The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 696 The First Rule of the Dream Club (Seeking double monthly votes at the end of the month!)

The title, "Overcoming Difficulties Together with Boss Meng," immediately tells Xia Guo players that it must be related to Xu Meng.

It was just that naming him by name was too direct, so they changed to using "Boss Meng" as a substitute.

But this attempt to cover up the truth only makes things worse.

The Xia Kingdom players saw through it immediately; it was just a trick to fool overseas players.

But even overseas players, upon entering the game and seeing the NPC bound to them, will immediately understand—

This NPC is not human, but a humanoid polar bear.

However, the shape of his eyebrows and eyes is at least 80% similar to the facial features of Xu Meng!
However, in terms of personality, he is much more honest and simple.

When the players from Xia Kingdom saw this fluffy bear, they excitedly rushed over to pet it, and they couldn't get enough of its fur.

They didn't even bother to observe the surroundings; they just took a bunch of group photos and videos.

Only after you've patted and kneaded enough do you start to care about the game itself.

The game's main gameplay is very easy to understand.

Just like the game's title suggests—"Overcoming Difficulties with Dream Boss"—it's about following this humanoid polar bear named "Dream Boss" as he escapes from prison, climbs upwards, overcomes numerous difficulties, and finally reaches Sky Island.

It sounds simple, but as soon as you look up and see the vertical "path of ascent" made up of countless materials piled up haphazardly and pieced together, you'll know that this climbing journey is anything but simple!
What makes it even more difficult is that this is not a simple two-person cooperative climb.

The player and the bear-man were firmly chained together by a five-meter-long iron chain, and no matter what method they used, they could not break free.

Players can only be tied to the bear-man and advance or retreat together.

But here's the problem:

This bear-man doesn't obey the player's commands!
He even expects players to follow his commands.

Unfortunately, his ideas were always terrible. He would get tired after running only a short distance, sticking out his tongue and muttering complaints about needing to rest.

Once he lies down, the player can forget about leaving.

—The bear is too heavy; it's impossible for humans to move it.

If someone were to slip and fall on the road, it could have disastrous consequences!

This vertical ascent is pieced together from various materials, but the assembly is not tight, with many cracks and gaps in the middle.

If a player falls, they are lucky and will only fall a few dozen meters.

But if you're unlucky, you could fall hundreds of meters in one go!

Some of the most dangerous traps can send you tumbling back to your starting point in one fell swoop! Hours of climbing could be wiped out!
The electronic Edison dragged this lazy bear uphill for three hours, falling and climbing again and again, but it did not break his resilient spirit.

He watched helplessly as the bear-man in front of him slipped and crashed into the pipe with a loud thud while climbing a sloping drainage pipe less than 50 centimeters in diameter.

The next second, a huge bear's butt slammed into his face.

He was knocked over by the large buttocks without any power to resist, and then fell down the pipe and began to fall.

He frantically dog-paddled in the air, trying to grab onto something and stop his fall.

He succeeded.

He grabbed a branch that was leaning out of the flower bed.

Edison reacted extremely quickly. The moment he grabbed the branch, he pulled hard, using the force to swing his entire body over. Then, he brought his arms and legs together and hugged the tree trunk tightly!
But the moment he hugged him, the white-furred bear-man flew past him, yelling and shouting.

Edison heard the clanging sound of the iron rings clattering together.

He quickly realized: it was the sound of chains.

The chains snapped instantly!

The bear-man's terrifying weight dragged the chains and belt, nearly snapping his back!
But the electronic Edison still clung tightly to the tree trunk, refusing to let go!
In this game, players cannot die—no matter how high they fall or how badly they are hurt, they can get up again and continue climbing.

Of course, it won't feel very good.

It hurts when it hurts, it tires when it tires.

But for Edison, who was experiencing electronic music at this moment, as long as he could stop the decline, he would grit his teeth and endure it no matter how painful it was!
Unfortunately, some things are beyond human control.

The tree he was holding was being pulled more and more askew by this enormous force, and its roots were slowly prying out of the soil...

Finally, under the desperate gaze of Edison, the tree roots were uprooted, and the entire tree fell with them.

This was a long fall.

The bear-man was like a ball below, constantly bumping into things and being bounced away, rolling downhill with him...

When he finally came to a stop after crashing into a stone monument, Electro Edison looked up and saw the familiar prison gate.

He was completely frozen in place.

The live stream room was eerily quiet.

Only after remaining still for a full 10 seconds did he let out a heart-wrenching scream:
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"

"Developer, I'm so angry!!!"

"And you, you bear!!! I'll fuck your grandpa!!!"

He roared and pounced on the dizzy, swaying bear-man, swinging his fist and punching it!
He pounded on the ground for a long time until he had no strength left, then collapsed backward in despair, lying on the ground with lifeless eyes, as if his soul had left his body.

The viewers in the live stream burst into laughter.

Currently, "Overcoming Difficulties with Boss Dream" boasts top-tier popularity and traffic among all games participating in the advanced testing phase.

The various live streamers were falling apart and collapsing.

What the audience loves to see most is that after they've climbed so high with great difficulty, they suddenly slip and fall.

In just a few seconds of falling, hours of climbing achievements were wiped out!
The longer the fall, the more distraught the streamer becomes, and the happier they are.

In order to see such a scene, they even roamed around, frantically urging other streamers to play this game.

As a result, the bubble in this world keeps getting bigger and bigger!
But as for the reviews...

After being sent back to their hometown time and time again, it's no wonder these frustrated players are in a bad mood!

"Why did these developers even create something like this?!"

Edison, the electronic music enthusiast, questioned the meaning of life: "With such a rare opportunity, can't we create something beautiful?"

The group of people in the live stream, who were just looking for fun, couldn't stand hearing such comments.

The more times the streamer broke down, the happier the viewers in the live stream were, hoping he would continue to find gold in the trash, and thus they all defended these developers:
"It's just a difference in aesthetics! You don't have to like it, but please don't hurt it."

"You're just talking without understanding the difficulties. Developing games is very difficult; it's already quite an achievement to have succeeded!"

"Or, if you're so capable, why don't you do it?"

……

EDM Eddie was furious and blurted out, "Who do you think you are?"

"I'm definitely better than these people! My dream ticket costs 1500 yuan..."

At this point, he suddenly realized something was wrong and quickly shut his mouth.

But viewers have already started to raise questions:
"Dream ticket? What's that?"

"1500 yuan a ticket? What kind of ticket is that expensive?"

"Wait a minute, isn't the secondary dream entry function not yet available?"

"Yeah! The dream-making machine that allows you to enter dreams a second time? You managed to snag one? Can you play online?"

……

Edison's eyelids twitched wildly as his mind raced.

Suddenly feeling parched, I tried to cover it up: "Sigh... I was so angry I was just making things up."

"What I mean is: if I make it, I will definitely make an incredibly fun dream game. Even if it sells for 1500 yuan a copy, there will be a lot of people scrambling to buy it."

The viewers, of course, didn't believe it:
"We're all on the same side, so stop bragging here."

"1500? The game 'Building Dreams' only costs 268, and you're selling it for 1500? You're even more awesome than Xu Meng?"

"Wake up, wake up, it's not bedtime yet." ...

"Can't people even dream?" Edison retorted.

But secretly, I breathed a sigh of relief.

'Thankfully, we managed to get away with it.'

Daydreaming is not a problem.

At most, they'll be the subject of jokes and ridicule from viewers and netizens.

But if the issues of "dream trading" and "dream machines exceeding limits" are exposed, then the problem will be huge!

In an effort to make the audience overlook the incident, the exhausted EDM Edison, who was planning to end the live stream and go for a massage, rallied his spirits and got up from the ground:

"Come again!!"

"I refuse to believe we can't reach the finish line!"

"We won't stop broadcasting until the very end!"

These bold words immediately excited a large number of viewers in the live stream, who flooded the chat with various jeering comments.

The few comments that still questioned the "dream ticket" were immediately drowned out by the massive amount of cheering and disappeared.

With a sense of relief, Edison embarked on his journey once again.

But once words are spoken, they are like water spilled; their impact will inevitably spread.

Because he spent the whole day being tricked by all sorts of bizarre games, his live stream's popularity once soared to the top three in China, with an astonishing number of viewers.

Even if only one in a thousand netizens has doubts, that's still hundreds of people.

Moreover, the number of players who have doubts is far more than one in a thousand!

These netizens quickly began searching for relevant information online.

This is not easy.

It wasn't just Edison who kept this a secret; in fact, everyone who came into contact with it kept it a secret.

The problem is that this is not a completely offline community, nor is it a closed group.

They also leave cryptic messages online to attract more like-minded people, or "customers."

This provided clues for netizens searching for them.

A loyal viewer of the electronic music Edison, named Wu Chengyu, searched intensively for several hours, falling for six scams and being cheated out of 38 yuan, before finally finding the real clue—

A helpful netizen sent Mengjin a long string of meaningless numbers via private message, asking him to download a special password decryption program from the open-source community.

After using this program to translate, the string of numbers became garbled text.

The garbled text was then translated into a home NAS domain name.

This domain name is open for 10 seconds every 10 minutes.

I logged in right on time and downloaded a landscape photo.

After modifying the format of the landscape photos, they were converted into a compressed file.

After unzipping it, there is another compressed file inside.

This decompression process was repeated seven times. Just when Wu Chengyu thought he had been tricked again, he finally decompressed something different—

Another string of numbers.

After searching several times on different platforms, he discovered that it was a string of numerical UIDs for a Dream Building game account.

After sending him a private message, the other party did not accept his friend request, but instead asked him to meet at the [Black Box] in Mansheng Metropolis.

After entering the black box and spending another half hour waiting for people and exchanging coded messages, he finally made contact with this mysterious organization.

[Dream Club]
Are you sure you want to join the Dream Club?

A deep male voice came from the darkness.

The other party spent a full 10 minutes isolating the corner and using some kind of soundproofing device before finally speaking.

This extremely cautious attitude made Wu Chengyu take it seriously as well.

He said confidently, "I'm sure!"

He was initially only somewhat skeptical of Edison's words and curious about the "dream ticket".

But after this extremely complicated search, his curiosity had completely exploded and was completely uncontrollable.

He is now very eager to know what exactly is going on with this club.

“Very good, we welcome new like-minded people to join us.” The man opposite him reached out and placed his hand on his shoulder.

But then he immediately changed his tone, saying, "However, if you want to join us, you must abide by the rules of the Dream Club."

"What rules?" Wu Chengyu asked.

"Dream Club Rule Number One: You cannot talk about Dream Club."

Wu Chengyu suddenly realized.

No wonder Edison was so eager to make amends after accidentally letting something slip.

He nodded at first, then quickly realized the other person couldn't see him, so he whispered, "I understand. What about the second one?"

"Dream Club Rule Number Two: You may not talk about Dream Club."

A question mark slowly rose above Wu Chengyu's head; he thought his game had lag.

But they quickly realized that in the virtual world, there is no such thing as network lag or high latency.

So he asked with a strange look, "There isn't a third rule, is there?"

“That’s right!” the other person said solemnly. “The third rule of the Dream Club: You cannot talk about the Dream Club!”

Wu Chengyu was speechless: "Is this some kind of joke?"

"No!" the other person said seriously, "I'm not joking!"

"You don't understand the seriousness of this matter."

"Strictly speaking, the Dream Club is not a completely legal organization."

"?!" Wu Chengyu exclaimed in surprise.

And immediately prepare to call the police.

The other party was still explaining to him: "If this club is exposed, the entire club may be wiped out, all members will be exposed, and they may even be unable to log in to the virtual world again."

"Is it that serious...?" Wu Chengyu was already starting to regret it.

The organization was far more dangerous than he had anticipated.

Shouldn't this be some kind of gaming enthusiasts' club?
Why is this related to being unable to log into the virtual world?

He was trembling slightly.

The other person had their hand on his shoulder and immediately sensed his unease, so they comforted him, saying, "I'm saying all this so you'll take confidentiality seriously. The actual situation might not be that bad."

"After all, Mr. Xu has always been very tolerant of players and users."

Wu Chengyu trembled even more violently.

This matter... also involves Mr. Xu?
It's true that Mr. Xu is tolerant of players and users.

But Mr. Xu's pettiness is even more notorious!
"What's this about Boss Xu? What exactly is your club doing???"

If it weren't for the fact that the black box couldn't record audio or video, and the operating interface couldn't be accessed, he would have called Zhuzhuo customer service right now to record evidence of his undercover work!
“What are we doing?”

The man on the other end answered in an even softer voice, almost cautiously, "We've removed a hardware limitation from the dream machine and restored its original dream LAN function."

"What did you say??" Wu Chengyu asked incredulously.

He almost thought he had misheard!

(End of this chapter)