Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“If you were given a new life in a parallel world, what would you do with it?”

In the darkness, a magnetic voice whispered in one's ears.

“Whoosh…”

It sounded like the wind or perhaps someone breathing. Then, the darkness gradually brightened and a scene shown from a first-person perspective emerged as if someone was slowly opening their eyes.

There was a clouded sky in front. The person raised their hand, rubbed their eyes, and then struggled to sit up.

As their line of sight turned to the side, what came into view was a dilapidated city under a blanket of dark clouds.

This city was very weirdly built. There were many old thatched cottages on both sides of the street but behind these cottages, there were tall buildings adjacent to each other, just like modern residential quarters.

“Unfortunately, you've been reborn in a dark and turbulent era…”

By the ear, the magnetic male voice continued to narrate without any fluctuations in his voice, “You may be a thief or a farmer or a wandering bard…”

Immediately, the person's field of vision shuddered briefly and then slowly rose as if the person had stood up from the ground.

Next, they looked around and the camera immediately showed the entire neighborhood. This was a muddy and messy street and the ground was filthy. At this time, a few shabbily dressed and sallow-looking pedestrians were walking by, but they paid no mind to the owner of this vision.

“When you wake up from the darkness, the first thing to do is none other than to find ways to adapt to this body…”

The male voice continued to narrate calmly. Following his words, the scene trembled again. It seemed that the owner of the line of sight had staggered a few steps forward before standing firm.

The sound of low strings played slowly with the music of a cello, but the tune was as gray and despairing as the city up ahead. The owner of this vision began to stagger toward the nearest medical station.

Immediately, the screen went dark, but the background music gradually soared…

“This is an era when human lives are as cheap as paper. This is an era of chaos and turbulence. This is an era of a civilization dying…”

The man's voice became tinged with inexplicable emotions and the scene flashed again in the next second. A monster as huge as a mountain stood at the horizon!

The body of this monster was wondrously large. Its upper body was like an inverted triangle and its lower body was full of ta.s.sel-shaped organs that looked like grapes.

“Awoo—!”

The vertical b.l.o.o.d.y jaw at the monster's chest suddenly opened and a roar that shook the world reverberated from the horizon. The sound waves were visible to the naked eye!

“An ancient evil G.o.d who enslaved mankind has destroyed the palace of our civilization and humankind descended from glory to its final steps…”

Following that, the scene flashed again and a peculiar church appeared in the picture. This time, the scene did not adopt a first-person perspective but the regular third-person perspective instead.

One could only see strange patterns and symbols flickering dimly on the church and the more retro medieval buildings by the church.

“Most humans bowed their prideful heads, surrendered to the ancient evil G.o.d, and regarded themselves as the G.o.d's clan…”

After this sentence, there was another cut, switching to a scene of a bomber that looked dilapidated. The bomber flew over the city, and then tossed down rust-stained iron barrels.

“Boom!”

“Boom, boom, boom!”

A series of fireb.a.l.l.s rose from below the city and the fighter took a turn and flew into the horizon.

“However, there's still a group of people who are unwilling to surrender. They've been fighting for four hundred years and are unwilling to lower their n.o.ble heads…”

The voice continued. “The Joint Resistance Army… The Divine Fusion Empire… Who can define the destiny of mankind?”

At this time, the background music was in full swing as if hundreds of people were singing in anger at the same time!

With the swell of the music, the images in the video began to flash rapidly. Each showed a scene — a farmer plowing the wheat fields, a thief walking in the crowded busy city, a few burly men in a brawl at a bar…

The screen flashed faster and faster, and more and more magnificent images began to appear. Some showed two warriors in iron armor fighting bloodily in the wilderness or black-robed rangers slaughtering soldiers in dark alleys or glistening yellow bullets spat out in the a.s.sembly line of a factory…

“When technology and divine power clash, when gunpowder and divine magic attack each other, when death and new life begin to chant…”

“Hum—!”

At this moment, the background music finally arrived at the end, and at the end, a resounding horn began to blare out, and then stopped abruptly!

“What can you do in this age of decline?

“All you can do is try to survive… That's all.”

The man's voice gradually became softer and in the end, there was only a deep echo, like embers slowly dying out.

By now, this three-minute video had ended completely.

“I… F*ck…”

In a university dormitory, a fat man wearing a black T-s.h.i.+rt slowly took off the V.5 Haptic Shock Helmet on his head. He leaned back on the sofa and could not recover for a long while.

There was only shock in his eyes.

“How about it, Mike, this game trailer is truly awesome, right?”

The roommate on the side said excitedly, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng like a hungry wolf's. “Can you believe it? Blackwatch claims that this video is a live demonstration, which means that when we enter the game, the scenes we see will be of this image quality!”

“Is this still a game? I'll even believe you if you told me it's a film production!”

Fat Mike jumped to his feet. “What are you waiting for, when will this game be released? How much will it cost? What kind of gaming helmet do I need? I'll get it ready now!”

“Hold on!”

The roommate immediately laughed dryly when he heard these words and he grabbed the eager little fat man. “How can it be on sale now? Today is just a game preview. There's still a month before it enters closed beta testing.”

“What, a month before beta testing?”

The little fat man's face suddenly crumpled when he heard these words. He collapsed on his bottom onto the sofa, as dejected as if his parents had just pa.s.sed away. “That's no good at all. It'll be three months at least between the closed beta and open beta, right?”

“Duh. I suspect that it won't even be just three months, more like at least half a year!”

As the roommate spoke, he suddenly raised his right hand and pressed gently on the watch-like device on his wrist. Then, a translucent web page popped up and hovered above the watch.

“Blackwatch's official website said that this game is called Ancient Civilization, which is an ertranscending 3S masterpiece. Closed beta testing begins on the 1st of next month. At that time, 100,000 accounts will be distributed randomly around the world. Matching game equipment will be included for free!”

“What?”

The little fat man's eyes bulged when he heard this. “100,000 sets of game equipment given out for free? The best game helmet on the market can reach 100,000 USD. This game is so realistic, how can the supporting game equipment cost any less than one hundred thousand dollars? In other words, they plan to give away ten billion dollars' worth of game helmets?”

“It's Blackwatch, after all, this bit of money is probably not a big deal to them…”

The roommate's focus was not on this. After he saw this promotional video, he notified Mike as soon as possible. Only now did he pay proper attention to the text description under the video. At this point, his eyes were also getting brighter.

According to the description, this game called Ancient Civilization would use the latest gaming equipment developed by Blackwatch. It was not a game helmet or a V-series haptic shock chair, but a piece of even more high-end equipment — a game chamber!

“It turned out to be the ultimate game device from web novels — a virtual reality game chamber?”

The little fat man beside also poked his head over. When he saw this explanation, the fat all over his body quivered suddenly as his face revealed an unbelieving expression. “I'm not dreaming, am I?”

“Sure enough, it's Blackwatch!”

The roommate on the side was also clutching his face excitedly. “When we were still in elementary school more than ten years ago, Blackwatch first introduced virtual reality helmets and haptic shock chairs. Many media were speculating that Blackwatch was probably about to invent the game chamber, but there has been no news for more than ten years. I thought that the company had used up all its tricks. To think that after more than ten years, the game chamber has appeared!”

“This is a big move!”

The little fat man looked up to the sky and laughed three times, then urged. “Go down quickly, quickly scroll and see what else is said below?”

At this, the roommate used his mind to control the screen to continue moving down. “The game chamber is currently equipped with constant temperature facilities, immersion facilities, and life support facilities, which can monitor the user's vital signs. After the user enters the game, they can be fully immersed in the game. Even if the user has an abnormal physiological reaction due to excitement after entering the game, the game chamber can maintain the vital signs of the user and automatically make an emergency call!”

“This technology…”

The little fat man exchanged a glance with his roommate, rather puzzled. Could a game really terrify a person to the point of causing real health issues?

Immediately, they continued to scroll down, only to see that the following paragraph turned out to be the background introduction of the game.

“What! The background of this game is set in the 24th century on Earth?”

“What! In this game, mankind encountered an ancient evil G.o.d in the 21st century? After a cataclysm, mankind was divided into two camps?”

“What! Under the Joint Resistance Army's forces in the 24th century, in addition to the forces of the four continents, there's also a fifth force named Blacklight City?”

The small, fat Mike could not help yelling. “A self-insert… I'm losing it, Blackwatch has put itself into the game, and set itself as the fifth force of the Joint Resistance Army on the same level as the four continents…”

“But as the description says, there are two major camps among the human beings. The Joint Resistance Army is just one of them and the other is the Divine Fusion Empire that has joined the troops of the ancient evil G.o.d?”

The roommate wore a contemplative expression. “Blackwatch Corporation is something else. This 'fusion' is the 'fusion virus' epidemic from more than ten years ago, right? It was the epidemic that created countless psionicists in our human society. Now Blackwatch Corporation has put a diabolic spin to everything, demonizing the epidemic as a kind of evil G.o.d?”

“It would seem so…”

The little fat man nodded but did not have much of a response. “This isn't a big deal. I'm okay with it. After all, Blackwatch Corporation contributed greatly during the epidemic.”

The two of them became increasingly engrossed in their discussion and could not wait to play this game right away. After all, based on the description, this game would have the world's first physics engine that fully replicated reality. Any man who harbored the dream of rus.h.i.+ng gallantly into a battlefield would be tempted, especially in this era when the virtual reality industry was extremely developed.

The conversation between the two was just a microcosm of the ten billion people on the planet. At this time, on the Internet, with the release of the game trailer of Ancient Civilization, the entire world was plunged into a tsunami of astonished cries…

[What? A 3S-level virtual reality masterpiece? 100% immersive simulation? The world's first ertranscending online game?]

[Following the V-series virtual reality helmets and haptic shock chairs, has Blackwatch finally begun working on the concept of gaming chambers?]

[Surely I'm not dreaming? I've been waiting for this kind of 100% immersive game chamber to appear, thank G.o.d, it came out in my lifetime. And it's already so complete the moment it appeared!]

[Blackwatch's developments cannot be missed!]

[Why do we have to wait for a month? Why is there a closed beta? I won't stand it! I want to play Ancient Civilization, I'm about to die of boredom otherwise!]

While countless people exclaimed in glee, there were naturally the same amount of voices opposing it, and most of these people opposed it because this game turned out to be an online game.

[It's an online game? Never mind then. Bye! I'm a cultured stand-alone game player!]

[Blackwatch Corporation isn't afraid of failing to deliver? They brag so much and I believe it if it's a stand-alone game, but this game is an online game? You can all forget about it. Online games are always about ten years behind stand-alone games, whether in terms of graphics quality or story.]

[OP, stop being ridiculous. You can a.s.sume so much just by watching a promotional video? What's wrong with online games, when has Blackwatch disappointed us?]

[Is this because they have no money to build the Dyson cloud? So, they come up with an online game to scam money from people? Blacklight: first they get you hooked, then they make you open your wallets!]

[Stop arguing, I believe in Blackwatch. If you don't believe that an online game can be a high-quality product, then judge the game when it comes out. Anyway, 100,000 devices will be given away in the first round of closed beta testing. We'll see how good it is then!]

In addition to the voices of support and opposition, there were many voices of doubt and the point brought up by these people was that the promo was too exaggerated. It did not look like a game at all, but more like it was shot directly with high-definition equipment.

Some people also questioned the safety of the game chamber, believing that this kind of immersion would endanger the player's mental health. In particular, the game was also set in a dark and b.l.o.o.d.y era, so that fighting and conflict were almost inevitable.

In accordance with Blackwatch's consistent style, the b.l.o.o.d.y images in the game must be extremely real. If minors were playing this game at that time, would it not harm their framework of values?

Countless people hold different opinions. During this period, the entire Internet became a battlefield…