Chapter Seventeen: Connection

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As soon as he entered the game, the first thing Li Shang noticed was an event icon hanging in the upper left corner.

[First-time monthly card purchase at 67% off!]

“What’s a monthly card?” he muttered, frowning as he clicked on the event.

Since this world had never seen pay-to-win games, the term “monthly card” was completely foreign to him and piqued his curiosity.

The event interface opened, displaying all the details before him.

[A brand-new mode!]

[A boon for builders!]

[The feeling of being an almighty god!]

[Only 9.9 yuan for your first month, experience it now!]

(Creative Mode 10-minute trial card)☚

Noticing the “Claim” button below, Li Shang clicked on it.

He exited the interface.

He looked around, but didn’t notice anything different.

“Since it’s called Creative Mode, does this mean there’s some kind of crafting bonus?” he wondered, heading straight to the workbench to try making something.

However, when he opened his inventory to place materials, he froze.

Beneath his inventory was a series of rows listing all sorts of materials by name.

From the most basic dirt and wood, to weapons requiring massive amounts of resources to craft, and even monsters—every material in the game seemed to be here.

Materials he’d desperately needed before were now available in limitless quantities.

“This… this…”

Seeing this, Li Shang was practically giddy with excitement.

With an inexhaustible supply of materials, beating those bosses would be a breeze.

“This mode is just too good,” he thought, silently giving the designer a thumbs-up.

In this game, certain rare ores only appeared after defeating specific bosses.

This meant that in Survival Mode, you could only use weapons appropriate to your current progression to challenge bosses.

That was fine for skilled players, but for someone like him, with limited abilities, it was pure torture.

The feeling of pulling out all the stops only to be utterly crushed was simply soul-crushing.

Li Shang rubbed his hands together and immediately began experimenting with weapons he’d never even seen before.

Terra Blade, Sword in the Stone…

Monsters that used to be impossible for him to defeat now fell like wheat before a scythe.

Yet just as he was gleefully slaughtering monsters left and right, swinging his new weapons with abandon, the time on his Creative Mode trial card ran out.

The weapon in his hand vanished instantly.

And then he respawned.

“…”

Staring at the familiar little bed, Li Shang felt numb.

He’d gotten so carried away that he’d forgotten the trial only lasted ten minutes.

“Still, a mode this fun for only ten bucks a month is a real bargain.”

He immediately opened the event page, intending to buy a month’s access.

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But just as he clicked to pay and confirmed his purchase, another prompt appeared on the payment screen.

[Annual Card Limited-Time Discount! Originally 360 yuan, now only 128!]

[Annual Card Privileges:]

Early access to the latest modes!
20% off all skin purchases!
Bring your equipment into other worlds!
Multiplayer limit raised to 100 players!

“Huh… multiplayer?” Li Shang realized there was more to the update than just Creative Mode.

“Damn! The developers are churning out content like crazy!” he exclaimed, then immediately checked the multiplayer mode details.

He discovered the mode allowed him to pull people around him into his own world, with a maximum of ten players.

“Everyone adventuring together in the same world?” Just the thought thrilled him.

“My Little World” wasn’t like other games, where the plot was fixed—there were countless things to explore.

After a moment’s thought, he gritted his teeth and bought the annual card.

It just meant missing a few meals; he wouldn’t starve.

After paying, he exited the game and called over his two roommates.

“Qin Shao, Lao Dong, come play a game.”

“What game?” one of them asked.

Li Shang immediately shared “My Little World” with the two of them.

After reading the description, Qin Shao couldn’t help but grimace.

“You can actually play something with graphics like this? Spending money on a game of this quality is a waste.”

Hearing Qin Shao put down “My Little World,” Li Shang was a little annoyed.

“This is a great game from any angle.”

“And the designer is clearly passionate. The game’s already released, yet players can still play for free—how generous is that?”

As for the two hundred or so yuan he’d spent, that was entirely his choice and had nothing to do with the designer.

“Free?” Lao Dong, who had been listening, immediately sat up in bed.

“If it’s free, I’ll give it a try. There’s nothing to lose.”

Seeing Lao Dong agree, Qin Shao nodded as well. “Fine, I’ll try it.”

Li Shang entered the game and immediately enabled multiplayer mode, inviting both of them into his world.

“Whoa! Qin Shao, why do you look like a walking stack of pixels?” Lao Dong burst out laughing as soon as he saw Qin Shao’s avatar.

“Don’t laugh at me—you look the same,” Qin Shao grumbled, turning to look at Li Shang, who stood not far off.

Li Shang’s avatar was a tower of a man, muscles sharply defined, with fierce brows radiating the aura of a true tough guy.

“What’s going on with this game? Why do our characters look like they’re from two different games?” Qin Shao asked, puzzled.

“Huh? Um… check out the shop on the left,” Li Shang replied.

…

After the two of them got used to the controls and each spent a yuan on a less garish character skin, Li Shang led them to challenge the boss that had once tormented him to death and back.

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The Four Seasons Blossom

This was a boss lurking in the jungle beneath the earth.

It could move freely through soil and was as unpredictable as it was deadly.

What’s more, it couldn’t be lured to the surface—if it ever reached the ground above, it would immediately retreat underground and rapidly regenerate health, rendering all previous efforts pointless.

Li Shang wasted no words, activated Creative Mode for himself, and dove in with Qin Shao and Lao Dong.

Then…

“Damn! What the hell is that damage?!”

“Li Shang, save me!”

Watching his two friends frantically dodging as the Four Seasons Blossom chased them around, Li Shang couldn’t help but smile, relishing the feeling of being needed.

“Hang on a second,” he said calmly.

He leisurely opened the consumables list and scanned through it.

He spotted something called a Divine Bomb. Driven by curiosity, he dragged it into his inventory.

It was a white sphere the size of a small watermelon, with a fuse at the top.

Li Shang clicked to use it, and the fuse began burning rapidly.

Without hesitation, he tossed it at the Four Seasons Blossom chasing his friends.

And then…

Boom!

With a thunderous explosion, Li Shang discovered another feature of Creative Mode: flight.

The downside was that both Qin Shao and Lao Dong were gone, and the underground tunnel they’d been in was now a massive subterranean crater.

The power was just insane!

…

The end of June arrived in a flash.

“Zerg War,” after receiving its second round of promotional support, soared in popularity and fought its way onto the “New Games” homepage after the district leaderboards.

Its collection count had skyrocketed from 3,000 to 370,000!

Unfortunately, his competition this round was formidable, and in the end, he didn’t break out of the district.

Still, by any measure, he was among the standouts of this quarter on Baiqiao Star.

Today was the day “Zerg War” would reveal its first day’s sales data.

In the Qiyou office, everyone—including Yun Ying—wore looks of anticipation.

Only Ye Yu sat in the corner, his face as dark as coal.

“It must be fake data bought with money,” he muttered repeatedly.

He simply couldn’t fathom how “Zerg War” had floundered in his hands, only to become an unstoppable force in Yu Jia’s.

How could that be reasonable?

It made no sense at all!