Chapter 443: Chapter 426: The Road-building Players
Translator: 549690339
Once the costs of death and injury are ruled out, many extremely dangerous skills requiring lengthy and strict training become much easier to master quickly.
Practicing wing suit flight in “Paradise” is an example of this.
Here, failure is nothing more than dying, and the cost of death is zero.
Well, not exactly zero.
If you die here, your wing suit will automatically be damaged and need to be repurchased.
But most players who have played “Assassins’ Alliance” are not short of money, as robbing a bank in the game starts with a virtual currency yield of hundreds of thousands.
A set of wing suits costs only 1,500, which is like a drop in the bucket.
If need be, players can sell dormant real estate to get more cash.
After all, who doesn’t have several unused properties in the metropolis?
If it was legal to rob a bank in reality, having several properties per household would not be a problem.
Anyway, with a variety of factors combined, players’ expertise in wing suit flight improves rapidly.
Many players have made dozens of trips back and forth from death, and their skills have greatly improved.
They may not be that proficient yet, but generally controlling their flight direction and ensuring that they fly to Dinosaur Island, instead of straying off course or plunging into the ocean, is no longer as difficult as it was at the beginning.
Therefore, when William arrived at the platform once again wearing a brand-new wing suit, he could see a dense formation of players’ silhouettes in the sky above Dinosaur Island from far away.
At this small platform, they have to consider the game experience of players, so when there are 30 to 40 people, they will start to divert and balance dynamically.
But once players leave the platform and enter the sky, the mirrors will merge automatically, and players from different small platforms will naturally converge in the sky above Dinosaur Island.
Although not all players will be merged, the number of players in the sky far exceeds that on the platform.
At the same time, the number of pterosaurs in the sky above Dinosaur Island has also multiplied several times, intercepting and killing players in the air like crazy.
At this point, players can only generally control their flight direction and cannot precisely control it, making it difficult to accurately control their landing point.
Even if they are not killed by pterosaurs in the air, they will still fall to their death on the island.
A few lucky ones who land on the sea will die on impact with the water due to improper entry posture.
For a while, players continue to die in the sky, on land, and in the sea around Dinosaur Island, dissipating in a wisp of light.
On the island, Lincoln and Xiaomeng look up at the fireworks during the day, even feeling that it is somewhat picturesque.
Lincoln felt that this beautiful scene was a bit wasted if only he and Xiaomeng could see it.
So, without any moral compunction, he recorded a clip and posted it on Spiritual Rhinoceros.
The post was noticed immediately by a massive number of netizens due to Lincoln’s popularity, who came to watch it right away.
They then saw groups of pterosaurs soaring in the sky, occasionally flapping their wings to attack players flying by in their wing suits, with red flashes wherever they collided and then turning into white light.
At first, people were amazed at the sight of so many pterosaurs – news of Dinosaur Island was no longer fresh, but this was the first time they had seen such a close and unique perspective.
After marveling at the swiftness and novelty of the pterosaurs, they became curious about the red and white light.
Not until the latter part of the video, when Lincoln kindly slowed the footage, did they see that those were players in wing suits flying across the sky at high speed.
“Dinosaur Island Air Battle!”
“My God, is it that fierce?”
“Can’t they be equipped with some weapons? This is just too cruel! They’re just sending themselves off to die!”
“Movie style! Are there any better angles? It seems full of entertainment value!”
“I know a real wing suit master who also plays virtual games! I’m going to urge him to start live streaming!”
Lincoln only glanced at the comments for a moment before closing the panel.
He still has to work with Xiaomeng to expedite the construction of Jurassic Park.
On the small platform, William has started another wing suit flight.
The first attempt to enter the water failed when he crashed into a hidden coral reef near the shore, dying instantly.
The second attempt also failed because of a very slight entry-angle problem, which led to him crashing on the water’s surface.
Feeling fed up with the repeated running and dying, he went offline on the spot after his resurrection, going to find his wife.
He planned to invite his wife and friends online to help transport the wing suits.
Players have already tried: only the clothes worn on the body can be brought into “Paradise.”
So if they want to transport more wing suits at once, they will need the help of more people.
And the wing suits transported must be watched over.
Otherwise, they will definitely be used up by players under some lame excuse like “it’s a pity no one is using it, let’s put it to good use out of the kindness of our hearts,” leaving nothing for him to use.
Players are not evil persons, but the average merit index in the game is definitely negative!
As soon as William found his wife Miaomiao, she told him, “Your private messages on your social account have exploded. Go check them out.”
William opened it, and they were all urging him to start a live stream.
Being one of the most famous extreme athletes in the country, he certainly has fame.
However, as everyone knows, extreme sports are a very niche circle. Even though he is one of the most famous people in the field, his fame is far from great.
In fact, his most famous achievements are not his international extreme sports competition awards, but his live streams where he scaled buildings in Metropolis and Night City with his bare hands.
It was only after entering the virtual world that he realized what real “popularity” meant.
But he didn’t particularly care about it, and he was indifferent to the live streaming platforms that came to sign him, never signing any contracts.
Compared to wasting too much time on live streaming, he preferred to train in reality.
However, William’s wife Miaomiao had a different opinion on this.
In her view, every opportunity should be seized.
Making more money not only guarantees their future but can also be directly turned into better sports equipment, more reliable support for their actions, and even a more sophisticated logistics team.
And sometimes, these can even directly increase his survival rate when attempting some extreme challenges.
As for live streaming time, all of this can be negotiated.
William knew better and was very clear about how rare it is to meet such a supportive wife. So, in just one afternoon, he was successfully convinced by his wife Miaomiao to start having some “self-operation” awareness.
Lifting his head, he saw his wife’s eyes filled with both expectation and hesitation. He blinked and suddenly grinned, “Let’s live stream then!”
As soon as he finished speaking, he posted an update and promoted the live streaming address.
His wife Miaomiao immediately laughed and gently pinched his face like caressing a dog, put on a headband, and logged into the virtual world with him.
However, after starting the live stream, it was inevitable to be influenced by the audience.
Especially when you have a sense of “operation,” it’s impossible not to consider the effect of the live stream, whether it’s a more or fewer time.
After William started the live stream, he decided to postpone the “entering the sea” operation, and instead prepared for a second exploration of Dinosaur Island’s airspace to get as close as possible to the Pterosaur group and observe them up close.
—Getting close to Pterosaurs from the air for thrills would obviously have a much better live streaming effect than swimming in the sea.
He really wanted to try teasing a Pterosaur and then escaping from its claws.
Unsurprisingly, this operation brought him unprecedented popularity. Players who came to see the excitement in a short time even caught up with many top anchors.
It has to be said that death-defying stunts have always been the most eye-catching.
Another advantage of starting the live stream: new players constantly joined the group, willing to help transport the wing suits voluntarily.
Compared to risking their own lives, they were more willing to support the boss in taking risks.
It’s not to say that all players can be brave enough to try wing suit flying just because they won’t die in the virtual world.
Not at all!
Despite the “air combat” over Dinosaur Island being intense, these people actually represent a very small proportion of the total player base.
More players, after watching the excitement and even trying a miserable fall once, decisively gave up this crazy behavior.
They opted for a safer and relatively less thrilling method: going to the coast, building a boat, and rowing there.
While this method may seem slow, it is much more stable, and with more and more people joining, the progress is constantly speeding up.
Especially when someone left the staff behind and directly landed the hot air balloon, dragging the deflated airbag to the small platform.
Both the glider and parachute saw a major upgrade in materials and craftsmanship.
Yi also temporarily left wing suit flying, regrouping with his friends to upgrade the glider and experience a close reconnaissance with the glider.
As a result, as soon as they approached Dinosaur Island, a Pterosaur chased them up from afar, tore their glider apart in the sky, and screamed as they fell.
But before they could even fall into the forest, they were caught up by the Pterosaur, held by its two claws on their shoulders, brought up into the clouds again, and then let go!
In terms of landing on the island, the progress was reduced to zero.
But in terms of live streaming effect, it was definitely a mini-climax of the day.
By the time the evening came, the players who were off work and off school as usual also joined the army to attack Dinosaur Island one after another.
But they no longer had to figure out ways to get down from the cliff on their own.
Shuihua rushed back home from school and ran straight to find Camille Victoria.
When she arrived at the small platform on the cliff, she saw a very long and thick rope descent route that had been made by the pioneers all day using airbags, rope, climbing gear, and ant-like perseverance.
There were thick rope knots for easy grasping, concave pits for stepping and levering, and safety buckles against fall for free use.
As long as you muster up the courage and try it a couple of times, you can use this route to go all the way down to the coast.
According to the game’s mechanics, as long as people keep going down from here and maintain interaction, this route will continue to exist.
The most amazing thing is, according to Xiaomeng’s statistics, there were over 600,000 such rope descent routes in different sub-map.
Altogether, over two million players have contributed more or less to the construction of this route.
In the evening, some new players come here and, after figuring out how the rope descent route was born, their first thing to do is not to go down, but to continue to reinforce the route, trying to make it more convenient and safer.
Lincoln watched this scene, feeling as if he was witnessing a virtual reality version of “Opening the Gate of Ahn’Qiraj.”