213: Chapter 209 Passionate
The scrolling speed in the Symphony Realm, Help Realm, Human Intelligence Realm, and various private chat realms of the Fate Platform outside the Farm Realm exceeded ten thousand messages per second the very first second after the announcement popped up.
However, unlike the uniformity seen when the Causality Bank went online, the comment section this time was chaotic.
[Old Fisherman (Yanhuang Civilization): Farm Realm? Farming? Did I read that right?]
[Wind-Chasing Youth (Yanhuang Civilization): What does "Virtual Reality Farming Game" mean? Virtual Reality? Like those kinds where you put on a helmet and enter, the ones from online gaming novels before Transmigration?]
[Little Noodle Shop Owner (Yanhuang Civilization): Wait, this feature... is it a game? Did Fate Master make a game for us??]
[Iron Straight Man (Yanhuang Civilization): Sowing, watering, breeding, building... Stealing vegetables? Stealing vegetables????]
The screen was full of question marks.
No one understood what exactly this was.
Bank, Trading Realm, Causality Enhancement Realm, combat support—every feature that had gone online on the Fate Platform before was a solid survival tool. Suddenly, a "farming game" appeared, and everyone's first reaction was confusion.
[Salted Fish Turnaround (Yanhuang Civilization): Can any big shot explain what this Virtual Reality means? Is it like those online games in web novels before Transmigration? Where your consciousness enters another world after logging in?]
[Scooping the Moon from the Sea (Yanhuang Civilization): I want to ask that too. And it says "Vegetable Manifestation Feature" at the end—virtual things can turn into real things? What's the principle behind this? Fake turning into real?]
[Fish at 3 AM (Yanhuang Civilization): I'm thinking... could Fate Master be trying to set up a Happy Farm for us on the Magic Sea?]
A flood of ellipses suddenly poured out under this post.
Then someone realized it.
[Storm Eye (Yanhuang Civilization): Wait a second. Stealing vegetables. Farm. Guard dog. Vegetable stealer tag. Look at the rules carefully—isn't this fucking just the old QQ Farm???!]
[Iron-Faced Ruthless (Yanhuang Civilization): Holy crap, I didn't realize it until you said it!!! Stealing vegetables!!! That stealing vegetables!!! The one where you'd set an alarm in the middle of the night to steal vegetables before Transmigration!!!]
[Old Smoker (Yanhuang Civilization): I once got beaten by my wife for getting up at 3 AM to steal vegetables back then.]
[Wind-Chasing Youth (Yanhuang Civilization): No, no, this is different. The rules say "Virtual Reality," not that 2D point-and-click stuff. Once you go in, you are actually standing inside the farm. You're stepping on soil, there are vegetables growing in front of you, and you have to pull them out by hand to steal them.]
[Sea Chicken Farmer (Yanhuang Civilization): How are you so sure? Have you been in?]
[Wind-Chasing Youth (Yanhuang Civilization): I'm guessing.]
[Sea Chicken Farmer (Yanhuang Civilization): ...]
The discussion began to diverge.
Some people were trying to understand the essence of the Farm Realm.
[Dont Panic Let Me Analyze (Yanhuang Civilization): Let me summarize the information known so far. First, the Farm Realm is a virtual reality space; once inside, one's consciousness is placed in an independent environment with a sky, land, and climate. Second, the crops inside have a growth cycle, which can be accelerated using karma points. Third, the most critical part—the vegetables grown can be manifested into reality by spending karma points. In other words, this isn't just a game. This is a vegetable production System.]
[Little Noodle Shop Owner (Yanhuang Civilization): A vegetable production System!?]
[Dont Panic Let Me Analyze (Yanhuang Civilization): Correct. Fate Master packaged a production function as a game. You think you're playing, but actually, you're farming. You think you're stealing vegetables, but actually, you're participating in resource redistribution.]
[Storm Eye (Yanhuang Civilization): This scope... goes deep.]
Others were expressing various speculations.
[Dream Maker (Yanhuang Civilization): I think Fate Master might just simply like farming games. Don't overthink it. Even big shots have hobbies.]
[Fishing Light Song (Yanhuang Civilization): I'm inclined to think this is an attempt by Fate Master at virtual reality technology. Think about it, if virtual reality items can be manifested into physical entities—today it's vegetables, tomorrow could it be weapons? Equipment? Or even... buildings?]
[Deep Night Awakened One (Yanhuang Civilization): That makes sense. Plus, the time flow in the Farm Realm is five times faster than reality, which means Fate Master can already manipulate the time rules of an independent space. That is what's truly terrifying.]
[Justice Executor (Yanhuang Civilization): Stop worrying about all that, as long as we can grow vegetables, it's fine! I haven't eaten vegetables for almost a week! A vegetable set meal at the food god shrine costs 3.5 karma points. Do you know how long it takes me to afford to eat one? Now I can grow my own—three jin of vegetables for one karma point! From today on, I am a farmer!]
Survivors from other civilizations were not idle during this intense discussion.
[David Reeves (Stars and Stripes): Yesterday they got a bank, where karma points can generate more karma points. Today they got another farm to grow their own vegetables to eat. My God, I can't even get enough meat to eat, and they are already pursuing a balanced diet.]
[Alan MacDonald (Fog City): My diet every day is grilled fish, grilled fish, and more grilled fish. Meanwhile, Yanhuang Survivors are about to have fresh, home-grown, and diverse vegetables. This gap can no longer be measured by merit points; this is a generational gap in the quality of life.]
[Sophie Tremblay (Maple Leaf): May I ask... is the Farm Realm open to visitors from other civilizations? I implore the core administrator of the Fate Platform to consider this. We also want to step on land. Really. Even if it's just virtual land.]
The number of likes on this post surged to two hundred thousand within ten minutes.
Below it, it was entirely filled with agreement from Survivors of other civilizations.
[Fritz (Teuton): Adding from an engineering perspective—one karma point to manifest three jin of vegetables, this energy conversion efficiency is extremely high. It's equivalent to the Fate Platform providing Survivors with a food supply chain independent of the food god shrine at an extremely low cost. For the Yanhuang Civilization, this means their purchasing power of karma points has been amplified once again.]
[Kim Min-jun (Taegeukgi): ...Why is it that only Yanhuang has it every time.]
There were no replies under this post.
Because everyone's attention was drawn to the text at the end of the announcement.
[Scooping the Moon from the Sea (Yanhuang Civilization): Wait a second. Look at that last part— "Beta Farm Owner Rights Reserved". "Since the beta launch on the evening of the 25th day of the Magic Sea Calendar". What does this mean?]
[Storm Eye (Yanhuang Civilization): Literal meaning. The Farm Realm went online on the 25th day. Some people have already been playing for three days.]
The Symphony Realm was quiet for two seconds.
Then—
[Wind-Chasing Youth (Yanhuang Civilization): Holy crap??????]
[Iron Straight Man (Yanhuang Civilization): Holy crap +1]
[Iron-Faced Ruthless (Yanhuang Civilization): Holy crap +10086]
[Old Smoker (Yanhuang Civilization): What does this mean?? Someone got in three days before us?? While I was out here exposed to the wind and sun, someone was already in there farming and stealing vegetables??]
[Salted Fish Turnaround (Yanhuang Civilization): Three days! The Farm Realm has a time flow five times faster, that's fifteen days of development time! Their farms have already been developing for fifteen days! When I go in, it'll still be a wasteland!]
[Little Noodle Shop Owner (Yanhuang Civilization): No... isn't Fate Master being a bit biased like this?? Why only let some people play first?]
[Sea Chicken Farmer (Yanhuang Civilization): Although I don't know how fun the Farm Realm is, just thinking about someone being three days ahead of me makes every pore on my body protest.]
A long line of +1s followed below.
More voices of questioning poured out.
[Fishing Light Song (Yanhuang Civilization): So how did these beta players find the entrance? Did Fate Master invite them individually? Or were they randomly selected?]
[Fish at 3 AM (Yanhuang Civilization): Regardless of which one it is, it shows that Fate Master intentionally hid this feature before. The question is—why? Testing? Or is there a deeper meaning?]
[Dream Maker (Yanhuang Civilization): Who cares why, I just want to know who those beta testers are! Reveal them!]
The discussion was in full swing—
A post emerged from the torrent of comments.
[Little Prince of the Grasslands (Yanhuang Civilization): Um... that's me.]
The scrolling speed of the Symphony Realm slowed for a beat.
[Little Prince of the Grasslands (Yanhuang Civilization): Beta farm owner. Grassland Farm, level two. Three ridges of Chinese cabbage, two trellises of tomatoes, three chickens. I've been holding it in for three days, the Fate Platform didn't let us talk before, finally I can speak.]
Thousands of replies flooded in instantly.
"Why you!" "How did you get in!" "Show us photos!"
[Wind-Chasing Youth (Yanhuang Civilization): Wait, don't show the configuration yet! I just want to know, how exactly did you get the beta qualification? Did Fate Master send you a private message personally? Or was there some hidden task?]
[Little Prince of the Grasslands (Yanhuang Civilization): Haha, how is that possible. Fate Master is busy with many things, how would he have time to contact us individually? Actually, the entrance was always there, right on the main interface of the Fate Platform.]
[Scooping the Moon from the Sea (Yanhuang Civilization): ??? Main interface? I look at it eight hundred times a day, besides those few big functional blocks, where is there anything else?]
[Little Prince of the Grasslands (Yanhuang Civilization): Think back carefully, the day before yesterday, next to the icon for the Causality Enhancement Realm, wasn't there an extra, very inconspicuous icon? It was just a sprout breaking through the soil, the color was almost exactly the same as the original dark gold background of the Fate Platform, you couldn't see it at all if you didn't look carefully.]
[Little Prince of the Grasslands (Yanhuang Civilization): As long as you are lucky enough to notice it, and tap that sprout three times in a row, you can directly enable the Farm Realm.]