3: Chapter 3 The First Batch of Players

"Hiss—"

Accompanied by a faint sound of pressure release, the airtight lids of the four standing incubation pods in Room 2 on the first underground floor of the Fire Seed Shelter slowly opened.

The pale green nutrient solution drained rapidly from the grates at the bottom of the pods, like a receding tide.

Inside the pods, four naked clones with well-proportioned muscles and not a single scar woke up at the same moment.

The clone in the first pod on the far left was Li Yiming, whose ID was [Praise Ming Shen].

Praise Ming Shen felt a brilliant blue stream of data Flash before his eyes, and immediately after, the sensation of total weightlessness and detachment vanished instantly.

The moment he felt gravity again, he snapped his eyes open.

He was staring fixedly at the cold, silver-white inner wall of the incubation pod with a distorted, dumbfounded expression, as if he had just swallowed a fist.

His brain was in a state of frantic system crash.

"This... this is impossible..."

Praise Ming Shen's lips trembled violently, and meaningless mumbling sounds came from his throat.

A second ago, he was still lying comfortably in his bed, wearing pajamas with a Space Marine pattern, in his bedroom plastered with Warhammer posters.

But the next second.

When he put on that metal helmet, just holding a playful mindset that the worst that could happen was an electric shock...

There was no loading bar interface!

There was no low-quality polygon model loading!

The world before his eyes only went black for a brief moment, and then his consciousness was blasted into this brand-new body as if by a heavy bomb!

"Whoosh—"

A puff of warm air blew out from the vent at the top of the incubation pod.

Praise Ming Shen felt the warm breeze blow across his naked skin.

He could clearly feel the sticky, pale green liquid remaining on his body being dried bit by bit by the warm air, leaving a subtle tightness on the surface of his skin.

Sight.

He saw this seamless, silver-white room filled with extreme sci-fi aesthetics, and he saw that flying lump of metal outside the incubation pod, flashing with an eerie red light.

Hearing.

He heard his own intense heartbeat, the gasps for air coming from the three pods next to him, and even the faint, dull thudding sounds from far away.

Smell.

A strange scent—a mixture of the fragrance of pure oxygen, a faint smell of machine oil, and an indescribable cold, metallic odor—rushed directly into his nasal cavity.

Touch.

He tentatively raised his hand and touched the cold glass wall of the pod.

The real sensation of cold, along with the tiny resistance created as his fingers rubbed against the glass, stimulated his cerebral cortex like an electric current.

Even taste!

He subconsciously licked his lips, and his tongue tasted a hint of the faint, salty, fishy residue of the pale green nutrient solution.

"Holy shit..."

Praise Ming Shen swallowed hard, his eyes uncontrollably turning red at this moment.

Excitement!

Fanatical, spine-tingling excitement!

As a hardcore Warhammer fan, a veteran player who had played every VR game on the market that claimed to be realistic, Praise Ming Shen never dared to dream that in his lifetime, he would actually be able to experience a masterpiece of this level!

All five senses intact!

Absolute physical feedback!

This could no longer be described by the word "awesome."

This was simply forcing humanity's technological tree forward by at least five hundred years!

Just as Praise Ming Shen was doubting his own existence due to extreme shock.

From the three incubation pods next to him, there also erupted exclamations of extreme lack of experience.

"Holy shit? Holy shit? Holy shit! Holy shit!!"

[Liver Emperor] in the second pod roughly pushed open the half-open pod door and stepped barefoot onto the cold metal floor.

He looked down exaggeratedly at the explosive muscles of his clone body, slapping his own body frantically with both hands.

"This muscle texture! This skin texture! I fucking thought Old Lin was joking! Is this really 100% fully immersive?!"

[Miracle Walker] in the third pod also climbed out excitedly, looking around in disbelief, holding his head in his hands, and letting out a sharp scream:

"When did technology get this advanced?! I do single-player game reviews every day, how come I've never heard a whisper of this in the news?! Who made this physics engine? God himself?!"

"Hiss—"

Suddenly, a miserable gasp came from the first pod.

Praise Ming Shen pinched his thigh hard, the pain almost making his tears fly out.

"Pain sensation... hiss... even pain sensation is here!"

While rubbing his thigh, he grinned foolishly in excitement, his expression looking exactly like a madman who had just won five million in the lottery:

"So awesome! Dreams have become reality, brothers!"

Liver Emperor heard the sound and curiously leaned in front of Praise Ming Shen, looking him up and down, his brows slightly furrowed.

"Who the fuck are you? Does this game make even NPC expressions this lewd and realistic?"

"You're the NPC! Your whole family is NPCs!"

Praise Ming Shen rolled his eyes unhappily and pointed at his own nose, saying:

"I am Ming Shen! [Praise Ming Shen]!"

"Holy shit? Old Ming?"

Liver Emperor widened his eyes in shock, looking at the slender, handsome clone in front of him like he was looking at a monster, and complained with a look of disgust:

"You look like this? I thought you were a 1.9-meter-tall tough guy! I'm Liver Emperor! [Liver Emperor]!"

"Get lost!"

Praise Ming Shen pushed away Liver Emperor's face, which was leaning in, with disgust and said irritably:

"Speaking of which, this game is actually quite interesting; the starting appearance is actually pre-set by the system."

He sighed regretfully:

"What a pity, such a masterpiece of a game, and you can't even customize your character. Otherwise, I would have definitely given myself a 2.2-meter-tall Space Marine hunk build."

Just as Praise Ming Shen and Liver Emperor were engrossed in discussing their game experience.

From the fourth pod, a strange silence suddenly came.

[Why Panic When I Have Flash] had already climbed out of the pod.

But he didn't shout excitedly like the other three.

Instead, he stood quietly in place, head lowered, his clear eyes staring fixedly between his legs.

There was no excitement or shock on his face.

Only a kind of profound seriousness and loss, as if he were pondering the ultimate mystery of the universe.

"No..."

Why Panic When I Have Flash sighed painfully, his tone filled with strong regret: "The initial character setting of this game is actually locked to male?"

He raised his head in dissatisfaction and looked at Ming Shen and Liver Emperor, who were joking with each other.

"You can't even create a female character? You can't customize the character? No, I mean... in such a masterpiece with 100% physical feedback, couldn't you let me create a female character with huge knockers? I want to experience the physical feedback of the gravity engine on different genders!"

Once these words were spoken.

The entire Room 2 fell into a brief, dead silence.

Praise Ming Shen and Liver Emperor took two steps back in disgust, looking at Why Panic When I Have Flash with the eyes one would use for a pervert.

"Fuck..."

Ming Shen rubbed the goosebumps on his arms exaggeratedly:

"This guy is so sleazy... Thinking about creating a female character right off the bat, this guy must be that Miracle Walker from the group who posts suggestive pictures every day, right?"

"Bullshit!"

The real Miracle Walker, who had been standing to the side and hadn't been able to get a word in, jumped out angrily, pointing at Ming Shen's nose and cursing.

"Don't you dare slander me, Old Ming! Even though I'm a streamer, I'm a decent person! This guy's head is full of pornographic trash; it's definitely that perverted operation maniac, Why Panic When I Have Flash!"

Why Panic When I Have Flash didn't feel awkward about being recognized; instead, he walked up to Ming Shen with familiarity and raised his eyebrows lewdly.

"Yo, isn't this Old Ming!"

"It's Flash! [Why Panic When I Have Flash]! Good brother, you know what I mean, right? Those dozens of GB of Elder Scrolls mods on your computer were installed with me teaching you hand-in-hand! With our relationship, why are you still acting like a gentleman?"

"Get lost! Stay away from me!"

Praise Ming Shen covered Why Panic When I Have Flash's mouth with a guilty conscience, his face turning bright red, and hurriedly changed the subject:

"Don't talk nonsense, you pervert! That guy over there who keeps screaming must be Miracle Walker, right? Where's that liar Old Lin? He dragged us in and now he's ignoring us?"

Just as these four representative The Fourth Calamity members were joking around with each other without any image while naked in front of the incubation pods, fanatically experiencing the game's physics engine.

"Click."

The sci-fi sliding door of Room 2 slid open silently to both sides.

Lin Li, wearing that worn-out black trench coat which he had deliberately smoothed out the wrinkles of, walked in slowly with steady, even slightly cold and oppressive steps.

Behind him, the red-flashing STC-73 hovered in mid-air in coordination, like a heartless metal grim reaper.

Lin Li had actually been standing outside the door for a while.

Hearing this group of idiot players inside discussing outrageous topics like whether there were big knockers or if they could create female characters, he was biting his teeth hard outside the door, painfully pinching his own thigh, to hold back his laughter.

"These people are hopeless..."

Lin Li complained helplessly in his heart:

"The outside is about to be torn down by Orks, and they actually have the leisure to study physics engine collisions here? As expected of the most hardcore troll players on Earth!"

But complaining aside.

The moment Lin Li stepped into the room, his originally tired, even somewhat slacker-like demeanor underwent a shocking transformation.

As a professional former game operations planner.

Lin Li knew that during the novice guidance phase when players first log into a game, how important a core NPC with a deep background, terrifying strength, and a cold demeanor was for the psychological construction of this group of idiot players!

He had to immediately, right now, place a heavy mental shackle called the grand narrative of warhammer 40,000 onto this group of lawless The Fourth Calamity!

Otherwise, these guys would definitely take these four precious clone bodies and use them to test moronic physics experiments like "will they die if they jump from a height of ten meters"!

"Quiet."

Lin Li did not shout.

He just calmly spat out these two words.

But combined with the real, cold aura of blood and death that radiated from him after surviving a month in the wasteland.

These two words seemed to have some kind of magic.

The four noisy players instantly shut their mouths.

They looked in shock at the tall, black-haired young man in front of them.

An NPC in the game?!

This thought flashed through the minds of the four people simultaneously.

"This action model! This subtle facial expression capture! And the worn texture of that trench coat!"

Ming Shen shouted fanatically in his heart: "This is definitely the most awesome NPC model I've ever seen! Bar none!"

Lin Li was satisfied with the reaction of these four people.

He slightly raised his chin and, in a weathered, deep tone, slowly began to speak.

"Welcome to the Fire Seed Shelter."

"I am the supreme administrator here."

"You may call me by my codename—"

"Dawn."

As this pretentious, even slightly chuunibyou-esque codename spilled from Lin Li's lips, the four naked Earth players tacitly ceased all their fidgeting.

They were like four newbies who had just entered an online game's starter village, eager to accept their first epic quest, standing honestly in place, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

"Holy crap, is this cutscene rendered in real-time? And there's no skip button?"

Why Panic When I Have Flash muttered quietly, complaining to Praise Ming Shen beside him:

"This NPC's aura is too strong. I just wanted to reach out and touch the material of his trench coat, but his gaze glared me right back."

"Shut up! Watch the cutscene properly!"

Praise Ming Shen excitedly elbowed Why Panic When I Have Flash, his eyes locked onto Lin Li.

As a veteran lore enthusiast, he absolutely would not allow anyone to interrupt this precious opening monologue.

Lin Li heard the four people's whispers clearly and rolled his eyes internally.

"Do these guys really think they're playing some high-freedom sandbox game?"

But the expression on his face remained cold, revealing not a single crack.

"Put on your clothes. Although the temperature here is constant, I do not want my warriors to be infected by fungal spores from the wasteland due to such stupid naked behavior during the upcoming battles."

Lin Li pointed with disdain at the four metal cabinets nearby.

They contained grey one-piece jumpsuits located near the incubation pods.

The four players immediately cooperated, running over and scrambling to put on the jumpsuits.

"The friction of this fabric! Incredible! This game even performed independent physical calculations for the roughness of the clothes!"

Liver Emperor exclaimed while touching the material, struggling to pull up his zipper.

Once the four were dressed neatly, standing in a row like standard convicts, Lin Li slowly paced over to stand in front of them.

He took a deep breath and began his professional, grandiose deception—or rather, a brutal explanation of the world view.

Lin Li's gaze swept sharply over the four: "I must tell you that where you are now is a desperate, dark universe."

"The Galaxy here has long been torn apart by the flames of war."

"Ruling over humanity is a vast, decaying Ecclesiarchy. They view great science as heresy and uphold ignorant superstition as truth."

"They worship a weak mutant imprisoned on the Golden Throne—the Emperor."

Upon hearing the word 'Emperor', Praise Ming Shen's pupils contracted violently.

He roared excitedly in his heart:

"Holy crap! Did GW actually grant the license?! Even the Emperor's lore is word-for-word accurate! And this NPC dares to blasphemously call the Emperor a mutant?! This game's plot is definitely heading toward the rebel faction!"

Lin Li ignored Praise Ming Shen's dramatic facial expressions and continued in that oppressive tone:

"Apart from those ignorant human brethren, among these stars, there are also the cruel Aeldari, the destruction-craving Necron, the insane Orks who only know how to kill, and... the evil, indescribable Warp daemons."

"We are the last seed of pure-blooded humans, the only survivors in this vast Galaxy who possess pure genes."

Lin Li turned abruptly and spread his arms, as if to embrace the entire sci-fi Shelter.

"And here, the Fire Seed Shelter, is the starting point of the great revival!"

"And you are the seeds of humanity's great revival!"

"My vision—or rather, your ultimate goal—is to carve out a path of great revival for humanity in this dark 41st millennium, using brutal war and an unstoppable torrent!"

"Boom!"

Lin Li's words hit the sweet spot for this group of people.

No game player could refuse such a grandiose, epic ultimate quest objective: reviving humanity, rebelling against gods, and saving the universe!

The breathing of all four players became heavy in unison.

"It's ignited! This is ten thousand times more epic than the beheading intro in Skyrim!"

Miracle Walker clenched his fists excitedly, eager to shout, "Awesome!"

"This is..."

Lin Li paused at the right moment, reaching out to point at the STC-73, which had been floating silently in mid-air.

"This is the Shelter's auxiliary hub, an ancient Men of Iron, codename STC-73."

"In your upcoming actions, if you foolishly encounter some wasteland common sense that you cannot understand, you may consult it to a limited extent."

In fact, before Lin Li entered Room No. 2, he had already seriously and sternly warned STC-73.

It must absolutely not reveal his true identity to these players, and even less could it reveal that the Orks outside were brought here because of him.

In front of the players, he had to be that aloof, mysterious administrator, Dawn.

STC-73's cold red lens swept disdainfully over these bare-assed humans.

"Inferior carbon-based organisms, please put on your loincloths as soon as possible and stop slapping each other's naked bodies like baboons in heat; this is severely polluting the Shelter's sacred visual sensors."

A sharp-tongued AI setting!

Praise Ming Shen's eyes sparkled brightly.

Just as Lin Li was preparing to perfect the end of this newbie tutorial and enter the urgent combat phase, the jumpy Why Panic When I Have Flash couldn't hold back and raised his hand to ask loudly.

"Uh, Boss Dawn! Although your opening monologue was awesome, I have a question."

Why Panic When I Have Flash rubbed his hands in anticipation: "How do I log out of the game? I can't just hardcore stay in this realistic VR world forever, right?"

Lin Li rolled his eyes internally, speechless.

But on the surface, he remained calm and answered inscrutably:

"Your current bodies are precious clones. If you want to sever the consciousness connection—what you crudely recognize as logging out—you must safely return to these incubation pods to enter hibernation."

"Of course, accidental comas, extreme sleep, or the unfortunate death of this fragile vessel will also forcibly interrupt your connection."

"Holy crap, death equals logout?! This hardcore?"

Liver Emperor widened his eyes in surprise.

"Then if we die outside, wouldn't this awesome body be wasted?"

"That is not a problem for me to worry about, warrior," Lin Li responded coldly.

"What about levels?"

Miracle Walker, keen on exploring game mechanics, asked urgently:

"Is there an intuitive game system interface? Is there a rich skill tree? And... when will the free character customization system be opened?"

Facing this barrage of questions, Lin Li's aloof face twitched slightly.

He wanted to curse out loud: I can't even afford to eat, where would I find the time to make a complex game UI for you?!

But he powerfully controlled his expression and said in an unquestionable, official, perfunctory tone:

"The Shelter's underlying permissions are damaged. All complex system functions, including the character customization system you care about..."

"Sorry, coming soon. Stay tuned."

This familiar, standard "painting a pie" answer instantly made the four players roll their eyes in unison.

As expected of a game, this disgusting "stay tuned" flavor is just too authentic!

"Enough, stupid questions end here."

Lin Li forcefully interrupted their wandering thoughts and announced the rules in a cold voice:

"In the Fire Seed Shelter, there are only three absolute, unshakable rules."

"First: The Administrator's orders are above all else, absolutely above all else. All Shelter residents must obey unconditionally."

"Second: For residents who stupidly violate the rules, the Administrator reserves the final means of taking forced hibernation, indefinite confinement, or even completely severing the dimensional link."

"Third: The Administrator has the absolute right of final interpretation."

When Lin Li coldly finished announcing these three draconian rules, the four players' expressions froze simultaneously.

Forced hibernation?

Severing the dimensional link?

Praise Ming Shen's brain began to turn rapidly.

He keenly captured the terrifying meaning behind these words.

"This unreasonable setting... this tough attitude!"

Praise Ming Shen gasped in shock internally.

"This is definitely not some ordinary tutorial NPC! If he casually possesses the authority to kick us out of the game, it means that this so-called Dawn possesses core game administrator privileges within the massive game backend data!"

Praise Ming Shen excitedly nudged Liver Emperor beside him and said in a tiny voice:

"Have you noticed? These simple rules feel like a game in the early testing phase! And this Dawn might be controlled by some mysterious conglomerate tycoon who developed this epoch-making masterpiece!"

"That makes sense!"

Miracle Walker nodded in agreement:

"This realistic physics engine, this massive background setting—this definitely isn't something an ordinary studio could make. Boss Dawn's background is unfathomable!"

In just a short dozen seconds, under Lin Li's exquisite acting and the deterrence of his cold rules, this group of The Fourth Calamity, who were good at self-convincing and loved adding drama in their heads, had perfectly completed a deep, self-brainwashing and imaginative speculation about Lin Li's identity!

In their fanatical eyes, the down-and-out, even somewhat hungry Lin Li before them had transformed into a mysterious, powerful, far-sighted mastermind tycoon holding terrifying, epoch-spanning technology!

"Perfect."

Lin Li clearly saw the light of worship and awe in the eyes of these four people, and he breathed a sigh of relief inwardly, feeling smug.

The deception was a success.

"Since you are very clear about the rules."

Lin Li turned decisively, stopping Why Panic When I Have Flash from his suicidal attempt to touch the material recycling terminal.

"Then now, stop your meaningless exploration."

Lin Li strode toward the center of the empty hall, standing beside the complex nebula projection.

He pressed hard on the heavy elevator button leading to the surface.

"Great seeds."

Lin Li turned back coldly, his black eyes staring deeply at them.

"Follow my lead."

"Outside, a brutal combat test is waiting for your arrival."