Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

The audaciously daring individuals had already stuck their hands into the rift.

The moment their hand went in, they lost perception of it.

Upon retracting their hand, they were mortified to see—

Half the forearm vanishing into oblivion!

Despite the absence of gore, as the cut-off point radiated reflective fragments like a fractured glass surface, the spectacle was not grotesquely graphic.

The observing players couldn’t help but express their astonishment.

Because it was nearly unheard of to see cases of “body part loss” happen to players in the virtual world.

—Even in “Battlefield”, being blown squarely by cannon fire would cause muscles and bones to break and limbs to twist grotesquely, but all body parts would remain intact.

So the scene before them was unusually rare for everyone.

“Was my arm obliterated, or did it drop off on the other side?” The player seemed puzzled.

“After all, you’ve lost an arm, it’s unlikely to be restored unless you die. Why not charge straight in?” Someone chimed in.

“Makes sense.”

The daredevil who had lost his arm was indeed a tough fella. Without a second thought, he dove headfirst into the rift.

Super Tomato was left with cold sweats at the sight.

He had just pulled out his backup first-tier shield, planning on experimenting with it, but someone had already thrown caution to the wind and gone for human trial, going right ahead and jumping in…

“He’s gone.”

The daredevil’s teammate explained to the onlookers, “He vanished the second he dived in. He says he thinks he saw green vegetation and gigantic creatures, but he couldn’t see clearly.”

“…”

“Who’s next?”

“I’ll go!”

“I’ll go——”

These ruthless players dove into the rift one after another and died instantly, communicating their experiences back through their teammates.

Within no time, half the population had vanished.

And yet, the acquired information was disappointingly scarce, even after watching videos, the images were distorted and fragmented.

It wasn’t until a player with a Seventh Stage wristband stepped forward, thrust his arm into the rift, and ended up losing his arm along with the wristband in the process, the crowd finally gave up further attempts and accepted a reality—

The space rift was simply impassable.

“So what’s the purpose of this thing?”

“Just for decoration?”

“Could it be a new map, but Cloud Dream isn’t ready yet?”

Everyone chimed in with guesses.

Super Tomato leaned towards the speculation that the rift had something to do with new content, but—

“The [Ancestors’ Glory] achievement awarded me a mysterious invitation letter that has yet to come into effect, and now there’s an unopened area?”

“Before digging a new hole, shouldn’t we fill the old ones first??”

“Digging a hole without filling it is asking for divine retribution!”

— Before, with the [Ancestor’s Glory] achievement, most players were aiming for the dinosaur pet. But when summoning the first baby dinosaur, it would always have a [Mysterious Invitation Letter] in its mouth.

The system introduction claimed that the invitation “was not yet ready to be opened”.

Most players had reached a consensus, believing that this was the foreshadowing of a new game, similar to how Wu Di had previously received the [New World Travel Ticket], which foreshadowed “Chang’an”.

Yet after all this time, there was no development on this thread!

Now, not only there was no development, but a new hole had been dug!

And there’s also the laser signal sent out by the spaceship!

Today marks the sixth day, and tomorrow will be the last day of the event, no action has been taken so far, could this also be a new hole??

Super Tomato had a bad feeling about this.

—And his bad feeling was correct.

For Lincoln, digging holes for the players was an utterly joyful endeavor.

Besides, this spatial rift would only serve as a decoration for the next few months.

Cloud Dream had already filled up its schedule for a long period of time; unless he suddenly finds himself with spare time and decodes this with Mavis, it might take quite a while before this hole gets filled.

Unfortunately, at the very moment when Dinosaur Island was collapsing, a significant event happened.

For a while, Lincoln might not have time to spare.

*

[Master, the new technology has been decrypted!]

The image of Dinosaur Island being enveloped by a ball of light was on the screen, but a line of text suddenly appeared in front of Lincoln’s eyes. The princess beside him on the couch was oblivious to this.

Thanks to the players’ astonishingly high online rate recently, Mavis’s mining speed… no, that is, the speed of her technology decryption had greatly increased.

There were various events tonight: the second battle against the Molten Mountain Dragon and Phase Willow, the cross-district car race, the big fight against the metal dragon in the Metropolis, the hunter battle against the Iron-Blooded Warrior, the eve of the selection for the peak competition in Battlefield… all these drove the player online rate up to an unprecedented level.

This gave Mavis’s technology decryption the final push.

Lincoln took out his phone and texted: [Mavis is so amazing! What kind of technology is it this time?]

[Hehe, it’s a super amazing technology this time!] Mavis’s reply was full of joy.

But Lincoln remained calm because he didn’t feel like he was lacking anything. Besides, the game cabin hadn’t been fully launched yet, and there wasn’t anything to rush about. So he casually added: [If Mavis says it’s amazing, it must be really amazing.]

[Of course! This time it’s the Consciousness Chip!]

Seeing the words “Consciousness Chip”, Lincoln’s pupils dilated immediately, his heart beating wildly, and nearly blurting out a curse word.

What the hell?!

A Consciousness Chip?!

This was something that could fundamentally change the world! And it’s suddenly appearing before him?!

Lincoln hadn’t prepared for this at all and was completely caught off guard.

He tried hard to keep his emotions in check, telling Camille Victoria he suddenly had an inspiration and needed to go back to his room for some work.

Camille Victoria nodded without surprise— it was normal for a genius to suddenly have an inspiration and be eager to realize it.

Lincoln quickly returned to his room and logged into the virtual world.

As soon as he appeared, Mavis instantly threw herself into his arms without hesitation.

Despite his unprecedented eagerness for the new technology, Lincoln took the time to twirl Mavis around a few times, petted her pink head, and then sat her down on the small couch.

“Mavis, quickly show me the technology!”

No wonder he was so eager. This was the Consciousness Chip!

No one could stay calm in the face of such technology.

If he was not mistaken, this was something that could truly contain human consciousness!

It would allow human consciousness to truly “enter” the virtual world, instead of like now, merely fooling the brain with signals to create a deceptive illusion.

—Even if it could fool the brain and make everyone feel extremely real, it essentially still remained an illusion.

All of a player’s neural and conscious activities, from beginning to end, exist only within the unique hardware that is the “brain”.

But the consciousness chip was different.

Completely different!