46: Is this game cheating us?

The next day, exactly 11:00 AM.

Only one hour remained until the activation code lottery channel for the account of star sea knight: enlightenment opened.

Hundreds of millions of internet users flooded the Star Sea Official activation code special webpage, including a large number of foreign gamers who had bypassed regional restrictions.

In the center of the page was a counter showing the current number of users waiting online.

[Current Number of Users Waiting Online: 338,754,219]

[Current Number of Users Waiting Online: 339,102,585]

This number was still skyrocketing upwards at a rate of several million per minute.

A chat room function was set up directly below the page.

Nearly a million independent chat rooms were established, each accommodating one hundred people.

[FE - Little Dragon] has entered the chat room.

[Flying Fish - Little Glutinous Rice] has entered the chat room.

"I'm here, brothers, pray that I draw the best possible lot!"

"Holy cow, isn't that Flying Fish's Little Glutinous Rice?"

"My roommate just wanted to play star sea knight before he died, please, Star Sea Daddy, have mercy and give us a code!"

"This number of people waiting is terrifying.

Over 300 million people fighting for about 3,000 activation codes.

Is that a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance?"

"Are Star Sea's servers alien technology? Over 300 million people online simultaneously and no lag?"

"If you ask, the answer is Star Sea is awesome!"

"The page smoothness is ridiculous!"

jarvis was essentially a digital life form.

As long as it wished, it could freely mobilize top-tier server resources from countries around the world.

The current 300 million users were far from its limit; even ten times that number would be more than manageable.

All the gamers had poured into the Star Sea Official website, resulting in a precipitous drop in the online user count of all major traditional popular games.

The global public channels of popular games both domestically and internationally were frighteningly deserted.

Matching times for team dungeons were infinitely prolonged.

Gold-farming studios, which relied on gaming to make a living, looked at the empty servers and the nearly stagnant flow of transactions in the exchange houses, falling into deep self-doubt.

Xunyu Games, the absolute giant of the Dragon Country gaming industry, had secured the distribution rights for the hottest PC and mobile games on the market, generating hundreds of millions in daily revenue.

Yet at this moment, the company's internal staff fell silent as they looked at the meager stream of top-up revenue.

Although they had considered the possibility of being hit by a dimensionality reduction attack, it was another matter entirely when reality descended.

"Holy crap, Little Wang, you're trying to grab a code too!"

"Keep your voice down, if the manager hears us, he'll skin me alive."

... Xunyu Building, top-floor conference room.

"Can anyone tell me why Star Sea, a pharmaceutical company, suddenly decided to step into the gaming industry?"

"General Manager Wang, talking about that is useless now."

"According to the technical specifications they released, once the virtual reality helmet is truly launched and widely distributed, I'm afraid gaming companies worldwide can prepare to close down."

The conference room fell into a deathly silence.

Although the words were harsh, no one disagreed, because these games were simply not on the same dimension.

"Complaining won't solve the problem.

Our only path to survival now is to seek cooperation."

"I just hope Star Sea won't be too greedy."

"General Manager Ma is right.

If we can get our games integrated into the Star Sea world, we might at least be left with a sip of soup."

Longke University, male dormitory building.

When the clock struck 11:59 AM, Zhang Zhifei and Fatty simultaneously twisted open the caps of the longevity water, mixed it into bottled water, shook it twice lightly, and chugged down more than half the bottle.

"I feel energized!"

"Brother Fei, we absolutely must snag one!"

Exactly twelve o'clock.

The page refreshed, and the [Answer Now] button changed from gray to bright.

The two men manipulated their mice and clicked down almost simultaneously.

[Briefly describe the core technical difficulties in maintaining the balance of a bipedal mech in complex terrain.]

[What is the most efficient way to spray mech propellant in a vacuum environment?]

... There were ten questions in total, and they weren't too difficult.

Zhang Zhifei was a veteran mech enthusiast, and Fatty was searching for information nearby to cover any gaps.

Two minutes later, all ten questions were answered.

[Answers have been submitted.

Thank you for participating.

Lottery results will be announced in one hour.]

Fatty opened the page, symbolically completed the questions, and clicked confirmation.

The waiting time seemed to stretch infinitely.

Every few minutes, Zhang Zhifei couldn't help but refresh the page to check the results, knowing the time wasn't up, yet always hoping for a miracle.

"Brother Fei, do you think we'll win?"

"Shut up, don't jinx it."

One hour later.

The hand Zhang Zhifei used to control the mouse became hesitant instead.

What if they didn't win?

"Fatty, is the time up?"

"It is."

Zhang Zhifei grabbed a gaming magazine from his desk, held it in front of the computer screen, then closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling violently and involuntarily, like a condemned prisoner heading to the execution ground.

"Fatty, help me look."

"I, I don't dare."

Although Fatty looked simple and honest, he was actually very shrewd.

Are you kidding?

If they didn't win, wouldn't that blame fall squarely on him?

Zhang Zhifei gritted his teeth, half-closed his eyes, and slowly moved his hand away bit by bit, his heart pounding rapidly, his face flushed crimson.

[Congratulations, you have successfully obtained a qualification for the first closed beta of star sea knight: enlightenment]

Please click the link below... to fill in your detailed information.

"We won! We won!"

Fatty excitedly shook Zhang Zhifei's shoulders.

"We won?"

Zhang Zhifei suddenly opened his eyes, and when he saw those words, the blood in his body felt as if it were boiling!

Blessed by the European Emperor?

"Only one activation code for nearly 100,000 people, and we actually drew it?"

Zhang Zhifei muttered to himself, feeling lightheaded, as if he were dreaming; the scene before him felt incredibly unreal.

Being blessed by the European Emperor was naturally impossible.

The reason was that jarvis's powerful computing capability had already screened the hundreds of millions of participants from start to finish, placing those who had the potential to pilot mechs and form combat strength in the front ranks.

Zhang Zhifei's sequence ranked within the top one hundred in jarvis's database; winning was not accidental, but inevitable.

Jingcheng.

Xishan Garden Villa.

A brother and sister wearing black and white training suits were sitting in front of a computer, quietly waiting for the results, one on the left and one on the right.

The older brother, Jiang Lin, was already a master of internal energy in his early twenties.

According to the universal ability level classification of the Great Cosmos, his life index had reached 5000.

The younger sister, Jiang Yue, was two years younger than her brother.

Her eyes were lively, her temperament was sweet, and her life index was 4800.

"Brother, do you think we'll win?" Jiang Yue asked softly.

"I don't know.

Probably not.

The probability is too low."

Jiang Yue took a deep breath and decisively chose to refresh the page.

[Congratulations, you have successfully obtained a qualification for the first closed beta of star sea knight: enlightenment]

Jiang Yue froze, then turned her head to look at her brother's computer screen beside her.

[Congratulations, you have successfully obtained a qualification for the first closed beta of star sea knight: enlightenment]

"We both won?" Jiang Lin's brows furrowed into the shape of the character 'chuan'.

Winning one might be attributed to being blessed by the European Emperor, but winning two simultaneously was absurd.

In any case, neither the brother nor the sister believed it was a coincidence.

"Brother, do you think it's possible that we weren't drawing the lottery, but that the game was drawing us?"