Only Player

Chapter 1: Son of the Stars
"You're right, but "Children of the Stars" is a new open world adventure game developed jointly by Qunxing Network and Spark Technology. The game takes place in a fantasy world called "Endless Sea of ​​Stars", where ordinary people also have the opportunity to embark on the path of becoming gods. You will play a mysterious character named "Pioneer". In the free adventure, you will meet companions with different personalities and unique abilities. Together with them, you will defeat powerful enemies, explore the starry sky, and ascend to become a god - at the same time, gradually discover the truth of "the stars". "

Copy, paste and send in one go, today's water army mission is successfully completed.

In the security room, Zhou Yuan put down his phone and looked at the time on the surveillance screen - 22:58.

"Brother Sun, I'm going on patrol." Zhou Yuan picked up the flashlight on the table and shouted into the inner room.

"Oh, go ahead." Brother Sun, the captain of the security team who was giving gifts to the female anchor, responded perfunctorily.

Zhou Yuan hummed a little tune as he left the security room and walked towards the brightly lit office building.

The company name is hung on the roof - Qunxing Network.

There is no other most famous gaming company in the world today.

Six years ago, Qunxing Network released a trailer for a new online game called "Children of the Stars". This game will be an unprecedented immersive holographic game. The vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell in the game world are exactly the same as in reality, and it is said to be 100% real.

After the trailer was released, it caused overwhelming doubts among players. The technology was too advanced and it was a fantasy to make a game. Qunxing Network was probably trying to cheat people out of money.

As time went by, the discussion on this topic became more and more heated, until a heavyweight bomb was dropped, and the players' doubts gradually subsided - Spark Technology and Qunxing Network officially announced their cooperation!
Spark Technology - a technology giant that emerged after the Third World War and created countless miracles.

Mechanical prostheses, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, gene editing, controlled nuclear fusion... many epoch-making products are their masterpieces. With their participation, immersive holographic games may really become a reality.

As the actual gameplay trailers of "Children of the Stars" were released one after another in recent years, the amazing results made players all over the world completely crazy. Stellar Network was actually made!
Now, there is only one month left before the game is released, and players are going crazy on the Internet every day, wishing they could knock themselves out and sleep until the game is released.

The game developers are also working day and night to carry out the final improvement work, and it is normal to work overtime until the early morning during this period.

drop!
Zhou Yuan swiped his card to open the door, greeted the front desk staff, walked straight into the elevator, swiped his card again, and pressed the 33rd floor.

The elevator slowly rose. Zhou Yuan stared blankly ahead, recalling his experiences over the years and couldn't help but sigh.

As a person with only a junior high school education and whose parents have both passed away, it was a great honor for him to be able to enter the Star Network. It can be said that it was all thanks to his face.

Five years ago, when he was preparing for the high school entrance examination, his parents were accidentally and brutally murdered, and the murderer has not been found to this day.

What's even more tragic is that his parents are both gamblers, the family has no savings at all, and they even owe a lot of debt to the bank.

Fortunately, his classmates and teachers were very kind and gave him some living expenses, allowing him to finish junior high school. After that, he began to work to pay off his debts - if he didn't pay off his debts, his house would be taken away by the bank, and he would have no place to live and would have to become a city explorer, hunting around and opening treasure chests.

Zhou Yuan has worked in a factory, washed cars, worked as a customer service representative, and delivered takeout... Then one day, luck suddenly came his way.

It was a sunny noon, and he was delivering food on a second-hand electric bike bought from the seafood market. The location was an upscale residential area, and he happened to run into the community security team training at the gate.

Perhaps it was a special fate, the supervisor suddenly turned around, looked at him, and exclaimed: "Young man, you are quite handsome, do you want to be a security guard? Eight-hour work, monthly salary of 6,000, five insurances and one housing fund, work five days and rest two days."

So he started working as a community security guard that very evening. With his advantages such as being young, energetic, tall and handsome, it didn't take long for him to become the face of the community. He also became a minor celebrity on the Internet and made a lot of money.

Unfortunately, his eyes were not innocent enough and he was not qualified to become an Internet celebrity phenomenon. He faded away after two or three months.

Two years passed like this. One night, Zhou Yuan, who was patrolling the community, saw a person lying on the road and called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Later, he learned that the person was a senior executive of Qunxing Network. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on his way home due to continuous overtime work. If he had not been taken to the hospital in time, he would have died.

After the executive recovered, he went straight to Zhou Yuan and said he wanted to repay his kindness. He arranged a job for him at Qunxing Network, also as a security guard.

Zhou Yuan agreed without even thinking about it - Qunxing Network is one of the top 100 companies in the world, and the security guards' salaries are not low.

Now he has been working as a security guard at Qunxing Network for two and a half years. He has reduced the debt left by his parents to only 80,000 yuan. If he works for another half a year or so, he should be able to pay it off.

By the time……

He was freed.

Ding.

The elevator door opened, and outside was the rooftop leisure area, with some parasols, tables and chairs, but no one in sight.

Zhou Yuan took a round of inspection as usual, then turned and walked towards the elevator.

"Gah-"

In the silence, a hoarse bird call suddenly sounded from the side, startling Zhou Yuan, and he quickly shone the flashlight over there.

There was a crow standing on the edge of the rooftop, its feathers were shiny black, but strangely, its eyes were bright blood red, like crystal rubies.

The crow tilted its head and stared at Zhou Yuan.

Zhou Yuan also stared at the crow.

"oi!"

Zhou Yuan stamped his feet, trying to scare the crow away, but the crow was very calm and unmoved. After several seconds, it lazily spread its wings and flew away.

"You're quite brave..."

Zhou Yuan muttered as he walked back to the elevator. The crow looked quite fat and was not afraid of people. It must be someone's pet.

He didn't take it seriously and began patrolling down the floors.

When he reached the 18th floor, a female employee with a work badge stopped him at the water dispenser and said, "Brother, can you help me carry a bucket of water?"

"Okay." Zhou Yuan took the empty bucket and walked towards the storage room.

In the storage room, he had just put down the empty bucket when suddenly a loud earth-shaking noise came from above his head, followed by a violent shaking that affected the entire building.

earthquake?
Zhou Yuan's nerves instantly tensed up, he was on the 18th floor now!
He rushed out immediately, but when he saw the scene in the hall, he stood there in a daze.

The ceiling and the floor were pierced by a scorched hole, the edge of the hole was scorching red, and dozens of employees in the office area disappeared. A burnt smell floated in the air.

The female employee who asked Zhou Yuan to help change the water just now happened to be standing on the edge of the big hole. The right side of her body was cut off directly. The cut surface of the wound was charred black and smoke was coming out. She fell to the ground and twitched violently.

The temperature at the edge of the scorched earth was terribly high, igniting everything that could be ignited. The fire started and spread everywhere, engulfing the female employee, and soon she stopped struggling.

The shrill fire alarm sounded, and the fire sprinklers above our heads exploded one by one, and for a moment it was like a torrential rain.

Zhou Yuan was stunned by this horrifying scene. His brain went blank for a moment and then he ran away, rushed into the fire escape and dashed downstairs.

Just when he reached the corner between the 12th and 11th floors, click!

The wall on the left side below suddenly shattered, and a long, narrow red and black shadow swept past. The metal fire door on the 11th floor let out a wail under the heavy weight and was instantly cut in two. Then came the stairs and the wall on the other side. Under the sweep of the shadow, the indestructible reinforced concrete was easily cut through like tofu.

What's even more strange is that some kind of red and black substance is surging in the place where it was cut, making a hissing sound, as if it has a strong corrosive property.

Damn it...

Zhou Yuan was sweating coldly and swallowed a mouthful of saliva unconsciously. He was almost chopped just now. What... was that?
First there was some kind of horrific attack that went straight through the entire building, and then there was another attack that easily cut through metal and reinforced concrete... In just a few minutes, Zhou Yuan felt like his worldview was about to collapse.

And...why would a gaming company like Qunxing Network be attacked like this?

He didn't have time to think. Escaping was the most important thing. He jumped down with all his strength, crossed the broken stairs where red and black substances were surging, and landed in front of the broken fire door.

The fire door was open, so Zhou Yuan saw what was happening on the 11th floor.

The heat wave was suffocating, and the raging fire had spread across the entire floor, turning the entire floor red.

The flame was very strange. The water sprayed from the fire sprinkler could not put it out at all. In fact, the sprinkler head was melted into molten iron. In the sea of ​​fire, several people were fighting fiercely.

As a company security guard, Zhou Yuan recognized one of them as the chairman of Qunxing Network - Nangong Yi!

In addition to Nangong Yi, there were three other people, all wearing red robes. One of them held a long sword with red and black airflow permeating the blade.

Zhou Yuan's eyes widened in shock, his worldview completely collapsed.

These people...are all people with super powers!
After the shock, Zhou Yuan turned around and ran quickly. The most urgent thing was to escape from this dangerous place first to avoid being killed by the residual power of the battle.

He rushed up the stairs to the 7th floor. Just as he was wondering why he didn't meet any employees along the way, a wolf howl came from the 7th floor through the fire door, followed by a man's terrified scream.

A dull crash followed closely behind, and the muffled sound of a heavy object falling to the ground intertwined with the man's increasingly heart-wrenching wails.

Zhou Yuan's heart was beating like a drum, and terrible scenes involuntarily appeared in his mind.

He tried to calm his nervous emotions, walked lightly, held his breath, and moved carefully down the stairs, praying that he could avoid the wolf's detection.

But the goddess of luck did not favor him. A few seconds later, there was a bang, and the fire door was violently knocked open by a figure clad in darkness.

"Found me!"

Zhou Yuan's heart tightened and his back was instantly soaked with cold sweat. He quickly ran into the 6th floor, pressed his thumb on the fingerprint lock, and locked the fire door with a click.

boom! boom! boom!
A huge impact came from the other side of the door, and the metal fire door continued to vibrate. The black wolf was probably also a supernatural creature, and this door could not hold it for too long.

"There's a fire escape on the other side. I hope I can get out through that..."

Zhou Yuan kept walking, his mind was in a mess and he felt more and more panicked.

boom!
Suddenly, a deafening roar came from the upper floors, as if a bomb had exploded. The terrifying force caused the entire building to shake violently. The nearest floors fell apart in the burst of power, and reinforced concrete fragments shot in all directions.

The ceiling above his head shattered and the floor under his feet collapsed at the same time. Zhou Yuan suddenly lost his balance and fell heavily.

His eyes went dark and his consciousness was briefly blacked out. When he came to his senses, he found himself buried under the rubble.

Zhou Yuan felt severe pain all over his body, and tears came out of his eyes. He groaned with difficulty and struggled to crawl out of the rubble. The pain in his left leg was particularly severe. When he turned his head, he saw that it was seriously fractured.

"Roar……"

A low wolf howl sounded at this time.

Zhou Yuan looked over in horror and saw that the black wolf was also buried under the rubble and was hitting the debris to try to escape!
"How to do?"

"what do I do??"

"That wolf is a supernatural creature. Even if it isn't, I can't kill it, and my leg is broken..."

"I can't run away. I'm going to die... I'm going to die..."

Countless thoughts flashed rapidly through Zhou Yuan's mind. His chest heaved violently and he gasped quickly. The unwillingness, helplessness, despair and fear brought by death turned into a tide, overwhelmed his rationality and swallowed him up bit by bit.

He doesn't want to die.

After some time he will be able to pay off his debts and live a free life. He still has many landscapes to see, many things to enjoy, and many things he likes to own.

He really doesn't want to die...

"Gah."

Just then, Zhou Yuan heard the hoarse call of a bird.

He saw the red-eyed crow on the rooftop flying over, holding a golden card full of technology in its mouth.

The crow landed on the ground and tilted its head to look at Zhou Yuan, whose face was filled with tears.

Zhou Yuan looked at the crow blankly.

Then the crow took two small steps forward and poked the exquisite golden card into his face.

In an instant, the golden card disappeared.

The crow also exploded into black mist with a "bang" and disappeared without a trace.

Zhou Yuan didn't have time to wonder what was going on. The moment the golden card touched him, a large amount of information flooded into his mind, and brilliant golden data streams surged in his pupils.

【——The basic elements that make up our bodies have evolved in the most dazzling stars in the universe.

The iron in red blood cells comes from brilliant supernova explosions.

The zinc in the blood comes from the dust ejected into the universe after the collision of two neutron stars.

That trace amount of copper witnessed the death of a white dwarf.

Even the smallest trace of cobalt comes from nebulae billions of light years away.

We are the children of the stars, miracles in the vast universe. 】

[The player system of "Children of the Stars" has been installed. I wish you a happy game. 】

[The gift pack for new players has been distributed, please check. 】

[An event has been detected, and tasks are being generated...]

[Mission name: "Survive"]

【Mission objective: survive.】

(End of this chapter)