Great, we're doomed now!

Chapter 256: I, Cupid, refuse to believe it today! (8K, two-in-one)

The new fully immersive online game "Ragnarok" is a deep optimization of the class and flight systems based on its predecessors SAO and ALO. The level suppression is not obvious. The main selling points are "enjoying the fun of combat" and "exploring a variety of gameplay with a high degree of freedom", and it strives to create a realistic mythological otherworld for players.

At the end of the prologue, the world boss reveals its true form, biting off the main root of the World Tree and ushering in Ragnarok.

A colossal gate stood in the center of the virtual space, emitting a faint blue light amidst the endless universe. A large crowd gathered before the gate, various pieces of equipment gleaming with different lusters. Players conversed in hushed tones, the air thick with excitement and tension.

As beta testers, they felt incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to be among the first to experience this great game that was destined to be etched in the history of gaming—having already completed the prologue, they were absolutely certain of this.

Leaving aside the disastrous launch of SAO, ALO already boasts a very high level of realism. However, due to limitations in equipment and algorithms, flaws can still be spotted upon close inspection. Furthermore, it is impossible to perfectly simulate the laws of physics in reality. Various mechanisms designed to avoid bugs also make it easy to distinguish the game world from reality.

Even so, many conservative middle-aged people believe that this leads to excessive addiction among a large number of students and young people, making it impossible for them to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and will create a "lost generation".

But Ragnarok takes it a step further!

Putting aside the various optimizations and the ultimate realism, there is one thing that has left everyone in disbelief:

The degree of freedom is beyond comprehension!

In combat, you don't need to assume a specific pose to trigger skills, nor do you need to shout or press buttons (although some people do like to shout it out). Instead, the range of skill damage is determined by the degree of variation in your movements.

Just like in real life, it's hard to exert force if the angle is wrong, this game actually achieves extremely reasonable real-time mechanics calculations, rather than simply comparing numbers!

Some people felt that this was too much of a favor to people with good athletic ability, but most people found it novel and surprising. Some hardcore players even hid the UI icons, ignored health bars and numbers, and completely treated the characters they controlled as real inhabitants of another world.

—This is just one point.

If players are willing to put in the effort and carefully study the class descriptions and world rules, they can develop their own skills. Items don't disappear immediately after being damaged; instead, they remain in a broken state. Someone conducted an experiment where ten plates were smashed in succession, and the fragments were all different shapes!

If this is purely real-time calculation, the required computing power is simply unimaginable...

When a game reaches its peak in a particular field, even if it has various flaws or its gameplay is not particularly interesting, it will still leave its own legend in the industry.

Besides, Ragnarok is interesting no matter how you look at it!

Putting aside the grand world view and map, and the extremely rich race and class system, the "art" alone is worth the price of admission, even if you treat it as a travel simulator!

There were about a thousand beta testers, and almost no two people had the same class combinations and growth paths. They were gathered outside the dungeon, but there was no "uniform" scene like that of ordinary netizens.

On the contrary, there are medieval lords recruiting crusaders, from heavily armored cavalrymen in gleaming armor to archers in tattered leather armor, all of them are full of the vibrant energy of DIY masters and the sense of everything competing for supremacy!

Everyone has the same goal:

The upcoming "World Tree" dungeon, and the final boss perched atop the tree, the black dragon Nidhogg.

Their mission is to stop the black dragon and prevent it from entering the lower world and devouring the main root.

However, based on the background story, Ragnarok is destined to come, so even if they win, they will definitely be killed by the plot. Everyone had some expectations, but they were still eager to try.

"Have you heard? If this battle is fought well enough, the operations team will turn the whole process into a storyline and use our battle record as the game background."

"What do you mean?"

"In other words, when the game goes into open beta, the NPCs who fight alongside ordinary players will be based on us."

Wow, so cool!

"..."

Ye Shou listened quietly to the players' private discussions, then watched as a player dressed as a rogue used a grappling hook to climb up the dungeon gate, trying to see what was hidden behind it. Several druids, transformed into orcs, explored upwards and into the distance in the forms of birds and cheetahs, attempting to find the boundaries of the map.

Some people even used knives to pry the gemstones off the doors...

Seeing this, Ye Shou's lips twitched involuntarily:

Even in the simplest side-scrolling platformer, players will frantically search for Easter eggs and bugs, let alone in a realistic RPG like this.

Kayaba's SAO only benefited from the fact that "players only have one life," otherwise how could it have lasted for two or three years? With that level-climbing mode that you can see the end from at a glance, it would probably be cleared and the top reached in just two or three months!

"Little Shou... no, Ye Shou-jun!" A pink-haired girl wearing a witch's cone hat and holding a crystal staff walked over, not using her usual address, but calling her childhood friend in a role-playing tone.

"We've all gotten separated, we must regroup! Let me use the smoke of war—"

"I sent a message in the team voice chat, I'll be here soon."

"Hmm~"

"You're really into it!"

Ye Shou poked the girl's puffed-up cheek and couldn't help but smile.

As always, Liuli followed behind him. No one knew how she managed to unlock the hidden "Battle Maid" class in the game, which was quite similar to her real-life appearance.

She took in the interaction between Ye Shou and Qian Hua, focusing her attention on the energetic girl... Ah, as expected, it's too much of a stretch to convince a refined young lady to play in a group of four.

Lucy isn't really comfortable with multiplayer games either; she was quite reserved last time, only opening up later on.

Since neither of them is willing, I'll just take the loss and try my best for both of them—Liuli felt at ease and didn't take her previous prayers to heart at all.

She is an atheist whose only faith is in someone, and if that person wants to punish her... then bring it on!

In any case, a clever maid will never lose!

After a while, the scattered team members gradually gathered together, and the team occupied a relatively quiet corner.

Ye Shou himself was still dressed in a simple and neat black light armor, and was checking the enchantment of the rune sword at his waist.

Beside her, Fujiwara Chika excitedly looked around, her long pink hair bouncing with her movements.

"Finally, we're going to fight Nidhogg! I heard its breath attack is incredibly powerful!" Qianhua gripped her staff tightly, her eyes sparkling. "Ye Shoujun, you have to protect me!"

She already loved tabletop role-playing games, so encountering this kind of game was like destiny to her, and she's already having an incredibly fun time playing it this far.

"The information says that its dragon breath has a continuous corrosive effect, which requires a single heal with overflowing values ​​or a purification of intermediate or higher level to counteract." Dressed in a maid outfit, Liuli calmly analyzed, while scanning the team members to check on everyone's condition.

Ye Shou was only the nominal captain; she was the actual commander of the team.

Lucy, dressed in a dark blue mage's robe, held a slowly rotating crystal ball floating in her hand: "Nidhogg will summon small shadow dragon souls when its health is low, which need to be quickly cleared by area-of-effect magic."

“I didn’t see it in the data… Ah, is it the ‘Prophet’ profession talent?” Asuna looked curiously at the text appearing in the crystal ball.

There were three other girls in the group:

Asuna, whose online name is directly spelled in Roman spelling, is dressed in a pure white swordsman's outfit, with a thin sword at her waist gleaming coldly.

Miko's attire was practical for movement, but she seemed rather dissatisfied with her profession, preferring the Western-style mage's attire. She frequently looked enviously at Chika and Lucy—their figures were beautifully accentuated by the fitted robes.

Bai Yin Gui is dressed as a standard elven archer, with white hair, blue eyes, and pointed ears. Her slender figure seems as if she might disappear into the wind at any moment. Her quiver is full, and her family's sharp eyes give the girl a touch of heroism.

Even Ye Shou couldn't help but take a second look.

While others might seem to be doing cosplay, Gui truly embodies the aura of a fantastical visitor... perhaps it's his innate sense of mystery at work.

The girls stopped discussing skill stats and quickly shifted the conversation to their clothing and accessories, chatting and laughing as if they were shopping in a Ginza mall.

In contrast, the other players were much more professional:

"The background setting of this instance is really hardcore. It has been based on a lot of ancient documents. The quest items all exist in reality, and some of them are national-level collections that are not usually displayed to the public. I don't know how they convinced people to let them scan them."

"That's right. I even looked up some strategy guides to collect the quest items. It turns out that you need to understand the original myths to solve those mysteries... Speaking of which, the old version of the epic is so different from the storyline I remember—Loki and Thor aren't brothers after all!"

"Pfft! Did you really think that before?"

"Speaking of which, many of the 'demons' in hell actually come from some extinct beliefs, only the gods have been stigmatized."

"Like Bayeri, right? I learned a lot more about that name during that global live stream. He's a proper chief god in Canaan~"

Similarly, Lucifer is a completely fabricated character who smears Nebuchadnezzar II (King of Babylon), borrowing the story of Harel from Canaanite mythology!

"That's right, that's right, and there's Santa Claus too. I heard he wasn't originally red."

"It adopted the cardinal's color scheme and was then fixed in that image by Coca-Cola ads, right?"

One player said smugly, "In the 'One-Eyed Old Man' quest, I didn't choose to help the red NPC, but chose the other side. Sure enough, that person is the real Odin incarnate!"

Listening to the surrounding chatter, Lucy seemed thoughtful and glanced at Ye Shou:

She began to understand why Ye Shou was so keen to promote this game.

The evolution of mythology is itself a war between civilizations, and this is a cognitive battle of a new generation.

"Lord Ye, I have some questions."

Liuli stepped out of the small group of girls and walked alone to Ye Shou's side, humbly asking for advice: "We can use the power of the media. If we want to clear the name of 'Bayeli,' we don't need to go through all this trouble."

“Bayeli? Ah, that’s one reason too.”

Ye Shou shook his head: "There are more than just this one buried myth. It's important to stimulate the interest of young people so that they will learn about those ancient knowledge."

Using games to popularize science may seem frivolous, but in fact, the ninth art has a very strong appeal and a unique advantage in terms of speed of dissemination.

Japan was largely isolated throughout much of its history, yet its culture spread extremely widely. Many military commanders who never fought in major battles and whose skill level was comparable to Wu Anguo and Pan Feng were well-known on the neighboring continent—the Sengoku period series truly deserves a lot of credit for this.

Moreover, Ye Shou isn't just promoting one game; he's also making strides in other areas, and a "renaissance" in the subculture world is quietly underway.

"Are you... pointing the finger at Christianity?" Liuli guessed, "To break the spiritual shackles that religion imposes on people?"

"That's because it has too much of a dark history and too much influence, so it can be linked to everything... but it's not deliberately targeting the Cross."

Moreover, if faith were completely eradicated, that would be a real problem!

Ye Shou smiled and shook his head: "People's need for spiritual support is an objective reality. Even if it's not religion in the conventional sense, it could be something like money, power, or violence. Most people have their own 'truths' that they firmly believe in."

If it is suddenly overthrown without providing a replacement, extremely dangerous consequences will result—just look at South Korea, where cults have proliferated after "de-Sinicization."

"Then you?"

“My true purpose is to ‘demystify’ faith.”

Ye Shou smiled and said, "Aspiration is the furthest distance from understanding. People's awe of authority often comes from the 'unknown' and 'mystery'."

During the Spring and Autumn Period, an official once proposed that "if the punishments are unknowable, then the authority is unpredictable." He advocated that the legal provisions should be secretly controlled by the nobles so that the people would fear punishments because they could not predict them, thus maintaining their authority.

—The same applies to religion.

A few individuals wield the 'right of interpretation,' using mysticism and herd mentality to stifle people's thirst for knowledge, leading them to view 'God' as an untouchable and incomprehensible transcendent being.

"...Do you mean that people lose their sense of awe for the things they know?" Ruri asked thoughtfully.

"Many things are like this, from idol fan circles to religious factions, they generally follow this pattern."

To prevent 'believers' from breaking through the illusions, they invent various terms, rules, and cultures to complicate things that are essentially simple, thereby raising the barrier to in-depth understanding.

At this point, Ye Shou shook his head: "But the internet can break through this blockade, so we need to use the media to guide the public's understanding... Of course, that's not what we're going to discuss. TPC also has a mouthpiece. The key is how to use it and for what purpose."

"For example, what you're doing now is launching a large-scale 'science popularization' campaign, right?"

"The intricacies of mythology are obscure, but fortunately we have AI to assist us. In the virtual space, everyone can quickly filter out the information they need. With proper guidance, they will soon become as knowledgeable about various mythologies as seasoned chuunibyou (a person with delusions of grandeur).