The Monster is Coming

Chapter 329 Intelligence Investigation, Regional Situation

Their gaze shifted from the intense exchange of fire at the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range and quickly retreated.

Passing through the black mist-shrouded clouds, Qi Sheng's gaze returned to the map interface, focusing on the Illusionary Wasteland region.

The images that came to mind were completely different from those of the Imperial Tomb Mountains.

The scenery of the Imperial Tomb Mountain Range resembles a crucible of war, where the intense fighting spirit bursts forth, turning the entire sky crimson.

Top players assemble and launch a fearless charge.

The player who took the damage stood at the forefront, using their bare hands to withstand the massive, mountain-like bodies of the calamity-type behemoths. The bursts of blood and flames from the collision resembled sparks flying during forging.

The elemental power unleashed by magic-based players intertwined into a torrent in the clouds, colliding with the destructive power released by the Death and Plague units in the same sky.

Assassin players weave death webs with their blades in the shadows, while support classes' buff auras and life-linking abilities pulsate across the battlefield like tides. Each flash reignites the crumbling battle lines, and at the critical moment, they can erect golden barriers to withstand the barrage of attacks.

With perfect coordination and united will, the allied legions, under the command of the God-King, were like a precise war machine, with every gear meshing and operating seamlessly.

This is the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range, a top-tier battlefield in the eyes of players.

Every player is a seasoned veteran, an absolute elite forged in the brutal training of the local bullies.

Every brilliant moment on the battlefield is the crystallization of combat experience accumulated by top players through countless deaths.

In contrast, in the Phantom Wasteland region, the Ah Le Training Camp, which has reopened and operates 24/7, is staging an absurd drama that never ends.

This battlefield looked like a scene from a brawl among elementary school students.

There were no well-coordinated war legions, only a bunch of novice players running around like headless flies.

The area near the exit of the space was bustling like a vegetable market.

Some players form teams and call for help here, while others blame each other and then pull each other's hair and fight.

As for battlefield command, it simply doesn't exist.

Although occasionally a few players would volunteer to organize players in the Ah Le Training Camp and establish a joint combat team.

But even if you shout yourself hoarse, it's hard for any player to pay attention.

Newbie players do whatever they want; some charge in, some slack off, and they only enjoy the purest form of violent brawling.

So-called tactical cooperation is at most a small-scale cooperation between acquaintances where one person tanks the monster and the other deals damage.

The most distinctive feature of Ale's training camp is that players come and go like flowing water.

Teammates who are fighting side by side today, arm in arm, saying they'll fight together, may graduate and go to a higher-level map tomorrow.

Even after forming a battle group, you'll find that the player names on the battle group roster are refreshed every day.

I just contacted a strong, high-level player to join me this morning, and by tonight he might be forced to graduate.

Players who try to form a fixed group often find that they can't even last a week before the group leader disappears, the main DPS disappears, and the support has been "graduated" (i.e., given a high rank in the game)...

What drives commanders most crazy is that the rhythm of command is constantly changing.

I habitually called out a player's name, but no one answered because he had already graduated and left.

New recruits wait in the team for orders from the commander, only to find that the commander has forgotten about them.

Tactical coordination requires time to hone.

Teams that are constantly being updated can't possibly develop good teamwork.

This is why the battles in Ale's training camp are so chaotic and disorderly; all the players believe that this is how it should be played in the training camp.

Battle groups and tactics are all just unnecessary troubles.

How can you develop any chemistry by working with new teammates every day?

Choosing a team is something only hardcore players consider. Here, only the most brutal combat aesthetics exist: hair pulling, groin kicks, eye gouging... these are the core combat techniques.

Here, you won't find the legendary battle groups that have lasted for years like those in the Emperor's Tomb Mountains.

All the teams were makeshift and hastily assembled.

A new battle group that is might be awe-inspiring today could crumble tomorrow because its core members graduate.

Unlike the Imperial Tomb Mountains, where a battle group can fight for two years and still maintain the same team while continuously expanding its scale.

Regiment commanders graduate, commanders graduate, core combatants leave the regiment... this happens every day.

Secondly, another reason affecting the construction of the battle group is the chaos of the system.

The commander might be a newbie who only learned how to use the Eaglehead Demon's traits yesterday, and the main melee DPS was just a support yesterday, not knowing any melee skills... In the newbie stage, many players haven't even determined the future direction of the Star Pulse.

My ideas may change at any time.

This is an inevitable phenomenon that occurs every time Qi Sheng recruits new recruits.

Many new players are tourists before they qualify, learning about the Monster World through forums and live streams.

This means that their choice of star pulse pairings can only be based on intuition.

Many choices, once experienced, turn out to be completely unsuitable for you.

The most representative example is the fluctuation in the number of players who rely on taking damage.

The damage-absorbing builds players see on forums and live streams are domineering and fierce, standing like mountains on the front lines of the battlefield, braving the torrents of war that appear in different battles, with the bursts of blood and energy when their bodies collide as dazzling as fireworks.

The sight of top-tier tanks covered in blood yet refusing to retreat, coupled with the grand battlefield scenes, is enough to get anyone's blood pumping and make them wish they could immediately switch classes and become the invincible warriors in the video.

Therefore, during each newbie recruitment phase, a large number of players will choose the "Faith Choice" and become a tanky damage dealer.

But the reality is cruel.

The novice hastily chose the damage-taking route, only to be met with excruciating pain in actual combat, causing him to grimace in agony.

The seemingly awesome battlefield sweeping scenes in the video turned into excruciating pain when experienced firsthand, ultimately resulting in a blackout and a countdown to respawn.

Not to mention that professional damage-absorbing players, while enduring pain, also need to pay attention to positioning, teamwork, and teammate protection, all of which require high-intensity training.

This is also the core reason why damage-absorbing players have a much higher status in major guilds, warbands, and fixed teams than other playstyles.

As a result, you can often see this scene in the training camp: a newbie player who was determined to uphold the belief of taking damage yesterday will shrink into the back row like a wilted eggplant the next day, and secretly change his Star Pulse to a ranged output.

The forum was filled with complaints from new players: "Is the damage-absorbing build even human?", "Looking for recommendations for a damage-absorbing build that doesn't hurt", "If I play damage-absorbing again, I'll be a dog" and similar posts.

When the iron fist of reality strikes, even a choice of faith will crumble.

The price of refusing to admit defeat is the ever-increasing bruises on the body. When the pain exceeds the player's tolerance, most players will choose to switch builds.

This also includes assassin-style players.

The assassin player in the video is elegant and agile, his figure moving like a ghost across the battlefield. A flash of cold light from his dagger and blood blossoms. He kills one person in ten steps and leaves no trace for a thousand miles.

In the highlight reel, top-tier assassin players stroll leisurely through the chaos of war, their blades dancing on the edge of the battlefield in a breathtaking display.

When the novice rookies impulsively chose the assassin path, harsh reality dealt them a heavy blow.

Movement, precision, lethality, timing... these skills all require players to have very high skill aptitude.

The low margin for error due to their fragile nature has turned many assassin-style players into clowns on the battlefield.

At the resurrection point in the Phantom Wasteland where Ale's training camp is located, you can always see dejected newbies of the Assassin class, who have lost their confidence due to the blows of reality.

The video promised to kill one person in ten steps, but they turned it into ten deaths in ten steps.

The graceful and agile movements, in his own hands, turned into a wild boar charge, head-on feeding the warriors of the Bliss Legion.

Personnel turnover and systemic chaos were the two major problems that caused the players in Ale's training camp to completely abandon the idea of ​​joint operations.

Instead of wasting energy building and matching battle groups, it's better to charge in blindly and farm sacrificial power.

Another highlight of Ah Le's training camp is the newly introduced project: Time Reflection.

This is what players perceive as ad time.

Every so often, the old gatekeeper would force all Ah Le students to look up at the sky and forcibly start a 73-second screen advertisement.

Unable to skip, unable to close... Anyone who disobeys will face the old gatekeeper's iron fist, which will reach straight into the dark room.

The revenue generated by advertising significantly reduced the daily resource expenditure of Ale Training Camp.

Besides the new players in Ale's training camp, billions of hidden contributors also bring advertising revenue to Ale.

They were the viewers in Ale's training camp live stream.

Although they are not qualified, watching the imagery advertisements can still generate revenue for the Lord of Bliss.

This is the power of rules: as long as the logic is followed, resources can be generated regardless of space.

Secondly, there are also players who have entered the death resurrection cooldown period, and they will also appear in Ale's training camp live stream to watch the drama unfold.

Their viewing of advertisements also brings Ah Le resource benefits.

Qi Sheng can cut off this part of the resource output at any time.

After all, the player who died was in Emperor's Tomb Village, and he could block this channel with a single thought.

But Qi Sheng did not do that.

In his eyes, Ale Training Camp is a place to help new players grow quickly, and giving them some incentives to expand the scale of Ale Training Camp is a good thing.

There will be a large number of players to recruit in the future, and Ale Training Camp remains the best training base for newbies.

The growth of the Bliss Clan can only benefit the development of player factions. The Lord of Bliss is also seen as a potential force by him.

The Elysian Legion's organizational structure is divided into three systems.

These are the Blissful Player System, the Blissful Legion System, and the Blissful Elite System.

Each training method has its own characteristics and has a chance to create a powerful war legion.

In terms of resource acquisition, the Lord of Bliss has a higher margin of error than any other faction the player has encountered.

There are three resource channels that are continuously generating revenue for the Lord of Bliss.

The core resource production channel is the Elysium Palace located in different regions of the Monster World, which is what players call: Ale Entertainment City.

This model captures local creatures, causing the target to fall into an inescapable bliss, turning them into a resource cauldron that continuously generates profits.

The second channel is: the demonic system.

This is a demonic system built around Elysium players, and it is developing rapidly.

This channel can also be seen as a mobile version of Elysium Palace, turning the fixed-location entertainment center into a mobile stall-style venue, allowing Elysium players who have graduated from Dead Space to seek out individuals and groups that can be seduced.

Let them die in the ascent of desire, so that they may produce the power of bliss for the Lord of Bliss.

The third channel is the newly added screen advertising time.

Compared to other forces, the Lord of Bliss's three resource acquisition channels all share a most prominent characteristic: stability.

Having survived the cataclysmic war to this day, the Lord of Bliss is well-versed in the essence of the "survival" principle. The resource acquisition channels he has created cannot be cut off, and he can evacuate and reopen them at any time, even if there is danger.

Distributed resource-producing nodes spread like an underground mycelial network across different regions of the monster world.

Each node operates independently, so destroying one or two will not affect the overall output at all.

Secondly, there is the accumulation of fluid capital, ensuring that resource output flows continuously like blood circulation.

Today this area is squeezed dry, tomorrow we'll move to another place to continue the squeeze.

Finally, there is the "three burrows" architecture, where all the Blissful Branch Halls are equipped with a rapid reconstruction architecture, and core resources are quickly transferred through channels that are connected to the main Blissful Hall in advance.

Just like the closure of the frozen winter plains, the entire process was completed in just one minute.

Before the fighting spirit ignited by the local bully could be extinguished, he was shocked to find that the "enemy" had already packed up and run away, not giving him any chance to make contact.

Looking around, amidst the swirling snow, there was no trace of the once-mighty Elysian Legion's structure.

Even if the opponent is weak, as long as there is even the slightest risk, in Ah Le's eyes it could turn into an extreme risk.

Rather than gambling on a high probability of victory, it's better to retreat in advance and avoid any risk.

In the eyes of the Lord of Bliss, even a failure with an extremely low probability is still a failure.

As long as there is no battle, it means there has been no defeat; not losing means a partial victory; and eventually, one becomes complacent with all the winning.

This easily avoided the risk of war.

The Lord of Bliss took the philosophy of survival—winning without fighting—to its extreme.

In its calculations, victory and defeat in the world are never a black-and-white game, but a mathematical game of perpetual operation.

There is only one correct answer: Only by living can there be a future.

The drama of powerful races falling is constantly playing out in the history of the monster world, and the Lord of Bliss is a witness to history.

Therefore, he was absolutely determined about the path he had chosen.

In the eyes of the Lord of Bliss, continuous victories can indeed bring about rapid progress in the development of the race, but a single defeat could lead to the destruction of the entire race.

Many of those once-mighty rulers have long since rusted away and turned to dust in the long river of time.

These are all examples of failure in the eyes of the Lord of Bliss, and should not be learned from.

Qi Sheng's gaze swept across the chaotic battlefield of newbies, then quickly rose, passing through the cloudless sky back to the map in front of the altar.

At this moment, attention focuses on the world of adventurers.

This is currently the gameplay with the highest overall return.

The number of players participating in this mode is more than six times that of the Emperor's Tomb Mountain battlefield.

The rewards players earn from exploring dungeons have also become a major source of revenue for the Gold Coin Merchant Guild.

The occasional surprises keep players hooked.

Unknown Rewards continues the blind box gameplay of the underground world, but the rewards are more stable, eliminating the high risks of the blind box gameplay.

Dungeon-based players mainly engage in small-scale battles, unlike the large-scale battles on the Emperor's Tomb Mountain battlefield.

However, the combat power of these players should not be underestimated.

Guilds with potential such as Stargazer, Blood Butcher, and Guild Name Taken are building their battle groups that are shining brightly on the stage of the Adventurer's World.

These guilds generally follow an elite training path, and they possess considerable combat power even in the monster world.

After surveying the development of the instance world, Qi Sheng returned his gaze to the map, focusing on the Land of Chasing the Sun.

This spatial node is, in Qi Sheng's eyes, a springboard for players to compete for supremacy in the Rumbling Continent.

The strongest forces on this continent are the Mechanical Legion, which players encountered at the beginning of the game, and the Virtual Rune Legion, which has been resurrected and returned.

The clashes between the two sides intensified, with the battlefield covering nearly a third of the Earth-Ringing Continent.

Unlike the naval battles for supremacy in the Misty Coast region.

The war between the Mechanical Overlords and the Virtual Rune Legion was not a one-shot affair; both sides built their advantages through strategic warfare.

The core objectives are to capture resource nodes, disrupt the opponent's resource production, and rebuild resource nodes.

The entire Rumbling Continent is like a battlefield of graffiti, constantly being covered and rewritten by the forces exerted by both sides.

The systemic advantage in this war lies with the Virtual Rune Legion.

This civilization was created to counter the mechanical legions.

The structure of a civilization is woven from the intelligence gathered by the mechanical legions of its former masters according to the rules of "dimensional ascension".

It's like being remade from scratch.

It reshaped the civilization's growth system at a two-dimensional level, creating a civilization architecture capable of fighting against mechanical legions at the fastest speed.

Data intrusion, mechanical contamination, virtual life... all these settings are designed to combat the mechanical legion.

Returning to the game, the Virtual Rune Legion gained an advantage in the Legion system, but it is still at a significant disadvantage in terms of overall strength.

It remains to be seen who will ultimately emerge victorious.

It is clear that the war between the two sides will soon affect players who are active in Sunrise Lands.

The enjoyable exploration period will come to an end, and players in this region will be forced to confront the brutal vortex of a two-way battle for supremacy.

Based on his understanding of the players, he believes that the players in this region will most likely still adopt the strategy of "when the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits."

Alternatively, they could leave the Sunburst Land node and move to other regions to develop.

The viewer's gaze shifts away from the scene in the Land of the Sun.

Qi Sheng's gaze focused on the last area of ​​the player's core node: the Forest Realm.

My gaze dips downward, piercing through the eternal night.

What comes to mind is a forest covered in fluorescent spores, with billions of plants covering the entire earth.

The development level of this region is moderate, and the combat power of players active in this region is at the upper-middle level among player factions.

The Reverse Tide Legion and the Soul Return Clan are both active on the battlefield west of the Senluo Forest.

Secondly, there is a core Black Tide node ruled by the "Black Tide King" in the Pale Continent region, which is located to the north of this battlefield and occasionally enters the battlefield.

In the future, players will start from the Forest Realm and officially join the competition for regional dominance.

However, given the player's current strength, they cannot even withstand collisions at the edge of the region, let alone enter the battlefield.

Therefore, they are not yet qualified to enter the battlefield.

Friction with the Soul Returners occurs from time to time, but it is mostly one-sided slaughter, and few players can gain any benefits from the Soul Returners.

Yu Chuan's team is an exception; the soul beast sales channel they established has recently been making a fortune and has already connected with many powerful guilds.

However, such profits cannot be sustained.

For the Soul Returners, the discovery of the Soul Beast's lair by the team was insignificant, but the continuous loss of resources would still attract the attention of the Soul Returners warriors who governed that area.

When that time comes, this path of continuous revenue generation will be cut off.

At present, players' gains in the Forest Realm mainly come from containment nodes and hunting plant-type monsters.

But one day in the future, this place will become the biggest battleground for supremacy.

As for whether the Reverse Tide Legion is friend or foe, Qi Sheng plans to conduct a detailed investigation after finalizing the player factions.

　I have some trivial matters to handle today, here's a 5200-word summary.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)