The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

Ordinary people deal with mundane realities during the day, but once they put on the helmet, their consciousness can fully connect to the Oasis. Their physical body lies at home, while their mind roams in a giant virtual dimension with a chaotic style and boundless maps.

Oasis lacks a unified worldview; its map blends various scenes from science fiction, fantasy, urban life, and wasteland, with sports cars, magic, mechs, and dragons coexisting everywhere. It is entirely supported by a massive number of players and the underlying code of its founding company, Hardy.

The game features both real-world currency and in-game currency. Many poor people make a living by working, treasure hunting, and reselling items in the Oasis. Some even live in cramped apartments and rely on the game for survival year after year.

This is actually quite tragic.

Given this situation, it can only be said that the exploitation of capital in this world has reached an extremely insane level.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be using virtual games to distract the emotions of the lower classes.

Lu Qianwei glanced at the historical data of China in this world and smiled with satisfaction.

While other countries are engrossed in the internet, the pragmatists over there have already flown to Mars to begin colonization.

To this, he could only say that such is the state of affairs in China.

No longer focusing on matters concerning China, Lu Qianwei quickly scanned the data and soon realized that this was the world of "Ready Player One".

The story revolves around an Easter egg key; collecting all three keys will grant control of the Oasis.

Such enormous wealth has attracted major capital groups to form mercenary groups and engage in a frenzied treasure hunt.

Everywhere you look on the streets, you can see people wearing gaming headsets and talking about Oasis missions. Capital and casual players have been fighting fiercely over Easter eggs for years.

However, seeing the leaderboard still showing no one had cleared the level, Lu Qianwei understood the approximate timeframe.

"Hehe, such a wonderful world, it would be a shame not to invite Bai Yuekui over, after all, playing games is her forte~"

No sooner said than done, Lu Qianwei immediately turned the corner from the street back to the time portal and searched for Bai Yuekui, who was conducting research on digital source matter.

"Don't go!"

Upon hearing Lu Qianwei's invitation, Bai Yuekui decisively refused, even rolling her eyes.

game?

Where is a good place to do research?

She doesn't like to run around like this guy.

"Hey, what kind of look is that?" Lu Qianwei protested.

"I create worlds to plunder resources, okay? Don't think I'm just playing around."

Bai Yuekui didn't bother to reply and continued to bury himself in his research on the digital world.

Seeing this, Lu Qianwei had a sudden inspiration and laughed, "Hehe, what's the use of just looking at this?"

"It would be better to come with me over there. The Oasis is built on the quantum engine."

The built-in physics engine isn't entirely realistic, but it does have its own rules and logic regarding the evolution of matter.

"Just think about it, if the two of us take advantage of the situation to gain administrative control of Oasis, and then embed the source code of Hengjiu into its underlying core source code, what do you think will happen?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Bai Yuekui, who had been engrossed in manipulating the source data, suddenly frowned and lowered his eyes, falling into deep thought.

The unique properties of enduring source code inherently possess the laws that give rise to life.

With the support of Oasis's massive computing power, perhaps we can obtain more useful data.

The multi-party consortium could not possibly build such a massive data plane for them anyway.

Having a ready-made, complete oasis seems like a free testing ground.

As he gradually untangled the internal logic, Bai Yuekui's eyes began to light up with interest.

"Alright, it's been a while since I played games." Bai Yuekui looked up at Lu Qianwei, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Then I'll go with you for some exercise."

In the world of Ready Player One, the two stand in a suburban neighborhood with a distinctly cyberpunk feel.

This place is not far from the stacked buildings where the poor live, and the surrounding area is full of oppressive and dilapidated scenes.

Countless abandoned shipping containers and dilapidated steel frames were stacked and pieced together to form a grotesque tenement building tens of meters high, densely packed and occupying the entire field of vision.

The tangled wires, intertwined and tangled, resembled a dense spider web covering the streets and alleys, with the aging lines occasionally emitting tiny sparks.

The narrow alleyways are filled with abandoned motion-sensing devices, broken gaming peripherals, and household garbage. The air is perpetually filled with the pungent smell of rust, mold, and cheap fast food.

This is the lowest rung of society in the city, and almost everyone living here is immersed in a virtual holographic world.

Looking around, you can see ordinary people wearing heavy virtual reality helmets and simple motion-sensing suits everywhere, in the streets and alleys, on the windowsills of buildings, and on dilapidated outdoor lounge chairs.

They stood motionless, their bodies withered and abandoned in the dilapidated and filthy corner of reality, their limbs stiff and their faces numb, only their consciousness completely immersed in that dazzling and boundless virtual dimension.

For them, the cruel and impoverished reality was hopeless; the cramped and dilapidated dwellings, the precarious livelihood, and the hopeless plight of the underprivileged were suffocating.

Only that holographic online game world, which everyone can participate in, can give them a moment of comfort and illusory happiness.

In the virtual world, they can roam the stars, pilot mechs, wield magic, own luxury cars and mansions, and experience all sorts of wonderful lives;

But once you take off your helmet and return to reality, all that's left are dilapidated buildings, a life of hardship, and an endless cycle of confusion and mediocrity.

Just across the street lies a completely different world.

Towering modern skyscrapers rise from the ground, their gleaming glass curtain walls reflecting the dazzling sunlight, while giant holographic commercial advertisements float in mid-air, creating a dazzling and prosperous scene.

The virtual platform controlled by capital attracts everyone with endless virtual easter eggs, cool props, and fantastic scenes, trapping the lower classes of an entire era in a gentle cage woven by data.

Bai Yuekui stood quietly in the wind, chewing on a lollipop. His cool eyes swept over the absurd yet real scene before him, and he offered a calm assessment:

"The spiritual world is extremely rich, while the physical body and life are absurd to the extreme."

“I think we really should help them get rid of their illusory suffering.”

"Uh... if you really do that, I guarantee a lot of people will jump off buildings the next day."

Chapter 218 Entering the Game

Ready Player One is an expensive game; all the equipment and gear require money.

Hacking into the internet using the old methods to make money could involve a much larger sum of money.

Internet regulators in this world aren't pushovers either; after all, there's a limit to how much money they can afford.

Such a large sum of money being spent on the game—even a blind person would know there's something wrong with it.

Since neither of them has legal identity information in this world, any abnormal transaction details will be detected by quantum risk control in an instant.

Unless they are willing to use the consortium's computing power to hack the relevant systems as well.

But doing so would trigger a chain reaction, wasting the entire plan to seize the oasis.

“Since crooked methods are unreliable, let’s sell our skills and make some legitimate money,” Bai Yuekui said softly.

With a flick of the wrist, a sleek, silver-gray Swift space fighter instantly appeared, hovering over the street.

Ignoring the shocked and astonished passersby around him, Bai Yuekui boarded the plane.

"Sell technology? What do you want to sell?" Lu Qianwei asked curiously from the side.

"Of course... it's the warp drive."

As Bai Yuekui sat in the driver's seat, he spoke while propelling the engine off the ground.

As the aircraft suddenly accelerated, the noisy, neon-lit city streets were instantly left behind.

Fifteen minutes later, the two silently arrived at a technology research institute within China.

After a period of chaos, China quickly responded with a huge sum of money and even a legal identity, thanks to the genuine warp drive technology demonstrated by Lu Qianwei and Bai Yuekui.

They politely declined their invitation and returned to North America in their Swift.

Ready Player One can be played anywhere, but considering the inability to conduct a real-world IOI offline in China, this innovative online industrial group ultimately returned to the North American continent.

Lu Qianwei still remembered that the other party had a cosmic nuclear bomb in the game universe.

If they get so angry that they press the button, he might as well just take control of the IOI by force.

Moreover, the time portal is only temporary and cannot be used to move people.

Besides being protected with an interstellar-grade iron shell, they also have to keep a close watch on it at all times.

They spent a lot of money to buy and control the entire area within a 5-kilometer radius of the time portal.

After watching a large group of people leave excitedly with their families, Lu Qianwei quickly carried out demolition, construction, and enclosure of the area.

The next day, when a deliveryman drove up to the gate of this walled manor, all he could think about was, "Where am I?"

who am I?

Damn it!

I remember when I delivered a package to the edge of the slum a few days ago, there were still quite a few small bungalows and dilapidated tile-roofed buildings here!

This doubt persisted until the deliveryman brought two sets of high-end gaming equipment to the door, holding a generous tip he had received... and finally, he understood how this luxurious manor came to be.

"Hehe, the equipment has finally arrived."

Lu Qianwei didn't even bring the two motion-sensing cockpits into the room; he simply pushed them to the garden, plugged them in, put on the motion-sensing suits, and then sat down with the virtual reality glasses.

Looking at Bai Yuekui adjusting the device, Lu Qianwei, who was about to put on his helmet, opened his mouth to call out "Old..." but her eyes suddenly flashed with a cold light, making him change his mind.

"Hehe, beautiful Bai, stop fiddling with that latitude device. Do you want to physically enter the oasis?"

Ahem, beautiful Bai, please stop fiddling with that two-dimensional device.

You don't actually plan to go in there with your body, do you?!

“It’s not impossible to go in if it’s possible,” Bai Yuekui said seriously, which surprised Lu Qianwei.

"Are you serious?!"

"Why not?" Bai Yuekui strolled over. "You don't think we'll be crushed by your data once we go in, do you?"

"Uh... I have actually thought about that."

Lu Qianwei scratched his face, only to be met with a glare from Bai Yuekui.

"You should use your long lifespan to learn some scientific knowledge."

"Oasis Games doesn't have permanent source code, so it's difficult to kill us based solely on the data inside."

"Uh... do you mean?" Lu Qianwei scratched his head, puzzled.

He genuinely wasn't interested in this before; he simply hadn't paid any attention to it!