushroom caps stand tall, blocking out the sky.

Beneath the canopy, a network of glowing mycelium spreads like colorful fluorescent lights in the shadows.

Tiny clouds of spores drifted with the breeze, and patches of cherry-sized mushrooms grew at your feet.

Players from the north were stunned by the fantastical and magnificent scenery, their mouths agape, speechless.

The only exception is the people from Yunnan.

The Yunnan native [Mei Er] got excited instantly—

"Holy crap! Green-headed mushrooms! Black boletus, yellow boletus, milk cap mushrooms, red onion mushrooms, morels, bamboo fungus, fighting roe mushrooms, matsutake mushrooms, black pine mushrooms..."

The guy pointed to the various sizes of mushrooms around him and recited a long list of names, just like reciting a menu.

As I kept reciting, I started drooling.

His teammates turned to look at him in shock:
"You can recognize this?"

In their view, this place is full of colorful and bizarre mushrooms growing together in close proximity.

Their size is also very different from real mushrooms!

Being able to recognize enoki mushrooms and matsutake mushrooms is already quite an achievement; how could someone like Mei Er, pointing at these colorful mushrooms, easily recite a long string of words?

Mei blinked, somewhat surprised: "Is this difficult?"

Would you not recognize a cabbage if it were 10 times larger or 3 times smaller?

His teammates were shocked again: "Is this the same thing?"

“Yes,” Mei’er confirmed.

As he spoke, he walked up to a waist-high, light yellow mushroom with a cap and confidently took a bite.

"Hey! Wait, wait a minute!! Be careful, it might be poisonous!!"

Everyone rushed forward in surprise to try and stop him, but he had already bitten the mushroom cap.

A piece of the pale yellow canopy was instantly bitten off, and milky white juice spurted out from the tear, splashing all over Mei Er's face.

Mei Er was somewhat surprised, but even more delighted: "So fresh! So tender!"

After chewing the mushroom in his mouth a few times, he quickly swallowed it and began to suck on the milky white sap from the mushroom.

His teammates watched him frantically licking mushrooms, his face covered in white juice, and their expressions were all quite subtle.

In the end, it was the captain who spoke first.

He asked uncertainly, "Are you alright? Is the hallucinogenic effect of the mushrooms still lingering?"

"Or did those hallucinations permanently damage your brain?"

"You're acting like a lunatic right now..."

Mei Er climbed off the mushroom with a lingering sense of satisfaction, took another bite of the cap, and said while chewing, "No, I feel great now!"

"This is milk cap mushroom, which can be eaten raw. Although this one is more than ten times larger than the real milk cap mushroom, it looks the same and tastes even better!"

"Why don't you give it a try?"

The teammates blinked and waved their hands repeatedly.

Mei'er then asked, "Did anyone bring a pot?"

"I'm going to make you a super mushroom stew! I guarantee you'll never forget it after you eat it!"

His teammates waved their hands frantically again.

The man carrying the pot even took two steps back.

The captain sighed, "You see such a fantastical scene, and all you can think about is food...?"

"Yes! My goodness, an endless supply of mushrooms! We can pick and eat as many as we want, and we'd never finish them in this lifetime!" Mei'er exclaimed excitedly. "Wow! I never even dared to dream of something this wonderful!"

As he spoke, he picked a cluster of small, cherry-like pink mushrooms from the ground beside him.

"what is this?"

"It looks a bit like an amethyst mushroom, but the color doesn't match..."

"I'll try it."

Because of his previous professional performance, his teammates did not stop him this time.

5 seconds later.

Mei Er foamed at the mouth and collapsed with a thud.

"?"

The teammates were shocked.

"Holy crap, what's wrong with you?"

"Can't we eat that?"

"I told you you can't eat things that are too brightly colored!"

"Shouldn't people from Yunnan be even less likely to eat mushrooms they don't recognize?"

"Are all those who drowned good swimmers?"

……

His teammates quickly gave him water and patted his back to induce vomiting.

Without a second thought, the captain shoved his finger down Mei'er's throat and rummaged through the mushroom he had just chewed.

It took a lot of effort to save Mei Er.

Mei'er's first words after regaining consciousness were: "I wouldn't eat random things in real life, but isn't this a virtual world?"

"If we don't eat now, when will we?"

By this time, everyone had fully realized that Mei'er was a "mushroom fanatic," and they were no longer surprised by her somewhat outrageous remarks.

Instead, he tried to persuade her by appealing to the bigger picture: "Don't forget our main task! We need to find the unknown city, and time is of the essence!"

“If you like it here, we can come back with you after we find that city and things settle down.”

"Can we get down to business first?"

Mei'er is a reasonable person, but she was so excited when she suddenly saw this mushroom paradise that she couldn't control herself.

He tried to compose himself and control his impulses, and continued forward with his teammates.

However, on his journey of exploration, he would still look at all sorts of mushrooms that he didn't recognize and that probably didn't exist in reality, and if he had the opportunity, he would collect some of them.

When it came time for dinner, I finally couldn't resist and cooked a pot of mushroom soup.

Everything was fine when I was drinking the soup; everything seemed normal.

But as he ate his first mushroom, a lively and pleasant sound effect suddenly rang out around him.

Then everything around me shrank rapidly!
Looking at the soup pot in her hand that had grown to the size of a spoon, Mei Er immediately realized: her teammates hadn't shrunk; it was just that her body had suddenly doubled in size!
The teammates, holding their rations, craned their necks in shock to look at the suddenly enlarged Rose Ear.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, they both looked at the mushrooms that Mei Er had processed but hadn't used by the fire.

They instantly realized that in this mushroom world, the characteristics of mushrooms are likely far more than just "edible" and "poisonous".

Some mushrooms have special effects when eaten!
They soon discovered a mushroom with a bright red cap and white spots that would make them grow bigger if they ate it!

Inspired by this mushroom, they began to actively seek out and test mushrooms with unusual shapes as they continued their journey.

One after another, we discovered counterparts to the [Grow Large Mushroom]—the [Shrink Mushroom], the [Bouncing Mushroom] which greatly increases jump height, the [Glowing Mushroom] which attracts monsters and poisonous insects, and the [Exploding Mushroom] which explodes when thrown…

Mei'er became more and more excited, and the smile on her face never stopped.

The teammates were also very enthusiastic, getting more and more carried away as they picked them up.

……

Players who entered the Mushroom Kingdom later did not initially notice the special characteristics of these mushrooms because there were no Yunnan natives in their teams.

Until they encountered a formidable monster—

Parasitic vines.

This is the only plant in the mushroom kingdom besides mushrooms.

It is also a hostile species that poses a huge threat to the ecosystem of the mushroom kingdom.

This vine is highly corrosive, actively parasitizing various plants and animals, turning them into ferocious monsters.

These monsters disrupt the ecosystem of the mushroom kingdom, preying on normal creatures, and even entangle the giant mushroom stems, strangling mushrooms as large as houses and causing their enormous caps to wither and die.

Mushrooms and other creatures living under the enormous canopy wither and die along with it. The scene is horrifying.

Of course, only Mei Er was deeply saddened by this.

Players who were in a hurry to travel through the Mushroom Kingdom to find the city didn't care much about this.

—The parasitic vines not only grow inside the monster's body, but also weave themselves into fine and sturdy vine armor, and assist the monster in attacking and moving like octopus tentacles.

They are extremely difficult to deal with in a fight.

Everyone was in a hurry to find a city, and their first priority was to avoid battle—if they could avoid it, they would avoid it; if they couldn't, they would fight and run.

No one had the mind to put aside their important task of finding the city and stop here to help the Mushroom Kingdom resolve its crisis.

Even if they see a creature covered in spores and mushrooms fighting a monster, they simply avoid it and do not intervene in the battle.

With this mindset, one naturally wouldn't pay attention to the various mushrooms growing by the roadside.

It wasn't until they were attacked more and more frequently, all their vehicles were destroyed by vines, their supplies were constantly being consumed, and they were running out of food that they turned their attention to "environmental decorations"—that is, mushrooms.

Without the help of their fellow Yunnanese, they had to research and select mushrooms at the same time.

However, the mushrooms in the Mushroom Kingdom are not exactly the same as real mushrooms; they have many variations.

This makes their collection efficiency very low, and they even occasionally make the wrong selections.

As a consequence of making the wrong choice, it's perfectly normal for one or two people to die while eating.

But occasionally, you might eat mushrooms that have special effects.

—There are even spicy mushrooms that can make you breathe fire after eating them.

Players thus became aware of the existence of "super mushrooms" and began to study how to utilize them.

During this process, Yunnan natives became very popular!
Those who are particularly knowledgeable about mushrooms have become especially sought-after.

Those players who ate themselves to death from mushroom poisoning and had to return to Mansheng City to recuperate began to vigorously recruit Yunnan players to join their teams.

In a short period of time, a large number of recruitment posts appeared in Mengjinli, saying "Recruiting mushroom experts, Yunnan people preferred".

Some wealthy individuals went even further, spending money to hire skilled men from Yunnan to help identify mushrooms, hoping to improve exploration efficiency and give their teams an advantage.

In the vast, three-dimensional, deep, and perilous region of the Mushroom Kingdom, the addition of these guys from Yunnan can indeed greatly improve the team's tolerance for mistakes and exploration efficiency.

However, not every team can find players who excel in both exploration combat and mushroom identification.

Overseas players, in particular, are at a huge disadvantage in this regard.

The number of "mushroom experts" overseas is far less than that in Xia Country.

Many countries don't even have it at all.

Inevitably, they quickly fell behind in the exploration competition of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Of course they were unwilling to accept this.

Thus, the inevitable element—"ambush and robbery"—was staged once again.

Of course, it's not about robbing people from Yunnan.

Instead, they robbed food, supplies, and most importantly, the "magic mushrooms."

As the logs were released, large numbers of players from all over the world continued to pour into the Mushroom Kingdom, making these mutual raids more frequent and intense.

Everyone soon discovered:
The Magic Mushroom is not only useful for fighting monsters and speeding up travel, but it's also great for attacking people!
When it comes to discovering ways to use these amazing mushrooms, the people of Yunnan are faster than anyone else.

Before using a mushroom, other players have to carefully check if the mushroom in their hand is correct, for fear of using the wrong one.

But the skilled locals from Yunnan don't need this process at all; they can instantly pick out the mushrooms they need from a bag with just a glance.

Because of this skill, the status of Yunnan people has risen once again!
……

……

Amidst this fierce conflict and battle, the first team to set off, which happened to include Mei Er, the "mushroom fanatic," successfully overcame numerous obstacles, traversed most of the mushroom kingdom, and arrived at the edge of the mushroom ecosystem.

They climbed onto a gigantic mushroom-shaped canopy that was almost 20 stories high and gazed into the distance.

A majestic wall appeared before our eyes.

As they gazed at the distant city, their hearts were filled with longing.

They had all seen the post Huazhou made and the city photos that the expert had edited.

But in those two cut-out images, the city appears as two nested white concentric rings.

Without a clear reference point, it seems smaller than the cap of a bottle of mineral water.

But now, as they traverse the vast rainforest and mushroom kingdom, gazing upon the city walls from here, the feeling is entirely different—

Even from this distance, you can feel its breathtaking scale!
Even the tallest trees obediently prostrate themselves at the foot of the giant wall, appearing as short as a patch of grass.

It's not even noticeable that this giant wall is circular.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and felt extremely excited!

"Judging from this distance, it's at most another ten kilometers or so?"

"It's hard to say. You can run yourself to death looking at a mountain. It could be dozens of kilometers away."

"That's not far! Full speed ahead, we can get there today!"

"Gentlemen, we are about to succeed!"

Everyone is very excited.

Fortunately, the captain remained relatively calm: "Stop, stop, stop! No champagne at halftime!"

“In other areas, there are likely other teams that are ahead of us.”

"Quickly eat something to replenish your satiety and energy, then charge forward in one go!"

They started a fire on the mushroom caps and set up a pot.

Mei Er has become a personal chef and has started making garlic-flavored fried mushrooms for everyone.

Other teams exploring the Mushroom Kingdom are most concerned with mushrooms that have special effects, while edible mushrooms are just those that can be eaten.

But the rose ear is different.

He was carrying a large bag of mushrooms on his back, and his pockets were also full.

Not only are there functional mushrooms, but also a whole bunch of ingredients with various flavors and textures.

He always manages to make sure his teammates have a great meal.

It's the same this time.

However, after everyone had finished eating and started cleaning up, Mei'er suddenly spoke up:

"The city has been found, so I won't go any further down the road."

"?" His teammates looked at him in surprise.

"Wait! We're almost there!"

"Yeah, yeah, let's play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets the [Honorary Player] spot when we get to the city. We're all brothers, no need to worry about that."

Everyone advised him not to give up on the last leg of the journey.

Mei'er shook her head and said, "Honorary players... I won't compete with you all. Good luck!"

"My journey ends here."

"You..." The captain frowned, "You don't mean to stay here and help those mushroom people save this mushroom field, do you?"

"Nobody's in the mood for this right now, you're all alone..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but it was clear he wasn't optimistic.

Mei shook her head: "Of course I know, I can't do it alone."

"I'm not in a hurry."

"I plan to build a house in this mushroom kingdom first, and see if I can open a restaurant."

"???"

The teammates were even more confused.

Open a shop?
Here?

Players from all over the world are already locked in a chaotic battle, with even monsters and native creatures fighting each other. And you're opening a restaurant here?
This isn't even about whether or not we'll lose money...

It'll definitely be sold for free, right?!

(End of this chapter)