Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Of course, the answer is: No.

One must balance the bowl of water!

Lincoln is busy training, and it’s inconvenient to carry around a headband and mobile phone during his training, so Mavis can only entertain herself until the evening, when she can share her experiences with Lincoln.

Meanwhile, Samuel has been steadily advancing the promotional plan according to a predetermined agenda.

The complaints and dissatisfaction of the overseas players were quickly obscured by a new promotional material – [Brewing System].

But this [Brewing System] is not serious at all in the promotional video released by Yunmeng.

Because not only can you brew conventional wines like Rice Wine, Wormwood Wine, Grape Wine, Plum Wine, but you can also produce unconventional ones like Medicinal Wine, Baijiu and Spiced Wine.

You can even improvise, throwing any ingredients you can think of into the fermenter to brew into alcohol.

Barley, wheat, red beans, green beans, glutinous rice, Job’s tears, watermelon, strawberry, apple, pear, banana, persimmon, Sichuan pepper, star anise, milk, soy sauce, green onion, garlic… as long as it can be ground into powder or juiced, you can add it in.

Even completely inedible things like kerosene, perfume, soapy water, etc, you can put in if you want.

Of course, the probability of failure in doing so is very high. Even if it succeeds, it’s hard to say what the taste will be.

It’s better to call it [Alchemy System] or [Chemistry in the Tang Dynasty] rather than [Brewing System].

The freedom is extremely high anyway.

Lincoln even strongly advocated for a small easter egg: players can brew “Cat Poop Wine” with a bit of cat poop.

If someone really does this, they will get a hardcore achievement –

[Stop! This isn’t Cat Poop Coffee]

And Lincoln’s final conscience is: this achievement does not require actually drinking the wine… just making it is enough.

Of course, if there truly is a brave soul who manages to drink the [Cat Poop Wine], Lincoln will present them with a golden achievement trophy in honor of their bravery –

[Fool’s Love].

An achievement with a title!

But he’s not sure if anyone would really do such a thing, but it’s always good to be prepared in advance.

Such a ridiculous system unsurprisingly sparked lively conversations among players and netizens again.

Compared to these, the small complaints from overseas netizens drowned before they could even create a wave.

Even when Mavis reported a day’s interesting things to Lincoln after training in the evening, she didn’t mention them.

Lincoln’s only thought regarding the ancient architecture topic was a bit strange: why didn’t Old Man Leonard, the president of the foundation, express his thoughts?

He’s not complaining, just that the old man is always talkative and has given numerous interviews about the foundation before.

However, this isn’t really a big deal. Lincoln shook his head and put it behind him, thinking he hadn’t visited Old Man Leonard’s granddaughter, Sisi, for a long time since the start of the “Chang’an” project. He had been so busy with work and the Consciousness Chip that he hadn’t had time to see how absorbed the little girl was in the virtual world.

Finally, Lincoln decided to upgrade Sisi’s headband and visit the old man and the little girl after he finished working on the Consciousness Chip.

The foundational graphene chip technology has already been prepared by Lincoln, but he hasn’t brought it out yet to avoid adding another work load – as he’s already so busy and tired!

He plans to rest during the New Year and deal with this matter after the holidays.

For the Consciousness Chip technology, he has more or less grasped it. He plans to start making chips in a few days, practicing and completely digesting the technology.

*@@novelbin@@

While Lincoln and Samuel were each busy with their own work, the players were also very busy.

Thursday was the last day of the “Chang’an” closed beta, and the brothel was overcrowded.

Apart from players who still casually forged iron, struck jewelry, and made spices to find enough joy in their side jobs on the last day, most of the casual players decided to watch the performances in the brothel and spend every last penny.

Meanwhile, outside the brothel on Health Square’s main street, players were waiting in line to meet their demise.

All of these players shared the same idea as Yelang, wanting to see what an NPC strengthened to its limit would look like.

When enough players took part, this wasn’t difficult to achieve, and they didn’t need to repeatedly meet their end in agony.

Because no matter how much the NPC was powered up, its enemy-killing efficiency per unit time wouldn’t rise too much — after all, the blade was only so long, and it would be impressive if it could slay two people at once.

In reality, NPCs wouldn’t kill players for no reason. Players had to brandish their weapons in a threatening manner for the NPC to take action.

Given the Capital Commandant’s rich combat experience, he would immediately distance himself when faced with multiple opponents, seeking opportunities and then beating them one by one.

This actually lowered his “slaughtering” rate, it was better to go one by one, dying in turns.

Finally, considering players’ coordination and tacit understanding, it ended up taking the Commandant an average of two or three seconds to kill each player.

With this process, time was running out!

— Even if the NPC killed one player per second, it would only have enough time to kill 60×60×24=86400 players in a day without resting.

This was far from Yelang’s imagined several hundreds of thousands!

Moreover, players merely posed a threat and didn’t actually hurt the NPC. They would be detained in jail for just an hour after dying, so they could technically go meet their ends over and over…

Of course, this wasn’t actually necessary because there were so many players looking to join in the fun, they wouldn’t all get a turn.

Many people spent all their money at the brothel first and then charged straight to their deaths after leaving.

Finally, they would resurrect in jail and then go offline to rest.

Nevertheless, time was indeed running out. Even if Yelang and his group had started to organize everything from the day before, the ultimate limit might be letting the BOSS kill 120,000 players — and this was under the assumption that nothing unexpected occurred.

They reserved the last hour to test how strong the greatly powered-up NPC really was.

*

On the other hand, Yi’s plan was inches away from success.

They set off with a hundred men, using all sorts of weapons from knives, swords, guns, and bows to grass forks to besiege the Commandant drinking alone in the tavern.

— They used grass forks not because they didn’t have other weapons, but because everyone gradually found out that grass forks were rather formidable!

They had a long attack range, a large area of attack, and could block and disarm weapons. Especially during team battles, spearheading with a row of grass forks was invincible!

Rounded up, it was like a youthful version of the Unparalleld Spear!

Everyone rushed in with full confidence.

…

Ten minutes later, the Commandant achieved a hundred-man kill streak.

Yi decisively changed his strategy, accepting a fan’s suggestion, and employed a very old-fashioned but effective method:

Poisoning!

A player, whose secondary profession was set to be a doctor, apprenticed under a peculiar old doctor. The old man didn’t teach him many remedies but instead taught him several deadly poisons that worked on contact with the blood.

However, the player didn’t think too much of it – it was quite normal for a doctor to know some poisons…right?

It was only until he blended into the tavern as a waiter, mixed the poison into the alcohol, and watched the Hundred Man Killing Commandant drink it down.

Just a moment later, the Commandant was rapidly poisoned, his eyes filled with bloodshot, forehead veins popping, and then he vomited a mouthful of blood that sprayed over the entire table!

And the player suddenly discovered that his secondary profession was changed from [Physician] to [Poison Doctor]!

This left him somewhat puzzled: “What’s this? Is it a hidden secondary profession?”