Player 1

Chapter 7 Level 1(5)
This sparked a few low laughs from the crowd, and I blushed beneath my mask.A year ago, once I accidentally took I-Lock's horse to the outer world to earn some experience points.After dropping me off in a low-level mission area in Greyhawk, this birdman stalked me for quite a while.I killed goblins for hours, waited for them to spawn, then killed again, over and over again.I was only level one at the time, and there was only one safe way to level up.I-Rocke took a few screenshots of my character that night and named them "Parsifal Dick, Mighty Goblin Slayer", and he put them on the brood.He also often finds opportunities to re-top these picture posts to the top of the forum.He never wanted to make it easier for me.

"That's right, bastard," I stood up and walked to him, "You're an idiot. What does level [-] mean? Does it mean you're smart enough to be a hunter?"

"Good point." Edge nodded in agreement.We bumped our fists, and there was more snickering from the crowd, but now we're headed for I-Rock.

I-Rock stared at us for a while. "Okay, let's see who's the real dick," he said, "Look at this, impotent men." He smiled and took something from his inventory and held it up high.An Atari 2600 game card still in its box.He deliberately blocked the name of the game, but I saw the pattern on the packaging: a pair of young men and women in ancient Greek costumes brandishing swords in their hands, with Minotaur and Cyclops behind them. "Do you know what this is, Gao Wan?" I-Lock challenged, "Let Grandpa give you some hints... When this game was released, it contained several puzzles, and the first player to solve them could win a prize .Does that sound familiar?"

Stupid I-Lock always feels that only he can discover these high-end goods, and he likes to show them off.That's right, hunters like to show off in front of others to prove that they are much better than each other, but for I-Lock, it really can only be hehe.

"You're from Mars, aren't you?" I said, "Did you discover the Sword-seeking series until now?"

I-Rock's face is like a frosted eggplant.

"This is "Looking for the Sword: Earth Elemental Realm," I continued, "the pioneering work of this series. It was released in 1982." My smile grew stronger, "Do you know what the last three works in this series are called? ?"

His eyes narrowed, and he, no doubt, froze.Like I said, he's an asshole.

"Does anyone know?" I posed the question to those around me.The other hunters looked at each other, but no one spoke.

"'Fire Elemental World', 'Water Elemental World', and 'Wind Elemental World'." Edge replied.

"That's right!" We bumped our fists again, "But the production of "Wind Element World" was not finished, because Atari's management had problems, so the game was canceled before it was completed."

I-Lock quietly put the game box back into the inventory.

"You should join the 'kneel and lick' gang, I-Rocke." Edge said with a smile, "They need your vast knowledge."

I-Rock was trembling with anger, "If you two gays already knew about the sword hunting competition, why didn't I ever hear about it?"

"Don't be silly, I-Lock." Edge shook his head, ""Seeking Sword: Earth Elemental World" is an unofficial sequel to 'Adventure'. It's common sense. Everyone knows it."

I-Lock wanted to save face, "Well, if you are both such experts, then let me ask you, who is the designer of the Sword-seeking series?"

"Dan Heather and Todd Frey," I replied. "Ask something difficult."

"Let me do it," Edge interjected, "What prize does Atari prepare for the winner of this match?"

"Ah," I replied, "good guy. Let me think about it... The prize of "Earth Elemental World" is the mantra amulet, which is real gold studded with diamonds. Tuition, melt it down and sell it."

"That's really accurate." Edge encouraged, "Don't delay, what about the other two?"

"I didn't delay. The prize of "Fire Elemental World" is the Holy Grail of Light, and the prize of "Water Elemental World" is the crown of life, but it was not sent out because the competition was cancelled. The same is true for "Wind Elemental World", Its default prize is the Philosopher's Stone."

Edge grinned, reached out to give me two high-fives, and then added: "According to the original idea, the winners of these four prizes will compete for another grand prize, the Ultimate Magic Sword."

I nodded, "These prizes all come from the derivative comics of "Looking for the Sword". By the way, you can also find those comics in the last treasure room screen of "Anola's Invitation."

The crowd started to applaud, and I-Rock lowered his head with a red face.

When I first became a hunter, I knew that Halliday obviously came up with the Easter Egg Competition after getting inspiration from "Looking for the Sword", but I don't know if he used the puzzles in it for reference - anyway, just in case, I've mastered the puzzles and their solutions.

"Forget you guys, that's fine." I-Lock said, "But what you're discussing is really boring."

"And you," I retorted, "clearly need a different career. You just don't have the IQ or passion to be a hunter."

"That's right," Edge said. "Do some research, I-Rocke. I mean, do you know about wikis? Free databases, no money."

I-Rock seemed to lose interest in the argument, and he turned and walked to the comic book case on the other side of the room. "Whatever," he said over his shoulder, "if I hadn't spent a lot of time sleeping offline, I'd know more about this useless shit than both of you."

Edge ignored him. "What are the names of the twins in the "Looking for Sword" comic?" He continued to ask me.

"Tara and Thor."

"Fuck, Z! It's you."

"Thanks, Edge."

Another reminder flashed on the edge of the screen, telling me that the prep bell had just rung 3 minutes before class.I know Edge and I-Rock saw the same message because all schools have the same timetable.

"Another day of study," Edge said, standing up.

"It's annoying," I-Rock said, "see you two dicks later." He gave me the middle finger, and the character disappeared from the chat room.The other hunters gradually withdrew and disappeared, until only Edge and I were left in the room.

"Seriously, Edge," I said, "why did you let that idiot in?"

"Because it's fun to tease him, and his ignorance gives me hope."

"what?"

"If other hunters were as blank as he was, Z, believe me—then we'd probably win this match."

I shrugged, "That's all."

"Are you coming after school tonight? After seven? I have something to do, but after that I'll watch some old movies, space operas or something."

"Oh, fine," I replied, "count me in."

We exited at the same time, just as the class bell rang.

0004
Parsifal opened his eyes, and the world history classroom once again occupied his field of vision.The surrounding seats were full of students, and then our teacher, Mr. Avanovich, appeared at the door of the classroom.Lao A looks like a fat, bald university professor with a friendly smile.He wears gold-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket, and listening to him lectures is like reading a Dickens novel.He is a good teacher and I like him.

Of course, I don't know Avanovich's real name, or even what "his" gender is.For all we know, he could also have been an Inuit woman living in Anchorage, Alaska, chosen only to make her lectures more receptive to her students.But in my opinion, none of this mattered, because everything he said and did came from the heart and was very sincere.

The other teachers are also great.Unlike the professors who are always pulling faces in reality, most of the teachers in the oasis seem to love their jobs, probably because they don't need to spend a lot of time taking care of students or maintaining discipline.Oasis will do this for them: for example, during class, students cannot move around at will, and teachers only need to teach well.

Moreover, online teaching is more attractive to students. Classrooms are like portals. Teachers can take students to travel around without leaving the campus.

In the world history class this morning, Avanovich used an independent simulation process to lead us to witness the scene where Egyptian archaeologists excavated the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922 AD. (Yesterday, we also witnessed the glory of Tutankhamun's dynasty in 1332 BC in the same place.)
In the second biology class, we walked through human arteries and felt the beating of the heart, just like watching the old movie "Amazing Journey" [35].

And in art class, we were each given a beanie and wore it to visit the Louvre; in astronomy class, we boarded each of Jupiter's moons.We stood on the surface of Io's craters and listened to the teacher explain the formation process of the craters.During the lecture, Jupiter covered half of the sky, and the Great Red Spot rolled over the teacher's left shoulder.Then she pinched her fingers, and we were in Europa, discussing the possibility of life beneath the ice.

Lunch was settled on the school lawn. Looking at the virtual scene, I opened the mask and ate a protein bar.This is much better than watching the secret base eat.In fact, high school students already have access to the outside world at their leisure, but you know, I can't afford that.

Logging into The Oasis is free, but traveling within it is not.The cost of teleporting to the outer world and back is too much for me.Whenever the school bell rings, students who have something to do in the real world will immediately exit "Oasis", while others will go wandering in the outer world.Many students have their own starships.Ludus's tarmac is filled with flying saucers, TIE fighters, old NASA space shuttles, the Viper from Battlestar Galactica, and spaceships from other sci-fi movies.Every afternoon these spaceships will fill the sky and fly to the unknown virtual universe.At this time, I can only look up with envy and hatred.Those without a boat would hitchhike to the nearest space transportation station, attend some out-of-world dance party, hit a gaming arena, or run to a rock concert to cheer for a certain star.But what about me?I can't go anywhere but Ludus, the most boring planet in the whole oasis.

This virtual world built with the real somatosensory simulation system as the core is really huge and incredible.

When Oasis first launched, there were only a few hundred planets to explore, all of which were designed by GSS programmers and artists.The environments of these planets vary from worlds of sword and sorcery, to mega-planetary cities with a cyberpunk theme, to sewers full of radiation-mutated zombies.Everything on these planets is portrayed to the extreme.Their modeling was later also heavily applied to newly developed areas.Artificial intelligence NPCs are all over the planets - the characters, beasts, monsters, aliens and robots controlled by these systems fully interact with the players of "Oasis".

The majesty of GSS is more reflected in their tolerance for previous works of the same type. "Ever Quest" and "World of Warcraft" [36] are reproduced in "Oasis". You can choose to log in to Noras or Azeroth s.The same goes for other virtual worlds, not just virtual reality [37] and the Matrix in The Matrix.You can even see the Firefly universe sitting next to the Star Wars universe, and the Star Trek universe not far from Star Wars.There are also Middle-earth, Vulcan, Bonn, Arrakis, Stalomura β, Ringworld, one crystal wall system after another, one plane after another, and world after world[38].

To differentiate and facilitate navigation, Oasis divides them into 27 square divisions, each of which contains hundreds of different planets—or planes, whatever you want to call them. (A 27-block [-]D map put together looks like some kind of Rubik's cube. Like most hunters, I don't think it's a coincidence.) Each division is exactly [-] billion kilometers long , which is ten hours of light, so if you travel at the speed of light (which is the fastest speed for a spaceship in Oasis), you can get from one end of the partition to the other in exactly ten hours.This kind of long-distance travel is not cheap, only a few spacecraft can do it, and you have to have enough fuel. One of the ways GSS makes money is by letting people refuel virtual ships with virtual fuel.Of course, their main source of income is the delivery fee.After all, teleportation is the fastest method, although it is also the most expensive.

Traveling back and forth in The Oasis is not only expensive, it's dangerous.Because each division is divided into several spaces of different sizes, usually these spaces will contain several worlds at the same time - some are only a few kilometers wide, and some are vast and boundless.Every space has its own rules.For example, magic can be used in some spaces, but not in others.The same is true for technology. If your spaceship strays into a space where high technology is forbidden, the warp drive will stop in an instant, and then you have to pay a gray robe wizard to kick you into another technological space with a spell.

In short, dual spaces allow both magic and technology, while zero spaces allow neither.PK battles are impossible in the safe zone, and everyone in the PVP territory is in danger.

So when entering an unknown new space or partition, you have to be cautious and be careful.

But I don't have to worry about it at all, because I can only stay in school.

Ludes is a big school, and it's impossible to take on a single mission here, let alone player PK.There are only a thousand identical campuses, and the green spaces, parks, rivers, meadows, and woods that separate them.No castles, dungeons, stratofortresses, monsters, xenos and aliens, no money, no equipment.

There are countless reasons why I think this place is terrible.

Completing tasks and fighting monsters is the only way for low-level players to gain experience.With experience, you can level up, and after leveling up, you can become stronger and gain new abilities.

But most Oasis users don't care about their level or the game itself. "Oasis" is just a platform they use for entertainment, business, shopping or chatting.These users never enter the mission area or the PVP area, which is tantamount to asking for death for a first-level character.Anyway, as long as you stay in a safe area, such as Ludes, you don't have to worry about being robbed, kidnapped, or killed.

I hate being in the safe zone.

If I want to find Halliday eggs, I must go to those dangerous places to take risks; and if I don't have the ability and equipment to protect myself, then the adventure is empty talk and nonsense.

Over the past five years, I've slowly worked my way up to level three.It's not easy.I've hitched rides with people (usually Edge) and when they go to some world where I don't die, I'll have them put me in the novice area and spend the night or weekend killing orcs , goblins, or other garbage monsters that can't kill me.Every time I kill a monster, I will gain a little experience, and I can also get some copper or silver coins.The money can be exchanged for oasis points, which I use to teleport back to Ludus, but basically by the time I save enough money back to Ludus, the school bell should ring.Sometimes, these monsters will also drop some equipment, which is how my sword, shield, and armor come from.

(End of this chapter)