"Magic Calendar Year 3401, Rain Moon, 26th, Night"
"The sky burned the city, the earth shook, it felt like the end of the world"
"The ring faded, the king's veins withered, the nine floating cities finally returned to the earth, and the magic's light dimmed."
"——A Brief History of the Empire·Prologue: The Day of Destruction"
………
Xia Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.
There was a familiar mirror in front of him, but the person reflected in the mirror was young and somewhat unfamiliar.
He has a handsome face and regular features, and his light black hair is slightly longer. The pale skin flickered in and out of light under the flickering candlelight, and the overall temperament looked a bit strange.
He raised his hand in disbelief and pressed it on his face with a slight trembling. Xia Yuan looked at the figure in the mirror who made the same movement and took a deep breath.
"Rumble, rumble—"
Huge thunder sounded outside the window, making Xia Yuan, who was still a little stunned, tremble all over.
He remembered that this night, a thunderstorm caused a short circuit in the power supply, and he had no choice but to light a white candle to illuminate himself.
In his memory, three days later - to be precise, two days, twenty hours and sixteen minutes later, the first trailer of a game that was ahead of the entire era by countless years: "Mysterious Era" would be released.
And began to release semi-public internal beta qualifications to the whole society, announcing its arrival to the entire era.
In this era where mainstream online games are still stuck in VR, an almost unbelievable 98.25% immersive game is a complete dimensionality reduction blow to the entire gaming industry.
The closed beta will be launched one week after the trailer is released, that is, ten days later.
The major studios confirmed that their promotions were not exaggerations and were factual.
Decisively, he began to cancel all other game businesses one after another, and fully switched to "Mysterious Era".
When the fifteen-day closed beta ended, ordinary players who had already become greedy and couldn't stand it swarmed in. For a time, the price of game supplies skyrocketed, and countless people became rich overnight relying on this game.
Half a month after the official launch of "Mysterious Era", the daily activity of all other games has dropped to almost zero.
I don’t know how many game company bosses pulled out their hair because of this, and the wig industry ushered in a small boom.
It is said that when "Mysterious Era" first came out, the boss of a major game company was determined to find the chief engineer of the company's R&D department.
It is hoped that within three months, the principles of the "Mysterious Era" game helmet and game cabin can be cracked, and similar equipment can be developed.
The chief engineer told him in euphemistic and polite words on the spot: He was living in a dream.
If someone can crack the mechanism of that strange helmet within a year, he can take off his ball and give the cracker a kick in the head!
After hitting a wall in the technical department, the boss, who still had some luck in his heart, went to find a game engineer.
But when he entered the personal office of the chief game engineer, he was shocked to find that this guy was lazy and playing "Mysterious Era" during work!
Of course, game company bosses won’t sit still. They brought in some experts and professors to preach that the game was too real and might cause serious identity problems for players.
And based on this reason, I hope that the fans can take action to completely ban this game.
But for unknown reasons, these 'experts' quickly stopped one by one, without any impact on the release of "Mysterious Era".
………
Xia Yuan took a long breath, ended his wild memories, patted his face gently, and started thinking quickly.
Now that we are reborn at this point in time when "Mysterious Era" has not yet released a trailer, among other things, we must find a way to receive a spot for the closed beta of "Mysterious Era".
Although the files will be deleted after the closed beta, only those who qualify for the closed beta will have priority to purchase the first-generation game capsule that is limited to a global release.
The game official has only put 5,000 game cabins on Xia Yuan's continent, so there are too many game pods.
In addition to the 500 slots for internal beta players to purchase first, the remaining 4,500 slots are not accessible to ordinary individual players at all, and have been reserved early even before entering the market.
The biggest difference between the first-generation gaming helmet and the gaming cabin is the limit on online time.
Taking into account the player's physical need to eat and go to the bathroom, the helmet can only be online for a maximum of sixteen hours a day.
A game cabin supplemented with nutrient solution can be online for eighteen hours. This results in game cabin players having one-eighth more game time than helmet players!
For high-level players who take this as a career, this is a huge difference. And each person's helmet is bound to his or her identity, so changing devices to circumvent restrictions is also unfeasible.
In addition, there is also the nutrient solution that comes with the first-generation game cabin. It is also a good thing, but it is only sold to players who own the game cabin. It was discontinued after only one month of release. The price increase in the future is higher than that of a house. Still outrageous!
Before his rebirth, Xia Yuan was just an ordinary individual player, and his family was not wealthy.
As a result, of course he didn't get a place in the closed beta test, didn't buy the first-generation game cabin, and didn't stock up on the first-generation nutrient solution. All opportunities to make a fortune were perfectly avoided by him.
When he was fighting the boss, he didn't realize that his dodge skills were so slippery!
Although his skills and awareness are considered high-end, due to the game time limit, he has gradually fallen behind the first-tier players who use the game cabin.
This directly fed back to his income. As a result, when the lower-priced and unlimited second-generation game cabin and nutrient solution were released a month later, he was still strapped for cash.
It wasn't until almost three months after the game was launched that he could barely make up what he needed. But at this time, his level had already widened the gap with the first echelon.
Therefore, he simply let himself go, no longer obsessed with leveling up to improve his strength, but instead visited famous libraries in the mainland.
I began to study documents and materials recording "background stories" in various places, trying to find clues related to treasures, hidden tasks, hidden professions, etc.
This type of players are collectively called plot flow players, and there are quite a few of them.
Xia Yuan's logical analysis ability, insight and luck are all good. In the end, he really unearthed several hidden missions and relics through careful collection of information, obtained a lot of good things, and returned to the first echelon of strength.
This earned him a lot of fame among plot streamers, and he was nicknamed "Lucky Silver Hand".
In the process, he also accidentally unlocked a hidden title: [Junior Relic Scholar]. When trading unidentified relic items, he can get a 5% price correction.
From then on, a door to a new world opened to him, and the extremely real background story of "The Mysterious Era" fascinated him. He even took exploring ancient mysteries as his main mission without doing his job.
Click, click, rumble, rumble—
Another huge thunder echoed across the sky, bringing his thoughts back to reality.
"There are still ten days until the internal beta starts, which is enough..."
Putting aside his thoughts for the time being, he looked at the younger version of himself in the mirror, and an uncontrollable smile crept onto Xia Yuan's cheeks.
He was so full of pride that he couldn't help but raise his chin slightly, put his left hand behind his back, and recited two lines of poetry at that time.
"The heroic figure shines in the sun and the moon, and the economics is hidden in the belly. The man in Mo is like jade, and the young master is unparalleled in the world——"
"Crack - boom, rumble -"
As if in response to his words, a huge thunder exploded in the sky again.
Amidst the thunder, the quietly burning candle flame suddenly swayed, and the shadows in the room squirmed slightly, as if they had gained life.
Xia Yuan was not aware of the slight changes in the candle flame, but when he stared at the eyes reflected in the mirror, he couldn't help but feel an impulse in his heart. He raised his right hand slightly and slowly moved his lips.
Speaking of which, I haven't done this for a long time.
The rain outside the window became even heavier, with heavy raindrops pattering against the glass. Dazzling lightning continued to divide the dark night sky, and huge thunder could be heard endlessly.
In the dark room, a strange and inexplicable scene appeared——
Under the flickering candlelight, a young man seemed to be possessed and kept making some weird movements in front of the mirror.
He was also reciting strange syllables according to a certain rhythm, as if he was performing some ancient evil ritual!
"Rock-paper-scissors!"
"Rock-paper-scissors!"
………
After a while, Xia Yuan finally decided to stop this meaningless move as his right hand became slightly sore in protest.
I didn’t lose a single round, as expected of me!
Nodding his head in praise in the mirror as if nothing had happened, Xia Yuan turned around and prepared to leave the bathroom...
…………
?
At this time, his movements suddenly stopped.
Wait... in the penultimate game just now, when I played the cloth... he seemed to, did he... play the scissors?
After carefully recalling a certain detail from before, Xia Yuan blinked and his smile gradually solidified.
Can I still lose with mirror guessing?
It was still midsummer in August, but Xia Yuan felt that the air was a little chilly.
Slowly turning his head, he looked at himself in the mirror and tentatively raised his right hand. The reflection's movements were still synchronized.
Did you remember it wrong?
He relaxed slightly.
"That's right, how could the reflection move on its own?"
On the coffee table in the living room, in the dark display of the electronic watch, blood-red colors formed a row of cold numbers:
[23:59:59]
Although he comforted himself that he was fine, Xia Yuan decided to leave here quickly.
But when he picked up the candle and turned around to go out, the candle flame flickered inexplicably and then went out silently! The room suddenly fell into darkness——
Xia Yuan was startled, and cold sweat broke out on his back.
"Rumble, rumble—"
Just at this moment, a huge blue-white lightning pierced the night sky, accompanied by deafening thunder, and the dazzling electric light suddenly illuminated the room.
At this moment, he noticed a detail with all the hairs on his body standing on end: the corners of the mouth of the figure in the mirror quietly curved into a strange arc!
As if aware of his gaze, the reflection in the mirror turned its head suddenly! The eyes that had changed into pure black and white at some point turned and stared straight at his face!
Xia Yuan's hair stood on end, and his brain was like crazy and he wanted to escape, but his legs were as motionless as if they were filled with lead.
The next second, the light brought by the lightning disappeared as instantly as it appeared, and the mirror and reflection returned to darkness.
Only the black and white eyes in the reflection were still clear and eerily clear.
Xia Yuan looked at the mirror with a cold look on his body. As their eyes connected, a twisted and cold flow of information suddenly came from the dark mirror and was injected into his brain along the lines of their connected gazes.
It was an extremely sour feeling, as if there were hundreds of little black ants crawling in the ravines of the cerebral cortex.
The content of the message is only one sentence:
"At the end of the seven light and dark cycles, you will come, Yunivar——"
Passively accepting the infusion of a large amount of spiritual information, Xia Yuan trembled violently as if he was electrocuted, and held his head in pain with both hands.
The next moment, the ceiling lamp on the ceiling suddenly turned on, and the soft off-white light fell, dispersing the darkness in the room again.
